Thread by @ThisIsAfricaTIA

On this day, in 1973, one of Africa's greatest minds & revolutionary, Amilcar Cabral was assassinated in Conakry, Guinea just a year before independence. Cabral was 48 years old & was described by Fidel Castro as "one of the most lucid & brilliant leaders in Africa."
Thread!!

The treasure of minds Africa lost in the fight against colonialism can't be quantified. Of all the evils of colonialism, one of the least talked about evils is the death of brilliant minds snatched by greedy Western powers bent on exploitation of resources, both human & mineral.

In Anglophone Africa, brilliant minds like Tom Mboya were lost, in Francophone Africa, Patrice Lumumba's assassination shook the continent, and in Lusophone Africa, where the Portuguese managed to stamp their presence, the assassination of Amilcar Lopes da Costa Cabral was heavy.

These leaders dealt on the practical. On how to give their people the life they wanted. Most importantly, these leaders were highly self aware of their African heritage, and also very aware of the tactics and mindset of the white colonialists. For the likes of Lumumba, Sankara,

and Amilcar Cabral, their sole duty was to their people. Cabral had gone to Lisbon, Portugal to study agronomy. On coming back to Guinea, still under Portuguese rule, he worked with the government as an agricultural engineer when he returned in1950. His job enabled him travel

alot within Guinea. He saw the living conditions of his people first-hand. From 1952-1954, Cabral had gone throughout Guinea and had made the people, giving him a deep insight into the conditions and life the ordinary man lived. In 1956, he founded the African Party for the

Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC). The PAIGC would become a guerrilla movement that would eventually bring independence to Guinea. For Cabral, Guinea's revolution and solutions had to be based on Guinea's problems and peculiarities. Cabral didn't bring unnecessary

theories that wouldn't benefit his people. He wrote, "Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future

of their children."
His practicality extended to his soldiers that were part of the struggle. He taught them modern agricultural methods of farming that would give better yields, & in turn the soldiers taught the villagers these techniques, thus winning over the villagers to the

struggle. Cabral started by organising strikes in Conakry. In August 1959, during the Bissao dock workers' and merchant seamen's strike, in just 20 minutes the Portuguese shot to death 50 African workers and wounded more than 100 on the Pijiguiti docks. It was after this incident

that Cabral and the Party decided to start mobilising for armed struggle against the Portuguese colonialist forces. Unlike other African countries that fought for their independence from outside, Guinea fought for its independence from the centre of the country, an action that

threw off the Portuguese. "In our struggle, we established our principles after having become thoroughly familiar with our country's conditions. For instance, we decided that we should never struggle from outside and would begin the struggle within the country, for which reason

we never had armed forces outside our own country. And, for the same reason, in 1963 we started the armed struggle in the centre of the country," Cabral said.
The Portuguese tried to explore how they could divide the people of Guinea by exploiting tribal contradictions, racism on

the basis of lighter & darker skinned people, & also the use of chiefs. These methods didn't yield any results. Eventually the Portuguese resorted to colonial war. Cabral said, "Against us, they used the most modern weapons given them by their allies, the US, Germany, Belgium,

Italy, France, etc. They used every kind of bomb save the nuclear ones. In particular, they have used napalm bombs against us since the beginning of the war. They also used armoured cars. They used B-26, T-6, and P-2V planes and fighter jets-Fiat 82s, Fiat 9ls, and Sabres

supplied by Canada through Federal Germany, etc. None of it worked. Lately they have been using armed helicopters for combined operations with the Navy & Infantry. We are sure that they will not work, either."
Despite the support the Portuguese received from other Western powers

nothing worked against the Guineans. The colonisation of Africa was a collective effort by Western powers. The support of Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah to the armed struggle of Guinea played a huge role to Guinea's liberation struggle. Amilcar Cabral's genius in the guerrilla war left

the Portuguese with so many casualties. At Como, the Portuguese lost 900 soldiers. Cabral said, "we are convinced that, whatever the number of Portuguese who come, the larger the number, the worse it will he for them; we are determined to inflict upon them ever greater defeats."

At this time Portugal was led by Antonio Oliveira Salazar. Salazar totally rejected decolonisation. At this time Portugal was colonising Angola as well as Mozambique. This was a moment when many other African countries were gaining independence & also experiencing coups.

Portugal, being part of NATO easily had access to weapons. Guinea on the other hand had to find a way of getting weapons. In 1964, when Che Guevara came to Africa, he met with Cabral. A year later, Fidel Castro sent material support to PAIGC & Cabral sealed his place in Havana at

the Tricontinental Conference, held in January 1966. For Cabral, teachers, doctors & the whole population had to be won over to the struggle. Cabral's guerrilla warfare was not just militarily, it was also highly political. And in all these, he made sure there were no traitors.

It's partly why Cabral declared as regarding Congo, "That is why we of the CONCP proclaim loud and clear that we are against Tshombe, against all the Tshombes of Africa." Cabral, like Steve Biko understood that the black people could easily replace the white people whom they were

fighting. Cabral was well aware that neo-colonialism had taken foot in many African countries. "let us prepare ourselves too, each day, & be vigilant, so as not to allow a new form of colonialism to be established in our countries, so as not to allow in our countries any form of

imperialism, so as not to allow neocolonialism, already a cancerous growth in certain parts of Africa and of the world, to reach our own countries."
How did Cabral fight a guerrilla war against the Portuguese in a country like Guinea that has no mountains? Guerrilla forces make

use of mountains in the beginning of armed struggles. Cabral said, "we had to convert our people themselves into the mountains needed for the fight in our country,& we had to take full advantage of the jungles & swamps in our country to create difficult conditions for the enemy."

Cabral was never a Marxist although he drew heavily from Marxism. As far as he was concerned, "Portugal came to our countries proclaiming it came in the service of God and in the service of civilisation. Today we reply with arms in our hands: whichever God is with the Portuguese

colonialists, whichever civilisation the Portuguese colonialists represent, we are going to destroy them because we are going to destroy every sort of foreign domination in our countries." And the fighters of the PAIGC destroyed tankers and brought down planes by the Portuguese.

For many Africans, the narrative of an African country defeating an European country that came to colonise it is hardly told. And the story of Guinea-Bissau is one of such stories where a revolutionary thinker outsmarted the colonialists. Cabral lamented on the lack of help from

fellow African countries. "Africa assists us, yes. There are some African countries which assist us as much as they can, directly, bilaterally. But in our opinion Africa does not assist us enough." While one can point out a historical trend of lack of solidarity between African

countries, it gives a deeper perspective into the failures of the AU to handle conflict in different African countries. Cabral's words though not meditated upon as Mandela's demand to be heard. He speaks from a deep knowledge, "We are African peoples, we have not invented many

things, we do not possess today the special weapons which others possess, we have no big factories, we don't even have for our children the toys which other children have, but we do have our own hearts, our own heads, our own history. It is this history which the colonialists

have taken from us. The colonialists usually say that it was they who brought us into history: today we show that this is not so. They made us leave history, our history, to follow them, right at the back, to follow the progress of their history. Today, in taking up arms to

liberate ourselves, in following the example of other peoples who have taken up arms to liberate themselves, we want to return to our history, on our own feet, by our own means and through our own sacrifices."
The likes of Cabral understood the heartbeat of the people.

Beyond that, Cabral understood his times. And we end this thread in his words, "Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories . ."
Aluta continua, Victoria Ascerta
✊🏾

NB
Cabral led the armed struggle against Portugal from 1963 to 1973.

He was shot by a "disgruntled former PAIGC rival Inocêncio Kani."

Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Angola all had armed struggle against the Portuguese.

Amilcar Cabral is ranked alongside Frantz Fanon.