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Third is the demand for justice and accountability. Prior to the 2014 protests the most serious challenge to Compaoré’s rule came in 1999 when protestors demanded accountability for the murder of popular journalist Norbert Zongo whose death many Burkinabé blame on the government. Compaoré diffused the protests by instituting an independent commission of inquiry into the journalist’s death. Similarly, in 2011 mass demonstrations erupted across the country after the suspicious death in police custody of another civil society activist, student leader, Justin Zongo (no relation to the slain journalist). Those demonstrations broadened to include grievances about the poor state of the country’s economy and merged with mutinies in several military units. To diffuse them, Compaoré offered food subsidies and increased salaries for the civil service and the military.
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