WI: Thomas Sankara Remains In Power

Let's say Thomas Sankara finds out about the coup and prevents it from happening or for whatever plan is able to stop the coup if it happens before it could destroy him. How would Burkina Faso be affected by this? Would his regime be as good as his people hoped it would be? And how would other nations and the IMF (because Burkina Faso has had disputes with it regarding its debts) respond?
 
He would've ended up governing like his friend Jerry Rawlings in Ghana during the 90s, or he would've refused to do so and ended up killed/overthrown by another coup done by a different officer than Compaoré. I'm pretty certain he had no way out besides either his own death or compromise of his original ideals. And I say this as someone deeply intrigued by Sankara and his ideals.
 
He would've ended up governing like his friend Jerry Rawlings in Ghana during the 90s, or he would've refused to do so and ended up killed/overthrown by another coup done by a different officer than Compaoré. I'm pretty certain he had no way out besides either his own death or compromise of his original ideals. And I say this as someone deeply intrigued by Sankara and his ideals.

This is what I said about Sankara on azander12's thread:

Sankara reminds me a lot of Robespierre - a honest, modest man whose concern for the well-being of his country and people is real, but for whom the end justifies the means. Any means; up to and including a campaign of terror and the establishment of an authoritarian regime bordering on totalitarian.

azander12 then compared him to the Well-Intentioned Extremist trope; in our TL, he was more "Well-Intentioned" than "Extremist" but, if he'd lived longer, I think he would've had no choice but to turn the authoritarianism up to 11, in order to stay in power and defend his ideals, his regime and himself from the many, many enemies he would've collected, both inside and outside Burkina Faso.

He was born in 1949, so there's a chance he'd be alive today if he hadn't been killed; a Burkina Faso with a 67 year old Thomas Sankara in charge would've probably resembled Cuba in many, many ways. A country punching well above its weight in some areas, but an authoritarian, poor country nonetheless.
 
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He was born in 1949, so there's a chance he'd be alive today if he hadn't been killed; a Burkina Faso with a 67 year old Thomas Sankara in charge would've probably resembled Cuba in many, many ways. A country punching well above its weight in some areas, but an authoritarian, poor country nonetheless.

Burkina Faso-like-Cuba sounds REALLY interesting.

I can imagine Sankara clashing alot with Gaddafi.

fasquardon
 
Why would both men hate each other?

They may not hate each-other.

And my reading of Qaddafi's pan-African activities is that he had alot of ego invested in them. It got in the way of him working with other pan-African leaders in OTL.

Then again, I could see them cooperating, with Qaddafi helping bankroll Burkina Faso and "Sankaraist" revolutionaries. Sort of like the Cuba-Venezuela relationship that evolved OTL where one party can provide the manpower and the other the resources for great revolution.

fasquardon
 
They may not hate each-other.

And my reading of Qaddafi's pan-African activities is that he had alot of ego invested in them. It got in the way of him working with other pan-African leaders in OTL.

Then again, I could see them cooperating, with Qaddafi helping bankroll Burkina Faso and "Sankaraist" revolutionaries. Sort of like the Cuba-Venezuela relationship that evolved OTL where one party can provide the manpower and the other the resources for great revolution.

fasquardon

It'd be interesting to see what happens to Burkina Faso once Qaddafi's thrown out of power. An African Spring would be interesting to say the least.
 
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