Burkina's strongman takes up mantle of 'Africa's Che Guevara'
"We'll keep the torch of Burkina's renaissance burning," Traore likes to say, paying tribute to anti-colonial icon Sankara, whom he calls the "nation's hero" and "compass".
Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traore pictured at Presidential palace, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. (Photos by Belga via AFP)
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ABIDJAN — Captain Ibrahim Traore will on Wednesday have led Burkina Faso for four years, the same as Thomas Sankara, the charismatic hero of African rebellion whose legacy he wants to carry forward, but through harsher measures.
"We'll keep the torch of Burkina's renaissance burning," Traore likes to say, paying tribute to anti-colonial icon Sankara, whom he calls the "nation's hero" and "compass".
Both men seized power as red beret-wearing young captains and promoted Pan-Africanism and national, economic and cultural autonomy while silencing dissent.
A Marxist-Leninist firebrand, Sankara seized power at age 33 in an August 1983 coup and embarked on a "democratic and popular revolution" focused on anti-imperialism, self-reliance and national sovereignty.
Nicknamed Africa's Che Guevara, after the iconic figure in Cuba's communist revolution, Sankara blasted the West for neo-colonialism and hypocrisy and carried out radical reforms.
Foreign leaders, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pasginyan and Burkina Faso's junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore, attend a ceremony to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin wall in central Moscow on May 9, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
Sankara sought to reduce the cost of running the state, open up and connect rural areas, pursue education for all, women's empowerment and prioritise local products.
But the "revolution" did not run its full course — Sankara was gunned down in another putsch in October 1987.
Nearly four decades on, 38-year-old Traore now spearheads his own "progressive and popular" revolution.
It has seen the nationalisation of gold mines and a strategy to revitalise Burkina's industrial output, from cotton to tomatoes and textiles.
He has also launched a major public infrastructure and urban development initiative called Faso Mebo (Build the Country), which relies on enlisting citizens to build roads using local materials.
"Captain Traore, by contrast, governs on a war footing, benefiting from gold revenues and taxes on consumer goods," he added.
Big difference: security
Traore's economic policy is heavily promoted in online government propaganda and has played a role in his growing popularity across Africa.
Its success is difficult to independently gauge, but Kone confirmed that "numerous projects and worksites" had been launched.
This video grab taken from a video broadcasted on October 2, 2022 by the national television of Burkina Faso shows Captain Kiswendsida Farouk Azaria Sorgho (C), member of the junta reading a statement next to Coup leader Ibrahim Traoré (L) and surrounded by members of the military after they took power on September 30, 2022 in Ouagadougou.
He said that some achievements "sometimes take time to arrive", pointing to the building of a motorway between the west African country's two biggest cities, Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso, which is "still in the embryonic stage".
"Sankara had achieved quick results with revolutionary housing estates, the first big housing project launched to ensure dignified access to housing," Kone said.
Traore has also revived the wearing of Faso Dan Fani, a traditional local cotton fabric, by civil servants and in schools, which was originally mandated by Sankara.
But the big difference between the two eras is security.
Burkina Faso is entrenched in battling jihadist groups, who control a large part of the country and carry out attacks, especially in the north, where some towns are even under blockade, despite the mass mobilisation of a civilian volunteer force that supports the military.
Kone said that combat forces were now "better equipped, sometimes with locally manufactured gear, such as light armoured vehicles".
But the north's isolation is particularly symbolic, he stressed, given that Sankara had prioritised opening up the region via a railway line.
Both men dissolved political parties and spoke of "enemies" of the people at home and abroad.
Sankara championed a "democratic and popular" revolution, whereas Traore openly asserts that the country is not a democracy.
While the Sankara years were also marked by repression through purges in the army and special courts that could summarily try counter-revolutionaries, Traore exercises power even more harshly.
Captain Ibrahim Traore, Burkina Faso's new president, poses with the torch given by elders revolutionary during the ceremony for the 35th anniversary of Thomas Sankara’s assassination, in Ouagadougou, on October 15, 2022. Captain Ibrahim Traore, who took power a fortnight ago in a coup in Burkina Faso, attended a ceremony on October 15, 2022 to mark the 35th anniversary of the assassination of revolutionary president Thomas Sankara, an AFP reporter noted.
Journalists, magistrates and civil society members are regularly abducted and at times sent off to the front lines to boost the ranks of the anti-jihadist forces.
"You can't carry out a revolution in chaos; it's impossible. We are going to enforce order and discipline so that we can move forward," Traore declared last year.
Political analyst Yaya Toure said the "coercive aspect is more oppressive" under the country's current leadership.
"The best revolution is the one that carries the people's aspirations, not the one that oppresses and denies certain fundamental rights," he said.
When it comes to diplomatic ties, the two Burkinabe leaders find common ground in their quest for sovereignty.
Sankara opted for non-alignment during the Cold War, joining countries that chose not to side with either the democratic United States or the communist Soviet Union.
And he championed South-South solidarity, or the mutual backing among countries and people of the Global South.
Traore meanwhile has co-founded a confederation with neighbouring Mali and Niger, broken off ties with former colonial power France and sought new partnerships instead, principally with Russia.