Sowing the First Harvest: National Reconstruction in Guinea-Bissau http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.lsmp1013 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Sowing the First Harvest: National Reconstruction in Guinea-Bissau Author/Creator Sarrazin, Chantal and Ole Gjerstad Publisher LSM Date 1978-00-00 Resource type Pamphlets Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) Guinea-Bissau Coverage (temporal) 1959 - 1975 Source Candice Wright Rights By kind permission of the Liberation Support Movement. Description INTRODUCTION. Chapter One-ASPECTS OF A DIFFICULT TRANSITION. Chapter Two-'SINCE PIDJIGUITI WE NEVER LOOKED BACK'. Chapter Three-'WE DON'T ACCEPT BEING TREATED LIKE ANIMALS'. Chapter Four-WOMEN IN THE STRUGGLE: LIBERATION IS A PROCESS. Chapter Five-CARMEN PEREIRA: WOMAN REVOLUTIONARY. Chapter Six-THE STRUGGLE FOR THE 'PRIMARY NECESSITIES'. Chapter Seven-A NEW SPIRIT OF JUSTICE. Chapter Eight-PEOPLE'S COURTS TO SERVE THE PEOPLE'S INTERESTS. Chapter Nine-THE GREAT KNOWLEDGE OFFENSIVE. GLOSSARY. CHRONOLOGY OF GUINEA-BISSAU'S LIBERATION STRUGGLE. RESOURCES. Format extent 106 page(s) (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.lsmp1013 http://www.aluka.org L -A L -A W"A, 4 1,11 1ii~ 1 (a .I Madommiltmem alrudien In Gulmon-Bluou Sowing tho First Harvost Published and Printed by LSM Information Center P.O. Box 2077 Oakland,CA 94604 USA ) 1978 LSM INFORMATION CENTER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED first printing- 1978 ISBN 0-919914-29- 2 printed in USA Table of Contents PREFACE INTRODUCTION page 6 Chapter One ASPECTS OF A DIFFICULT TRANSITION Suddenly emerging from colonial underdevelopment and a long and bitter war, the people of Guinea-Bissau face a wide range of difficulties in consolidating their independence. But despite the desperate shortage of cadres, the ruined economy and tile sharp city-countryside contradictions, the contours of a new kind of people's democracy are already visible. page II Chapter Two 'SINCE PIDJIGUITI WE NEVER LOOKED BACK' The Pidjiguiti massacre in 1959 was a turning point in the liberation struggle. Joao Emilio Costa was one of those who escaped with his life. page 35 Chapter Three 'WE DON'T ACCEPT BEING TREATED LIKE ANIMALS' The brief account of Caby na luk, an old man who was selected by his fellow villagers to tell us the story of their struggle. He did so with a sense of commitment and dedication that gained our deepest respect. page 38 Chapter Four WOMEN IN THE STRUGGLE: LIBERATION IS A PROCESS Tens of thousands of Guinea-Bissau women are today transcending the exploitation and traditional roles of the past to begin the creation of a new kind of human being. page 41 Chapter Five CARMEN PEREIRA: WOMAN REVOLUTIONARY One of PAIGC's most dynamic leaders discusses the changing role of women in the revolution. page 61 Chapter Six THE STRUGGLE FOR THE 'PRIMARY NECESSITIES' The system of People's Stores became a pillar of the new life in the liberated zones during the war. Their present expansion has now sharpened the class struggle. page 67 Chapter Seven A NEW SPIRIT OF JUSTICE The many contradictions between the new social order and the heritage of the past require constant attention and struggle. The Department of Justice does its share through political mass mobilization. page 75 Chapter Eight PEOPLE'S COURTS TO SERVE THE PEOPLE'S INTERESTS Fidelis Almada, the Secretary of Justice, explains how popular traditions combine with the needs of the revolution to provide a legal basis for the new people's power, all within the framework of continuing ideological struggle. page 81 Chapter Nine THE GREAT KNOWLEDGE OFFENSIVE Continuing the work of the armed struggle, education is now being expanded to accelerate the creation of the "new human being' capable of transforming society. page 89 GLOSSARY page 98 CHRONOLOGY OF GUINEA-BISSAU'S LIBERATION STRUGGLE page 99 RESOURCES page 102 Preface This collection of articles and interviews is one product of our three-month visit to Guinea-Bissau in early 1975, at the invitation of the Partido Africano da Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) and the country's Ministry of Information and Tourism. We wish to thank our comrades in both the Party and the Government for their friendly advice and cooperation, and hope that this small book will be a first contribution to having made their efforts worthwhile. Some of the chapters have previously appeared in the Tanzania Daily News, LSM News, and other periodicals. The final compilation and editing, as well as the production of the book, has been done through the collective efforts of the staff at the LSM Information Center. Together we dedicate this book to all those men and women who, throughout Guinea-Bissau, continue their lives of hard work, sacrifice and political struggle to expand the revolutionary experience of humankind. o.6. C.S. Introduction For a long time Guinea-Bissau was a place we knew only through intermediaries. In the years since Liberation Support Movement (LSM) started to work in solidarity with the national liberation movement, the PAIGC, we had translated and published much of the movement's own materials; we had read practically every book and article on the subject, seen several films, talked to PAIGC militants abroad and led discussions and workshops on the topic of the struggle. So we felt we had a good idea of what would confront us when, in early 1975, we arrived in Bissau for a three-month visit at the invitation of the new PAIGC Government. Still, we kept cautioning ourselves; it seemed easy enough back there in California or Quebec, New York or Minnesota when with just conviction we defended the armed struggle and described life in the liberated areas as if we had grown up there. Reality had to be different - harsh and complex; no rose garden, no tea party. As with so many young political activists in Canada and the United States, our involvement with anti-imperialist work goes back to the late 1960's. The surge of guerrilla campaigns and revolutionary people's wars in Africa, Asia and Latin America fired the imaginations of the alienated youth of the imperialist countries and produced the idols of countless study groups and college essays: Che, Cabral, Ho... A new dimension entered our lives and we looked to far-away places for guidance and inspiration in dealing with contradictions and social problems we didn't quite understand. Romanticism? Escapism? No doubt, there were elements of both, and in any case, for most it proved to be little more than another fad, a way to enrich one's life before the more prosaic concerns of degrees, jobs, and monthly payments imposed themselves with full force. It was during this period that the 'forgotten wars' in Portugal's African colonies gained wide-spread attention among progressives in the Western world. By the time the anti-war movement and the torrent of political activity that came with it reached its crest, PAIGC controlled nearly half of Guinea-Bissau. The colonial forces were isolated in the towns and scattered pockets of the territory while reports told of a new society with strong socialist elements taking shape in the liberated regions. At about the same time, the speeches and articles of Amilcar Cabral, the PAIGC Secretary General, were published abroad and quickly established this African patriot not on ly as the forceful leader of a small and struggling people, but as a bril- liant revolutionary theoretician whose message reverberated far be yond the borders of his colonized homeland. For Cabral and his Party comrades, as for many of us abroad, the liberation of Guine was but a part of a world-wide struggle against capitalist oppression and exploitation; their victory would take us all a step further on the road to a world where the welfare of the masses, not power and profits, is the motive force of human creative activity. This vision became the raison d'etre for many of us, in LSM and in other groups, who worked to raise political and material support for African liberation movements. The revolution in 'Portuguese' Guine no longer belonged to the Guineans alone; it had become part of a more universal human experience. It built on the already accumulated lessons of earlier liberation wars and revolutions and pushed the frontiers still further back. It gradually became clear to us that revolutionary nationalism in the so-called Third World would come to deal severe economic blows to international capitalism and also be a source of rising political consciousness among the peoples of our own countries. Struggles like that of the Guinea-Bissau people would help undercut the material privilege of the imperialist countries and rip the veil off the more innocuous welfare state-type exploitation.