Amilcar Cabral (12 September 1924 – 20 January 1973) was a founder of the MPLA and PAIGC, and he was an influential political thinker and leader during the wars of independence against Portugal in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Cabral led the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence and was also involved in the political struggle for Cape Verdean independence until he was murdered in 1973.
Biography[]
Amilcar Cabral was born on 12 September 1924 in Bafata, Portuguese Guinea (present-day Guinea-Bissau) to parents from Cape Verde. He studied agronomy in the United Kingdom and founded student movements that were opposed to the dictatorship of Portugal, and in 1956 he founded the PAIGC political party in Guinea-Bissau to fight for independence. With Agostinho Neto, Cabral also helped to found the MPLA in Angola to fight for independence there. Cabral fought in the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence at the head of the PAIGC, and in 1972 he founded a popular assembly that would take over the politics of Guinea-Bissau upon its looming independence. However, a political rival named Inocencio Kani contacted Portuguese agents and assasinated Cabral on 20 January 1973 in Conakry, Guinea, and his brouther Luis Cabral would later become president.