Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral (Portuguese: [ɐˈmilkaɾ ˈlɔpɨʃ kɐˈbɾal]; 12 September 1924 – 20 January 1973) was a Bissau-Guinean and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, intellectual, poet, theoretician, revolutionary, political organizer, nationalist and diplomat. He was one of Africa's foremost anti-colonial leaders.
Also known by the nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing war of independence in Guinea-Bissau. He was assassinated on 20 January 1973, about eight months before Guinea-Bissau's unilateral declaration of independence. He was deeply influenced by Marxism, and became an inspiration to revolutionary socialists and national independence movements worldwide.
History[]
Son of Cape Verdean Juvenal Lopes Cabral and Bissau-Guinean Iva Pinhel Évora , at the age of eight, his family moved to Cape Verde , settling in Santa Catarina ( Santiago Island) ), which became the city of his childhood, where he completed primary education. Then she moved her brothers to Mindelo , São Vicente, with her mother , where she finished her high school course in 1943 . As pointed out by Patrícia Villen , his adolescence refers to a period of intense drought and hunger on the island, in the 1940s, for example, this crisis caused the death of 50 thousand people, in addition to the mass immigration of Cape Verdeans. The following year, he moved to the city of Praia , on the island of Santiago , and started working in the National Press, but only for one year because, having obtained a scholarship, in 1945 he joined the Instituto Superior de Agronomia , in Lisbon . The only black student in his class, Cabral soon gets involved in meetings of anti-fascist groups and, alongside other students from Africa, such as Mário de Andrade , Agostinho Netoand Marcelino dos Santos "knows cultural vectors of the reafricanization of the spirits of the blackness movement directed by Léopold Sédar Senghor". After graduating in 1950, he worked for two years at Estação Agronómica de Santarém .
Hired by the Ministry of Overseas as an adjunct to Guinea's Agricultural and Forestry Services , he returned to Bissau in 1952 . He started his work at the experimental farm in Pessube, covering a large part of the country, from door to door, during the Agricultural Census of 1953, acquiring a deep knowledge of the current social reality. His political activities, such as the creation of the first Guinea Sports, Recreational and Cultural Association, open to both the "assimilated" and the indigenous, reserve him the antipathy of the colony's Governor , Melo e Alvim , which forces him to emigrate to Angola . In that country, it joins the MPLA .
IN 1955 Cabral participates in the Bandung Conference and learns about the Afro-Asian issue. In 1959, together with Aristides Pereira , his brother Luís Cabral , Fernando Fortes, Júlio de Almeida and Elisée Turpin, he founded the clandestine African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC). On August 3, 1959, the party participated in the workers' strike at the port of Pidjiguiti , which was strongly repressed by the colonial government, resulting in the death of 50 demonstrators and the wounding of hundreds more. Four years later, the PAIGC emerges from hiding by establishing a delegation in the city of Conakry, capital of the Republic of Guinea-Cronacri. In 23 of January of 1963 begins the armed struggle against the metropolis colonial , with the attack on the barracks of Tite, in southern Guinea-Bissau , from bases in Guinea.
In 1970 , Amílcar Cabral, accompanied by Agostinho Neto and Marcelino dos Santos , was received by Pope Paul VI in a private audience. On November 21 of the same year, the Portuguese Governor of Guinea-Bissau ordered the start of Operation Mar Verde , with the purpose of capturing or even eliminating the PAIGC leaders , who were then stationed in Conakry . The operation was unsuccessful.
In 20 of January of 1973 , Amilcar Cabral was assassinated in Conakry , two members of his own party. Amílcar Cabral had prophesied his end by stating: "If anyone is going to hurt me, it is he who is here among us. No one else can ruin the PAIGC, only us." Aristides Pereira, replaced him at the head of PAIGC . After Cabral's death, armed struggle intensified and Guinea-Bissau 's independence was unilaterally proclaimed on September 24 , 1973 . His half brother, Luís de Almeida Cabral , is named the country's first president.