Word: burkina
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...mark the first anniversary of the military coup that brought him to power in 1983, Captain Thomas Sankara changed the name of his landlocked West African country (pop. 7.3 million) from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, which in the local Mossi and Dioula languages means "Land of Upright Men." The old moniker was no longer appropriate, said Sankara, because it was chosen not by Africans but by white French colonists. Last week Sankara, 37, a popular and charismatic leader who was every inch an upright man, was himself replaced. He was ousted and killed in a bloody rebellion...
...Ouagadougou accused him of having built up a "concentration of power" and of harboring the "ambitions of a madman." In seizing power last week, Compaore, 36, the Minister of State and Justice, used the same special commando unit he placed at Sankara's disposal in 1983. Western diplomats in Burkina Faso expect him to be a less flamboyant leader than Sankara but to continue most of his policies. Despite the death of their author, the national radio said, the policies' basic wisdom "is not called into question...
...first anniversary of his coup, Sankara changed his country's name from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, which was translated as "Land of the Upright...
...Burkina Faso is an impoverished, landlocked country of 105,869 square miles just south of the Sahara Desert...
Hundreds of thousands of farm workers migrate each year seeking jobs in the neighboring countries of Ivory Coast and Ghana. Burkina Faso was hit hard by famine in the 1970s and is heavily dependent on foreign...