Amilcar Cabral

Juvenal, Cabral Father was born in Cape Verde in 1889. His grandfather names Juvenal, after the Latin poet of the same name. Juvenal's father died when he was two months old. At first, the child remains under the care of his grandfather, but later goes to live with his godmother, Simoa Borges, who pays for his education. Destined for priesthood, Juvenal studies at the Viseu Seminary, in Portugal . After a prolonged drought in Cape Verde , it became financially impossible to keep him in Portugal . So, he returns to Cape Verde and begins studying at the St. Nicolau Seminary.

At the age of 18 he abandons his studies and leaves for Guinea in search of a job. First, he manages to become a civil servant in Bolama and, later, begins his activities as a teacher, even though he has no diploma. While in guinea, Juvenal met his wife Iva. While living in Bafata, Amilcar Cabral is born on September 12, 1924 . His father names him Hamílcar after the famous Carthaginian Hamílcar Barca.

Simoa, Juvenal's godmother, dies in 1932 and leaves Juvenal a few tracts of land in Cape Verde . He, his wife Iva and Amílcar return to the islands. Cabral spent his childhood in Santiago and studied at Sao Vincent's high school in Cape Verde . He attended primary and secondary schools until 1944. Around December of 1941, Juvenal writes a memorandum to the minister of colonial affairs, Vieira Machado. In his letter, Juvenal expresses his worries about the drought and the famine ravaging the archipelago and proposes that the minister adopt some policies to improve the situation: locate and harness water sources, establish an intensive reforestation program, protect agriculture, do away with land taxes, create a line of credit for farmers, protect the humble civil servant.

Cabral's letter reaches the hands of the government official who, most likely, did not want to bother with the opinions of an obscure Cape Verdean elementary school teacher. The letter was quite significant. Around that time Amílcar, was 17 and attends high school in Mindelo. He did not yet feel confident enough to help his father in his crusade in favor of Cape Verde . But, through his father, he has been made quite aware, since an early age, of all the problems that affect his country. Cabral and his family remained in Cape Verde throughout World War II. Under Salazar's regime, the cost of living soars and goods and supplies become scarce.

In 1940, severe drought causes widespread starvation, resulting in the death of more than 20,000 Cape Verdeans . Between 1942 and 1948, more calamities ravage the islands, killing 30,000 more. There were practically no public assistance services to relieve the effects of drought and famine. The islands become under populated as the result of emigration to S. Tomé and Angola and, later, to America .

This was the atmosphere in which Amílcar Cabral spends his early childhood and adolescent years. His father gave the example of public conscience and civic engagement, within the limits permitted by Salazar's fascism, his mother, Iva Évora, on the other, is for young Amílcar an example of love and affection, of family protection and of dedication to her work. Iva labors all day on a sewing machine to help the family overcome, as well as possible, the many crises they have to face. Later in addition to her activities as a seamstress, she gets a job a in a fish-packing factory. Cabral's mother and her capacity for self-sacrifice will serve as an example which he will pass to the young militants of the PAIGC.

At age 20, Amílcar is thoroughly familiar with the degrading living conditions of the Cape Verdean people. He is immersed in political idealism, absolutely convinced that there will be better tomorrows, that there will be inevitable changes in the world through a new order arising out of the post-war chaos. In high school, Amílcar was a brilliant student and graduates with outstanding grades. He leaves for the capital, Praia , where he gets a job as an apprentice at the National Printing Office, while he awaits the result of his application for a scholarship so he can continue his studies in Portugal . The choice of his major studies at college, obviously, reflects his father's influence: he will become an agricultural engineer.  

WAR, DROUGHT AND FAMINE

Amílcar Cabral arrives in Portugal in 1945 to study at the Agronomy Institute. This is a year of great hopes and expectations for Portuguese democrats. But such hopes soon vanish when Salazar manages to continue his dictatorial regime with the tacit approval and support of the victors of World War II. Around the time, he became engaged with fellow students in support of democratic movements. Amílcar was actively engaged in antifascist student organizations. In addition to his studies and political activities, he found time to practice soccer. His skills and performance at the school was so impressive that he was invited to play for Benfica, one of the top teams of Portugal . But he doesn't accept the offer and prefers to stick with the informal games at school.

He feels an irresistible calling during his college years, a feeling that affected other Negro students as well: it was necessary to return to Africa . Not only because of his family, which he loves so deeply, but because "...millions of people need my contribution in the hard struggle against nature and against man, himself...There, in Africa, in spite of the beautiful and modern cities on the coast, there are still thousands of human beings who live in the utmost darkness." In 1949, he writes: "I live life intensely and from life I have extracted experiences that have given me a direction, a road that I must follow, whatever the personal losses that I might come to suffer. That is my reason for living."

The life he is referring to is lived in Lisbon , at the Agronomy Institute, in the Casa dos Estudantes do Império and through the books that open up horizons for the understanding of the world of his times. One of such books has a fundamental influence: Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie négre et malgache (Anthology of the New Black and Malagasy Poetry), edited by Léopold Sédar Senghor. This book convinces him that "...the Negro is awakening everywhere in the world." He theorizes on the condition of the Cape Verdean man, the result of the miscegenation of the archipelago's first inhabitants, black and white. He knows that the number of mestiços (people of mixed races) is already six times that of the whites and three times that of the Negros . From a psychological point of view there is a " Cape Verdean spirit," a cape-verdeanness. This profession of faith must be brought into harmony with his militancy.

At the end of the academic year in 1949, he returned for holidays to Cape Verde , firmly set on putting his ideas into practice. And, first, to reveal Cape Verde to the Cape Verdeans : the only possible introduction to liberty and knowledge of Africa and the world. On September 8, he began a series of radio talks on geophysical aspects of the archipelago, 'Some thoughts on the subject of the rains'. It was an opportunity for Cabral to talk about the essential. He argued with conviction that Cape Verdeans had the means of taking charge of their own destiny. A student, he turned himself into a teacher, calling on 'those with knowledge to enlighten those who do not know'. He launched into his topic quickly and dealt with the basic question: the Cape Verdeans have the means to live from their land, they must therefore organize themselves to take account of their realities. The broadcast were soon banned by the colonial authorities.
"This first venture in politico-cultural teaching achieved by Cabral in Santiago in 1949 already had an analogy in the Luanda, Angola of the same period, with the movement 'Vamos descobrir Angola' (Let's discover Angola), launched by a group of young intellectuals around the poet Viriato da Cruz. But it was in Lisbon , at the heart of colonial fascism, that the first project for collective engagement by the men in political battles was to ripen.
From his entry to the university, Amilcar Cabral was intimately tied to the group of students born in the Portuguese colonies. By their class origin, the latter were objectively drawn from humble stock, from an urban petty bourgeoisie. The more sensitive elements were aroused by the tangible facts of colonial exploitation operating at the level of the mass of the people and whose effects, albeit to a lesser degree, they experienced in their material and social lives. Those who had reached the advanced training institutes (often at the cost of enormous financial sacrifices made by their families and by virtue of jockeying for assimilado vacancies) bore the stigmata of revolt. Their consciousness of the negation of the colonized man came at the same time from their objective material situation and from the aggression to which their cultural personality as Africans was subjected. Armed with a privileged education, these assimilados were faced with a dilemma: either to struggle for their self-advancement within the framework of colonial society or to arm themselves culturally to challenge and destroy the system of domination. In other words, it was a matter of choosing between two views of life: either ascent by accepting the system's rules, or total rejection, in effect breaking away in order to open the way to freedom for the strata most oppressed by colonialism. Around these ideas was built and progressively sharpened the definition of unity for nationalist from Portuguese colonies, the content of their ideology, and the form their combat should take.
At age 28 Cabral completed his training as an agronomical engineer. After graduating from the institute in 1950, Amílcar goes through a period of apprenticeship at the Agronomy Center , in Santarém. Shortly thereafter, Juvenal Cabral dies. Then he made the political decision to return to Guiné under contract to the Provincial Department of Agricultural and Forestry Services. The "Engineer," as he will be called by his compatriots, is in the best position to carry out the task of "raising awareness." As manager of the agricultural station at Pessubé, he is able to contact rural workers, including Cape Verdeans . But it's difficult to bring the Cape Verdeans and the Guineans together to form a common front. It will be difficult to the very end, even though a number of Cape Verdeans gather around him (Aristides Pereira, Fernando Fortes, and Abílio Duarte, among others).

His political activities run parallel to his professional work. He is in charge of the planning and implementation of Guinea 's agricultural census; his final report is, to this day, the first dependable collection of data for a more accurate knowledge of Guinean agriculture.
In the beginning, Amílcar tries to act in strict observance of the law. He drafts the by-laws of a club dedicated to sports and cultural activities open to all Guineans. The Portuguese authorities do not permit it to function because the signers of the document do not have a government issued identity card. In 1955, Governor Melo e Alvim forces Cabral to leave Guinea , although he permits him to return once a year for family reasons. That very same year, a group of Asian and African countries hold a conference at Bandung , Indonesia , the Bandung Conference, which gives birth to the movement of nonaligned countries in world politics. That year also marks the end of the first Vietnamese war of independence and the beginning of open warfare by the National Liberation Front (FLN) of Algeria . Amílcar Cabral has been transferred to Angola and is working in Cassequel, as an engineer...and coming into direct contact with the founders of the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), of which he becomes a member.
During one of his visits to Bissau in 1956, a new party comes into existence founded by Amílcar Cabral, Aristides Pereira, Luís Cabral, Júlio de Almeira, Fernando Fortes and Elisée Turpin. Its name: African Party for the Independence and Union of Guinea and Cape Verde (known by its Portuguese acronym PAIGC). T he party's original goal was peaceful negotiations with Portugal -- first to improve living conditions in the colonies, then the complete independence of a, perhaps, unified state. This is a period of exhausting activities for Amílcar Cabral. He continues his botanical and agricultural studies that force him to travel frequently between Portugal , Angola and Guinea .
In November, 1957, he attends a meeting in Paris called to discuss and plan the struggle against Portuguese colonialism; he makes contact with ant colonialists in Lisbon ; goes to Accra , capital of Ghana , for a Pan-African meeting and then heads for Luanda

Throughout this period the PAIGC continued to organize and gain support under its nonviolent banner until 1959, when the infamous massacre of Pidgiguiti. Portuguese troops attacked and killed fifty striking stevedores and seamen on the Pidjiguiti docks in the Port of Bissau on August 3, 1959 . This act galvanized opinion within the PAIGC that the time to mobilize for armed response to the colonialist had come. The struggle moved from the urban centers of Guinea-Bissau to the countryside, where mobilized peasants joined with freedom fighters from Cape Verde to launch a guerilla war in 1961 that would continue until 1974.

In January of 1960, he attends the Second Conference of African Peoples, in Tunis , and goes to the former French colony of Guinea-Conakry in May. That same year, he goes to an international conference in London where, for the first time, he denounces Portuguese colonialism. But here he leaves it quite clear, as he did throughout the years of struggle that he is not against the Portuguese people. His battle is exclusively against the colonial system.
Historical research and the testimonials of many of the participants in the events show that the PAIGC's leader always made himself available for negotiations with the Portuguese government, but such openness was never accepted by the dictatorship regime. In August 1960 Cabral led a delegation of the PAIGC to the People's Republic of China . China was first to offer substantial material aid to the PAIGC and to MPLA ( Angola ). Between 1960 and 1962, the PAIGC operates out of the Republic of Guinea . Its activities are developed along three courses of action: to prepare militants and party workers to spread the party line in the interior of Guinea; to obtain the support of neighboring countries (a very complicated affair because the Republic of Guinea intended to use Amílcar Cabral's Guinean supporters to carry out its own political agenda and because Senegal showed its hostility for six years) and, finally, to marshal international support. The establishment of Conferencia das Organizacoes Nacionalistas das Colonias Portuguesas(CONCP) at Casablanca, Morocco on 18 April 1961 further enlarged the potential for acquiring material and political aid on an international scale. Finally, on January 23, 1963 PAIGC commando units attacked the Portuguese barracks at Tite marking the actual launch of the armed struggle. A journalist for the Times of London predicted then that " Guinea - Bissau would become the Achilles' heel of the Portuguese colonial policy.

Assasination of Cabral
Several possibilities.

By early 1973, the national liberation movement controlled more than two-thirds of Guinea-Bissau , and the obdurate Portuguese, seeing their possessions slip away, instigated Cabral's assassination by agents in Conakry on Jan. 20. If the colonialist regime, successors to the late, long-time dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, thought the murder would stem the tide, it was severely mistaken almost to the point of its own undoing.

Séku Turé , who had been an African leader of great prestige since 1958, is now losing influence. On the other hand, Amílcar Cabral has become a well-known personality in the African and in the international political scenes, receiving support from a wide range of sources that go from China and the Communist regimes to the Scandinavian countries. Turé's big dream of taking over Guinea-Bissau and creating "Great Guinea" is now in danger. It is quite probable that he gave his nod of agreement to the rebels - all Guineans - to carry out the assassination. Cabral would be out of the way; the PAIGC would become divided and would, for all practical purposes, come under Turé's control. (In May, 1974, Leopold Senghor, President of Senegal, did not hesitate in declaring to Colonel Carlos Fabião and to Ambassador Nunes Barata that Séku Turé had been the instigator of Amílcar Cabral's murder.)

PIDE/DGS , the secret Portuguese state police. Since 1967, the organization had been trying to kill Cabral. Some of the guerrillas who had been taken prisoners were brain-washed into collaborating with the police apparatus. This was shown to be true in relation to some of the participants in the assassination. Everything leads one to believe that, to some unknown degree, the PIDE was not unaware of the conspiracy.

Reports at the time indicate that Amílcar Cabral was conscious of the fact that he might be betrayed by his comrades in the liberation effort. He had commented several times before that: "If anybody is going to hurt me, it will be someone who is among us. Nobody else can destroy the PAIGC, except ourselves."

Who ordered?

Setting: a one-story house, painted white, stands alone at the center of a wide courtyard; a huge mango tree grows in front of the house; a shed used as a garage; the place is in Conakry , capital of the Republic of Guinea , whose president is Séku Turé.

Time: 3 o'clock in the morning, January 20, 1973 .
Action: A car, a VW, is being parked under the shed. Two spotlights focus on the car occupants - Amílcar Cabral and his second wife, Ana Maria. Out of the darkness a stern voice orders that Amílcar be tied up. He struggles and refuses to be subdued. The leader of the raid presses the trigger and hits Amílcar in the region of the liver. Amílcar, crouching on the ground, suggests that they talk. The reply: a burst of machine gun fire aimed at the head of the founder of the PAIGC. Death is immediate. The perpetrators: Inocêncio Kani, the first to shoot, a guerrilla war veteran and former PAIGC navy commander; the others are members of the party, all Guineans.

In other points of the city where the some 500 PAIGC militants are living, the remaining leaders of the party stationed in Conakry are arrested by groups participating in the uprising. Among those arrested are Aristides Pereira, Vasco Cabral, José Araújo. They are all taken to a scouting boat that heads for Bissau . On January 21, Séku Turé receives the leaders of the party uprising at the presidential palace. Everything indicates that he supports Cabral's assassins. But, surprisingly, the President of Guinea Conakry gives them no protection. He orders that the conspirators be arrested, instructs the Army to temporarily hold all members of the PAIGC and intercepts the boat that was taking the imprisoned leaders to Bissau . Séku Turé then sets up an international commission to investigate all of these events. Gradually, the old leaders of the PAIGC are granted their freedom. The party's Superior Council for Liberation decides to go further in the investigation.

From that point on, conclusions are reached fairly quickly because of a web of intrigue, denouncements, accusations and betrayals. Approximately 100 party members are indicted, tried and executed. This number includes the majority of those who participated in the crime. But it also includes a number of innocent people. This type of occurrence is inevitable. The death of Amílcar Cabral gives rise to a chain reaction of hatred and passionate reprisals. In such an atmosphere, it is difficult for justice to be impartially served, especially at a time when no one is interested in abating the war against Portuguese colonialism.

Amílcar Cabral was buried in the cemetery of Conakry .

The assassination brings about no benefits for the Portuguese Army; the guerrillas intensify their activities. As of March 1973, the rebels have a new weapon at their disposal the ground to air missile Stella, which effectively cancels out the air supremacy of the Portuguese armed forces. In May of that year, the Governor of Guinea-Bissau, General António Spínola, advises Joaquim da Silva Cunha, Minister of National Defense that they were getting closer to the possibility of a military collapse. On September 24, in the forests of Madina do Boé, the PAIGC unilaterally declares the independence of Guinea-Bissau .

The following year, with the Portuguese people and the military tiring of the protracted and costly effort to retain dominion over its far flung empire, a coup d'Ètat overthrew the remnants of the Salazar government. The new administration instituted democratic reforms within Portugal and promoted the decolonization of its African empire; Cape Verde , Guinea-Bissau , Angola , Mozambique and Sao Tomé and Principe .
Following the political events of November 1981 in Guinea-Bissau , which lead to an establishment of a new Government in country, the Republic of Cape Verde decided to go its own way, reforming its branch of the once-joint PAIGC as the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde, or PAICV. The party governed Cape Verde until the freely-contested legislative elections of January 13, 1991 , when PAICV became the loyal opposition in the National People's Assembly to the victorious Movement For Democracy, or MPD.