Amílcar Cabral, the militant who undermined Portuguese influence in Africa

Amilcar Cabral is a diplomat, agronomist, writer, and poet from Guinea-Bissau. He was a student of the giants of Portuguese culture, and led the liberation movement in his country until it gained independence after his assassination.

A revolutionary poet and writer who led the national movement of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands. He fought for the homeland with pen and words, and spread enthusiasm among the revolutionaries against the European occupier.

His ideas inspired activists in Africa and all over the world, and he was assassinated by agents of the Portuguese occupier in January 1973.

Birth and upbringing

Amilcar Lopes da Costa Cabral was born on September 12, 1924 in the city of Bafata, Guinea-Bissau, to a Cape Verde father named Juvenal Antonio Lopes da Costa Cabral, and a Guinean mother named Eva Pinel Evora.

His father belonged to a wealthy family that owned a lot of land, while his mother was a store owner and worked in hotels in order to support her family, especially after her separation from her husband in 1929. Her family was not in a good condition, so she was unable to pursue her studies in higher education.

In 1932 Cabral moved with his family to Cape Verde, then to Portugal, and married a Portuguese woman during his stay in Lisbon named Mari Helena Rodriguez.

Known for his sophistication and great strategy, he was a brilliant military man, a skilled diplomat, and a prominent thinker.

Study and formation

Amílcar Cabral finished high school in 1944 before the end of World War II in San Vicente, Cape Verde, and expressed his love for his country through poems, impassioned speeches, and cultural seminars.

He received a scholarship to study at the Agricultural Institute in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, and graduated in 1950. He received a training in agricultural engineering, which gave him great professional opportunities in the colonial apparatus in Portugal, Angola and Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau).

Amilcar Cabral is considered one of the most important African militants who led an armed struggle that put an end to Portuguese colonialism (communication sites)

Jobs and responsibilities

He began working at the National Printing Office in 1944 after high school. After returning to Guinea-Bissau in 1952, he worked in the agricultural and forestry services, and in 1953 he was commissioned to carry out an agricultural survey approved by the government.

During his expulsion from Guinea-Bissau from 1954 to 1958, he worked in agricultural contracting on long assignments in Angola.

resistance experience

He began his anti-colonial activity since returning to his country after completing his studies, as he tried to establish a national political association under the cover of cultural and sports activities in Bissau;

However, the colonial authorities discovered the association, banned it, and expelled Cabral from Guinea in 1954-1955, so he moved to Angola and joined the Angola Liberation Movement (MPLA).

During a secret visit to Ghana, he founded the African Party for Independence (PAIGC) on September 19, 1956, in cooperation with a group of revolutionaries: Aristides Pereira, Luis Cabral, Julio de Almeida, Fernando Fortes, and Elise Turbin, with the aim of liberating Cape Verde. and Guinea-Bissau from Portuguese occupation.

Despite the party's adoption of the strategy of arms, Cabral saw education as an effective mechanism to motivate the African peoples desiring freedom, but he returned and changed his mind after a year of traveling throughout Guinea and its countryside, as he was convinced that independence needed an armed struggle.

In 1960, Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah allowed Cabral to set up camps in Ghana;

To train the guerrilla forces of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.

Cabral attended the Third Conference of African Peoples in Cairo in 1961, and used Lenin's phrases about the urgent need for a "concrete analysis of every concrete situation" to repel colonialism, or to adapt to the reality of each country instead of trying to reproduce a struggle being built in another country against colonialism.

In the same year, he visited the city of Oujda in eastern Morocco and met a number of African, Moroccan and Algerian revolutionary leaders, including: Ahmed Ben Bella, Nelson Mandela, Mohamed Boudiaf, the Angolan poet Agostino Neto, founder of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, and Samora Machel, leader of the liberation war in Mozambique. And the first president of the country.

By 1962, the African Party for Independence participated in carrying out attacks in the form of guerrilla warfare against the Portuguese government, coinciding with the start of the open war on January 23, 1963, to declare after 3 years of struggle its control of more than 60% of the territory of Guinea-Bissau.

Cabral and a delegation from the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) had an audience with Pope Paul VI, to drum up support for the revolution in 1970.

Cabral also delivered a speech during the 163rd session of the United Nations Security Council in 1972, appealing for the dispatch of a fact-finding commission to assess the conflict between Portugal and the PAIGC forces.

After major military victories, Cabral began formal preparations for Guinea's independence in 1972.

Honors

In honor of him and his efforts in the struggle to liberate African countries from Portuguese occupation, his name was given to a group of different facilities and tournaments, including:

Cabral Library in Bologna, Italy since 1974.
Football tournament "Amilcar Cabral Cup".
Amilcar Cabral International Airport in Sal, Cape Verde.
Cabral Secondary School in Segou, Mali.
Amilcar Cabral Technical Secondary School in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Amilcar Cabral Agricultural Secondary School (LAAC) in Brazzaville, Congo.
College Amilcar Cabral Ziguinchor in Senegal.
His name was given to a large number of streets and squares across the continent, and even in Portugal.

Amilcar Cabral (left) with the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro (communication sites)

His writings

Cabral was a poet, writer, and intellectual who wrote a number of books, including:

"Culture and Nationalism".
Anti-colonial texts, which he wrote in collaboration with a group of militant African writers.
His speeches and writings have been widely published, both in Africa and in Europe.

his death

Cabral was assassinated on January 20, 1973, at the headquarters of the African Party in the Guinean city of Conakry, by a party member named Inocencio Kani, in cooperation with Portuguese agents.

Following his liquidation, revolution swept the country, which led to the unilateral declaration of Guinea-Bissau's independence from Portugal.

The liberation movement continued with the leadership of the PAIGC in power in October 1974 after elections that gave the African Party 90% of the vote, so Luis Cabral became the half-brother of Amílcar, the first president of Guinea-Bissau.

Amilcar Cabral is considered one of the most important African militants who led an armed struggle that put an end to Portuguese colonialism in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, and the revolution that it led led to the dismantling of the Portuguese empire in Africa and the collapse of the fascist regime in Lisbon.