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Amilcar Cabral Assasinated

By VVAW

(On Jan. 20th, Amilcar Cabral, Secretary General of the African Party for Guinea and Cape Verde, was fatally shot by Portuguese agents near his home in Conakry, Guinea. The party, more commonly known as the PAIGC, is the organization leading the struggle for independence in Guinea-Bissau, much the same as the NLF has in Vietnam.)

As veterans of the war in Indochina, we often lose sight of the fact that Vietnam is not the only country fighting for its independence. Guinea-Bissau is another such nation. It is a small country on the west coast of Africa with a population of about one million people, mostly small farmers. Along with Portugal's other colonies in Africa - Mozambique and Angola - Guinea-Bissau has been fighting for over 500 years to free itself from Portuguese rule. Just as the American people fought 200 years ago for their independence from the British, and just as the Vietnamese people are fighting to free themselves from foreign domination, so the people of Guinea-Bissau are trying to win independence from Portugal. The struggle for liberation and self-determination that the peoples of Vietnam, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Angola are undergoing is truly universal in nature. Amilcar Cabral was the leader of those forces in Guinea-Bissau that were, are, fighting for liberation. In many respects he stands in the same relationship with his people as Ho Chi Minh does with the Vietnamese.

Amilcar Cabral helped found the PAIGC in 1956. It initially tried to gain independence through peaceful means but was met with violence and brutal suppression. During the years of Portuguese rule, no national health care programs had been set up, and nothing had been done in terms of public education. Portuguese economic policies ensured that starvation, disease and illiteracy would be the constant companions of the people of Guinea-Bissau. When, in 1959, a peaceful workers' strike was put down by the Portuguese, killing some 50 workers and wounding 100 more, PAIGC began armed struggle shortly thereafter. Today PAIGC controls over two-thirds of the land of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. In April 1972, an official UN observer team visited the liberation zones of the country and testified not only to the military and economic control of the PAIGC, but also to the outstanding development of social institutions such as health care and education. Under the Portuguese, 99% of the people were illiterate and three out of five infants would die of disease. For the entire population there were only 11 physicians available. Today, illiteracy is rapidly disappearing altogether in the liberated zones. Diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis are rapidly being eradicated by the medical programs of PAIGC, while infant mortality has been drastically reduced. The people of Guinea-Bissau, under PAIGC, elected their first National Assembly in April 1972, and plan on declaring full independence in 1973.

Amilcar Cabral was recognized throughout the world as one of the outstanding leaders of Africa today. In an unprecedented move, he was invited to speak before the United Nations as a spokesman for all African nationalist movements. His death is a great loss to Africa and freedom-loving people around the world. His murder is, however, a testimony to the desperation and impending defeat of the Portuguese. As great a loss as Cabral's death is, the will and determination of his people to be free will only be strengthened by it. In 1969, Eduardo Mondlane, the leader of the liberation front for Mozambique, FRELIMO, was assassinated by a bomb the Portuguese had placed in a book sent to him. Given the ever increasing success that FRELIMO has had since then, the Portuguese should have learned their lesson: Killing Cabral would not bring them victory just as the killing of Mondlane did not bring them victory! The love for freedom lives in all people and cannot be killed by one person's death. The people of Guinea-Bissau, like the people of Vietnam, will inevitably win! They will be free!

A LUTA CONTINUA! THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!!