Amilcar Cabral: a brief bio

Though his parents were from Cape Verde, Amilcar Cabral was born in Guinea. He was sent to Cape Verde for schooling. Living in rural Santa Catarina exposed him to discrepancies between the big landowners and the tenant farmers who worked the land. It is in this setting that he gained his sensitivity. In 1945, he went to Lisbon to study Agronomy. There he made contact with other students from Portugal colonies. His thesis was on soil erosion in Alentejo dedicated to the tenant farmers of rural Guinea. He returned to Guinea after his studies and was employed in the country’s agricultural bureau. He immediately got to work making people aware of the exploitation of the big landowners. It is while working at this job that he conducts a agricultural census that would allow him to travel Guinea-Bissau extensively, thereby gaining information of the land and its people that will come in handy in his coming struggle for liberation. Word got to the government and he was soon expelled. He then moved on to work in Angola were his knowledge in the agricultural sector was also in short supply. In 1959, he travels to France and Italy and soon after informs his wife in Portugal that he will not be returning to that country. He has now decided to come out with his plans to form an party to bring about independence from Portugal. In 1958, the republic of Guinea Conackry is proclaimed. Cabral decided to set up his base there. Communication networks are setup with the villagers in Guinea-Bissau using the connections Cabral had made in his Agricultural Bureau days there. Soon his troops enter Guinea-Bissau and are thrown into a guerilla war against the Portuguese colonialists. His party, PAIGC, gains a considerable amount of land in the process but don’t fully free the country from the colonizers. Even then in the midst of the war, Cabral begins organizing the lives of the villagers that have come under their control. Like Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, he felt women were fundamental to the development of the country and had women in directorate positions in the PAIGC.

On the 20th January, 1973 Cabral is assassinated after several attempts in his house in Guinea Conakry.

Malik Mahlangu

Thomas Sankara: Our Homeland or Death: a brief bio

Thomas Sankara took over from French occupation in what was known then as Upper Volta in West Africa. Landlocked with no access to the sea and and a desert to the north, it didn’t have much in natural resources. One of the first leaders in the world to stand for women’s rights, and certainly the first in Africa. He banned opposition parties and trade unions but even his detractors did not know him to use violence like other military leaders. Some of his other reforms as part of his revolution program include:

- Boosted cotton production by imposing a national shirt compulsory for public servants made from Burkina Faso cotton

- An environmentalist at heart before it was hip, he saw to the planting of thousands of trees to counter desertification 

- Built railway lines and roads connecting rural Burkina Faso to developments in city with many people volunteering

- Confiscated Mercedes Benzes from public servants and replaced them with cheaper cars and banned them from using first class flights 

- Went on a mass national vaccination program to curb polio. It was so successful that it prompted WHO to congratulate him

And oh he always looked so sharp and stylish even in his military garb.

At an AU summit in Addis Ababa, he called called on fellow African state heads to refuse to pay the national debt to their former colonial masters remarking that in that way they’d avoid being assassinated as individuals if they stand together. 

After three years of the revolution the neocolonial upper class were becoming weary and accusing Sankara of not respecting individual rights. At the height of this growing dissatisfaction, about 1200 teachers went on strike and were dismissed only to be replaced by so called “revolutionary teachers” who were actually just volunteers from the civil and military ranks. Furthermore he was accused of not being able to delegate following his program of mass military training aimed at checking civilian enthusiasm from over-pouring.

As the peak of Western dissatisfaction towards him at an event where Sankara had invited the the French president, he blasted France for allowing South African Apartheid president, Pieter Botha, for allowing Botha to visit France and thus “dirtying France with his bloodied hands and feet.” 

He was assassinated at the order of his close friend and French collaborator, Blaise Comapaore. He was 39 and had always predicted he’d die before 40, just as Malcolm X. Another missed opportunity for Africa to come out of its abyss.

Malik Mahlangu