CHAPTER TWO: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND CURRENT CHALLENGES _____________________________________________________________________ was represented by the medical Major Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, who was head of state and who was supported by a significant section of the highest military echelons of the military hierarchy. The other, represented by Captain Thomas Sankara as prime minister, had the support of young officers and of Marxist civil organisations. 77. The crisis grew with the arrest of Thomas Sankara and some of his colleagues on 17 May 1983. Captain Blaise Compaoré, who escaped arrest, withdrew to the garrison of the Commando Training National Centre (CNEC) at Pô and – on 4 August 1983, as the head of his elite troops – took control of the capital city of Ouagadougou, installing as the head of state Captain Thomas Sankara as president of the CNR (1983-1987). Several youth associations and communist parties supported the regime, with Committees for the Defence of Revolution (CDR) providing the organisational base at all levels. 78. Significant changes were made: administrative and territorial organisation changed as a result of the division of the country into 30 provinces, urban areas were created, the customary chiefdoms were suppressed, the soil and subsoil were nationalised, people were divided into social classes, etc. Moreover, on 4 August 1984, the country changed its name to Burkina Faso, which, translated, means ‘the homeland of honest men’. 79. The people of Burkina Faso, who had experienced many years of freedom, quickly became frustrated by a number of the CNR’s actions. Executions, the ousting of civil servants, dismissal for differences of opinion, imprisonment, wage cuts, a lack of freedoms and various abuses of the CDR all contributed to this frustration. Marxist organisations that supported the regime were characterised by infighting. Soon, the disputes reached the army. The outcome of all of this was tragic: the assassination, in a shootout, of the chairperson of the CNR on October 1987. 80. After three decades of independence, Burkina Faso had experienced three republics and six emergency regimes. 81. This ongoing political instability and the legitimisation of violence in some quarters eventually created a culture of violence that permeated political practices and customs. With the establishment of the Popular Front on 15 October 1987, Captain Blaise Compaoré assumed power and proclaimed measures to ease tensions and lessen social pressures. Such measures included the return of dismissed or released civil servants, the reviewing of the trials of the Revolution Popular Tribunals, the granting of various forms of compensation, and so on. 82. He progressively led the country along a path of establishing a constitutional rule of law, of building a pluralistic democracy, of establishing republican institutions and of creating participatory political governance. The Constitutional Commission was set up, and the preliminary draft developed by it was submitted for consideration by the National Forum convened for that purpose in December 1990. 53