PAIGC regrets Amilcar Cabral’s centenary without official celebration in Guinea-Bissau

The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) regrets that the centenary of the birth of historical leader Amilcar Cabral will be celebrated this year without the “dignity” of official celebrations in Guinea-Bissau.

“This is not what I expected,” party vice-president Kalifa Seide told Luza in an interview as part of the celebration of the centenary of the party founder’s birth and Guinean citizenship, which will take place on September 12.

The party decided to mark this date with initiatives throughout the year in the country and in the diaspora and regrets that no official state ceremony is planned.

According to the PAIGC vice-president, Amilcar is not simply being silenced, “there is an attempt to whitewash everything that is the history of Guinea-Bissau, because the history of Guinea-Bissau cannot be told without talking about PAIGC, the history of PAIGC is entangled with the history of Guinea-Bissau.”

“Amilcar Cabral founded PAIGC, Amilcar Cabral is the founder of our nationality, not only Guinea but also Cape Verde, and so it is strange that September 12 is not celebrated here in Guinea-Bissau, it is not a public holiday, a national holiday,” says Kalifa Seide.

According to the PAIGC leader, “they want to whitewash history to a certain extent, they can try, but they won’t succeed because they won’t last forever in the place where they are.”

Kalifa Seide mentioned that some historical dates are banned in Guinea-Bissau, such as January 20, the day of the assassination of Amilcar Cabral in 1973, or March 8, Women’s Day, as well as August 3, the date of the massacre in the port of Pindjiguiti in colonial Guinea in 1959.

“These are historical dates, we, the PAIGC and the people of Guinea-Bissau, celebrate them. This is also a form of resistance,” he said, adding that as long as the PAIGC exists, it will not allow “in any case that the history of this country will be whitewashed.”

The party’s vice president recalled that at the first session of the National People’s Assembly after the elections in June 2023, the majority of the PAI-Terra Ranka coalition, led by PAIGC, presented a proposal to celebrate Cabral’s centenary.

Immediately after this, in December 2023, the President of the Republic, Houmaro Sissoko Embalo, dissolved parliament.

“Since then, a government was created on the initiative of the president, which paid virtually no attention to this resolution,” he said.

PAIGC has taken on the responsibility of “dignifiedly celebrating the centenary of Amilcar Cabral” and is promoting various events from January to the end of the year, culminating in September.

“Victorious January”, as it designates the first month of the year, has the greatest number of historical dates, namely the 20th, the assassination of Cabral, the 23rd, the beginning of the armed struggle for national liberation, and the 30th, the assassination of the heroine Titina Sila.

“These dates were celebrated by the PAIGC despite certain twists and turns that happened to us during the celebration. On January 20, we were not allowed to enter the Amilcar Cabral mausoleum,” he said, noting that they were also not allowed to approach the statue of Titina Sila, in the garden in front of the Bissau High School.

“Despite all this, we celebrate these fundamental historical dates with dignity,” he added.

In February, they recalled the first Kassaka Congress in 1964, the moment when Amilcar Cabral defended his theory of the creation of the new man, the re-Africanization of the African consciousness and the concept of the national state, managing to unite all the ethnic groups of Guinea-Bissau.

In March they set sail for the island of Como, which resisted the siege of the colonizer for more than 70 days and drove off the Portuguese colonial troops.

“We visited several places inside the country and in the diaspora so that everyone could feel like Amilcar Cabral. If we were the government, it would have another dimension,” he said.

September, the month of the anniversary, will be the highlight of the 12th international symposium where scholars and scientists will gather to discuss Cabral’s various points of view, in Bafatá, the hometown of the historical leader.

According to Kalifa Seide, the President of PAIGC and the National People’s Assembly, Domingos Simões Pereira, who has been outside the country since the dissolution of parliament, will join the celebrations “soon”.

“He will be here,” the vice president replied when asked when he would return.