allAfrica.com: Burkina Faso: Interview With Aziz Fall On the Assassination of Thomas Sankara (Page 1 of 3)

Koni Benson and Mukoma Wa Ngugi interview Aziz Fall, Co-ordinator of the International Campaign for Justice for Sankara (ICJS) on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Sankara.

President Thomas Sankara, affectionately referred to as Africa's Che Guevera was assassinated in Burkina Faso on October 15th, 1987. Twenty years later, his assassins remain in power and continue to reverse the revolutionary changes Sankara initiated.

We interviewed Aziz Fall, the co-ordinator of the International Justice Campaign for Sankara (ICJS) who has been receiving ongoing anonymous death threats since December 2006. He has been co-ordinating 22 lawyers from France, to Senegal, Canada, Togo and beyond, dedicated to using legal means to find the truth behind Sankara's assassination.

We started the interview by asking Aziz Fall about the death threats against him and his family, and about ICJS and the UN judgements on Sankara's assassination. We then asked him about some of Sankara's achievements in relation to the emancipation of women, education, and neo-colonialism in the 1980s, and then moved onto questions about power, politics, and policies in Burkina Faso under President Blaise Compaoré who has been in power since Sankara's assassination in 1987. Lastly, the interview reflects on Sankara's legacy and his continuing relevance in this age of globalisation.

Aziz, Can you please tell us the nature of the death threats? What do they say? Do have an idea of where they are coming from? Are they from the government? Third parties? Is it one person or several people etc?

Thank you. I've received four death threats since December 2006. Three letters in bubble envelopes left in the mailbox at my front door. The first one was simple and said "stop or be stopped," the second was similar but didn't mention my name, and the third was a little more explicit, mentioning my name, asking me "to commit suicide or face execution." I filed a complaint with the police in March 2007.

Then, in April, after the screening of a film on Thomas Sankara in Montreal, a young Burkinabé journalist, Sam Kah, who appeared in the film, received a threat, according to the organising committee of the Thomas Sankara 20th anniversary commemorations. The committee had invited both of us to their activities which take place Oct 11-15th, 2007. Following the threat against Sam Kah, I decided to tell the committee members about my own death threats, which I had previously hidden from them because I was worried it would have a demobilising effect.

They issued a press release concerning the threats against the two of us. A couple of days later, I received another threat, this time by phone. A man with a strange accent warned me that neither the police nor my lawyers would be able to protect me, and that since I still didn't understand, my family would be targeted first, then me.

At about this time, someone tried, unsuccessfully, to break into my home through the back door. This was discovered as we were installing an alarm system.

We don't know exactly who is behind these threats. But we have good evidence that a Frenchman and two Africans have something to hide, because they have been caught in a number of lies and contradictions. The police and CSIS, Canada's spy agency, are still investigating. That's all I can say at this point.

It is unacceptable that as an advocate of freedom and justice, I am being physically threatened in a country that promotes these basic values around the world. We have approached the Canadian authorities about this situation, and we have great hope that they will do everything to solve the matter.

Can you briefly talk about the International Campaign Justice for Sankara (ICJS) and GRILA? How does the United Nations judgement (in which the Committee considers that the refusal to conduct an investigation into the death of Thomas Sankara, the lack of official recognition of his place of burial and the failure to correct the death certificate constitute inhuman treatment of Ms.Sankara and her sons, in breach of article 7 of the Covenant) affect the search for justice on behalf of Sankara?

Sankara's widow, Mariam Sankara, and his two sons never abandoned their call to the international community to take action to bring his assassins to justice. Ten years ago, the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA, an internationalist and panafricanist group) answered that call by creating an international campaign with a twofold strategy involving a political component and a legal one. I had the honour of co-ordinating a team of 22 lawyers, which put together a case for a full investigation into the murder of President Sankara and a dozen of his colleagues.

The government of Burkina Faso, under the presidency of Blaise Compaoré, along with a highly compromised judicial system, blocked all efforts by the Campaign to bring the case to court. After exhausting all possible legal recourse within the country, the Campaign brought the case before United Nations Human Rights Committee. Just over one year ago, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled in favour of the International Justice for Sankara Campaign, and demanded that the government of Burkina Faso take action to shed light on the circumstances of Sankara's death.

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