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FREEDOMWAYS    THIRD QUARTER 1972

The success of our struggle is due first of all to the complete support of the people, who are prepared to make great sacrifices for the construction of a new life of justice and democracy in the liberated regions.

Our people and the national leadership of our party have paid considerable attention to the demagogic maneuvers of concessions granted to the population of urban centers and these so-called administrative reforms for a “better Guinea” whose author is a sinister colonial governor Spinola.

These maneuvers aim at demobilizing our people and diverting them from the true road to freedom. The African people of Guinea and Cape Verde know that the Portuguese people have been waiting for centuries for a revolution- a social revolution. Our people know that all the colonial government's concessions to the people in the urban centers are the fruit of the national liberation struggle.

At the historic meeting of the Security Council on Africa, Comrade Cabral said that the claims of Portuguese colonialism regarding the multi-racial society as well as reforms are nothing but clumsy attempts to perpetuate colonial exploitation of our people by trying to camouflage a primitive racism which has always characterized the Portuguese in Africa.

The United Nations has recognized our legitimate armed struggle and the resolution 1514 (XV) is the base of this legitimization and the moral and political support of our people. We should represent the interest of our people at the United Nations instead of Portugal, which has no right to do it. 

The OAU, the African States and the anti-colonialist forces have recognized our party as the true and legitimate representative of our people.

We have already liberated more than two-thirds of our national territory. In the liberated regions we are intensifying the cultivation of rice, the staple food of our population. We are encouraging mutual assistance among peasants, establishing and developing cooperative production, and we have set up people's shops for supplying staple commodities to the population.

We are in a condition comparable to that of an independent state whose sovereignty is characterized by the following: administrative and political power (on a national, regional district and village level); legal organization (on national, regional district and village level); economic organization (agricultural and handicraft production, trade, distribution and consumption); information,

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GIUNEA-BISSAU'S LIBERATION STRUGGLE     PINTO

cultural, logistic and statistical services, accountancy and finance; military organization (regular army, local armed forces and militia); educational organization (primary schools, boarding and semi boarding schools); health organization (hospitals, first aid stations, military first aid stations).

The training of personnel is receiving the most careful attention of our Party. In the period of 1961-71 our party has trained abroad 425 people. This personnel, consisting of doctors, engineers, economists, lawyers and various technicians is already fully employed in furthering our struggle.

The people trained in Guinea during the Portuguese occupation from 1471 to 1961 amounted to 14 with higher and 11 with technical education. Our party has trained between 1961 and 1971 more personnel than the colonial government and the 500 years of its domination of our country.

Our Party reaffirms its determination to continue and develop our struggle for the liberation of the Isles of Cape Verde, thus putting an end to colonial domination, poverty, ignorance and famine. The colonial government knows that our party has carried out important clandestine work for modernizing the people and set up party organizations in the Isle of Cape Verde. The oppression of the population by the colonial government is reinforcing our determination and our fight for freedom.

Portugal, the most backward country of Europe, without financial resources, with a stagnant economy and underdeveloped industry, wants to include the Isle of Cape Verde and Guinea in the NATO geographical area because of the strategic value of the islands and a colonial war. They cannot understand that NATO is intended for ensuring the defense of the North Atlantic area, only that area, which does not include the Portuguese territories in Africa.

The Portuguese people, their anti-colonialist and anti-fascist forces, have adopted in their struggle for freedom methods of action against the colonial war, as for instance, the sabotage carried out by the ARA (Armed Revolutionary Action), the strikes, demonstrations and distribution of leaflets calling upon the soldiers to desert from the colonial army. The anti-fascist workers and intellectuals recognize that colonial wars are a crime committed against the African people and against the people of Portugal.

We express our solidarity with the people struggling against imperialism. Our Victory in our fight against imperialism and colonialism is certain.

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