FRANCE RESCUED CAMPOARE

Ousted Burkina Faso President, Blaisse Campoare

By Duke Nii Amartey Tagoe

Mr Justice Henaku, Secretary of the Socialist Forum of Ghana has disclosed that France provided helicopters to whisk Blaise Campoare out of Ouagadougou to prevent him from being hanged by the Burkinabe people who had been subjected to many years of underdevelopment.

Speaking on the recent attempted coup d’état in Burkina Faso at the Freedom Centre in Accra, he described the Presidential Guards as an elite group of soldiers created to protect Blaise Campaore currently taking refuge in Morrocco.

 According to him, Campaore stayed in power for 27 years and had nothing to show for that because he had not brought about the development of Burkina Faso.

Describing how the crisis of under development had bedeviled that West African State he said that “Bourkina was once a leading producer of Cotton and one would have expected that in 27 years Campoare could have built a textile industry to create jobs for the growing numbers of unemployed youths  but rather he was interested in amassing wealth and meddling in the affairs of countries like Liberia where he supplied arms to the regime of Charles Taylor and in La Cote de I’voire where he sent mercenaries to fight against the government of President Laurent Gbagbo”

According to him, recent events in Burkina are testament to the fact that although Sankara had died some years ago, his footprints can be found all over adding that the  political programme of Thomas Sankara was aimed at building a new nation where its resources were channeled to advance the social and economic life of the Burkina people.

“The influence of Thomas Sankara who was murdered in 1987 in this recent popular uprising against Campoare and Diendere emanated from a potent slogan Sankara used and which had to be resurrected.

“The slogan was (Homeland or Death, We shall Overcome) which show that the love of country to improve the life of the ordinary people in society and to make sure that the social environment is conducive for the development of each one and for society hinged on the fact that you have to be courageous and to give your all for the realization of a just society” he explained.

Mr Henaku also said that Blaise Campoare was overthrow not by some courageous soldiers in a coup, but in a popular uprising by the people of Burkina Faso who took to the streets because Campoare was not working in their interest and had become a tool of imperialism where he had allowed the French and other imperialist countries to exploit the country.

He noted that for the first time in an African country ordinary people rose up and burnt parliament house and attempted to burn residences and offices of the elite sending shock waves across Africa and West Africa especially.

Recounting events after the recent coup he said that there was a power vaccum after Campaore had fled Ouagadougou and there was no plan in place to fill that vacuum with a progressive leader so the discussions took place around multi-party democracy fashioned by the West and which will bring another section of the elite who were ruling through Campaore back to power.

What accounted for this situation was that “27 years of Campaore’s leadership had a toll on the progressive movement in Burkina. Dr Kiz Zebo and other progressives were hounded out and Campoare had fought against the Trade Unions and made it very weak to represent ordinary workers especially after the overthrow of Sankara.”

He acknowledged the Balai Citizens Movenmet and Radio De La Resistant Citeon (Citizens Resistance Radio) that became the centre of mobilization, organization and resistance against the coupist who had wanted to take power.

According to him following the ouster of Campoare and apart from a coalition government of former ministers who were put in power with a programme midwifed by ECOWAS leaders drawn up with a time table for the return to civilian rule, all the institutions of State and the coercive elements remained and their leadership was not changed.

The SFG Secretary says “progressives ought to be careful and that despite the so called progress in democratic rule and multi partyism, the policies of African state and the regimes have not really changed. We are having structural adjustment, economic recovery programme during the 1980s and we now have HIPC , and all sort of economic paradigms being introduced which are the same, the problems of the 1980 are still with us and what are the problems. The problems of poverty, the problems of lack of water, the problems of lack of access to health, the problem of illiteracy, the problem of now the creation of a class based educational system”