Republics of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde

Abstract

The republics of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde belong, politically, to the revolutionary trend that has been sweeping Africa in recent times. They were formed and are governed by the same integrated party or liberation movement, the Partido Africano de Independencia de Guine e Cabo Verde (PAIGC), whose leaders, while rejecting all doctrinal labels, whether Marxist or otherwise, have generally adhered to the principles of a Marxist analysis of history and society. If they may be said, notably in the thought and practice of their most outstanding leader, Amilcar Cabral, to have ‘naturalised’ this analysis to their own specific conditions and problems, they have also carried its approach and conclusions into original policies of form and content. Their claim is to have sought and found the social and cultural basis of reality, of local and indigenous reality, for programmes of unity and development capable of representing the collective interests of their populations. These are predominantly rural, although in thinking of the Cape Verdians one needs to bear in mind that the number of long-term Cape Verdian emigrants in urban situations abroad is not much smaller than the total population of the islands, and that links between emigrants and indigenes often remain close and even continuous.¹