BURKINA FASO, FLAG OF

horizontally striped red-green national flag with a central yellow star. Its width-to-length ratio is approximately 2 to 3. Captain Thomas Sankara, formerly prime minister, seized control of the government of the Republic of Upper Volta on August 4, 1983, and exactly a year later introduced his program for revitalizing the land. To inspire people to that task, the name and symbols of the country were altered. The name Burkina Faso, which means Land of Incorruptible People, was created by combining words of the Mossi and Bobo peoples. A new coat of arms was introduced, the national anthem was rewritten, and the motto Unity, labour, justice gave way to Fatherland or death, we will win! Upper Volta's flag, adopted on December 9, 1959, had black, white, and red stripes referring to the Black Volta, White Volta, and Red Volta rivers. The new Burkinab flag utilized the pan-African colours of neighbouring countries. The background consisted of equal horizontal stripes of red over green with a yellow star, standing for leadership and the revolutionary principles of the new program, in the centre. Yellow was also associated with the country's mineral wealth. Red reflected the revolutionary struggle necessary for altering the national consciousness, while green was symbolic of hope and abundance. The basic design may have been inspired by the flag of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (see Vietnam, flag of), since the Viet Cong guerrilla force was widely admired in underdeveloped countries as a model of anti-imperialism and commitment to political and economic reform. The Burkinab flag continued to be used even after Sankara was assassinated and many of his programs were canceled or modified. Whitney Smith History Early history Axes belonging to a Neolithic culture have been found in the north of Burkina Faso. The Bobo, Lobi, and Gurunsi are the earliest known inhabitants of the country. In about the 15th century AD conquering horsemen invaded the region from the south to found the Gurma and the Mossi kingdoms, in the eastern and central areas, respectively. Several Mossi kingdoms developed, the most powerful of which was that of Ouagadougou, in the centre of the country. Headed by an emperor titled the morho naba (great lord), the Ouagadougou Mossi state defeated attempted invasions by Muslim Songhai and Fulani neighbours yet maintained valuable commercial links with major western African trading powers such as the Dyula, the Hausa, and the Asante (Ashanti). European exploration and colonization The German explorer Gottlob Adolf Krause traversed the Mossi country in 1886; and the French army officer Louis-Gustave Binger visited the morho naba in 1888. France obtained a protectorate over Yatenga in 1895; and Paul Voulet and Charles-Paul-Louis Chanoine defeated the morho naba Boukari-Koutou (Wobogo) in 1896 and then proceeded to overrun the Gurunsi lands. The Gurma accepted a French protectorate in 1897; and in 1897 likewise the lands of the Bobo and of the Lobi were annexed by the French (though the Lobi, armed with poisoned arrows, were not effectively subdued until 1903). An Anglo-French convention of 1898 fixed the frontier between France's new acquisitions and the northern territories of the Gold Coast. The French divided the country into administrative cercles (circles) but maintained the chiefs, including the morho naba, in their traditional seats. At first attached to French Sudan (or Upper Senegal-Niger, as that colony was called from 1904 to 1920), the country was organized as a separate colony, Upper Volta (Haute-Volta), in 1919. In 1932 it was partitioned between Cte d'Ivoire, Niger, and French Sudan. In 1947, however, Upper Volta was reestablished to become an overseas territory of the French Union, with a territorial assembly of its own. The assembly in 1957 received the right to elect an executive council of government for the territory, which at the end of 1958 was transformed into an autonomous republic within the French Community. When independence was proclaimed on Aug. 5, 1960, the new constitution provided for an executive president elected by universal adult suffrage for a five-year term and an elected Legislative Assembly. Hubert Jules Deschamps Jean Dresch Myron Echenberg The economy Most of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture or stock raising. Difficult economic conditions, made worse by severe intermittent droughts, have provoked considerable migration from rural to urban areas within Burkina Faso and to neighbouring countries such as Cte d'Ivoire and Ghana. As many as 1.5 million people, or almost one-third of the country's labour force, are abroad at any given time. The development of industry in Burkina Faso is hampered by the small size of the market economy and by the absence of a direct outlet to the sea. Resources Minerals, especially manganese and gold, represent potential wealth for this otherwise poorly endowed nation. Gold mines at Poura, southwest of Koudougou, were reopened in late 1984, and smaller gold deposits near Sebba and Dori-Yalogo in the north are known to exist. Reserves of nickel, bauxite, zinc, lead, and silver are being studied. The country's substantial manganese deposits at Tambao in the northeast potentially represent Burkina's most important resource and one of the world's richest sources of this mineral. Exploitation is limited by existing transport inadequacies. The land Relief Burkina Faso consists of an extensive plateau, which is slightly inclined toward the south. The lateritic (red, leached, iron-bearing) layer of rock that covers the underlying crystalline rocks is deeply incised by the country's three principal riversthe Black Volta, Red Volta, and White Voltaall of which converge in Ghana to the south to form the Volta River. The Oti, another tributary of the Volta, rises in southeastern Burkina Faso. In the southwest there are sandstone plateaus bordered by the Banfora Escarpment, which is about 500 feet (150 metres) high and faces southeast. The country is generally dry and the soil infertile. Great seasonal variation occurs in the flow of the rivers, and some become dry beds in the dry season. Climate The climate is generally sunny, hot, and dry. In the north the climate is semiarid steppe, known locally as the Sahelian type and characterized by three to five months of rainfall, which is often erratic. To the south it becomes increasingly of the tropical wet-dry type sometimes called Sudanic, characterized by greater variability of temperature and rainfall and greater total rainfall. Four seasons may be distinguished in Burkina Faso: a dry and cool season from mid-November to mid-February, with temperatures dropping to about 60 F (16 C) at night; a hot season from mid-February to June, when maximum temperatures rise to about 104 F (40 C) in the shade and the harmattana hot, dry, dust-laden wind blowing off the Saharais prevalent; a rainy season, which lasts from June to September; and an intermediate season, which lasts from September until mid-November. Annual rainfall varies from about 40 inches (1,000 millimetres) in the south to less than 10 inches in the north. The people Two principal ethnic groups live in Burkina Faso. The first of these is the Voltaic (Gur) group, which may be further divided into five subgroupsthe Mossi, which include the Gurma and the Yarse, the Gurunsi, the Senufo, the Bobo, and the Lobi. The second group is the Mande family, which is divided into four subgroups: the Samo, the Marka, the Busansi, and the Dyula. In addition, there are Hausa traders, Fulani herders, and the Tuareg, or rather their settled servants, the Bella. Each of the ethnic groups found in Burkina Faso has its own language, although Mor, the language of the Mossi, is spoken by a great majority of the population and Dyula and Hausa are widely used in commerce. French, the official language, is used for all communication with other countries. About one-half of the population are animists, attaching great importance to ancestor worship. Islam exerts an increasing influence upon customs, and Muslims account for approximately two-fifths of the population. The seat of the Roman Catholic archbishopric is Ouagadougou, and there are eight bishoprics. There are few Protestants in the country. In the late 20th century, yearly population growth averaged more than 2 percent; nearly one-half of the population is below the age of 15. Average life expectancy is 47 years for women and 44 years for men.