Amílcar Cabral

He was voted the second greatest leader in the world by a poll conducted by BBC World History Magazine in March of 2020.

Less than a month after the assassination, the United States concluded that then-colonial power Portugal was not directly involved in his death, according to official documents made public in 2006. Even so, the US State Department's Information and Investigation Services also concluded that "Lisbon's complicity" in the assassination of the leader of the struggle for Cape Verde's and Guinea-Bissau's independence "cannot be ruled out."

Patrick Chabal professor of Lusophone African studies at King's College, London, also wrote a book about the life and biography of Amílcar Cabral, entitled Amílcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership And People's War (1983 and 2003). The book tells the story of Cabral who, as head of PAIGC, Guinea-Bissau's nationalist movement, became one of Africa's foremost revolutionary leaders.

East Germany issued a postage stamp in his honor in 1978.

Later on 25 April 1974, the Carnation Revolution coup was carried out in Portugal, which was followed by a cease-fire in the various battle fronts and eventually by the independence of all of Portugal's former colonies in Africa. Cabral was assassinated prior to the independence of the Portuguese colonies in Africa, and therefore died before he could see his homelands of Cabo Verde and Guinea Bissau gain independence from Portugal.

A square in Veshnyaki District of Moscow was named "Amílcar Cabral Square" (Russian: «Площадь Амилкара Кабрала» "Ploschad Amilcara Cabrala") since 16 January 1974.

Also known by the nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing war of independence in Guinea-Bissau. He was assassinated on 20 January 1973, about eight months before Guinea-Bissau's unilateral declaration of independence. He was deeply influenced by Marxism, becoming an inspiration to revolutionary socialists and national independence movements worldwide.

In 1972, Cabral began to form a People's Assembly in preparation for the independence of Guinea-Bissau, but disgruntled former PAIGC rival Inocêncio Kani, together with another member of PAIGC, shot and killed him on 20 January 1973 in Conakry. The possible plan was to arrest Cabral (possibly to judge him summarily, later), but facing the peaceful resistance of Cabral, they immediately killed him.

Cabral is considered a "revolutionary theoretician as significant as Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara", one "whose influence reverberated far beyond the African continent." Amílcar Cabral International Airport, Cape Verde's principal international airport at Sal, is named in his honor. There is also a football competition, the Amílcar Cabral Cup, in zone 2, named as a tribute to him. In addition, the only privately owned university in Guinea-Bissau – Amílcar Cabral University, in Bissau – is named after him. Jorge Peixinho composed an elegy to Cabral in 1973.

From 1963 to his assassination in 1973, Cabral led the PAIGC's guerrilla movement in Portuguese Guinea against the Portuguese government, which evolved into one of the most successful wars of independence in modern African history. The goal of the conflict was to attain independence for both Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde. Over the course of the conflict, as the movement captured territory from the Portuguese, Cabral became the de facto leader of a large portion of what became Guinea-Bissau.

He returned to Africa in the 1950s from Portugal, and was instrumental in promoting independence causes of the then Portuguese colonies. In 1956, he was the founder of the PAIGC or Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde). He was also one of the founding members of Movimento Popular Libertação de Angola (MPLA) later in the same year, together with Agostinho Neto, whom he met in Portugal, and other Angolan nationalists. Cabral was an asset of the Czechoslovak State Security (StB), and under the codename "Secretary" provided intelligence information to the StB.

Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral (Portuguese: [ɐˈmilkaɾ ˈlɔpɨʃ kɐˈbɾal]; (1924-09-12)12 September 1924 – (1973-01-20)20 January 1973) was a Bissau-Guinean and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, pan-Africanist, intellectual, poet, theoretician, revolutionary, political organizer, nationalist and diplomat. He was one of Africa's foremost anti-colonial leaders.

Cabral was born on 12 September 1924. He was born in the town of Bafatá, Portuguese Guinea (located in modern-day Guinea-Bissau) to Cape Verdean parents, Juvenal António Lopes da Costa Cabral and Iva Pinhel Évora, both hailing from Santiago. His father came from a wealthy land-owning family. His mother was a shop owner and hotel worker who worked hard in order to support her family, especially after she separated from Amílcar's father by 1929. Her family was not well off, so she was unable to pursue higher education.