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(Press conference, 21 August 1983)

On 21 August 1983, Sankara gave his first news conference as president of Upper Volta to the international press. It was broadcast live over national radio. Below are major excerpts.

Question: Mr. President, 4 August is seen by some as an act of revenge against those who held power after 17 May. How would you portray this action?

Thomas Sankara: I too have heard such analyses. But after all, you have to understand that for some people the Voltaic people’s problem is just a matter of cliques. You have to understand, too, that it is completely normal for some people to view every action as an act of revenge, as taking back and going back, and so on.

We believe that 4 August was simply the logical outcome – the concretisation – of the popular will that you have been able to witness here in Upper Volta. Moreover, we say that all the Voltaics who mobilised in Ouagadougou and elsewhere, after the famous coup of 17 May, did not mobilise just because of Captain Sankara and his comrades, but because of a process to which they were very committed – the process of freeing the Voltaic people. They mobilised so that the people might take charge of their destiny and their development. They fought because they did not accept how the Voltaic people were being pushed around. They fought because the Voltaic people’s interests had been betrayed – a betrayal they could not accept.

If there was revenge, it was the revenge of the people against the forces of reaction, which had taken form around a few men, a few individuals. There was no revenge of one group against another.

Question: Mr. President, is the National Council of the Revolution [CNR] a continuation of the pre–17 May Council of Popular Salvation [CSP]?

Sankara: Yes. We affirm that the CNR both continues the pre–17 May CSP and goes beyond it. It was the pre–17 May CSP that enabled us to link up with the Voltaic people, to get them to express themselves and tell us what their deepest and most sincere aspirations were, to get to know them. This then made it possible to define a policy – that of the CSP at the time – which was to get the Voltaic people to increasingly take power and run it genuinely in their own interests.

As you know, the pre–17 May CSP ended precisely on 17 May – that is, someone, somewhere, betrayed the people. That betrayal took place on 17 May.

Question: Mr. President, in an interview you had with reporters from Carrefour africain when you were prime minister, you said that the CSP was looking for a strategy that would put an end to military coups in Upper Volta. Now that you preside over the destinies of the Voltaic people, do you think the CNR might be the army’s last intervention in the political affairs of the Voltaic state?

Sankara: We hope so at any rate. We are convinced that the best way to limit the usurpation of power by a group of individuals, military or otherwise, is to place responsibility in the hands of the people from the outset. Plots and coups can be perpetrated between factions and between cliques. No lasting coup can be perpetrated against the people. Consequently, the best way to avoid the army usurping power by and for itself is to already have the Voltaic people sharing this power. That is our goal.

Question: Mr. President, many political observers said you were behind the CSP’s coming to power on 7 November 1982. If this was true, why did you not assume the political leadership of the CSP? Could the 17 May events also have been avoided that way?

Sankara: It is really a shame that there are observers who look at political problems as if they were comic strips. There must be a Zorro, there must be a star. No, the problem in Upper Volta is more serious than that. It was a serious error to have looked for one man, a star, whatever the cost, even going so far as to create one – that is, going so far as to say that the person behind the scenes was Captain Sankara, who was supposed to be the mastermind, and so on.

Let me tell you that 7 November has a complex history. There are plenty of episodes to tell about. 7 November gave birth to a government that was quite heterogeneous, with many components and inevitable contradictions. On 7 November all the efforts of my comrades and myself were aimed at preventing the coup from going ahead. Curiously, we were in Ouagadougou only by coincidence. And curiously, we had done everything possible to convince those who had an interest in making 7 November happen to abandon their project. But you understand that not everyone has the same political views. For some, it’s enough to have arms and to have a few army units with you in order to take power. Others believe differently. Above all, power must be the business of a conscious people. Arms therefore constituted only a limited, occasional, and complementary solution.

You should know that on 7 November some well-hidden players were trying to win support for their project, or in any case to achieve their ambitions, by using and exploiting others. These were the people who wanted to put a particular man in office. I’m alluding to Colonel Somé Yoryan, who they sought to put in as president of the Republic of Upper Volta. These were also the men who wanted to free certain figures of the Third Republic held at the time by the Military Committee for Redressment and National Progress.11

To succeed in this project, to attain that goal, they needed military backing. And the best way for them to get military backing – since they found themselves isolated within the army – was to float the idea in some army units that all those should participate, they said, who wanted to free the arrested officers – Captain Blaise Compaoré, Captain Henri Zongo, Captain Sankara, and others, such as Commander Lingani, who were in danger.

This approach was successful, since many military men felt a moral obligation to back these officers. They agreed to fight, unaware that all the officers I named were themselves against this coup. They had said so to officers such as Captain Kamboulé, such as doctor and Commander Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, just to name a few. They had explained to them, they had impressed upon them all the risks and all the dangers involved in such a coup.

But there were different political views. We spent hours, entire nights discussing, trying to convince those officers. Nevertheless, they went into action and 7 November happened. Of course, faced with the contradictions that arose among them, they were unable to put Colonel Somé Yoryan in as head of state. Many were pleased to have been able to free some Third Republic figures, but at the same time were disappointed that other figures from that same Third Republic had also been set free. These are contradictions that must be appreciated.

They did not hesitate to say that Captain Sankara was the strongman and to blame Captain Sankara for the coup, saying to themselves that in any case, once the first step was taken, he would not be able to turn back.

I know the press repeated this information, thus forcing us to accept political responsibilities we had previously refused because of our political convictions. There again, we were beginning to be forced to take on responsibilities for strictly political reasons. As you can understand, a regime born in this way could not last very long.

You should also know that despite all the contradictions, differences, and opposing views existing among us, and although the military and political forces were ours, we had always attempted through democratic debate to argue against the putschist clique – perhaps out of sentimentality, perhaps too from being naive, or perhaps out of honesty – to bring the putschists around to a better understanding of things. We also attempted to avoid any violent clashes, from which we, naturally, would have emerged victorious.

You know that Commander Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo was protected and guarded by commandos we had trained. They retain all the loyalty and faithfulness to us that elite troops are capable of forging between men and their leaders. So at any time we could have carried out a coup against him had we wanted to. We even took risks to avoid coups being carried out against him.

It must be said that 7 November was a very hard blow to us – very, very hard. At a certain point we had even submitted our resignation to President Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo. He never made it public, but he remembers it. We had given him our resignation because we disagreed with his policies. We knew he was still receiving orders from somewhere. We also knew we could not win him to our positions. But neither did we want to carry out a coup. We preferred, purely and simply, to submit our resignation, to be honest. He never accepted it.

So that reveals the hidden side of 7 November. There are mysteries that remain under wraps. Perhaps history will be able to speak on this at greater length and assign responsibility more clearly.

Question: To go back to one of your earlier answers, can you already envision a date for the army to return to the barracks? On another point, what kind of relations do you wish to establish with the civilian political forces that existed in the country and, more generally, how do you plan to preserve freedom of speech to which, I believe, you have declared yourself personally very much attached in the past?

Sankara: First question, the army returning to the barracks. You would like that, that’s your right. But you should understand that for us, it’s not that there are revolutionaries in the barracks and others outside the barracks. The revolutionaries are everywhere. The army is a component of the Voltaic people, a component subject to the same contradictions as the other layers of the Voltaic people. We have taken the power out of the barracks.

You will have noticed that we are the first military regime not to have established our headquarters in a military camp. That is highly significant. Better yet, we set it up at the Entente Council.12 You know what this means.

It is not a question of the military taking power one day and giving it up the next. It is about the military living with the Voltaic people, suffering with them, and fighting by their side at all times.

So there is no deadline that will work. Of course, I am sure you are referring to those who stated that the military should no longer be involved in politics. These people had delighted certain Voltaic milieus, who thought that certain officers should no longer be involved in politics. This is all that was meant. The proof is that there were officers in power who stated this in order to keep other officers under house arrest.

As for our relations with the political class: What kind of relations would you have liked us to forge? We had it out directly, face to face, with the leaders, the former leaders of the former political parties. As far as we’re concerned, these parties no longer exist, they have been dissolved.

That is quite clear. The relations we have with them are simply the same relations we have with Voltaic citizens or, if they want, relations among revolutionaries, if they want to become revolutionaries. Outside of that, there remain only relations between revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries.

You spoke of freedom of speech, to which I was “very attached”. I would say that I am very consistent, even if I sometimes change hats. I am very consistent and am still attached to freedom of speech. I’m simply saying that every Voltaic will always be able to defend freedom, to defend justice, and to defend democracy. That is all we will allow.

All those who wish to commit themselves to this fight will find space in our press, in the columns of our newspapers, within our media, and even in the streets as long as they want to defend freedom of speech, democracy, and justice.

Outside of that fight, there is only the fight between revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries. That means we will do battle.