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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 July 2022
Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, Bissau-Guineans fought a bloody war for independence. Typical narratives of the war emphasize the ethnic dimension of the liberation struggle, with Balanta freedom fighters opposing Portuguese-allied Fulbe. This dominant narrative is open to question, as it ignores the war as a ‘social condition’, and the role that local circumstances played in determining collaboration with the Portuguese, fighting in liberation militaries, or fleeing to neighboring states for personal safety. Oral and archival evidence suggests a more nuanced perspective that blurs the binary nature of this dominant narrative along ethnic fault lines, viewed as either resistance or collaboration. The argument presented in this article allows us to move past defining the war along ethnic or regional lines, and instead urges a view of the conflict as a complex, fractured experience for all Bissau-Guineans, shaped by the particularities of local circumstances.
1 A. Cabral, ‘Tell no lies. Claim no easy victories’, in A. Cabral, Revolution in Guinea: An African People's Struggle, Selected Texts, R. Handyside (trans.), (New York, 1969), 86.
2 Arquivo Histórico Diplomático, Lisbon (AHD) 3/MU-GM/GNP01-RNP/S0588/UI00276, from Valeurs Actuelles, ‘Les “Palestiniens” du Senegal’, 3 Aug. 1970, transmitted in a report dated 21 Sep. 1970.
3 Similarly, see Peterson, B., ‘History, memory and the legacy of Samori in southern Mali, c. 1880–1898’, The Journal of African History, 49:2 (2008), 261–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Some of the early literature on the war includes: C. Lopes, Etnia, estado e reláções de poder na Guiné-Bissau (Lisbon, 1982); B. Davidson, No Fist is Big Enough to Hide the Sky: The Liberation of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, 1963–74 (London, 2017 [1981]); P. Chabal, Amílcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People's War (Cambridge, UK, 1983); S. Urdang, Fighting Two Colonialisms: Women in Guinea-Bissau (New York, 1979); and G. Chaliand, Armed Struggle in Africa: With the Guerillas in ‘Portuguese’ Guinea (New York, 1969). More recent work includes: M. Dhada, Warriors at Work: How Guinea Was Really Set Free (Niwot, CO, 1993); P. Godinho Gomes, Os fundamentos de uma nova sociedade: o PAIGC e a luta armada na Guiné-Bissau, 1963–1973: organizacão do Estado e relacões internacionais (Turin, 2010); Â. S. Benoliel Coutinho, Os dirigentes do PAIGC (Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e de Cabo Verde): da fundação à rutura 1956–1980 (Coimbra, 2017); and A. Tomás, O fazedor de utopias: uma biografia de Amílcar Cabral (Lisbon, 2008).
5 A. B. Djaló, Guineense, comando, Português (Lisbon, 2010), 13.
6 Some of these histories include Coelho, J. P. Borges, ‘African troops in the Portuguese colonial army, 1961–1974: Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique’, Portuguese Studies Review, 10:1 (2002), 129–50Google Scholar; F. da Cruz Rodrigues, ‘Antigos combatentes das forças armadas portuguesas: a guerra colonial como território de (re)conciliação’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Coimbra, 2012); Oliveira, P. A., ‘Saved by the civil war: African ‘loyalists’ in the Portuguese armed forces and Angola's transition to independence’, International History Review, 39:1 (2017), 126–42Google Scholar; and T. Stapleton, African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1923–80 (Cambridge, UK, 2012).
7 Coelho, J. P. Borges, ‘Da violência colonial ordenada à ordem pós-colonial violenta: sobre um legado das guerras coloniais nas ex-colónias portuguesas’, Lusotopie, 10 (2003), 175–93Google Scholar; and da Cruz Rodrigues, F., ‘A desmobilização dos combatentes africanos das forças armadas Portuguesas da guerra colonial (1961–1974)’, Ler História, 65 (2013), 113–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 S. C. Lubkemann, Culture in Chaos: An Anthropology of the Social Condition in War (Chicago, 2008), 29.
9 Interview with Armando Abdulai Baldé, Canhamina, Guinea-Bissau, 23 Apr. 2017.
10 D. Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonization (New York, 2009), 222.
11 C. A. Williams, National Liberation in Postcolonial Southern Africa: A Historical Ethnography of SWAPO's Exile Camps (New York, 2015); J. Tague, Displaced Mozambicans in Postcolonial Tanzania: Refugee Power, Mobility, Education, and Rural Development (New York, 2019); and S. Ellis, External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960–1990 (London, 2012).
12 C. H. Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives (Berkeley, 2000).
13 I would like to thank Boubacar Diallo for his interest in this project and for helping to identify individuals in Mampatim. In Guinea-Bissau, especially in the region of Gabú, Adulai Djaú aided substantially in identifying communities and individuals with whom to conduct interviews.
14 In fact, the topic of ‘loyalists’ and the end of empire was the subject of a special 2017 issue of the International History Review and a 2019 book, both edited by David Anderson and Daniel Branch: D. Anderson and D. Branch (eds.), Allies at the End of Empire: Loyalists, Nationalists and the Cold War, 1945–76 (London, 2019).
15 For example, see M. R. Moyd, Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa (Athens, OH, 2014), 35.
16 Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, 4 and 9.
17 Oliveira, ‘Saved’, 137. Colonial soldiers were also the best paid workers in Guinea-Bissau: T. Djaló, O mestiço e o poder: identidades, dominações e resistências na Guiné (Lisbon, 2012), 244.
18 Numbers of soldiers are extremely difficult to come by, but it is likely that there were not more than 20,000 between both sides at any given time. On colonial soldiers, Borges Coelho estimated 6,425 Bissau-Guineans in the Portuguese military at the end of the war: Borges Coelho, ‘African Troops’, 136. Numbers for the PAIGC military are hard to come by, but Golias estimated there were around 7,000. J. Sales Golias, A descolonização da Guiné-Bissau e o Movimento dos Capitães (Lisbon, 2016), 25. This estimate likely understates the less centralized PAIGC presence, but even a figure of 13,000 would still result in under 20,000 total Bissau-Guinean soldiers.
19 Lonsdale, J., ‘Agency in tight corners: narrative and initiative in African history’, Journal of African Cultural Studies, 13:1 (2000), 5–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; B. Aretxaga, Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism, and Political Subjectivity in Northern Ireland (Princeton, 1997). Mike McGovern has adapted Aretxaga's framework to his study of ‘forms of weak agency’ in postcolonial Guinea: M. McGovern, A Socialist Peace? Explaining the Absence of War in an African Country (Chicago, 2017), 27.
20 J. Dlamini, Askari: A Story of Collaboration and Betrayal in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle (New York, 2015), 2.
21 Ibid, 10.
22 B. Berman and J. Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya & Africa (Oxford, 1992); Straussberger, J., ‘Storming the citadel: decolonization and political contestation in Guinea's Futa Jallon, 1945–61’, The Journal of African History, 57:2 (2016), 231–49Google Scholar.
23 For instance, Lopes, Etnia and C. Lopes, Guinea-Bissau: From Liberation Struggle to Independent Statehood (London, 1987).
24 For population figures, see J.-C. Andreini and M.-C. Lambert, La Guinée-Bissau: D'Amilcar Cabral à la reconstruction nationale (Paris, 1978), 27.
25 Interview with Amadu Sadjo Sané, Cabuca, Guinea-Bissau, 5 Apr. 2017.
26 Davidson, No Fist, 131.
27 On Guinea, see L. Kaba, ‘From colonialism to autocracy: Guinea under Sékou Touré, 1957–1985’, in P. Gifford and W. R. Louis (eds.), Decolonization and African Independence, the Transfers of Power, 1960–1980 (New Haven: 1988), 225–44. For an example of the tensions regarding Senegal's more moderate economic policy, see O. Guèye, Mai 1968 au Sénégal: Senghor face aux étudiants et au mouvement syndical (Paris, 2017).
28 Interview with Tcherno Embaló and El Hadji Buaro, Candjufa, Guinea-Bissau, 1 Apr. 2017.
29 Ibid.
30 Interview with Yussuf Embaló, Candate, Guinea-Bissau, 2 Apr. 2017.
31 Branch, D., ‘The enemy within: loyalists and the war against Mau Mau in Kenya’, The Journal of African History, 48:2 (2007), 303CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 Lopes, Etnia and Lopes, Guinea-Bissau. The relationship between the Fulbe and the Portuguese is noted in, among others, Davidson, No Fist, Dhada, Warriors, and G. Chaliand, Armed Struggle.
33 A. Cabral, Speech entitled ‘Brief analysis of the social structure in Guinea’, 1–3 May 1964, in Cabral, Revolution in Guinea, 56–7.
34 Forrest, Lineages, 186.
35 Urdang, Fighting, 82.
36 AHD S10.E12.P6/66899 (PAA 586), ‘Guiné: relações com o Senegal: actividades dos partidos Senegaleses na Guiné’, 23 Sep. 1962; Davidson, No Fist, 61; P. K. Mendy and R. A. Lobban, Jr., Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau (Lanham, MD, 2013), 405–7.
37 Centre des Archives Diplomatiques, Nantes (CADN) 184PO/1/248 Informateurs 0/906/MG, ‘Activité des Nationalistes guinéo-portugais’, 12 Mar. 1964
38 Cabral, ‘Brief analysis’, 56–60.
39 Lopes, Guinea-Bissau, 55 and 147.
40 Interview with Ñaala Baldé, Dabo, Senegal, 12 Dec. 2016.
41 Interview with Amadou Baldé, Thierno Baldé, and Sekou Baldé, Medina Ndoondi, Senegal, 19 Jan. 2017.
42 Interview with Amadu Sadjo Sané.
43 Interview with El Hadji Mamadu Seku Candé, Umar Candé, and Sambaru Buaro, Pirada, Guinea-Bissau, 11 Apr. 2017.
44 Interview with Amadou Barry, Pakour, Senegal, 27 Jan. 2017.
45 Interview with Sindian Baldé, Pakour, Senegal, 27 Jan. 2017.
46 This leaflet is shown in L. Rudebeck, Guinea-Bissau: A Study of Political Mobilization (Uppsala, 1974), 265–6. The capitalized final line is in the original, reproduced by Rudebeck.
47 Interview with Sulai Baldé and Muktaru Baldé, Bafatá, Guinea-Bissau, 18 Apr. 2017.
48 Interview with Moreira Dauda Embaló, Gabú, Guinea-Bissau, 17 Mar. 2017.
49 Interview with Amadu Tidjani ‘Djallonke’ Baldé, Pitche, Guinea-Bissau, 4 Apr. 2017.
50 Interview with Bocar Embaló, Samba Saidi, Mamadjang Embaló, and Tidjani Djau, Mafanco, Guinea-Bissau, 2 Apr. 2017.
51 Interview with El Hadji Gibril Djaló and Wagidu Djaló, Madina Boé, Guinea-Bissau, 7 Apr. 2017.
52 Chaliand, Armed Struggle, 81.
53 F. Proença Garcia, Guiné 1963–1974: os movimentos independentistas, o islão e o poder português (Lisbon, 2000), 159–60.
54 Interview with Ebraima Sambambe Mballo, Sare Guiro, Senegal, 13 Dec. 2016.
55 Interview with Sulai Baldé and Muktaru Baldé.
56 Interview with Ibrahima Sadjo, Malang Saidi, Mamadu Lamin Conté, and Naniko Sadjo, Farankunda, Guinea-Bissau, 20 Apr. 2017.
57 Interview with Sadjo Sumaré, Geba, Guinea-Bissau, 22 Apr. 2017.
58 Cabral, ‘Practical problems and tactics’, 135.
59 This echoes Stathis Kalyvas's focus on control as helping shape allegiances and behavior in civil war: S. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge, UK, 2006), 111–45.
60 Arquivo Histórico Militar, Lisbon (AHM) PT/AHM/FO/007/B/12/229/10, Perintrep No. 2/62, 15 Jan. 1962.
61 Chaliand, Armed Struggle, 17.
62 ATT PT/AHM/FO/007/B/12/227/1, Perintrep No. 8/63, 1 Aug. 1963.
63 ATT PT/AHM/FO/007/B/12/227/1, Perintrep No. 8/63, 1 Aug. 1963; AHD C.E48.P8/2611 (PAA 444 940, 1), Gonzaga Ferreira, Consulate of Portugal in Dakar, 12 Apr. 1962.
64 AHD S10.E12.P6/66898 (PAA 585), P. Orr, ‘Visit to Portuguese Guinea’, 14 May 1968. Additionally, four years later, representatives of the PAIGC, along with Leopold Senghor and Sékou Touré, met in the predominantly Fulbe city of Velingara in eastern Kolda to discuss the situation in the Portuguese colony: AHD 3/MU-GM/GNP01-RNP/S0411/UI08238, ‘Situação do PAIGC, No. 229/71-GAB’, 31 Jan. 1971.
65 AHD 3/MU-GM/GNP01-RNP/S0411/UI08238, Relatório de Notícia No. 197/BE, ‘Relações do PAIGC com o governo Senegales’, 11 Mar. 1971.
66 AHD 3/MU-GM/GNP01-RNP/S0411/UI08238, ‘Informação No. 542 – CI (2), República do Senegal, No. 1–2’, 11 May 1971.
67 Interview with Boubacar Diallo, Mampatim, Senegal, 9 Dec. 2016.
68 For example: S. J. Zimmerman, Militarizing Marriage: West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire (Athens, OH, 2020); E. Uchendu, Women and Conflict in the Nigerian Civil War (Trenton, 2006); and G. Chuku and S. U. Aham-Okoro (eds.), Women and the Nigeria-Biafra War: Reframing Gender and Conflict in Africa (Lanham, MD, 2020).
69 Urdang, Fighting, 142–9.
70 A. Ly, ‘“Courage does not come from a sardine can but from the heart”: the gendered realms of power during Guinea Bissau's national liberation struggle, 1963–1974’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of California, Davis, 2012), 166.
71 Ibid, 83.
72 Interview with Idrissa Baldé, Galomaro (Cossé), Guinea-Bissau, 21 Apr. 2017. For a similar example in the regional capital of Farim, see Ly, ‘Courage’, 205.
73 J. M. de Braga Dias, ‘Mudança sócio-cultural na Guiné Portuguesa’ (unpublished PhD thesis, ISCSP Ultramarina, 1974), 71–6 and 268.
74 Forrest, Lineages, 197. See also Chaliand, Armed Struggle, 18.
75 Dhada, Warriors, 242.
76 Dias, ‘Mudança’, 165.
77 Chaliand, Armed Struggle, 18.
78 Nevertheless, toward the end of the war, a Senegalese military commander in the border town of Ouassadou warned Diamalal Diao that he would be arrested if he continued to help the PAIGC. AHD 3/MU-GM/GNP01-RNP/S0411/UI08238, ‘Informação No. 1406’, 17 Dec. 1973.
79 Quoted in Davidson, No Fist, 74.
80 Quoted in Urdang, Fighting, 139.
81 O. K. Ignat'ev, Três tiros da P.I.D.E: quem, porquê e como, mataram Amílcar Cabral (Lisbon, 1975).
82 Interview with Meta Baldé, Mampatim, Senegal, 17 Jan. 2017.
83 Ly, ‘Courage’, 12.
84 Interviews with Meta Balde; and with Husaynatou Djaló and Lamini Balde, Mafanco, Guinea-Bissau, 2 Apr. 2017.
85 Djaló, Guineense, 73–4.
86 Ibid, 98–102.
87 A. Pereira, Uma luta, um partido, dois países: Guiné-Bissau – Cabo Verde (Lisbon, 2002), 145.
88 Ibid.
89 Dhada, Warriors, 41–44. On Zimbabwe, see Stapleton, African Police, 202–3.
90 Interview with Amadu Sadjo Sané.
91 Interview with Ma Tidjani Sall, Yunusa Baldé, and Mama Salu Candé, Fass, Guinea-Bissau, 6 Apr. 2017.
92 Interviews with Oumar Diao, Coly Diamanka, Mediya Baldé, and Fode Sabaly, Bagadadji, Senegal, 14 Dec. 2016; and with Husaynatou Djaló and Lamini Baldé.
93 Dhada, Warriors, 78–79. FARP is an acronym for Forças Armadas Revolucionárias do Povo (Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People).
94 Ibid, 74.
95 Davidson, No Fist, 90–2.
96 Lubkemann, Culture in Chaos, 4–6.
97 AHM PT/AHM/FO/007/B/12/229/10, ‘Perintrep No. 11/61, anexo II’, 31 Oct. 1961.
98 CADN 184PO/1/248, ‘Réfugiés Guinéens au Sénégal’, 16 Mar. 1964.
99 CADN 184PO/1/248, ‘En écoutant les réfugiés guinéens portugais (15 au 22 mai 1964)’.
100 CADN 184PO/1/248, ‘Affaires africaines, Synthèse no. 24/64 du 12 Juin 1964’, 14.
101 CADN 184PO/1/248, J. de Lagarde, ‘Sénégal et Guinée Portugaise: le problème des réfugiés’, 31 Aug. 1964.
102 Dhada, Warriors, 76.
103 AHD 3/MU-GM/GNP01-RNP/S0588/UI00276, ‘O Director, Gabinete dos Negócios Políticios ao Governador da Província da Guiné’, 24 June 1967.
104 Dhada, Warriors, 76.
105 Ibid, 34.
106 Interview with Moukhtarou Coulibaly, Mampatim, Senegal, 10 Dec. 2016.
107 Ibid.
108 Interview with Fode Diaboula, Mampatim, Senegal, 11 Dec. 2016.
109 Quoted in Davidson, No Fist, 76.
110 Dhada, Warriors, 265. Interviews with Kanta Diao, Coumbarou Baldé, Oumar Baldé, Dombel Baldé, and Demba Boiro, Ouassadou, Senegal, 26 Jan. 2017; and with Ousmane Ba, Thierno Bocar Kande, and Aliou Baldé, Guiro Yero Bocar, Senegal, 20 Feb. 2017.
111 In fact, one of the stated reasons for the 1980 coup led by Nino Vieira, which overthrew Guinea-Bissau's first president, Luís Cabral, was the alleged mistreatment of African soldiers who had fought in the Portuguese military. Nó Pintcha, 29 Nov. 1980.