Rafael Barbosa

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Rafael Paula Barbosa , also known by his fighting name Zain Lopes , (* 1924 in Safim , Portuguese Guinea ; † January 2, 2007 in Dakar , Senegal ) was a Guinea-Bissau resistance fighter and politician of the PAIGC . After his expulsion from the party and a prison sentence, Barbosa founded his own party, but with which he could not achieve success.

Life

Rafael Barbosa was born in Safim, a suburb of what would later become the capital, Bissau, in 1924, the son of a Guinean mother and a Cape Verdean father. He belonged to the Pepel ethnic group . Barbosa worked as a construction manager for public works before he and others founded the PAIGC resistance and independence movement in 1956. Barbosa headed the party's central committee under the name of Zain Lopes.

On March 13, 1962, agents of the Portuguese secret police PIDE arrested Barbosa. He served a seven-year prison sentence - allegedly in the Tarrafal concentration camp - until he was released on August 3, 1969. After his release, Barbosa reportedly tried to persuade the PAIGC to abandon the fight and to make peace with the Portuguese colonial regime. The PAIGC leadership, however, assumed that Barbosa had betrayed strategies of the independence movement in his detention and expelled him from the party in 1970 for allegedly collaborating with the colonial power.

After the independence and the takeover of power by the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde in 1973 and 1975, respectively, the party leadership suspected that Barbosa was involved in the 1973 murder of the party leader Amílcar Cabral in Conakry. In a court case he was found guilty of high treason on October 8, 1976 and sentenced to death. On March 4, 1977, this sentence was converted to 15 years of detention.

In the wake of the coup d'état against the PAIGC leadership by João Bernardo Vieira , which was dominated by Cape Verdean party members , Barbosa was able to leave prison. He was able to speak on national radio for a short time, but the broadcast was interrupted and Barbosa was arrested again.

Barbosa was not released until Guinea-Bissau's democratization process in 1990. He was one of the first to found his own opposition party in May 1990, called Frente Democrática Social (Social Democratic Front), but was unable to win a seat in any parliamentary election. Nevertheless, he was one of the most famous politicians in the country until the end.

After a long and serious illness, he died in 2007 in a hospital in the Senegalese capital Dakar. He received a state funeral on the instructions of President Vieira.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Morreu nacionalista guineense Rafael Barbosa. In: RTP.pt. January 3, 2007, accessed May 9, 2019 (Portuguese).
  2. ↑ a b c d e Barbosa, Rafael Paula (1924–2007) . In: Peter Karibe Mendy, Richard A. Lobban, Jr. (Eds.): Historical dictionary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau . 4th edition. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2013, ISBN 978-0-8108-8027-6 , pp. 45 .
  3. ↑ a b c Amílcar Cabral foi assassinado há 41 anos. In: Esquerda.net. January 20, 2014, accessed May 9, 2019 (Portuguese).
  4. ^ A b c Institut für Afrika-Kunde: Afrika-Jahrbuch: Politics, Economy and Society in Africa south of the Sahara 1991 . tape 1991 . Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 1992, ISBN 978-3-322-92531-2 , p. 108 f .
  5. ↑ Guiné-Bissau: Partidos e personalidades reagem à morte de nacionalista Rafael Barbosa - Africa - Angola Press - ANGOP. In: Angop.ao. Agência Angola Press, January 4, 2007, accessed May 9, 2019 (Portuguese).
personal data
SURNAME Barbosa, Rafael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Barbosa, Rafael Paula (full name); Lopes, Zain (battle name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Guinea-Bissau resistance fighter of the PAIGC
DATE OF BIRTH 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Safim , Portuguese Guinea
DATE OF DEATH January 2, 2007
Place of death Dakar , Senegal