The armed struggle against Portuguese colonial rule in Guinea-Bissau was led by the PAIGC. The moving spirit in the foundation of the PAIGC in 1954 was Amilcar Cabral, a Cape Verde agronomist who in the previous two years had travelled throughout Guinea preparing an agricultural census for the colonial administration. His work had given Cabral detailed knowledge of the condition of the mass of the people, who were exploited not by being deprived of land in a country unsuitable for white settlement but by the price mechanism - low prices for their cash crops and high prices for imported consumer goods.

The PAIGC carried out initial work, from 1956, among the small urban working class and the petit bourgeoisie of traders and primary schoolteachers. After Guinea's independence in 1958 the party moved its headquarters to Conakry where it received considerable assistance from President Sekou Toure. In I960 it decided on armed resistance, but first undertook three years' careful planning and preparation: training guerillas in Guinea with Soviet and Chinese weapons, educating its men in Marxist politics and economics, and preparing bases among the peasants inside Guinea. In 1963 the PAIGC started the liberation war by opening up fronts in the north and the south.

So far the PAIGC has proved to be the most successful politico-guerilla movement in twentieth-century Africa. In 1969 the party's soldiers captured large Portuguese bases for the first time, as distinct from taking isolated outposts.

By 1970 the PAIGC controlled two thirds of Guinea and half its population. In May 1973 the PAIGC occupied Guiledje, abandoned by the Portuguese after a long siege and the ambush of supply convoys. On 24 September 1973 the PAIGC declared Guinea's independence as the Portuguese held on only to small pockets of the country, including Bissau, the capital. Guinea's self-declared independence was recognized by many African and socialist countries. The Lisbon revolution made little difference; but in September 197-i Portugal formally handed over Guinea and Cape Verde to-'the PAIGC.

What were the factors that made this remarkable guerilla victory possible? The mangrove swamps of the coastal belt and the rain forest of the interior are natural terrain for guerilla warfare. The guerillas had safe bases in Guinea and were well armed by the communists. Czech and Soviet anti-aircraft guns were used with effect against the Fiat Jet fighter-bombers of the Portuguese. The Portuguese forces, though as many as 30 000 troops, included reluctant African conscripts recruited with the aid of colonial chiefs. The guerillas could recruit freely from the scores of thousands of refugees in Guinea and Senegal.

The three-tiered military organization of the PAIGC enabled it both to fight a war and to administer liberated zones. The first tier was a militia of two thousand or more local peasants, to carry out minor military operations and defence against Portuguese counter-measures.

The second tier was a regular guerilla force of two to three thousand soldier-farmers who reinforced the militia or fought in major campaigns when necessary. The third tier was a regular full-time army of four to five thousand men whose task was to dislodge Portuguese troops. Another factor which made for victory was the success of efforts to transcend ethnicism.

The guerilla forces were put under the command of ethnically diverse officers- A problem arose in 1964 when the Balante people of the south who in 1963 had liberated part of their region were asked by the party to go to the cast and open up a new front among the Fula. The Balante-speaking guerillas were reluctant to help liberate their traditional enemies the Fula. The result was as the PAIGC leadership had predicted: the Portuguese were able to concentrate their attacks on the southern-held zones. This time two thousand Balante fighters volunteered to go and help to liberate the Fula, because they had learned that their own liberation required the liberation of others.

Finally, the way the liberated zones were organized played a major role in the victory. The liberated area? were largely self-sufficient in food and provided food for guerillas. Cash crops like rice, coconuts and rubber and also leather were smuggled out of the country for foreign exchange. There was a tremendous expansion of educational and medical facilities in the freed zones. As early as December 1968, 127 primary schools had been started, compared with 50 in the whole country before the war began. Several hospitals were set up, notably the one at Boe. These reforms bound the people to the revolution.

The people were made to feel it was their revolution in another way; the PAIGC's political strategy emphasized democratic centralism plus local self-reliance and its tactics stressed the training of lower-level officials and preparing people for the tasks of self-government. The incorporation of women in the administration and the army also helped to destroy the negative aspects of traditionalism and to create the new values of a socialist society.

 

LUIZ CABRAL, replaced his brother Amilcar Cabral. He was toppled by Bernado Veira

Early in 1973 Amilcar Cabral was assassinated in Conakry by Portuguese-sponsored infiltrators of the PAIGC. His murder failed to affect the course of the Guinean revolution, because Cabral had ensured that the PAIGC was routed not in personalities but in a nationwide system of popularly elected local assemblies had a central committee that was responsive to these assemblies.