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| AMILCAR CABRAL - Outstanding leader of African Liberation Movement |
Cabral was above all a man of action. Born on September 12, 1924, at Bafata in what was then the Portuguese West African colony of Guinea, he spent part of his youth in Bissau, the capital. He was able because of his family`s relatively comfortable position, to go to secondary school and then to the University of Lisbon, where he qualified as an agricultural engineer in 1951.
His contacts with the Portuguese Communist Party during his student days in Lisbon introduced him to the scientific theory of revolution, of Marxism-Leninism. Whilst eschewing dogma, Cabral continually stressed the need for a firm political and ideological base for a revolutionary: "If it is true that a revolution can fail even though it is based on perfectly conceived theories -- nobody has yet made a successful revolution without a revolutionary theory."
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Returning to his country he served for two years in the colonial administration as an agronomist which provided him with ample opportunity to learn at first hand of the dire poverty and intense suffering of his people, especially in the countryside. His experiences made him more determined than ever to find ways and means of working for the freedom of his country and delivering his people from the yoke of colonial bondage. This inevitably led him into bitter conflicts with the governor of the colony and he transferred himself to Angola.
In 1956, he helped to form the most important national organisation of Angola, the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola). In the same year he also became one of the founders of the African Party of Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands (PAIGC) and was its leader until the time of his assassination.
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| "We are fighting so that insults may no longer rule our countries, martyred and scorned for centuries, so that our peoples may never more be exploited by imperialists not only by people with white skin, because we do not confuse exploitation or exploiters with the colour of men's skins; we do not want any exploitation in our countries, not even by black people." |
Cabral saw the task of the national liberation movements as not merely to usher in Black rule replacing white faces with black ones; it was not only to raise a different flag and sing a new anthem but to remove all forms of exploitation from the country. "Bearing in mind the essential characteristics of the present world economy, as well as experience already gained in the field of anti-imperialist struggle, the principal aspect of national liberation struggle is the struggle against neo-colonialism." Cabral was careful to distinguish the colour of men's skins from exploitation and repeatedly emphasised that the struggle was against Portuguese colonialism and not against the Portuguese people. He made it clear that: "We are fighting so that insults may no longer rule our countries, martyred and scorned for centuries, so that our peoples may never more be exploited by imperialists not only by people with white skin, because we do not confuse exploitation or exploiters with the colour of men's skins; we do not want any exploitation in our countries, not even by black people."
Though the focus of Cabral`s activity was always the struggle against Portuguese colonialism, he was an internationalist and saw his people's struggle as merely one front of a common international struggle against imperialism which "is trying simultaneously to dominate the working class in all advanced countries and smother the national liberation movements in all the under-developed countries."
Socialist allies
The historic role which the socialist community, as an integral and
powerful part of the world anti-imperialist front, played for peace,
independence and socialism was clearly understood and recognised by Cabral. At
a conference held in Dar-es-Salaam in 1965, Cabral had said: "It is our duty to state here, loud and clear, that we have firm
allies in the socialist countries ... Since the socialist revolution and the
events of the Second World War, the face of the world has definitely changed. A
socialist camp has arisen in the world. This has radically changed the balance
of power, and this socialist camp is today showing itself fully conscious of
its duties, international and historic, but not moral, since the peoples of the
socialist countries have never exploited the colonised peoples."
He had very close association with the Soviet Union, which he visited on many occasions and made a major contribution to the promotion and strengthening of friendship and cooperation between the peoples of Guinea-Bissau and the Soviet Union, between the PAIGC and the CPSU. Speaking as the head of the PAIGC delegation at the Joint Meeting in the Kremlin dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the USSR, Cabral said:
"Availing ourselves of this opportunity we want to express on
behalf of our people fraternal gratitude to the Soviet people, the CPSU, its
Central Committee for the versatile assistance you render us in our bitter
struggle against the Portuguese colonialists, against the war and genocide, for
independence, peace and progress of our African Motherland."
Assassination
Amilcar Cabral's live was cut short by the Portuguese who wanted to derail the revolutionary movement that would have seen Guinea rapidly develop. The assassin's bullets struck down this great African leader just as preparations were going ahead for the convening of the National Assembly in the early part of 1973 for the adoption of the Constitution and the official declaration of the new independent sovereign State of Guinea. Cabral the Secretary-General of the PAIGC, met his death on 20th January 1973 at Conakry, Guinea, at the hands of a traitor, Innocenta Canida, a Guinean agent of the Portuguese colonialists, who had infiltrated into the ranks of the movement three years earlier.
According to African Communist "This foul deed was engineered by the Portuguese colonialists with the nefarious aim of sowing confusion and disruption among the ranks of the PAIGC and of causing disunity among the national liberation movements of Southern Africa.
"It shows that the evil triumvirate of Caetano, Smith and Vorster will
stop at nothing to stem the irresistible advances of the courageous and steeled
guerrillas and brave freedom fighters of Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique,
Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa in their noble struggle to free the whole of
southern Africa from national, racial and social oppression."
By the death of Amilcar Cabral, Africa has lost one of her great revolutionary leaders. Similar faith was met by another African Revolutionary, Thomas Sankara couple of years later.
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