BURKINA FASO GRANTS AMNESTY
| OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO
Burkina Faso said it freed all its political prisoners in an amnesty granted on the sixth anniversary of its revolution. A statement issued Sunday evening by the West African country's Human Rights and Peoples Movement said it had asked the government July 19 to release about 20 known political prisoners.
``We have released all political prisoners to mark the sixth anniversary of the revolution,'' President Blaise Compaore wrote in a reply dated Aug. 8, without giving any figures.
Mr. Compaore overthrew Thomas Sankara, leader of the 1983 revolution, in a coup in October 1987.
Burkina Faso, formerly Upper Volta, has had several coups since independence from France in 1960.
