The Last of Africa's Cold War Conflicts: Portuguese Guinea and its Guerilla Insurgency

Al J. Venter

touko 2020 · Pen and Sword Military

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This detailed combat history sheds light on the significant yet overlooked guerilla campaigns in what would become Angola and Guinea-Bissou.

Portugal was the first European country to colonize Africa. It was also the last to leave, almost five centuries later. During what Lisbon called its “civilizing mission” the Portuguese weathered numerous insurrections, but none as severe as the guerrilla war first launched in Angola in 1961 and two years later in Portuguese Guinea.

Both the Soviets and the Cubans believed that because the tiny colony of Guinea had no resources, Lisbon would soon capitulate. But the 11-year struggle became the empire’s most strenuous attempt to retain colonial power. Though it was overshadowed by the conflict in Vietnam, the Soviet-led guerrilla campaign in Portuguese Guinea set the scene for the wars that followed in Rhodesia and present-day Namibia.

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Al J. Venter is a specialist military writer who has had over fifty books published. He started his career with International Defence Review, covering military developments in the Middle East and Africa. He has been writing on insurgencies across the globe for half a century and remains involved with Britain's Jane’s Information Group. Late 2019 he covered the conflict in the Central African Republic, a United Nations "Peacekeeping" effort for _Jane's Defence Weekly_. Sadly, he found a country striven with violence. In his day the author was a stringer for the BBC, NBC News, as well as _London’s Daily Express_ and _Sunday Express._ He branched into television work in the early 1980s, producing more than a hundred documentary films including _Africa’s Killing Fields_ (on the Ugandan civil war) as well as _AIDS: The African Connection_, nominated for a Pink Magnolia Award in Shanghai, China. He also produced an hour-long television programme on Russia's war in Afghanistan in 1985. One of his most recent major books, _Portugal’s Guerrilla Wars in Africa_, was nominated for New York’s Arthur Goodzeit military history book award. Venter writes extensively for several Pen & Sword military history series including ‘Cold War 1945–1991’ and ‘A History of Terror’.