Guinea-Bissau War of Independence Begins (1963)

Wed Jan 23, 1963

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The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence was an armed conflict between Pan-African revolutionaries and Portuguese colonizers that began on this day in 1963, lasting until 1974. The war is also known as “Portugal’s Vietnam”.

Fought between Portugal and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), the war is referred to as “Portugal’s Vietnam” due to the large numbers of men and amounts of material expended in a long, mostly guerrilla war and the internal political turmoil it created in Portugal. Until his assassination in 1973, Pan-African socialist Amílcar Cabral played a key role in the revolutionary activity of PAIGC.

The first act of the revolution took place on January 23rd, when PAIGC guerrillas attacked a Portuguese garrison in Tite, near the Corubal River, south of Bissau. Similar guerrilla actions quickly spread across the colony. PAIGC had few weapons - perhaps only one submachine gun and two pistols per group - and so they attacked Portuguese convoys to gain more weapons.

The war ended when Portugal, after the Carnation Revolution of 1974, granted independence to Guinea-Bissau, with Cape Verde’s independence following a year later.