Thomas Sankara! He outlawed forced marriages and encouraged women to work outside the home and stay in school even if pregnant. He launched a nation-wide public health campaign vaccinating over 2 ½ million people in a week, a world record. He was also one of the first African environmentalists, planting over 10 million trees to retain soil and halt the growing desertification of the Sahel. He promoted local cotton production and even required public servants to wear a traditional tunic, woven from Burkinabe cotton and sewn by Burkinabe craftsmen. He redistributed land from the feudal landlords and gave it directly to the peasants. Wheat production rose in just three years from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg per hectare, making the country food self-sufficient. He started an ambitious road and rail building program to tie the nation together, eschewing any foreign aid by relying on his country’s greatest resource, the energy and commitment of its own people. He sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers. He reduced the salaries of all public servants, including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and 1st class airline tickets. He opposed foreign aid, saying that “he who feeds you, controls you.” He called for a united front of African nations to repudiate their foreign debt. He argued that the poor and exploited did not have an obligation to repay money to the rich and exploiting. In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army’s provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country). He refused to use the air conditioning in his office on the grounds that such luxury was not available to anyone but a handful of Burkinabes. When asked why he didn’t want his portrait hung in public places, as was the norm for other African leaders, Sankara replied “There are seven million Thomas Sankaras.”
Posted on: Sun, 04 Aug 2013 23:44:00 +0000
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