Introduction Ouagadougou the 'Ghost Town' IT WAS just over three months after the military eoup d'etat whieh overthrew Captain Thomas Sankara as President of Burkina Faso had taken plaee, and all was still quiet on the streets of the eapital Ouagadougou. The people of Burkina Faso, eommonly known as the Burkinabe, maintained their silence or even indifference concerning the events whieh took plaee on Thursday 15 Oetober 1987 when President Sankara was shot, along with thirteen others, just outside the Conseil d'Entente, the central parliament. The presidential post was immediately claimed and taken by Sankara's right-hand man and close colleague Captain Blaise Compaore. He, while regretting the death of his grand frere, nevertheless proceeded to rate him a traitor to the 'Popular Revolution' which, ironically, Sankara had himself instigated on 4 August 1983. The Burkinabe are now experiencing the 'rectification of the revolution' whieh Compaore promised as a justification for the ousting of the existing President. Now that a reasonable amount of time has elapsed since the change in regime in Ouaguadougou, it seems appropriate to make an assessment of the legacy of Thomas Sankara and of the progress of Compaore's reetifieation proeess. Apart from the token redistribution of uniforms in the armed forces, little has changed in poverty-stricken Burkina Faso. Still rated as the third poorest country in the world, it offers little promise to large scale agricultural development due to its geographical location in the dusty and barren wasteland of the Sahel. 1 Along with its neighbours Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso attracts virtually no foreign-backed industrial investment or development, and the few remaining aid organizations are not only low on funds, but also in morale.2 At best, Ouagadougou resembles a small-scale Abid jan with an over-large diplomatic community and a minority of wealthy European (mostly French) ex-patriates who lead a life of tedious and isolated luxury. Unlike Abidjan, the prosperous and cosmopolitan capital of the Ivory Coast, Ouagadougou does not, due to its landlocked location, reap the financial benefits of a thriving international port. For this reason and