Sofia Pomba Guerra

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Maria Sofia Carrajola Pomba Amaral da Guerra , Sofia Pomba Guerra for short (born July 18, 1906 in São Pedro , Elvas , Portugal ; † August 12, 1976 in Lisbon ) was a Portuguese pharmacist , teacher and communist resistance fighter. She is particularly known for her martial arts and her support for the liberation movements in Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique .

Life

Sofia Pomba Guerra was born on July 18, 1906 in the small village of São Pedro of the former municipality of Caia e São Pedro near Elvas on the Portuguese-Spanish border. Not much is known about their youth and education. She had a degree in pharmacy.

Engagement in the Mozambican underground

In her mid-twenties, Guerra moved to the Portuguese colony of Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), more precisely to the capital Lourenço Marques , where she initially worked as a pharmacist at the Miguel Bombarda Hospital . She also wrote analyzes about the exportable fruits of the colony. Later she worked as a teacher at the primary school Escola Primária Correia da Silva , where she taught, among other things, the later famous Mozambican writer Rui Nogar . During this time she also joined the (already illegal) Communist Party of Portugal , for which the railroad worker Cassiano Carvalho Caldas (1915–2002 / 03) worked as a liaison in the colony.

In Lourenço Marques Guerra became an active member of the communist underground movement, among other things she published numerous articles in the magazines Emcancipador and Itinerário . In 1947/48 she was actively involved in building a local communist structure and worked together with the writer Noémia de Sousa as part of the anti-colonial youth movement Movimento dos Jovens Democratas Moçambicanos .

In 1949, Guerra was the first white woman to be arrested by the Portuguese secret police PIDE for her activities and deported to Lisbon, where she arrived on November 23, 1949 and then had to remain in PIDE prison in Caxias . It was not until July 4, 1950, that the Tribunal Plenary of Lisbon decided on her release. In addition to her release, the verdict also ordered her to leave the metropolis . Thereupon Guerra, and later her husband too, first moved to Cape Verde and later to Portuguese Guinea .

Engagement in the Guinea-Bissau underground

Arrived in Portuguese Guinea, Guerra began to work again as a pharmacist in the Farmácia Lisboa and also taught English at the Liceu de Bissau . Despite her earlier arrest, she began to organize again underground, with support from Fausto Teixeira and Gumercindo de Oliveira Correia . She distributed communist magazines from France, combat pamphlets from Portugal and tried with her comrades-in-arms to find supporters among the colonial workers. At the same time, the biographer Pacheco Pereira reports that Guerra was very aware that she was still being followed by the PIDE secret police. At times the head of the local PIDE is said to have lived in the house opposite. Duarte Silva writes that the PIDE unit, which was established in Bissau in 1957, even focused particularly on Guerra.

Sofia Pomba Guerra developed her into the figurehead and mother figure of the Guinea-Bissau underground movement and was also valued by the activists of the liberation movement for her commitment. She was co-founder of the Movimento de Libertação da Guiné, founded in 1959 . Well-known resistance fighters of the later PAIGC , Epifânio Souto Amado and Osvaldo Vieira, also worked in her pharmacy . Also Amílcar Cabral , well tester resistance fighters and leaders of Guinea-Bissau underground movement, raised the commitment of the Portuguese (sic) out. Davidson describes that their support and the dissemination of Marxist writings on their part were crucial to the political program and strategy of the later PAIGC.

death

Guerra died on August 12, 1976 in Lisbon. Luís Cabral later visited the widower in Portugal, who had always kept a distance from his wife's activities, and yet was a "great patriot and Portuguese democrat." Guerra left behind a daughter.

Works

Technical article

  • Fruta de Moçambique - Documentario relativo aos meses de Julho a Setembro de 1936. In: Moçambique: documentário trimestral. No. 7, 1936, pp. 51-101.
  • Alguns frutos silvestres de Moçambique - Documentario relativos aos meses de April a Junho de 1938. In: Moçambique: documentário trimestral. No. 14, 1938, pp. 5-43.
  • Comercialização de frutas de Moçambique. In: Revista Agrícola. Volume 1, No. 5, February 1959, p. 33.

additional

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h João Esteves, Zília Osório de Castro (ed.): Feminae - Dicionário Contemporâneo . Comissão para a Cidadania e Igualdade de Género, Lisbon 2013, ISBN 978-972-597-372-1 , p. 705 f . ( full text available online ).
  2. ^ A b António E. Duarte Silva: Guiné-Bissau: a causa do nacionalismo ea fundação do PAIGC . In: Cadernos de Estudos Africanos . No. 9/10 , June 1, 2006, ISSN  1645-3794 , p. 142–167 , doi : 10.4000 / cea.1236 ( revues.org [accessed September 30, 2016]).
  3. ↑ José Pacheco Pereira: Álvaro Cunhal - Uma Biografia Política . tape 3 : O Prisioneiro (1949-1960) . Temas e Debates, Lisbon 2005, ISBN 972-759-443-3 , pp. 513 f .
  4. ^ Basil Davidson: The Fortunate Isles: A Study in African Transformation . Africa World Press, Trenton, NJ 1990, ISBN 0-86543-122-1 .
personal data
SURNAME Guerra, Sofia Pomba
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Guerra, Maria Sofia Carrajola Pomba Amaral da (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese pharmacist, teacher and communist resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH São Pedro , Elvas , Portugal
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1976
Place of death Lisbon