Luís Cabral

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Luís Cabral (1973)

Luís de Almeida Cabral (born April 11, 1931 in Bissau , † May 30, 2009 in Torres Vedras , Portugal ) was a Guinea-Bissau politician and the first president of Guinea-Bissau from 1973 to 1980 .

War of Independence

Cabral's family came from Cape Verde , he was born in Bissau, the capital of what was then the Portuguese colony since 1942 . He belonged to the independence movement Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) founded in 1956 , which was led by his half-brother Amílcar Cabral and led a guerrilla war against Portugal from 1963 to 1974 . In 1959 he was one of the leaders of the dock workers' strike, which was ended by the deployment of Portuguese soldiers . When he was threatened with arrest by the political police PIDE , he went to Conakry in neighboring Guinea . There he founded the PAIGC union UNTG in 1961 and became its general secretary. He was also a member of the PAIGC “council of war” and had a command in the combat zone.

Luís Cabral's rise to the top of the country began after Amílcar Cabral was assassinated on January 20, 1973 in Conakry. The second PAIGC party congress in Madina do Boé in July 1973 appointed the later President of Cape Verde Aristides Pereira as the new General Secretary and Luís Cabral as his first deputy.

president

With the unilateral declaration of independence of Guinea-Bissau on September 24, 1973 Luís Cabral became president. After the Carnation Revolution , the country's independence was recognized by Portugal on September 10, 1974. He started a program of reconstruction inspired by socialism and received support from China , Cuba and the Soviet Union , but also from the Nordic countries. His PAIGC now acted as a unity party . Cabral advocated union with Cape Verde, which gained independence from Portugal in 1975.

A constitutional amendment that would have restricted the prime minister's power, as well as tensions between Cape Verde and mainland Africans in the leadership, led to a coup against Cabral on November 14, 1980 . The previous Prime Minister João Bernardo Vieira took power. Cabral and his followers were initially charged with the deaths of 500 political prisoners during his tenure and were charged with mass murder. After the fall of Cabral, the planned unification of the two states was not pursued any further and diplomatic relations were interrupted until June 1982.

exile

After thirteen months in prison, Cabral was exiled to Cuba . He later went to Cape Verde, lived in France for a while and then settled in Portugal with his family. He only visited his homeland in 1999 after Vieira was overthrown. In 2002, the PAIGC officially took the two ousted Presidents Cabral and Vieira back into the party.

In September 2004 he suffered a breakdown during a convention in Praia and was flown to Lisbon for treatment . Cabral suffered from diabetes and heart problems. He died in Portugal in 2009 after a long illness.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ O funeral de Luís Cabral será terça-feira em Lisboa  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / ultimahora.publico.clix.pt   . Público , May 31, 2009 (Portuguese)
  2. ^ First President Luís Cabral has died. In: derStandard.at. May 31, 2009, accessed December 8, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Cabral, Luís
ALTERNATIVE NAMES De Almeida Cabral, Luís (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Guinea-Bissau politician, President (1973–1980)
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Bissau
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 2009
Place of death Torres Vedras , Portugal