In January 1966, in Havana, the first Tricontinental Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America took place. On that day, Amilcar Cabral gave a speech "The Weapon of Theory." We'll bring you some quotes from that speech, filled with brilliance. 
An African saying very common in our country says: “When your house is burning, it’s no use beating the tom-toms.” On a Tricontinental level, this means that we are not going to eliminate imperialism by shouting insults against it. For us, the best or worst shout against
imperialism, whatever its form, is to take up arms and fight. This is what we are doing, and this is what we will go on doing until all foreign domination of our African homelands has been totally eliminated.
This is what we are doing, and this is what we will go on doing until all foreign domination of our African homelands has been totally eliminated.
When the African peoples say in their simple language that “no matter how hot the water from your well, it will not cook your rice,” they express with singular simplicity a fundamental principle, not only of physics, but also of political science.
however great the similarity between our various cases and however identical our enemies, national liberation and social revolution are not exportable commodities; they are, and increasingly so every day, the outcome of local and national elaboration, more or less influenced by
external factors(be they favorable or unfavorable)but essentially determined & formed by the historical reality of each people, and carried to success by the overcoming or correct solution of the internal contradictions between the various categories characterising this reality.
Both in colonialism and in neo-colonialism the essential characteristic of imperialist domination remains the same: the negation of the historical process of the dominated people by means of violent usurpation of the freedom of development of the national productive forces.
National liberation exists only when the national productive forces have been completely freed from every kind of foreign domination.
Our wish is that every national liberation movement represented here may be able to repeat in its own country, arms in hand, in unison with its people, the already legendary cry of Cuba:
Patria O Muerte, Venceremos!
Death to the Forces of Imperialism!
Patria O Muerte, Venceremos!
Death to the Forces of Imperialism!
Amilcar Cabral led Guinea to victory by defeating the Portuguese in a guerrilla armed struggle. He was one of the greatest revolutionaries the continent ever produced.
