Leaders who pursued CFA exit were assassinated or blocked by power relations

Evidence

Like Sylvanus Olympio 20 years earlier, Thomas Sankara would not get a chance to complete his project either: he was assassinated on 15 October 1987. One of the main suspects in his murder – for which no trial was ever held – is his successor and former brother in arms, Blaise Compaoré. The latter, who remained in power until 2014, never contested the existence of the CFA franc and maintained very close ties with France. Basile Guissou, Thomas Sankara’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, expressed his disappointment in 2017 for failing to achieve monetary independence: ‘The currency remained colonial. We tried to exit, but unfortunately it is all a question of power relations. […] As members of the CFA zone, we were unable to mint our own currency and escape the repression of neighbouring countries and of France.’ — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 194

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the resistance-history thread the reader is following: Olympio and Sankara both failed to replace the CFA. — connects to: Criticizing the CFA franc publicly risked dismissal from official posts; The CFA franc functions as a political instrument of pressure over 15 African states.

Related

• Criticizing the CFA franc publicly risked dismissal from official posts (similarity 0.90)