Guinea-Bissau War of Independence
The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence (Portuguese: Guerra de Independência da Guiné-Bissau), or the Bissau-Guinean War of Independence, was an armed independence conflict that took place in Portuguese Guinea from 1963 to 1974. It was fought between Portugal and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, PAIGC), an armed independence movement backed by Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. The war is commonly referred to as "Portugal's Vietnam" because it was a protracted guerrilla war which had extremely high costs in men and materiel and which created significant internal political turmoil in Portugal.
| Guinea-Bissau War of Independence | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Portuguese Colonial War and the Cold War | |||||||||
PAIGC soldiers with a downed Portuguese aircraft, 1974 | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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PAIGC Guinea (1970 only) Cuba Material support: China Soviet Union Senegal Libya Yugoslavia Romania East Germany Diplomatic support: Brazil Mexico Algeria |
Portugal Supported by: Israel | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Amílcar Cabral † Luís Cabral João Bernardo Vieira Domingos Ramos † Pansau Na Isna † Francisco Mendes Osvaldo Vieira | António de Spínola | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| ~10,000 | ~32,000 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 6,000 killed |
2,069 killed 3,830 with permanent deficiency (physical or psychological) | ||||||||
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5,000 civilian deaths 7,447 African former Portuguese Army soldiers executed by PAIGC after the war. | |||||||||
After the assassination of PAIGC leader Amílcar Cabral in January 1973, the military conflict reached a stalemate: Portuguese forces were largely confined to major cities and various fortified bases and were patently unable to dislodge PAIGC from the so-called liberated zones. In September 1973, the PAIGC-dominated People's National Assembly unilaterally declared the independence of a new Republic of Guinea-Bissau; the declaration was recognised by several foreign countries. After the Carnation Revolution, the new Portuguese government agreed to grant independence to Guinea-Bissau in September 1974 and to Cape Verde a year later. PAIGC thus became the first sub-Saharan African liberation movement to achieve independence – if only indirectly – through armed struggle.