Thomas Sankara’s historic speech at the United Nations General Assembly on October 4, 1984, was a powerful plea for the dignity and independence of African and Third World peoples.
On October 4, 1984, Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso, delivered a memorable speech at the Thirty-Ninth Session of the UN General Assembly. In this passionate address, Sankara denounced imperialism, global inequalities, and called for international solidarity to fight against oppression. This speech remains one of the most powerful testimonies of his revolutionary and pan-Africanist commitment.
Thomas Sankara’s historic speech at the UN
Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General,
Honorable Representatives of the International Community,
I come here to bring you the fraternal greetings of a country of 274,000 square kilometers, where seven million children, women, and men now refuse to die from ignorance, hunger, thirst, while still struggling to truly live since a quarter of a century of existence as a sovereign state, sitting at the UN.
I come to this Thirty-Ninth Session to speak on behalf of a people who, on the land of their ancestors, have chosen to affirm themselves and assume their history, both in its positive and negative aspects, without any complex.
I also come, mandated by the National Council of the Revolution (CNR) of Burkina Faso, to express the views of my people concerning the issues on the agenda, which constitute the tragic fabric of the events painfully cracking the foundations of the world at this end of the 20th century. A world where humanity is transformed into a circus, torn apart by the struggles between the great and the semi-great, battered by armed gangs, subjected to violence and looting. A world where nations, escaping international jurisdiction, command outlaws living off plunder and organizing disgraceful trafficking with guns in hand.
Mr. President,
I do not claim here to preach dogmas. I am neither a messiah nor a prophet. I do not hold any absolute truth. My only ambition is a double aspiration: firstly, to be able, in simple language, that of clarity, to speak on behalf of my people, the people of Burkina Faso; secondly, to express, in my own way, the words of the “Great People of the Dispossessed,” those who belong to that world so cynically dubbed the Third World. And to explain, even if I fail to make them understood, the reasons we have to revolt.
All of this reflects the interest we have in the UN, where our demands for rights take on a strength and rigor from the clear awareness of our duties.
No one will be surprised to see us associate the former Upper Volta, today Burkina Faso, with this despised catch-all, the Third World, which other worlds invented at the time of formal independence to ensure our cultural, economic, and political alienation. We want to integrate into it without justifying this gigantic fraud of History. Still less to accept being the “backyard of a satiated West.” But to affirm the awareness of belonging to a tricontinental ensemble and to acknowledge, as non-aligned countries, with the intensity of our convictions, that a special solidarity unites these three continents of Asia, Latin America, and Africa in the same struggle against the same political traffickers, the same economic exploiters.
Recognizing our presence in the Third World, to paraphrase José Martí, is to affirm that “we feel on our cheek every blow dealt to any man in the world.” We have until now turned the other cheek. The slaps have doubled. But the heart of the wicked has not softened. They trampled on the truth of the righteous. Of Christ, they betrayed the word. They transformed his cross into a club. After they donned his tunic, they tore our bodies and souls. They obscured his message. They westernized it, while we received it as a universal liberation. Thus, our eyes were opened to the class struggle. There will be no more slaps.
We must proclaim that there can be no salvation for our peoples unless we turn our backs radically on all the models that all the charlatans of the same kind have tried to sell us for twenty years. There can be no salvation for us outside of this rejection. No development outside of this rupture.
Besides, all the new “masters of thought,” awakened by the vertiginous rise of billions of ragged people, frightened by the threat that this multitude, hunted by hunger, poses to their digestion, are starting to remodel their speeches and anxiously seek, once again, in our place, new miracle concepts, new forms of development for our countries. It is enough to read the many reports from the countless colloquia and seminars to be convinced of this.
Far be it from me to ridicule the patient efforts of these honest intellectuals, who, because they have eyes to see, discover the terrible consequences of the ravages imposed by the so-called “development specialists” in the Third World. My fear is that the results of so much energy will be confiscated by all sorts of Prosperos, turning them into a magic wand intended to send us back to a world of slavery, disguised to fit the tastes of our time.
This fear is justified even more because the African petty bourgeoisie with diplomas, or rather that of the Third World, either through intellectual laziness or simply because they have tasted the Western lifestyle, is not ready to give up its privileges. Thus, it forgets that all true political struggle requires a rigorous theoretical debate, and it refuses the reflection effort that awaits us. Passive and lamentable consumers, they gorge themselves on Western fetishized words just as they do with their whiskey and champagne, in their tastelessly harmonious salons.
We will search in vain, since the concepts of Negritude or “African Personality,” now outdated, for truly new ideas from the minds of our “great” intellectuals. The vocabulary and ideas come from elsewhere. Our professors, engineers, and economists merely add colorants, because from the European universities from which they are products, they often bring back only their diplomas and the velvet of adjectives or superlatives.
It is necessary, it is urgent that our intellectuals and workers of the pen learn that there is no innocent writing. In these stormy times, we cannot leave to our enemies, past and present, the monopoly of thought, imagination, and creativity.
Before it is too late, for it is already too late, these elites, these men of Africa, the Third World, must return to themselves, that is, to their society, to the misery we have inherited, to understand not only that the battle for a thought serving the dispossessed masses is not in vain, but that they can become credible on the international level by truly inventing, that is, by offering an accurate image of their peoples. An image that allows for deep social and political changes, capable of rescuing us from foreign domination and exploitation, which leave our states with no prospect other than bankruptcy.
This is what we understood, we, the people of Burkina Faso, on the night of August 4, 1983, with the first glimmers of stars in the sky of our homeland. We had to lead the revolts brewing in the countryside, frightened by the advancing desert, exhausted by hunger and thirst, and neglected. We had to give meaning to the brewing revolts of the unemployed urban masses, frustrated and tired of seeing the limousines of alienated elites, who took turns leading the state without offering anything other than false solutions conceived by the brains of others.
We had to give an ideological soul to the just struggles of our mobilized popular masses against the monstrous imperialism. A passing revolt, a mere flash in the pan, had to be replaced forever by revolution, an eternal struggle against domination.
Others before me have said, and others after me will say how much the gap has widened between wealthy nations and those that only aspire to eat enough, drink enough, survive, and maintain their dignity. But no one will imagine how much “the grain of the poor has fed the rich man’s cow” in our land.
In the case of the former Upper Volta, the process was even more exemplary. We were the magical condensation, the shortcut to all the calamities that have befallen so-called “developing” countries. The testimony of aid, presented as a panacea and often trumpeted without rhyme or reason, is eloquent here. Few countries, like mine, have been flooded with aid of all kinds. This aid is supposedly intended to promote development. One will search in vain in what was once Upper Volta for signs of anything resembling development. The men in power, either out of naivety or selfishness, did not or could not control this external influx, grasp its significance, or express demands in the interest of our people.
Analyzing a table published in 1983 by the Club du Sahel, Jacques Giri in his work Le Sahel Demain, concluded with great sense that aid to the Sahel, due to its content and the mechanisms in place, is only aid for survival. Only, he notes, 30% of this aid merely allows the Sahel to live. According to Jacques Giri, this external aid has no other purpose than to continue developing unproductive sectors, imposing intolerable burdens on our small budgets, disorganizing our countryside, deepening our trade balance deficits, and accelerating our indebtedness.
Here are just a few snapshots to present the former Upper Volta: – 7 million inhabitants, with more than 6 million peasants, – An infant mortality rate estimated at 180 per thousand, – A life expectancy limited to 40 years, – An illiteracy rate reaching up to 98%, if we consider the literate as someone who can read, write, and speak a language, – One doctor for every 50,000 inhabitants, – A school enrollment rate of 16%, – And finally, a gross domestic product per capita of 53,356 CFA francs, barely more than 100 dollars.
The diagnosis, obviously, was grim. The root of the problem was political. The treatment could only be political.
Certainly, we encourage aid that helps us dispense with aid. But in general, the policies of assistance and aid have only disorganized us, enslaved us, and made us irresponsible in our economic, political, and cultural space.
We have chosen to risk new paths to be happier. We have chosen to implement new techniques.
We have chosen to seek organizational forms better suited to our civilization, abruptly and definitively rejecting all forms of external diktats, to create conditions for dignity worthy of our ambitions. Refusing the state of survival, loosening the pressures, freeing our countryside from medieval immobility or regression, democratizing our society, opening minds to a universe of collective responsibility to dare to invent the future. Breaking and rebuilding the administration through a new image of the civil servant, immersing our army in the people through productive work, and incessantly reminding them that without patriotic training, a soldier is only a potential criminal. This is our political program.
In terms of economic management, we are learning to live simply, to accept and impose austerity upon ourselves so that we may be able to achieve great goals.
Already, thanks to the example of the National Solidarity Fund, funded by voluntary contributions, we are beginning to address the cruel issues posed by drought. We have supported and implemented the principles of Alma-Ata by expanding the scope of primary healthcare. We have adopted and popularized as state policy the GOBI FFF strategy advocated by UNICEF.
Through the Sahelian Office of the United Nations (OSNU), we believe the United Nations should enable drought-affected countries to establish medium and long-term plans to achieve food self-sufficiency.
To prepare for the 21st century, we launched an immense campaign for the education and training of our children in a new school system through the creation of a special section of the lottery, “Educate our children.” We have initiated, through the saving work of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, an extensive program of social housing construction, 500 in three months, roads, small water reservoirs, and so on. Our economic ambition is to ensure that the brain and the hands of every Burkinabé can at least serve them to invent and create enough to guarantee two meals a day and access to clean water.
We swear, we proclaim, that from now on, nothing will be done in Burkina Faso without the participation of the Burkinabé. Nothing that has not been decided by us, planned by us. There will be no more assaults on our dignity.
Confident in this certainty, we want our words to extend to all those who suffer in their flesh, all those who are humiliated in their dignity as human beings by a minority of men or a system that crushes them.
Allow me, those of you who listen to me, to say this: I do not speak only in the name of the beloved Burkina Faso but also in the name of all those who suffer somewhere.
I speak on behalf of those millions who live in ghettos because they have black skin or come from a different culture and enjoy a status barely superior to that of an animal.
I suffer on behalf of the Indians who have been massacred, crushed, humiliated, and confined for centuries to reservations so that they may aspire to no rights and that their culture cannot flourish in joyous union with other cultures, including that of the invader.
I exclaim on behalf of the unemployed of a system that is structurally unjust and chronically unbalanced, reduced to seeing only the reflection of the lives of the wealthier.
I speak on behalf of women worldwide, who suffer from a system of exploitation imposed by men. As for us, we are ready to accept suggestions from the entire world that will allow us to achieve the complete fulfillment of Burkinabé women. In return, we offer to all countries the positive experience we are undertaking with women now present at all levels of state apparatus and social life in Burkina Faso.
Women who fight and proclaim with us that the slave who cannot assume his revolt does not deserve to be pitied. That slave alone is responsible for his misfortune if he deludes himself with the suspect condescension of a master who claims to free him. Only struggle liberates, and we call on all our sisters of all races to rise to conquer their rights.
I speak on behalf of the mothers of our deprived countries, who see their children die from malaria or diarrhea, unaware that simple means to save them exist, which multinational science does not offer, preferring to invest in cosmetic laboratories and plastic surgery for the whims of a few women or men whose vanity is threatened by the excess calories of their meals, meals too rich and too regular to give, no, rather to give us, we from the Sahel, vertigo. These simple means recommended by WHO and UNICEF, we have decided to adopt and popularize.
I also speak on behalf of the child. The child of the poor, who is hungry and furtively glances at the abundance amassed in a shop for the rich. The shop protected by a thick glass pane. The glass defended by an impregnable grille. And the grille guarded by a policeman, helmeted, gloved, and armed with a baton. That policeman placed there by the father of another child who will come to serve or rather be served because he represents all the guarantees of representativeness and capitalistic norms of the system.
I speak on behalf of artists (poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, actors), good men whose art is prostituted by the show-business alchemists.
I cry out on behalf of journalists who are either silenced or forced to lie to avoid the harsh laws of unemployment.
I protest on behalf of athletes worldwide, whose muscles are exploited by political systems or modern slavery traders.
My country is a concentration of all the miseries of peoples, a painful synthesis of all human suffering, but also and above all, the hopes of our struggles. That is why I naturally vibrate on behalf of the sick who anxiously scan the horizons of science, monopolized by arms dealers. My thoughts are with all those affected by the destruction of nature and those thirty million people who will die each year, struck down by the terrible weapon of hunger.
As a soldier, I cannot forget the obedient soldier with his finger on the trigger, knowing that the bullet that will be fired carries only a message of death.
Finally, I want to express my indignation thinking of the Palestinians whom an inhumane humanity has chosen to replace with another people, yesterday still martyred. I think of the valiant Palestinian people, that is to say, these families atomized, wandering the world in search of asylum. Courageous, determined, stoic, and tireless, the Palestinians remind every human conscience of the necessity and moral obligation to respect the rights of a people: with their Jewish brothers, they are anti-Zionists.
Alongside my fellow soldiers from Iran and Iraq, who die in a fratricidal and suicidal war, I also feel close to the comrades in Nicaragua, whose ports are mined, whose cities are bombed, and who, despite everything, face their destiny with courage and clarity. I suffer with all those in Latin America who suffer from imperialist domination.
I want to be alongside the Afghan and Irish peoples, alongside the peoples of Grenada and East Timor, each seeking happiness dictated by dignity and the laws of their culture.
I rise here on behalf of all those who vainly seek a forum in this world where they can make their voices heard and truly considered. On this podium, many have preceded me, and others will follow after me. But only a few will make the decisions. Yet we are officially presented as equals. Well, I become the spokesperson for all those who are “left behind” because “I am human, and nothing human is foreign to me.”
Our revolution in Burkina Faso is open to the miseries of all peoples. It is also inspired by all human experiences since the first breath of Humanity. We want to be the heirs of all the revolutions of the world, of all the liberation struggles of the peoples of the Third World. We are listening to the great upheavals that have transformed the world. We draw lessons from the American Revolution, the lessons of its victory against colonial domination and the consequences of that victory. We embrace the affirmation of the doctrine of non-interference by Europeans in American affairs and by Americans in European affairs.
What Monroe proclaimed in 1823, “America for Americans,” we repeat by saying “Africa for Africans,” “Burkina for Burkinabé.” The French Revolution of 1789, shattering the foundations of absolutism, taught us the rights of man, allied with the rights of peoples to freedom. The great October Revolution of 1917 transformed the world, allowed the victory of the proletariat, shook the foundations of capitalism, and made the dreams of justice of the Paris Commune possible.
Open to all the winds of people’s will and their revolutions, learning also from the tragic failures that led to serious human rights violations, we wish to retain from each revolution only the core of purity that forbids us from being subjugated to the realities of others, even if, in thought, we find ourselves in a community of interests.
Mr. President,
There is no more room for deception. The New World Economic Order for which we fight and will continue to fight can only be achieved if: – we succeed in destroying the old order that ignores us, – we impose the place that rightfully belongs to us in the political organization of the world, – if, becoming aware of our importance in the world, we gain the right to scrutinize and decide on the mechanisms governing global trade, economy, and finance.
The New International Economic Order is simply inscribed alongside all other rights of peoples: the right to independence, the right to freely choose the forms and structures of government, as well as the right to development. And like all people’s rights, it is achieved through struggle, and by the people’s struggle. It will never result from an act of generosity by any power.
I retain an unshakable confidence, a confidence shared with the immense community of non-aligned countries, that under the battering of the wretched cries of our peoples, our group will maintain its cohesion, strengthen its collective bargaining power, find allies among the nations, and begin, together with those who can still hear us, the organization of a truly new system of international economic relations.
Mr. President,
If I accepted to appear before this illustrious assembly to speak, it is because, despite the criticisms leveled against it by some major contributors, the United Nations remains the ideal forum for our demands, the obligatory place for the legitimacy of voiceless countries.
That is what our Secretary-General expressed with much accuracy when he wrote: “The United Nations organization is unique in that it reflects the aspirations and frustrations of many countries and governments around the world. One of its great merits is that all nations, including those that are weak, oppressed, or victims of injustice (that’s us), can, even when faced with the harsh realities of power, find a forum here and make their voices heard. A just cause, even if it meets only setbacks or indifference, can find an echo at the United Nations; this attribute of the Organization is not always appreciated, but it remains essential.”
One cannot better define the meaning and scope of the Organization.
Thus, it is a categorical imperative for each of us to strengthen the foundations of our Organization and to provide it with the means to act. Consequently, we adopt the proposals made to this end by the Secretary-General to help the Organization escape the numerous deadlocks, carefully maintained by the game of the great powers to discredit it in the eyes of public opinion.
Mr. President,
Recognizing the merits, however limited, of our Organization, I cannot help but rejoice in seeing it count new members. That is why the Burkinabé delegation welcomes the entry of the 159th member of our Organization: the State of Brunei Darussalam.
It is the irrationality of those in whose hands world leadership has fallen by the chance of circumstances that obliges the Non-Aligned Movement, to which I hope the State of Brunei Darussalam will soon join, to consider one of its permanent struggles as the fight for disarmament, which is an essential aspect and a primary condition of our right to development.
In our opinion, there must be serious studies taking into account all the elements that have led to the calamities that have befallen the world. In this regard, President Fidel Castro in 1979 admirably expressed our point of view at the opening of the Sixth Summit of Non-Aligned Countries when he declared: “With 300 billion dollars, we could build in one year 600,000 schools for 400 million children; or 60 million comfortable homes for 300 million people; or 30,000 hospitals with 18 million beds; or 20,000 factories employing more than 20 million workers; or irrigate 150 million hectares of land, which, with appropriate technical means, could feed one billion people…”
By multiplying this figure by 10 today, I am surely underestimating reality; one realizes what Humanity wastes each year in the military sector, that is to say, against peace.
It is easy to understand why the indignation of the peoples quickly turns into revolt and revolution when confronted with the crumbs they are thrown in the ignominious form of certain “aid,” sometimes accompanied by frankly abject conditions. It is finally understood why, in the fight for development, we designate ourselves as tireless militants for peace.
We pledge to fight to reduce tensions, introduce the principles of a civilized life in international relations, and extend them to all parts of the world. This means that we cannot stand idly by while the trafficking of concepts takes place.
We reiterate our resolve to be active agents of peace, to hold our place in the fight for disarmament, and finally, to act in international politics as a decisive factor, freed from any ties to any great powers, regardless of their projects.
But the quest for peace goes hand in hand with the firm application of the right of countries to independence, the right of peoples to freedom, and the right of nations to autonomous existence. On this point, the most pitiful, the most lamentable record—yes, the most lamentable—is held in the Middle East in terms of arrogance, insolence, and incredible stubbornness by a small country, Israel, which, for more than twenty years, with the inexcusable complicity of its powerful protector, the United States, continues to defy the international community.
Despite a history that not long ago singled out every Jew for the horror of the crematoria, Israel now inflicts upon others what was its own ordeal. In any case, Israel, whose people we love for their courage and sacrifices of the past, must understand that the conditions for its own tranquility do not lie in its externally financed military power. Israel must begin to learn to become a nation like the others, among others.
For the time being, we affirm from this platform our militant and active solidarity with the fighters, both women and men, of that wonderful Palestinian people, because we know that there is no suffering without end.
Mr. President,
Analyzing the situation in Africa in economic and political terms, we cannot fail to underline our grave concerns in the face of the dangerous challenges to the rights of peoples posed by certain nations, which, assured of their alliances, openly flout international morality.
Certainly, we have the right to rejoice at the decision to withdraw foreign troops from Chad so that the Chadians can, without intermediaries, seek among themselves the means to end this fratricidal war, and finally give this people, who have been crying for so many years, the means to dry their tears. But despite the progress made here and there by African peoples in their struggle for economic emancipation, our continent continues to reflect the essential reality of the contradictions between the great powers, carrying the unbearable contradictions of the contemporary world.
That is why we hold it inadmissible and condemn without appeal the fate of the people of Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco, which resorts to dilatory methods to delay the inevitable outcome that will, in any case, be imposed by the will of the Sahrawi people. Having personally visited the regions liberated by the Sahrawi people, I have confirmed that nothing can now prevent their march towards the total liberation of their country, under the enlightened leadership of the Polisario Front.
Mr. President,
I will not dwell on the question of Mayotte and the islands of the Malagasy Archipelago. When things are clear, when principles are obvious, there is no need to elaborate. Mayotte belongs to the Comoros. The islands of the archipelago are Malagasy.
In Latin America, we welcome the initiative of the Contadora Group, which constitutes a positive step towards finding a just solution to the explosive situation there. Commander Daniel Ortega, on behalf of the revolutionary people of Nicaragua, has made concrete proposals and posed fundamental questions to the appropriate authorities. We await to see peace established in his country and Central America on October 15 and after October 15, and we hold the world’s public opinion as witnesses.
Just as we condemned the foreign aggression on the island of Grenada, we also denounce all foreign interventions. Thus, we cannot remain silent in the face of military intervention in Afghanistan.
There is, however, one issue whose gravity demands a frank and decisive explanation from each of us. This issue, you will have guessed, can only be that of South Africa. The incredible insolence of this country towards all the nations of the world, even towards those that support the terrorism it enshrines as a system to physically eliminate the black majority of this country, the contempt it shows for all our resolutions, constitutes one of the most oppressive concerns of the contemporary world.
But the most tragic aspect is not that South Africa has placed itself at the margins of the international community due to the abomination of apartheid laws, nor that it continues to maintain Namibia illegally under colonialist and racist rule or subject its neighbors to banditry laws with impunity. No, the most abject, the most humiliating aspect for human conscience is that it has succeeded in “trivializing” the misery of millions of human beings who have nothing to defend themselves with but their chests and the heroism of their bare hands.
Confident in the complicity of the great powers and the active engagement of some of them on its side, as well as the criminal collaboration of a few pitiful leaders of African countries, the white minority does not hesitate to ridicule the souls of all the peoples who, everywhere around the world, find the savagery of the methods used in this country intolerable.
There was a time when international brigades formed to defend the honor of nations attacked in their dignity. Today, despite the open wounds that we all bear on our flanks, we pass resolutions whose only virtues, we are told, would be to lead to repentance by a nation of corsairs that “destroys smiles as hail kills flowers.”
Mr. President,
We are soon to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire. My delegation supports the proposal of Antigua and Barbuda to celebrate this event with great pomp, as it holds great significance for African countries and the black world. For us, everything that can be done, said, or organized around the world during the commemorative ceremonies must highlight the terrible price Africa and the black world paid for the development of human civilization. A price paid with no return, which undoubtedly explains the reasons for today’s tragedy on our continent.
It is our blood that has fueled the rise of capitalism, made possible our current dependence, and consolidated our underdevelopment. We can no longer hide the truth or manipulate the figures. For every Black person who reached the plantations, at least five others died or were mutilated. I deliberately omit the disorganization of the continent and the resulting consequences.
Mr. President,
If the whole world, thanks to you and with the help of the Secretary-General, can be convinced of this truth on this anniversary, it will understand why, with all the tension of our being, we demand peace between nations, why we demand and claim our right to development in absolute equality through an organization and distribution of human resources.
It is because, of all human races, we belong to those who have suffered the most that we Burkinabé have sworn never to accept on any parcel of this earth the slightest denial of justice. It is the memory of suffering that places us alongside the PLO against Israel’s armed bands. It is the memory of this suffering that, on one hand, makes us support the ANC and SWAPO, and on the other hand, makes the presence of whites who claim superiority and burn the world intolerable to us. It is finally the same memory that makes us place all our faith in a shared duty, a shared task for a shared hope in the United Nations Organization.
We demand: – That the campaign for the liberation of Nelson Mandela intensifies worldwide, with his effective presence at the next General Assembly of the UN as a victory for collective pride, – That an international prize for Reconciled Humanity be established, in memory of our suffering and as a collective act of forgiveness, awarded to those who, through their research, contribute to defending human rights, – That all space research budgets be reduced by 1/10,000th and dedicated to research in health aimed at restoring the human environment, disturbed by all these harmful fireworks to the ecosystem.
We also propose that the structures of the United Nations be rethought and that an end be put to the scandal that is the veto power. Of course, the perverse effects of its abusive use are mitigated by the vigilance of some of its holders. However, nothing justifies this right: neither the size of the countries that hold it nor their wealth.
If the argument made to justify such iniquity is the price paid during the world war, let these nations, which have arrogated these rights, know that we, too, each have an uncle or father who, like thousands of other innocents taken from the Third World to defend the rights violated by the Nazi hordes, also bears in his flesh the scars of Nazi bullets. Let the arrogance of the great powers, who never miss an opportunity to challenge the rights of peoples, end. The absence of Africa in the club of those who hold veto power is an injustice that must cease.
Finally, my delegation would not have fulfilled all its duties if it did not demand the suspension of Israel and the complete expulsion of South Africa from our organization. When, with time, these countries undergo the transformation that will introduce them into the international community, each of us—and my country first—will welcome them kindly and guide their first steps.
We reaffirm our confidence in the United Nations Organization. We are grateful for the work provided by its agencies in Burkina Faso and for their presence at our side during the difficult times we are going through.
We are also grateful to the members of the Security Council for allowing us to preside over the Council’s work twice this year. We only wish to see the Council admit and apply the principle of fighting against the extermination of 30 million people each year by the weapon of hunger, which today causes more devastation than nuclear weapons.
This confidence and faith in the Organization obliges me to thank Secretary-General Mr. Xavier Pérez de Cuéllar for his much-appreciated visit to witness firsthand the harsh realities of our existence and gain an accurate picture of the arid Sahel and the tragedy of the advancing desert.
I cannot conclude without paying tribute to the eminent qualities of our President (Paul Lusaka of Zambia), who, with the insight we know him for, will guide the work of this Thirty-Ninth Session.
Mr. President,
I have traveled thousands of kilometers. I came to ask each of you that we put our efforts together to end the arrogance of those who are wrong, to erase the sad spectacle of children dying of hunger, to eradicate ignorance, to see the legitimate rebellion of peoples triumph, to silence the noise of weapons, and finally, with a single, united will, fighting for the survival of humanity, to sing in unison with the great poet Novalis:
“Soon the stars will return to visit the earth from which they have distanced themselves during our dark times; the sun will lay down its severe scepter, becoming again a star among stars, all the races of the world will gather once again, after a long separation, the old orphaned families will reunite, and each day will see new reunions, new embraces; then the inhabitants of bygone times will return to the earth, in every tomb the extinguished ashes will be revived, everywhere the flames of life will burn again, the old homes will be rebuilt, ancient times will be renewed, and history will be the dream of an infinitely vast present.”
Down with international reaction!
Down with imperialism!
Down with neo-colonialism!
Down with puppetism!
Eternal glory to the peoples fighting for their freedom!
Eternal glory to the peoples who decide to take responsibility for their dignity!
Eternal victory to the peoples of Africa, Latin America, and Asia who struggle!
The homeland or death, we shall overcome!
Thank you.
Conclusion
Thomas Sankara’s speech at the UN in 1984 remains a source of inspiration for millions worldwide. His vision of a free, sovereign, and united Africa continues to resonate with those fighting for justice and equality. Listening to or reading his words again is to dive into a key moment in the history of pan-African and international struggles.
