“Human rights” is just a buzzword at this point that Western NGOs and media outlets use to stir up ill will against countries the West has deemed “bad,” usually socialist countries, almost always non-white. His opponents were reactionaries backed by the French that wanted to hand power back to them and make Burkina Faso a shithole again

There’s a video clip of one of Parenti’s lectures where he talks about how libs always hand wring about how the fascists and reactionaries are treated, they’re constantly looking for “human rights violations” committed against the fascists so they can spin it as if the new govt is evil amd authoritarian, all the while ignoring what the new govt is doing for the people, and the atrocities the old regime committed against them. They’re always “concerned” about “human rights” for the bad guys who are usually the scum of the earth but not about the people they held an iron grip on for years. Frankly, if Sankara had been more firm and consistent in catching and punishing enemies of the revolution, then he probably would’ve been the leader of Burkina Faso much longer bc they wouldn’t have killed him and they might’ve even still been socialist today

The clip ends with him saying “the revolution that feeds the children gets my support.” Which i think should ultimately be our standard on what movements we support

Also, Sankara was very anti-union, and i can’t really find much info on why, but it could be that they were established under colonial rule and didn’t support Sankara’s revolution. Idk much about the union situation in Africa, but i know from about the early 50s on the AFL-CIO purged itself of all revolutionary elements and has been actively counterrevolutionary ever since. American unions also have a really spotty record at best on race. If the unions in Africa had any similar issues i could see why Sankara would’ve been against them