Republic of Upper Volta Republic of Upper Volta The Republic of Upper Volta (), now Burkina Faso, was a landlocked West African country established on December 11, 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Before attaining autonomy it had been French Upper Volta and part of the French Union. On August 5, 1960, it attained full independence from France. Thomas Sankara came to power through a military coup d'état on August 4, 1983. After the coup, he formed the National Council for the Revolution (CNR), with himself as president. Under the direction of Sankara, the country changed its name on August 4,
The Two Thousand Words Vaculik banned from the party. The presidium went into immediate emergency session, which only served to increase the statement’s support at home. Government leaders quickly denounced the statement, and even Dubcek addressed the nation on television a few days after its publication calling for national unity. Two weeks later, I. Aleksandrov condemned the "Two Thousand Words" in the Moscow journal "Pravda" as "a sort of platform representing the forces in Czechoslovakia and abroad that are endeavoring, under the guise of talk about 'liberalization,' 'democratization,' etc., to strike out the entire history of Czechoslovakia since 1948 and the socialist achievements of