Interview With Aziz Fall - The Assassination of Thomas Sankara

Document Abstract / Summary Overview

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.