Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement
NB. Please note that the following tribute to Baba Amilcar Cabral is one day late. We apologise that we were not able to organise the dispatch yesterday, as we had hoped. However, we still wish to move this tribute to a worthy Freedom Fighter in this landmark 40th anniversary of his cruel assassination; the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Tatenda (thank you).
NB. Please join us tonight on Voice of Afrika Radio (94fm; www.voiceofafricaradio.com) where we will be paying due tribute to Baba Tony Martin; and please also call or text in your own personal tribute. This tribute to Baba Cabral will also be read. Look forward to hearing from you. Tatenda.
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Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement
Freedom Begins with the Freeing of the Mind and Soul
c/o 282 High Road, Leyton, London E10 5PW
Tel: 020 8539 2154; 07908 814 152
Tribute toAmilcar Cabral
40th Anniversary Memorial.
12th September 1924 – 20th January 1973
Amidst the shock and grief over the passing of Premier Garvey scholar, Prof. Tony Martin (17th Jan, 2013), on the anniversary of the assassination of one of Afrika’s truest sons, Papa Patrice Lumumba, it is of vital importance that we remember the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the outstanding Pan-Afrikan thinker, political scientist and military strategist, Baba Amilcar Cabral, Of Guinea-Bissau (20th January 2013).
Born in Bafatá, GUINEA-BISSAU (then Portugese Guinea), Baba Cabral founded PAIGC (the Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde - or African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) in 1956, which waged a fierce anti-colonial armed resistance against the Portuguese (1963 and 1973). He was also one of the founders of the MPLA (Movimento Popular Libertação de Angola - or Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), also in 1956, alongside Angola’s National Hero, Agostinho Neto.
As a boy, young Amilcar had his early education in the Cape Verde, his paternal home land and later in Lisbon, Portugal (where he met Neto). There, as an Agronomy (soil management and crop production) student, he founded student movements against Portugal’s ruling dictatorship and Portuguese colonialism in Africa (Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique).
Baba Cabral’s guerrilla movement is one of the most successful African wars of independence. From training camps in Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah’s neighbouring Ghana, PAIGC’s liberation forces swept through large parts of the country, capturing territory after territory. But his phenomenal military successes tell only part of the story of the genius of the man. He was a master, Afrikan diplomat who trained his lieutenants in effective communication techniques, to co-opt Guinean traditional chiefs.
Consequently, to his enormous credit, he was able to unite the seven indigenous nations of Guinea-Bissau (the Balantes, Fulas, Manjacas, Mandingas, Papeis, Barmes & Bijagos) and integrate them with the Cape Verdeans. One writer describes him as having “incredible charisma and leadership skills...able to bring consensus in most if not all of the key issues involving the PAIGC.” He also continued to influence Portuguese internal politics, leading eventually to the overthrow of its five decades old fascist regime in 1974.
This brilliant war general ensured that his troops were not only militarily but also ideologically trained and used his expertise as an agricultural engineer to teach them, to feed and live off the land. He and his soldiers also lived among and the people bonding, tilling and ploughing the soil with them; teaching them better farming techniques, to increase productivity and feed their own families, as well as fighting soldiers. Such economic self-sufficiency formed the basis of a mobile trade-and-barter system that undercut the prices of colonial store owners – a form of economic warfare.
Baba Cabral also set up a roving hospital and triage station to give medical care to wounded PAIGC soldiers as well as the larger populace, until they came under frequent attack from Portuguese forces.
The underlying principles of this pragmatic approach to liberation in captured in his famous words:
“Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas... 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. . .”
By 1972, independence was patently inevitable and PAIGC began preparing by forming a People's Assembly. This was a consultative and participatory process to ensure that the people of Guinea-Bissau were truly and actively in charge of the nation’s destiny. It was also an accountability structure to ensure that their leader led according to the informed will and mandate of The People.
Sadly, Baba Cabral, like many Afrikan leaders of his calibre, was brutally gunned down (20th January 1973) by the treacherous hands of former PAIGC commander, Inocencio Kani, in Conakry, in the Democratic Republic of Guinea. Sources reveal a conspiracy, involving Portuguese secret services (PIDE-DGS), the CIA and other PAIGC members and Portuguese infiltrators posing as revolutionaries. Ironically, less than a year earlier at the funeral of Papa Nkrumah, he lamented what he called the “cancer of betrayal,” which thwarted Afrikan progress to total liberation. However, Sekou Toure’s Guinean government did exact justice upon Kani and the rest of the plot leaders.
More than a guerrilla leader, Cabral was one of the most prominent African thinkers of the 20th century, who sought to forge a coherent culturally-centred philosophical approach and theoretical framework for African liberation. In the book, ‘The Art of Leadership,’ political analyst Oba T’Shaka observed:
“Cabral possessed the ability to balance the twin skills of political thinker and creative political organizer. Cabral did not simply sense the desires of the people of Guinea-Bissau, he systematically studied his people’s culture and history, and then shaped a programme that rested on clear understanding of the people’s social structure... Cabral’s analysis of the Guinea-Bissau social structure is the most creative political study in the 20th century. This study was based on insight gained by Cabral as he lived among the people...”
Baba Cabral’s ideas are preserved in his numerous writings and documented public pronouncements. In one message, he urged:
“Every responsible worker and every responsibility militant of our party should be aware that, every element of the population in our land in guinea and Cape Verde, must be aware that our struggle is not only waged on the political level and on the military level. Our struggle – our resistance – must be waged on all levels of the life of our people. We must destroy everything the enemy can use to continue their domination over our people, but at the same time we must be able to construct everything that is needed to create a new life in our land. While we destroy the enemy, their agents and the things that serve their interest, we have to build for our selves, to ensure the satisfaction of the needs of our people, to train able men and women constantly to raise standards of living in our land. Along with political resistance and armed resistance, we must constantly strengthen economic resistance, cultural resistance and physical resistance. Destroy the economy of the enemy and build our own economy, destroy the negative influences of the culture of the enemy and develop our own culture, destroy the physical ills which colonialism has brought us, in order to build a stronger and more capable new being.”
The assassination of this powerful, progressive, populous liberation leader, was yet another cruel set back for the Afrikan continent. Eight month after, his brother and successor, Luis Cabral, made a unilateral declaration of independence (24/09/73), but was toppled and exiled in a 1980 coup.
Thus when the President Barack Obama, said in Ghana (11th July 2009) “Afrika doesn’t need strong men, it needs strong institutions,” he was rubbing salt into a gaping historical wound, whilst posing a veiled threat to future strong Afrikan leaders, accountable to their people and not to Euro-America imperialism (despite the resounding applause he received from a seemingly unsuspecting Ghanaian parliament).
But like Patrice Lumumba, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara, Samora Machel and many more, the indestructible spirit and legacy of Amilcar Cabral will continue to inspire the Afrikan will and determination to be truly free. To this end we must heed his instructions, to:
“Hide nothing from the masses... Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories... Our experience has shown us that...this battle against ourselves, this struggle against our own weaknesses . . . is the most difficult of all.”
A protégé of the professed Garveyite Kwame Nkrumah, Baba Cabral is one of the legions of great Freedom Fighters who stood on the gigantic shoulders of The Most Eminent Prophet and King – His Excellency: Marcus Mosiah Garvey. He will therefore be part of the pantheon of Great Ancestors awaiting the arrival of the soul of the premier Garvey-scholar, Baba Tony Martin.
Let us hail and give due honour to Baba Amilcar Cabral.
Unite, Organise Now or Perish!
Rise, You Mighty People!
TENDAI MWARI
Bro Ldr Mbandaka
(Spiritual Leader – Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement)
- 40th Anniversary Tribute to AMILCAR CABRAL, Alkebu-Lan, 01/21/2013
https://theblacklist.net/
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