Almost every day, at least a handful of visitors still come to pay their respects to a martyred young leader who was unceremoniously buried here in a trash-strewn cemetery at the edge of this hazy city and whose bones remain under the watchful gaze of vultures.

It has been 10 years since the leader, Thomas Sankara, a charismatic 38-year-old army captain who took office after leading a revolution, was gunned down in his office.

His second-in-command and successor as President, Blaise Compaore, did everything he could to put memories of Mr. Sankara behind him and the people he governs -- starting with the commoner's grave. But Mr. Sankara has not been forgotten.

Few African leaders have been mourned so deeply at home or as widely on this continent since the era of the deeply flawed but stirring visionaries of Africa's early independence days in the 1950's and 60's -- men like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo.