“I apologize to the people of Burkina Faso for all the acts that I may have committed during my magisterium, more particularly to the family of my brother and friend Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara”writes former President Blaise Compaoré in a missive addressed to the head of the military junta which has ruled Burkina Faso since January 2022, Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba.
The letter from the ex-president, overthrown by the street in 2014, was made public on July 26, 2022 by the government spokesperson, Lionel Bilgospecifies the Burkinabè information site Le Faso.net. “I assume and deplore, from the bottom of my heart, all the suffering and drama experienced by all the victims during my mandates at the head of the country and ask their families to grant me their forgiveness”continues Blaise Compaoré who reigned with an iron fist over Burkina Faso for 27 years.
While he was sentenced in absentia to life for his participation in the assassination of his predecessor Thomas Sankara in 1987, Blaise Compaoré traveled to Burkina Faso on July 8 without being bothered by the courts. To the chagrin of collective of lawyers for the civil parties in the Sankara trial who had demanded his arrest as soon as he set foot on Burkinabe soil.
To explain his arrival, the Burkinabè authorities had indicated that he had been invited by President Damiba to a meeting of former heads of state whose objective was to “accelerate reconciliation” and “to defend” Burkina, which is facing a security crisis. In the end, Blaise Compaoré will be one of the two ex-presidents, out of the five expected, to attend the famous meeting.
“Blaise Compaoré sends a letter and asks for forgiveness when he was there a few weeks ago. Why didn’t he have this letter read?”reacted Luc Damiba, the secretary general of the International Committee of the Thomas Sankara Memorial, reports the Burkinabè media Radio Omega. “It’s a form of diversion and division that he sows in people’s minds”he added, specifying indicates Radio Omega, “that a similar request for forgiveness had been made in 2001 by Blaise Compaoré”.
For years, the entourage of Blaise Compaoré no longer hides that the former leader wishes to end his Ivorian exile.