Amílcar Cabral

He was born in Bafatá, in Guinea, in 1924, and went to Cape Verde as a child, where he went to school. In 1945, on a scholarship, he entered the Higher Institute of Agronomy in Lisbon, where he came into contact with anti-fascist groups; at the House of the Students of the Empire he met Mário Pinto de Andrade, Agostinho Neto and Marcelino dos Santos.¹

He was a member of the House’s Cape Verde section. In a letter of 1948 he wrote that he had been at a general meeting “until 2 in the morning”, arguing for the purchase of a house on the outskirts of Lisbon.³ According to the testimony of António Tomás Medeiros, he was one of the leaders of the Centre for African Studies, which in 1951 was set up on Rua Actor Vale.⁴ He returned to Bissau in 1952.⁵

In 1956 he founded, with others, the African Party for Independence, which in 1960 was renamed the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC).⁶ Of the manifesto of the Anti-Colonialist Movement, launched in 1957 by nationalists from the colonies who were studying in Europe, he said that it was “the preface to our struggle”.² He was assassinated in Conakry on 20 January 1973, by two members of his own party.¹³