Interim Report - Report No 236, November 1984

Case No 1266 (Burkina Faso) - Complaint date: 10-MAR-84 - Closed

1. 553. The National Union of African Teachers of Upper Volta lodged a complaint of violation of freedom of association on 10 March 1984. It submitted further information in support of its complaint and further allegations in communications dated 22 March and 2 and 24 April 1984. At the same time, the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession lodged a complaint on the case in communications dated 16 and 27 March 1984. It also submitted further information in communications of 2 April and 1 October 1984. These communications contained information supplied by the Burkina Faso union affiliated to it.
2. 554. In view of the seriousness of the allegations concerning the arrest and internment, on the orders of the administrative authorities of three members of the national executive of the Union of African Teachers of Upper Volta, the Director-General sent a telegram to the Government on 20 March 1984.
3. 555. The Government of Upper Volta which, in July 1984, became the Government of Burkina Faso, sent information and observations in reply to the allegations in a telegram dated 23 March 1984 and, subsequently, in a letter dated 5 June 1984.
4. 556. Burkina Faso has ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98).

A. The complainants' allegations

1. 557. In their initial complaint the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession and its member organisation in Burkina Faso, the National Union of African Teachers of Upper Volta (SNEAHV), denounced the arrest by the Government, at their homes on the evening of 9 March 1984, of Jean Pagnimda Bila, general secretary of the SNEAHV, Bahiéba Joachim Sib, secretary for external relations, and Batiémoko Komé, secretary responsible for pedagogical problems. They added that Ismael Ousmane Kindo, deputy secretary of the union, had escaped that evening but was wanted.
2. 558. In subsequent communications dated 22 March and 2 April 1984, the complainants stated that the three leaders who were arrested on 9 March had been deported to Koudougou, 100 kilometers from Ouagadougou, where they had been interned in the barracks of the airborne infantry batallion, and that the deputy general-secretary, Ismael Ousmane Kindo, who had given himself up to the gendarmerie on 13 March 1984, had also been deported there. The SNEAHV also stated that Batiémoko Komé, who was arrested on 9 March, had been released shortly afterwards since the minister for Defence had recognised that he was pursuing only "purely trade union" activities. However, according to the complainant, he was again interned on 3 April 1984 and no charge has been brought against him.
3. 559. Lastly, in a communication dated l October 1984, the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession encloses a letter sent from Ouagadougou on 29 August 1984 - but received only on 11 September 1984 - in which the administrative secretary of the SNEAHV, Mr. Garango, confirms the internment at Koudougou of trade union leaders Bila, Kindo and Sib, the first two since 9 March 1984, and the detention at the Ouagadougou gendarmerie, since 3 April 1984, of Mr. Komé.
4. 560. The complainants also state that, in order to secure the release of the SNEAHV leaders, the union called a 48-hour protest strike, which was widely followed, on 20 and 21 March 1984. The National Revolutionary Council responded on 23 March at 10.30 p.m. by a statement broadcast over radio and television dismissing all teachers who had taken part in the strike. According to the SNEAVH in its communication of 24 April 1984, 2,600 teachers were dismissed in this manner, that is to say, approximately half the membership of the union, and the Government recruited unqualified teachers, merely on the basis of their beliefs and political views, to replace the strikers as from 16 April 1984. The SNEAVH appended to its communication a circular signed by the Minister for National Education, Arts and Culture, which had appeared on the same day, i.e. 24 April 1984, inviting the directors of primary and secondary private schools not to use the services of the strikers in their establishments.
5. 561. It would seem, from the letter of 29 August 1984 from the executive secretary, Mr. Garango, to the Minister of the Interior and of Security (which letter was appended to the communication from the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession dated 1 October 1984), that the Government has taken measures of clemency in respect of the teachers. However, the letter gives no details as to the nature and scope of these measures.
6. 562. Moreover, in their initial complaints of 10 and 27 March 1984, the complainants refer to difficulties encountered by the National teachers' union since the advent of National Revolutionary Council. Thus, the SNEAHV stated that, since its 28th Congress in August 1983, the Government had refused members of its executive authorisation to leave the country on any trade union mission and that, since 12 January 1984, the Government had notified the union leadership that until it revised its political position the Government would have no dealings with it. Furthermore, since 3 February 1984, the Government had banned radio and television broadcasts of SNEAHV's trade union communiqués and, since 1 March 1984, had, with the help of the revolutionary defence committees, embarked upon a campaign of defamation against the union executive on the grounds of supposed subversive activities carried out by the union at its general meetings and in its trade union information circulars.
7. 563. The World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession stated that the ban on travel abroad imposed on trade unionists had prevented a representative of the SNEAHV from participating in a programme of visits to a number of African countries carried out by officials of teachers' unions in November 1983 and that the arrest of the union's secretary for pedagogical problems had prevented him from taking part in a Pan-African congress on educational reform, held in Yaoundé from 2 to 7 April 1984.
8. 564. Lastly, in its communication of 1 October 1984, the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession encloses a letter from the administrative secretary of the SNEAHV, sent from Ouagadougou on 29 August 1984. In this letter the trade union leader refers to the holding of an extraordinary congress of the SNEAHV from 28 to 30 August 1984, without the participation of the striking teachers but attended by two leaders of the national executive of the said union who, he maintains, disassociated themselves from the protest movement of 20 and 21 March 1984. The officials in question are Mr. Sanfo, secretary for social affairs and trade union training, and Mr. Gampene, secretary for organisation, in the national executive headed by Jean Bila. Apparently, both these officials are involved with the revolutionary defence committees. According to the administrative secretary, the executive that resulted from the extraordinary congress is an unlawful one.

B. The Government's reply

1. 565. In a telegram of 23 March 1984, in response to that of the Director-General, the Government, without denying the arrest and internment of three members of the national executive of the union in question, stated that the measures taken were motivated by the political rather than trade union activities of the persons concerned. It furthermore stated that, in its proclamation of 4 August 1983, the National Revolutionary Council had suspended political parties and banned political activities.
2. 566. In its letter of 5 June 1984, the Government repeats its statements concerning the political rather than trade union nature of the activities of the arrested leaders. It outlines the general situation in the country, explaining that after the popular uprising of 4 August 1983, which brought the new Government to power, the SNEAHV, as early as 7 August 1983, provoked it by denouncing as undemocratic Captain Sankara's proclamation of 4 August 1983 in a motion on the national situation. This motion amounted to accusing the new Government of representing the fascistic wing of the Supreme Revolutionary Council which had already distinguished itself by its "dictatorial inclinations, mystification and political scheming". The SNEAHV's motion went on in the following terms:
   • Considering that the said proclamation makes a mockery of personal, collective, trade union and democratic freedoms which are not even mentioned,
   • Considering that this proclamation constitutes an attack on fundamental freedoms which it is destroying by dissolving the official political parties and setting up machinery for recruitment in the form of revolutionary defence committees, of sad renown elsewhere,
3. The 28th Congress of the National Union of African Teachers of Upper Volta (SNEAHV), held in Bobo-Dioulasso on 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 August 1983.
   • - disassociates itself from the proclamation of 4 August 1983 of the National Revolutionary Council;
   • - warns the authorities against infringements of personal, collective, trade union and democratic freedoms;
   • - affirms its constant readiness to set up a front so that workers may fight to safeguard their freedoms;
   • - calls upon the people of Upper Volta, and the democratic and mass organisations to disassociate themselves from the proclamation of 4 August 1983 and from the National Revolutionary Council, which is no more than another name for the fascism already famous as the Supreme Revolutionary Council.
4. 567. The Government concludes that this motion was essentially political in character and adds that this rebellious attitude on the part of the union is all the more inadmissible in view of the fact that the latter raised no objection to the measures taken by the Military Committee of Reconstruction for National Progress of the previous Government, which had suppressed first the right to strike and then the Trade Union Confederation of Upper Volta, and had issued a national and international warrant for the arrest of its general secretary. [See 218th Report of the Committee on Freedom of Association, Case No. 1131, Upper Volta, paras. 751-782 and 222nd Report, paras. 85-96.] According to the Government, this attitude is due to the fact that the executive of what is now the complainant union was then in the hands of politicians committed to the political party which supported the Government of the day; they infiltrated thousands of the union's members, keeping them silent despite the most unpopular anti-labour measures. Consequently, the Government goes on, this trade union executive, in unmasking itself, has revealed its true colonialist and reactionary political colours and the National Revolutionary Council and people of Burkina Faso can do no other than fight them like all politicians who, for decades, have worked to preserve their own selfish interests to the detriment of the people who are left in deprivation and want.

C. The Committee's conclusions

1. 568. The Committee notes with grave concern that the complaints presented in this case contain serious allegations concerning the imprisonment of four trade union leaders, interned by the administrative authorities since (in the case of at least two of them) 9 March 1984, and the dismissal of some 2,600 teachers for having taken part in a two-day protest strike organised by the complainant union to secure the release of its leaders. The Committee notes the Government's explanations as to its motives in taking such measures.
   • (a) Allegations concerning the internment of trade union leaders by the administrative authorities
2. 569. With regard to the arrest of several trade union leaders of the Union of African Teachers of Upper Volta which, according to the Government, took place for political reasons, the Committee observes that the Government has not imputed any specific acts, violent or otherwise, to the persons concerned and has merely referred to an anti-government text contained in a trade union motion drafted on 7 August 1983, three days after it came to power in a "popular uprising" and seven months before the arrest of the leaders in question. While noting the strong tone of this motion, the Committee nevertheless observes that the Government itself states that in its proclamation of 4 August 1983 it suspended political parties and banned political activities. The Committee considers that such an attitude on the part of the Government could not be conducive to a new climate propitious to the safeguarding of democratic and - consequently - trade union freedoms.
3. 570. When seized of allegations relating to the arrest of trade union leaders, the Committee has always insisted on the fact that measures of internment by administrative authorities can imply serious interference in trade union activities. The Committee, consequently, emphasises the importance it attaches to the persons in question being brought promptly before an impartial and independent tribunal in all cases, including those in which trade unionists are charged with political offences which the Government considers to be outside their trade union activities.
4. 571. In these circumstances, the Committee cannot but deplore the fact that trade union leaders have been under arrest without trial for several months and it urges the Government to release them or to bring them before an independent and impartial court and, in the latter case, to communicate the text of the relevant judgment together with the reasons adduced therefore.
   • (b) Allegations relating to the dismissal of 2,600 teachers for having taken part in a strike and to the recruitment of workers to replace the strikers
5. 572. The Committee notes that the Government has neither commented on nor denied this allegation. It observes, however, that, according to a circular of the Minister of National Education, dated 24 April 1984 and included in the information sent by the complainants, the Government "as a revolutionary reprisal dismissed all the teachers who responded to the call to strike". In this circular the Minister furthermore enjoins the directors of private schools "not to use the services of the strikers in their establishments". The Committee also notes with concern that, according to the complainants, 2,600 persons - half the union's membership - are affected by this particularly severe measure of dismissal.
6. 573. While noting that, according to the latest communication from the complainants, the dismissed strikers have benefited from a measure of clemency, the Committee can only deplore the Government's failure to comment on this allegation which concerns an excessively severe measure taken against teachers who apparently had gone on strike only to protest against the imprisonment without trial of their own union leaders. The Committee urges the Government to reinstate these teachers who were dismissed for only having participated in a strike. It requests the Government to keep it informed of any action taken to this end.
7. 574. With regard to the recruitment of workers to replace strikers, the Committee regrets that the Government has not commented on this allegation. In these circumstances, and failing any denial on the part of the Government on this aspect of the case, the Committee feels bound to point out that the right to strike is one of the essential means which workers must have to defend their interests and that the recruitment of workers to replace strikers is a measure calculated to undermine the teachers' right to organise.
   • (c) Allegations concerning restrictions on the exercise of freedom of association by the Union of African Teachers of Upper Volta
8. 575. With regard to the Government's refusal to allow members of the national executive of the SNEAHV to leave the country to take part in trade union meetings, the Committee regrets that the Government has not commented on this allegation. Failing denials by the Government. on this aspect of the case, the Committee recalls that according to Convention No. 87, ratified by Burkina Faso, workers' organisations must have the right to affiliate with international organisations of workers and the public authorities must refrain from any interference that would restrict this right. Consequently, the Committee considers that the Government should not only refrain from harassing workers' representatives when they wish to go abroad to attend an international meeting of the international organisation to which they belong but, furthermore, should adopt a reasonable attitude to ensure that the right of these representatives to be in contact with the said organisations is in no way undermined.
9. 576. As regards the allegation concerning the ban on the broadcasting of trade union messages by radio and television, the Committee once again regrets that the Government has not commented on this allegation and has confined itself to referring to the political rather than trade union nature of what was said by the executive of the union in question. Failing any official denial by the Government on this point, the Committee recalls that the right to express trade union opinions by means of the press or other media is an essential aspect of trade union rights.
   • (d) Allegations relating to the holding of an extraordinary congress of the SNEAHV in August 1984 and to the election of an illegal union executive
10. 577. The Committee requests the Government to comment on this allegation dated 1 October 1984.

The Committee's recommendations

1. 578. In these circumstances, the Committee recommends the Governing Body to approve the present interim report and, in particular, the following conclusions.
   • (a) With regard to the case as a whole, the Committee notes with grave concern that four trade union leaders have been interned by the administrative authorities for several months and that mass dismissals are said to have involved some 2,600 teachers for having taken part in a two-day strike.
   • (b) The Committee urges the Government to release the trade union leaders who have been interned by the administrative authorities without having been judged or to ensure that they are brought rapidly before an independent and impartial court and, in the latter case, to communicate the text of the relevant judgments together with the reasons adduced therefore.
   • (c) The Committee requests the Government to keep it informed of the situation of these trade union leaders. , (d) The Committee urges the Government to reinstate the teachers who were dismissed only for having participated in a strike.
   • (e) The Committee requests the Government to keep it informed of any measure taken to this effect.
   • (f) The Committee requests the Government to send its observations on the allegation to which it has not yet replied, and which dates from 1 October 1984, according to which, at an extraordinary congress of the SNEAHV in August 1984, an illegal trade union executive was elected.