When President François Mitterrand visited Ouagadougou in November 1986, he encountered a changed country, with a different kind of leader. President Sankara greeted his guest not with the usual diplomatic niceties and ceremonial toasts. He offered a “duel” of ideas and oratory. Sankara began with a plea for the rights of the Palestinian people; defended Nicaragua, then under attack by US-backed “contras”; and scolded Paris for its policies in Africa and towards African immigrants in France. Recalling the spirit of the French revolution of 1789, he said his government would be willing to sign a military pact with France if that would bring to Burkina Faso shipments of arms that he could then send onward to liberation forces fighting the apartheid regime in South Africa.
If Sankara’s verbal jousts took Mitterrand off guard, the French president recovered quickly. He set aside his prepared remarks and took on Sankara point by point. He also praised the Burkinabè president’s directness and the seriousness of his questions. With Sankara, Mitterrand said, “it is not easy to sleep peacefully” or to maintain a calm conscience. Half jokingly, he added, “This is a somewhat troublesome man, President Sankara!”
Source:
Harsch, Ernest. “1: “Another Way of Governing”.” Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary. Ohio University Press, 2014. 15, 17. Print.
Further Reading:
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand
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