WEEKLY SUMMARY SPECIAL REPORT THE GUERRILLA WAR IN PORTUGUESE GUINEA,

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06954164
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: November 7, 2022
• Case Number: F-2018-01460
• Publication Date: December 20, 1968

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DIRECTORATE OF
OF
INTELLIGENCE
WEEKLY SUMMARY
Special Report
The Guerrilla War in Portuguese Guinea
N2 1093
1 0 9 3
20 December 1968
No. 0052/68B
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THE GUERRILLA WAR IN PORTUGUESE GUINEA
A determined Communist-supported nationalist
guerrilla force has succeeded in stalemating some
27,000 Portuguese troops in Lisbon's beleaguered West
African province of Guinea. Started in 1961 with
terrorist attacks and sabotage, the insurgency has
mushroomed into a major challenge to the Portuguese
presence in Africa, with implications for Angola and
Mozambique, where Lisbon has so far been largely
successful in containing similar nationalist rebel-
lions. Within the last few years the Portuguese have
been forced to adopt an enclave strategy that has
enabled them to defend important positions in the
backwater province and has reduced their combat
losses to a tolerable rate. At present the Portu-
guese retain control over all urban and communica-
tions centers while conceding the insurgents effec-
tive control over large sections of the countryside.
Emboldened by past successes and apparently assured
of a continuous supply of arms and munitions from
Communist and radical African sources, the insurgents
over the past year have accelerated the tempo and
scope of their operations. Despite the recent change
in the leadership of the Portuguese state, all pro-
nouncements from Lisbon indicate that the government
intends to stand fast in Portuguese Guinea notwith-
standing the territory's economic insignificance.
Background to the Current
Insurgency
Portuguese Guinea, first ex-
plored in 1446, has special sig-
nificance to Lisbon as its oldest
possession on the African conti-
nent. Throughout the territory's
long history as a Portuguese prov-
ince it has been troubled by
chronic tribal strife; only in
the 1930s could the Portuguese
claim to have pacified the inte-
rior. They have moved very slowly
in extending rights to the prov-
Page 1
ince's black African population.
With the introduction of the new
Organic Law of 1963, and the re-
vised political and administrative
statutes, they hoped to prepare
larger numbers of Africans to
assume the responsibilities of
government. The Portuguese permit
their metropolitan population
little political freedom, and
there is no reason to expect that
they will grant much more to Afri-
cans, especially Africans as prim-
itive as those found in Guinea.
Prior to the '60s the Portuguese
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PORTUGUESE GUINEA
Ares of insurgent control
40 Kilometera
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�
RFC.R Tr.T
based distinctions in their treat-
ment of the Africans there on
whether they were considered as-
similated or nonassimilated.
Usually this meant that the res-
ident Cape Verdians, because of
their much longer contact with
Portuguese language and culture,
were given more favorable treat-
ment. Most of the black Africans
were classified as nonassimilated
and excluded from all but the
most menial positions. In fact,
they were subjected to compulsory
labor and other discriminatory
practices, including a separate
legal code.
In the mid-50s a group of
Cape Verdians who had completed
their schooling in Portugal
attempted to organize some of the
Cape Verdian administrative and
urban working elite. They formed
an organization called the Afri-
can Party for the Independence of
Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde
(PAIGC). The PAIGC sought greater
rights for the non-Portuguese
elements in Portuguese Guinea
with independence as the eventual
goal. Because all political ac-
tivity outside of the Portuguese
establishment's National Union
Party was outlawed, the PAIGC
was forced to operate clandes-
tinely.
Labor unrest in the province
in August 1959 was climaxed by a
series of strikes by the dock
workers of Bissau, who demanded
better salaries. The Portuguese
response was swift and bloody;
some 50 strikers were killed,
and large numbers of Africans
were arrested. Many of those
implicated in the strike were
Page 3
members of the PAIGC. Although
at the time of its founding
there was little or no indica-
tion that the PAIGC contemplated
armed insurrection against the
Portuguese, the aftermath of the
1959 strikes apparently caused
some rethinking of PAIGC strategy.
By 1961 the PAIGC's recourse to
terrorism and sabotage was con-
firmed by scattered outbreaks in
several parts of the province.
Some of these early terrorist
attacks were the work of minor,
tribally based groups, which,
lacking the support and leader-
ship of the PAIGC, were unable
to sustain their activities.
Wishing to conduct the guer-
rilla war from secure surround-
ings, the PAIGC leadership moved
its headquarters from Portuguese
Guinea to Conakry, capital of
the neighboring Republic of
Guinea, at the invitation of
Guinean President Sekou Toure.
Once there, the PAIGC turned its
attention to the rural masses
and set about trying to mold the
mutually antagonistic tribes into
an insurrectionary guerrilla army.
When the random terror in which
the party engaged for the next
few years seemed to bring little
return, the party decided to over-
haul its tactics and organization.
A conference of cadres was
held at Geba, in the interior of
Portuguese Guinea, in February
1964. The party was concerned
with the emergence of petty war-
lords among its military leaders
and attempted to suppress any
future challenges to its leader-
ship. The role of the military
was clearly defined and made
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Theoretical Structure of PA1GC Organization
I SECRETARY GENERAL 1
Political Bureau
(Central Committee)
(Conakry)
Executive Committee
CABINETS
� Political and Foreign
Affairs
� Defense and Security
� Social and Cultural
Affairs
� Information and
Propaganda
� Control
� Organization and
Internal Affairs
� Finance and Economics
,Committee (Dakar)
Bureau
GENERAL COMMAND
Inter-Regions Hqs.
(Northern, Eastern, Southern)
MILITARY
Inter-Region Peoples Revolutionary
(FARP)
Chief Committee National Committee
of the Army of Guerrillas
Armed Forces
Revolutionary
Committee of the
Peoples Militia
POLITICAL
Inter-Region Political
Committee
Regional
Committees
Peoples Armed
Peoples
Guerrilla Peoples Militia
Zonal
Force
Force
Force
Committees
Sections
Militia Units
Sectional
Committees
Subsections
Subsections
Groups
Groups
Groups
23209 12-68 CIA
Gap exists in exact structural relationship
between the Central Committee in Conakry
and the Inter-Region Commands. Similar
gap exists between the Central Committee in
Conakry and PAIGC Committee in Dakar
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subordinate to the political
side of the party. The territory
was divided into three major
"inter-regions," and a well-
defined chain of command was
established with a war council,
called the general command, re-
sponsible for coordinating all
military operations. From 1964
onward, the party decided to ex-
pand the struggle throughout the
provinces.
After 1961, provincial au-
thorities became increasingly
alarmed and appealed to Lisbon
for more troops to quell the
rising insurgency. Portuguese
forces increased from a few
thousand troops in the early
'60s to a present total of some
27,000. They face a well-armed
Amilcar Cabral, Secretary General PAIGC
Page 5
guerrilla force, estimated at
about 10,000, whose tactics and
boldness have shown marked im-
provement over the early days.
The Portuguese, trying to keep
their losses to a minimum, have
adopted an enclave strategy,
whereby they maintain defensive
strongpoints at key positions
around the province, mainly
around urban areas and communica-
tions centers. They have relin-
quished control of much of the
outlying area, but they control
the air over the province and
attempt to keep the insurgents
off guard by sporadic aerial
harassment.
PAIGC Objectives
The PAIGC's appeal has al-
ways been nationalistic. The
party seeks to implant the seed
of nationalism among the prov-
ince's unsophisticated and unruly
tribes, most of which are more
preoccupied with intratribal
rivalries than with Portuguese
rule. Most of all, the PAIGC
demands complete and unconditional
independence from the Portuguese.
Also high on the party's priori-
ties is the eventual union of the
Cape Verde Islands with the main-
land. To this end, Amilcar
Cabral, founder and secretary
general of the PAIGC, stated in
June 1968 that the PAIGC was
ready to commence armed action
in the Cape Verde Islands. There
is no evidence to indicate that
any armed action has taken place
there. Finally, the PAIGC em-
phatically rejects any notion of
eventual partition or fusion of
Portuguese Guinea between or with
Senegal or Guinea.
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In the economic sphere, the
party advocates a system of state
control over most sectors of the
economy, limiting private owner-
ship to "the possession of goods
for individual -Consumption,
family homes, and savings acquired
through hard work." In areas
under PAIGC control, the party
has encouraged the cultivation
of rice at the expense of peanuts,
which is the primary export crop.
Under the PAIGC the state would
be all-powerful, controlling the
principal means of production,
communications, social welfare,
education, and culture.
If the PAIGC leans heavily
on the Communist world instead
of the West, it is at least
partly because so much of its
present and past support and
training have came from that
quarter. Marxist terminology
and anti-Western epithets--many
of them specifically anti-Ameri-
can--are designed to please the
PAIGC's current sponsors. PAIGC
spokesmen have an several occa-
sions said they would welcome
assistance from any quarter, and
they have deplored the lack of
a Western response.
Organization of the PAIGC
and its Miritary Arm
Theoretically, PAIGC party
structure closely parallels that
of a Communist party, even to
the point of employing the prin-
ciple of democratic centralism,
in which decisions made at the
top are binding on lower party
levels. At the apex of the party
pyramid is the office of secre-
Page 6
tary general, a post held since
the party's founding in 1956 by
Amilcar Cabral. Below the secre-
tary general is the 15-member
political bureau, containing the
party's key functionaries, and
a 65-member central committee.
Also subordinate to the politi-
cal bureau is the general com-
mand established by the 1964
conference of cadres. Members
of this coordinating body are
drawn from both the party's po-
litical and military ranks. Be-
low the national level the PAIGC's
political structure closely par-
allels its military structure,
with political commisars who
have the final say attached to
each subordinate administrative-
military echelon.
The party's armed forces
are divided into three compo-
nents, each under a committee:
the peoples armed force, the
peoples guerrilla force, and the
peoples militia. Each is assigned
missions commensurate with its
capabilities. The committees
charged with directing each of
these components in turn report
to the general command. Major
military operations fall within
the purview of the peoples armed
force, whereas harassment actions
and auxiliary functions are per-
formed by the peoples guerrilla
force. The peoples militia ap-
pears to play primarily a defen-
sive role. It is charged with
protecting villages in PAIGC-
liberated areas and in maintain-
ing party control over the in-
habitants of these areas.
Party leadership seems to
be a one-man show, with Amilcar
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PAIGC Rebels
Cabal by far the most prominent
of all PAIGC .chiefs. Most of the
party's other important officials
are relatively obscure or at best
are well known only inside Portu-
gueqe Guinea. Cabral is a
trained agronomist and has had
practical experience working in
that capacity for the Portuguese.
He is considered an articulate
spokpman for the PAIGC, but he
lack f the charisma that one nor-
mal associates with revolution-
ary eaders. He appears to have
made friends for the PAIGC not
only in the Communist bloc and
among the radical African states,
but also among some Western coun-
tries that have lent a sympa-
thetic ear to the nationalists.
The party's rank and file
consists mostly of youthful mili-
tants drawn mainly from the Ba-
lanta and Majako tribes. Since
1956 there probably has been in-
traparty bickering, especially
between the black African rank
and file and the Cape Verdian
leadership, the former being
resentful of the secure positions
in Conakry held by the latter.
Most recently there seems to have
been tension between Amilcar and
his half-brother Luis Cabral,
who has been threatening to
break away and set up a new move-
ment with Chinese Communist sup-
port. So far, Amilcar Cabral,
who appears to possess the po-
litical savvy to keep the party
together, seems to have weathered
the storm and may even have
strengthened his position.
PAIGC Tactics
PAIGC tactics have evolved
from the random acts of terror
and sabotage of the early '60s
to the better coordinated, wide-
spread guerrilla war currently
being waged against the Portu-
guese. Geography and climate
make this a difficult war for
both belligerents. Military
operations are usually limited
to the four or five months of
the dry season--November to
April--when the province's lim-
ited road system can be utilized.
The province's ubiquitous
streams and rivers also present
less formidable obstacles during
this season; in the rainy season
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flooding makes river navigation
highly dangerous. The insur-
gents, not limited to any par-
ticular type of transport, are
more flexible in their movement
than the Portuguese and can take
greater advantage of their oppo-
nents during bad weather.
According to Amilcar Cabral,
the PAIGC seeks to confine the
Portuguese to the urban areas and
deny them the outlying areas.
Within the past year PAIGC at-
tacks have increased against
Portuguese barracks and strong-
points along the southern boun-
dary with Guinea and along the
northern boundary with Senegal.
So great has the pressure become
in these areas that the insur-
gents claim that the Portuguese
have been forced to abandon sev-
eral of their positions and move
to more defensible ones. Despite
its increasing aggressiveness,
however, the PAIGC refuses to
seize towns and other large ob-
jectives because of the ever
present threat from Portuguese
air power.
In recent months the PAIGC
has attempted to get the UN
Committee on Decolonization to
condemn the Portuguese for their
use of napalm in Portuguese
Guinea. Moreover, they accuse
the Portuguese of contemplating
the use of poison gas and phos-
phorus bombs.
The insurgent effort is not
directed solely against the Por-
tuguese but also against Africans
who resist PAIGC authority. In-
timidation of Africans ranges
Page 8
from kidnaping to murder of those
accused of collaborating with the
Portuguese. PAIGC terror against
the tribes has at times been
counterproductive, as in 1966
when the Felupes, an extremely
backward tribe residing in the
Sueana area near the northern
border, took up arms and drove
PAIGC militants across the bor-
der into Senegal.
The PAIGC has attempted to
limit the movement of Africans
under its control into Portuguese-
held areas. To this end the
PAIGC established a system of
people's stores in the areas it
holds. They are intended to
carry on the functions previ-
ously performed by Portuguese
and Lebanese merchants. These
stores reportedly are stocked
with such basic items as salt,
sugar, cloth, and kerosene, which
are exchanged for surplus rice
and other produce grown by the
villagers. Whatever surplus is
obtained in these transactione
is then sold by the PAIGC in
neighboring Senegal, and the
proceeds are used to help finance
its operations. The PAIGC has
sought to disrupt the economy by
reducing the production of pea-
nuts, the province's major ex-
port. The PAIGC campaign against
the cultivation of peanuts has
apparently had some success in
that the export of peanuts has
been drastically reduced since
the early '60s. The PAIGC has
also destroyed peanut storage
bins to prevent the peanuts from
reaching the port of Bissau, from
which they are exported to the
metropole.
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The rudimentary administra-
tion organized by the PAIGC in
the areas it controls reportedly
includes some educational and
social services. There PAIGC
cadres trained in Eastern Europe
and assisted by Cuban and Soviet
medical personnel are active
among the tribesmen.
External Support for the PAIGC
Secretary General Cabral
has often stated that the PAIGC
will take assistance from any
quarter but that so far only the
Communist world and some radical
African states have responded
to his requests. Soviet and
other Communist aid to the insur-
gents is the main reason, accord-
ing to the Portuguese, that the
war has gone on for so long.
Soviet assistance in particular
appears to be substantial, con-
sisting of weapons, munitions,
training, finances, and propa-
ganda support, while other East-
ern European states have made
contributions in varying amounts.
Besides insurgency training, the
Soviets and the East Europeans
are training PAIGC militants in
nursing, medicine, teaching,
and other technical fields.
Czechoslovakia and East Germany,
among the East Europeans, con-
tribute the most to the PAIGC.
Most of the arms and supplies
destined for the insurgents are
shipped by third countries like
Algeria and Cuba, each of which
funnels it through Guinea, where
it finds its way into the hands
of the PAIGC. In the early 1960s
the Chinese Communists attempted
to gain control over the insur-
Page 9
gent movement, but they appear
to have lost out to the Soviets.
the Soviets had supplied the
PAIGC with motor torpedo boats,
Cuba has actively assisted
the Portuguese Guinean insurgents
by providing guerrilla warfare
instructors and medical personnel
to help in the "liberated areas."
Present estimates place only
about 100 Cuban advisers in
either Guinea or Portuguese
Guinea, although Lisbon claims
there are 300. Some advisers
have even accompanied PAIGC
forces into combat,\
Moreover, Cuban propaganda or-
gans devote considerable atten-
tion to the insurgent cause.
Radical African states like
Algeria and Guinea have vigor-
ously supported the PAIGC. Al-
geria has provided the PAIGC
with training and funds and has
served as an intermediary in the
funneling of arms and supplies
from Eastern Europe and the USSR.
Guinea continues both to provide
training sites and sanctuary and
to act as the sole pipeline for
all the PAIGC's supplies. In
addition, certain Guinean facil-
ities are placed at PAIGC dis-
posal. Within the Organization
of African Unity, the African
Liberation Committee (ALC) has
been a staunch supporter of the
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