National background: Guinea-Bissau — People

Amílcar Cabral

African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) National liberation and anti-colonial movements

1924–1973 ✕ Assassinated

From agronomist to master theorist of African liberation

“Tell no lies. Claim no easy victories.” — party watchword, 1965

Anti-colonial revolutionary of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde and founder of the PAIGC. An agronomist who learned the colony by walking it village by village, he fused armed struggle with cultural liberation into an original strategy against Portuguese rule. Assassinated in 1973 on the eve of the independence he had made inevitable.

Career timeline

1945–1952Agronomy in Lisbon; organizes African nationalist student circles
1952–1954Agricultural census of Portuguese Guinea — learns the country village by village
1956Founds the PAIGC
1963–1973Leads the liberation war; schools and clinics in the freed zones
1966Presented The Weapon of Theory at the first Tricontinental Conference
1973.1Assassinated in Conakry, months before independence