Amílcar Cabral
Encyclopedia
Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral (ɐˈmilkaɾ ˈlɔpɨʃ kɐˈbɾal; 12 September 1924 – ) was a Guinea-Bissauan and Cape Verdean
agricultural engineer
, writer
, and a nationalist thinker
and politician
. Also known by his 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 8 months before Guinea-Bissau's unilateral declaration of independence.
, Portuguese Guinea
, to Cape Verdean parents, Juvenal Lopes da Costa Cabral and Iva Pinhel Évora. Cabral was educated at Licéu (Secondary School) Gil Eanes in the town of Mindelo, Cape Verde, and later at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia
, in Lisbon
(the capital of Portugal
, which was then the colonial power ruling over Portuguese Guinea
and Cape Verde
). While an Agronomy student in Lisbon, he founded student movements dedicated to the cause of liberation of the Portuguese colonies in Africa.
He returned to Africa in the 1950s, and was instrumental in promoting the independence causes of the then Portuguese colonies. He was the founder (in 1956) of the PAIGC or (Portuguese
for African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) and one of the founders of Movimento Popular Libertação de Angola (MPLA) (later in the same year), together with Agostinho Neto
, whom he met in Portugal, and Angolan nationalists.
) against the Portuguese colonialists, which evolved into one of most successful war of independence in African history. The goal of the conflict was to attain independence for both Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde
. Over the course of the conflict, as the movement captured territory from the Portuguese, Cabral became the de facto leader of a large portion of what became Guinea-Bissau.
In preparation for the liberation war, Cabral set up training camps in neighboring Ghana
with the permission of Kwame Nkrumah
. Cabral trained his lieutenants through various techniques, including mock conversations to provide them with effective communication skills that would aid their efforts to mobilize Guinean tribal chiefs to support the PAIGC.
Amílcar cabral soon realized that the war effort could be sustained only if his troops could be fed and taught to live off the land alongside the larger populace. Being an agronomist, he taught his troops to teach local crop growers better farming techniques, so that they could increase productivity and be able to feed their own family and tribe, as well as the soldiers enlisted in the PAIGC's military wing. When not fighting, PAIGC soldiers would till and plow the fields alongside the local population.
Cabral and the PAIGC also set up a trade-and-barter bazaar system that moved around the country and made staple goods available to the countryside at prices lower than that of colonial store owners. During the war, Cabral also set up a roving hospital and triage station to give medical care to wounded PAIGC's soldiers and quality-of-life care to the larger populace, relying on medical supplies garnered from the USSR
and Sweden
. The bazaars and triage stations were at first stationary until they came under frequent attack from Portuguese forces.
In 1972, Cabral began to form a People's Assembly in preparation for the birth of an independent African nation, but disgruntled former rival Inocêncio Kani, with the help of Portuguese agents operating within the PAIGC, shot and killed him before he could complete his project. The Portuguese colonialists' initial plan, which eventually went awry, was to enjoin the help of this former rival to arrest Amílcar Cabral and place him under the custody of Portuguese authorities. The assassination took place on 20 January 1973 in Conakry
, Guinea
. His half-brother, Luís Cabral
, became the leader of the Guinea-Bissau branch of the party and would eventually become President of Guinea-Bissau.
More than a guerrilla leader, Cabral was highly regarded internationally as one of the most prominent African thinkers of the 20th century and for his intellectual contributions aimed at formulating a coherent cultural, philosophical and historical theoretical framework to justify and explain independence movements. This is reflected in his various writings and public interventions.
and Che Guevara
", whose influence reverberated far beyond the African continent. Amílcar Cabral International Airport
, Cape Verde's principal international airport at Sal
, is named in his honor. There is also a football competition, the Amílcar Cabral Cup
, in zone 2, named as a tribute to him.
In addition, the only privately owned university in Guinea-Bissau is named after him—Amílcar Cabral University—and is in Bissau. Jorge Peixinho
composed an elegy
to Cabral in 1973.
Cape Verdean
Cape Verdean may refer to:* Something of, from, or related to the country of Cape Verde* A person from Cape Verde, or of Cape Verdean descent. For information about the Cape Verdean people, see Demographics of Cape Verde and Culture of Cape Verde. For specific persons, see List of Cape Verdeans.*...
agricultural engineer
Agronomist
An agronomist is a scientist who specializes in agronomy, which is the science of utilizing plants for food, fuel, feed, and fiber. An agronomist is an expert in agricultural and allied sciences, with the exception veterinary sciences.Agronomists deal with interactions between plants, soils, and...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, and a nationalist thinker
Thinker
Thinker may refer to:*Intellectual, one who tries to use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas...
and politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
. Also known by his nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....
and Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing war of independence in Guinea-Bissau. He was assassinated on 20 January 1973, about 8 months before Guinea-Bissau's unilateral declaration of independence.
Early years
He was born on September 12, 1924 in BafatáBafatá
Bafatá is a town in central Guinea-Bissau, known as the birthplace of Amílcar Cabral. The town has a population of 22,501 .It lies in an area known for its wildlife, including monkeys. Bafatá’s main industry is brickmaking. It is the capital of Bafatá Region as well as the seat of the Roman...
, Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea was the name for what is today Guinea-Bissau from 1446 to September 10, 1974.-History:...
, to Cape Verdean parents, Juvenal Lopes da Costa Cabral and Iva Pinhel Évora. Cabral was educated at Licéu (Secondary School) Gil Eanes in the town of Mindelo, Cape Verde, and later at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia
Instituto Superior de Agronomia
Instituto Superior de Agronomia , School of Agronomy - Technical University of Lisbon, is a national and international renowned faculty of excellence for graduation and post-graduation studies in Agronomy, Forestry, Food Science, Landscape Architecture, Environment, Animal Production, Plant...
, in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
(the capital of Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, which was then the colonial power ruling over Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea was the name for what is today Guinea-Bissau from 1446 to September 10, 1974.-History:...
and Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
). While an Agronomy student in Lisbon, he founded student movements dedicated to the cause of liberation of the Portuguese colonies in Africa.
He returned to Africa in the 1950s, and was instrumental in promoting the independence causes of the then Portuguese colonies. He was the founder (in 1956) of the PAIGC or (Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
for African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) and one of the founders of Movimento Popular Libertação de Angola (MPLA) (later in the same year), together with Agostinho Neto
Agostinho Neto
António Agostinho Neto served as the first President of Angola , leading the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola in the war for independence and the civil war...
, whom he met in Portugal, and Angolan nationalists.
War for independence
From 1963 to his assassination in 1973, Cabral led the PAIGC's guerrilla movement (in Portuguese GuineaPortuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea was the name for what is today Guinea-Bissau from 1446 to September 10, 1974.-History:...
) against the Portuguese colonialists, which evolved into one of most successful war of independence in African history. The goal of the conflict was to attain independence for both Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
. Over the course of the conflict, as the movement captured territory from the Portuguese, Cabral became the de facto leader of a large portion of what became Guinea-Bissau.
In preparation for the liberation war, Cabral set up training camps in neighboring Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
with the permission of Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana...
. Cabral trained his lieutenants through various techniques, including mock conversations to provide them with effective communication skills that would aid their efforts to mobilize Guinean tribal chiefs to support the PAIGC.
Amílcar cabral soon realized that the war effort could be sustained only if his troops could be fed and taught to live off the land alongside the larger populace. Being an agronomist, he taught his troops to teach local crop growers better farming techniques, so that they could increase productivity and be able to feed their own family and tribe, as well as the soldiers enlisted in the PAIGC's military wing. When not fighting, PAIGC soldiers would till and plow the fields alongside the local population.
Cabral and the PAIGC also set up a trade-and-barter bazaar system that moved around the country and made staple goods available to the countryside at prices lower than that of colonial store owners. During the war, Cabral also set up a roving hospital and triage station to give medical care to wounded PAIGC's soldiers and quality-of-life care to the larger populace, relying on medical supplies garnered from the USSR
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. The bazaars and triage stations were at first stationary until they came under frequent attack from Portuguese forces.
In 1972, Cabral began to form a People's Assembly in preparation for the birth of an independent African nation, but disgruntled former rival Inocêncio Kani, with the help of Portuguese agents operating within the PAIGC, shot and killed him before he could complete his project. The Portuguese colonialists' initial plan, which eventually went awry, was to enjoin the help of this former rival to arrest Amílcar Cabral and place him under the custody of Portuguese authorities. The assassination took place on 20 January 1973 in Conakry
Conakry
Conakry is the capital and largest city of Guinea. Conakry is a port city on the Atlantic Ocean and serves as the economic, financial and cultural centre of Guinea with a 2009 population of 1,548,500...
, Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
. His half-brother, Luís Cabral
Luís Cabral
Luís Severino de Almeida Cabral was the first President of Guinea-Bissau. He served from 1974 to 1980, when a military coup d'état led by João Bernardo "Nino" Vieira deposed him...
, became the leader of the Guinea-Bissau branch of the party and would eventually become President of Guinea-Bissau.
More than a guerrilla leader, Cabral was highly regarded internationally as one of the most prominent African thinkers of the 20th century and for his intellectual contributions aimed at formulating a coherent cultural, philosophical and historical theoretical framework to justify and explain independence movements. This is reflected in his various writings and public interventions.
Tributes
Cabral is considered a "revolutionary theoretician as significant as Frantz FanonFrantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon was a Martiniquo-Algerian psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer whose work is influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism...
and Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
", whose influence reverberated far beyond the African continent. Amílcar Cabral International Airport
Amilcar Cabral International Airport
Amílcar Cabral International Airport , also known as Sal International Airport or Amílcar Cabral Airport, is the principal international airport of Cape Verde. The airport is named after the revolutionary leader Amílcar Cabral....
, Cape Verde's principal international airport at Sal
Sal, Cape Verde
Sal is an island in Cape Verde. It belongs to the northern group of islands, called Barlavento. The island is composed by a single administrative division, the Sal municipality. The island is home to Amílcar Cabral International Airport, the main airport of Cape Verde.- Geography :The island is...
, is named in his honor. There is also a football competition, the Amílcar Cabral Cup
Amilcar Cabral Cup
The Amílcar Cabral Cup is an international football tournament for Western African nations. The competition originally was scheduled on an annual basis, it has since been scheduled on a bi-annual basis.-Participant Nations:...
, in zone 2, named as a tribute to him.
In addition, the only privately owned university in Guinea-Bissau is named after him—Amílcar Cabral University—and is in Bissau. Jorge Peixinho
Jorge Peixinho
Jorge Peixinho was a Portuguese composer, pianist, and conductor.Peixinho studied composition and piano initially at the Conservatory of Lisbon , then studied composition with Boris Porena and Goffredo Petrassi at the Accademia de Santa Cecilia in Rome, graduating in 1961...
composed an elegy
Elegy
In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...
to Cabral in 1973.
Further reading
- Bienen, Henry. "State and Revolution: The Work of Amilcar Cabral", Journal of Modern African Studies, 15 (4): 555–568 (1977).
- Chabal, Patrick. Amilcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People's War. New York and Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University PressCambridge University PressCambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, 1983. ISBN 0-521-24944-9. - Chailand, Gérard. Armed Struggle in Africa: With the Guerrillas in "Portuguese" Guinea. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969. ISBN 0-85345-106-0.
- Dhada, Mustafah. Warriors at Work. Niwot, Colorado, USA: Colorado University Press, 1993.
- McCollester, Charles. "The Political Thought of Amilcar Cabral." Monthly ReviewMonthly ReviewMonthly Review is an independent Marxist journal published 11 times per year in New York City.-History:The publication was founded by Harvard University economics instructor Paul Sweezy, who became the first editor...
, 24: 10–21 (March 1973). - Sigal, Brad. Amilcar Cabral and the Revolution in Guinea-Bissau City College of New York
Films
- Cabral's political thought and role in the liberation of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde is discussed at some length in Chris Marker'sChris MarkerChris Marker is a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are La jetée , A Grin Without a Cat , Sans Soleil and AK , an essay film on the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa...
film, Sans SoleilSans SoleilSans Soleil is a 1983 French film directed by Chris Marker. The title is from the song cycle Sunless by Modest Mussorgsky...
. He is also the subject of a Portuguese documentary released in 2000.
External links
- "The Weapon of Theory", a speech at the Tricontinental Conference in Havana, 1966
- Encyclopaedia Britannica Amilcar Cabral
- "National Liberation and Culture", a speech at Syracuse University in 1970
- The African Activist Archive Project website has documents, posters, buttons, and photographs related to the struggle for independence in Guinea-Bissau and support for that struggle by U.S. organizations. The website includes photographs of Cabral.