The date September 19, 1956, became the landmark date for the founding of the PAIGC in Bissau. The official narrative associates the meeting with Amílcar Cabral, Aristides Pereira, Luís Cabral, Júlio de Almeida, Fernando Fortes, and Elisée Turpin. The purpose was to organize, under a common political leadership, the struggle for the independence of Guinea and Cape Verde in the two then-colonial territories.

The memory of this beginning is not entirely linear. Historical investigations based on later testimonies record differences regarding the participants in the founding meeting and the exact moment when the acronym PAIGC replaced the designation PAI. These discrepancies do not invalidate the commemorated date, but they do show the difficulties left by clandestinity and incomplete archives.

The connection between Guinea and Cape Verde had its roots in the Portuguese colonial space itself. Cape Verdeans held administrative positions in Guinea, while families, workers, and students circulated between the two territories and Portugal. Cabral was born in Bafatá, the son of Cape Verdeans, studied in the archipelago and in Lisbon, and returned to Guinea as an agricultural engineer before his political career.

The joint project sought to transform this exchange into a unified struggle without erasing the differences between the two societies. Guinea had a predominantly African and rural population, marked by various communities and languages. Cape Verde presented a distinct insular, Creole, and diasporic formation. The unity advocated by the PAIGC was, therefore, a political construct and not a simple identity.

This origin helps to understand the cultural dimension of the anniversary in both countries. The foundation created a language of liberation expressed in symbols, songs, speeches, newspapers, and political education practices. The memory of the PAIGC was formed between different territories linked by a Portuguese colonial experience and by an objective of sovereignty that, at that time, was still to be achieved.

The transition from clandestine organization to armed struggle did not occur immediately. On August 3, 1959, the strike by dockworkers in Pidjiguiti was lethally repressed by the colonial authorities. This episode became decisive in nationalist memory and reinforced the conviction among leaders that political action faced severe limitations under Portuguese rule.

In the following years, the PAIGC established its headquarters in Conakry and expanded its mobilization. The armed struggle began on January 23, 1963, with the attack on the Tite barracks in southern Guinea. The conflict was concentrated in Guinean territory, while in Cape Verde, anti-colonial activity remained largely clandestine due to its insular status and local context.

The war was not limited to military confrontation. In the areas administered by the PAIGC, schools, health facilities, forms of justice, and supply networks were created. These spaces served as the embryos of a future administration and also as instruments of mobilization. Education assumed a central place in literacy and in the preparation of personnel destined for the struggle and the independent state.

This dimension explains Amílcar Cabral's cultural legacy. The leader understood liberation as a political and cultural transformation and refused to reduce it to the mere replacement of the colonial flag. His speeches and writings linked culture, consciousness, and sovereignty, in a formulation that continues to be studied in Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and in international academic circles.

The struggle produced internal tensions, human losses, and disputes over power, identity, and representation. The Guinean and Cape Verdean unity advocated by the leadership did not suppress differences or resentments within the movement. The assassination of Amílcar Cabral in Conakry on January 20, 1973, deprived the PAIGC of its central figure just months before the proclamation of Guinean independence.

When Amílcar Cabral was assassinated, the struggle was in an advanced stage. The PAIGC continued its political organization and convened the National People's Assembly in the areas under its administration. On September 24, 1973, in the Madina do Boé region, the Republic of Guinea-Bissau was unilaterally proclaimed, before Portugal formally accepted the end of colonial sovereignty over the territory.

Portuguese recognition came after the Revolution of April 25, 1974. The Algiers Agreement, signed on August 26 by the Portuguese Government and the PAIGC, set September 10 as the date for the recognition of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. The document established a ceasefire and framed the withdrawal of Portuguese forces, opening a new chapter in relations between the two states.

Cape Verde followed a different path. Armed struggle did not take hold in the archipelago, and the transition accelerated after the fall of the Portuguese regime. On July 5, 1975, Cape Verde became independent under the leadership of the PAIGC. Aristides Pereira assumed the Presidency and Pedro Pires headed the Government, within a framework guided by the project of unity with Guinea-Bissau.

The existence of two states did not mean the immediate abandonment of political rapprochement. The organization retained the same name and its heritage in both countries, although each territory had its own institutions. The unity envisioned by Cabral remained as a horizon, conditioned by historical, social, and administrative differences that independence made more visible instead of making them disappear.

The two independence movements inscribed the PAIGC in the history of the end of Portuguese colonialism in Africa. Its trajectory intersected with the struggles in Angola and Mozambique and with African and international solidarity networks. The party's political, intellectual, cultural, and diplomatic archive transcends the borders of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde and continues to fuel historical research.

The project of unity between Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde ended on November 14, 1980. A coup d'état led by Prime Minister João Bernardo Vieira overthrew President Luís Cabral in Bissau and installed a Council of the Revolution. The change of power directly affected the common structure that the PAIGC had maintained in both states since independence.

The reasons for the coup continue to be debated by historians. The new Guinean leaders cited criticism of the Cape Verdean presence in the power structures and institutional divergences. Later studies also highlighted internal disputes, tensions between leaders, and social and economic problems. Reducing 1980 to a single cause would erase the complexity of the conflicts accumulated since the liberation struggle.

In Cape Verde, the split was considered incompatible with the continuity of the common party. The Cape Verdean wing became autonomous and created, in January 1981, the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde, the PAICV. The PAIGC remained in Guinea-Bissau. From that moment on, the same anti-colonial past began to be preserved by different organizations and by states with their own political trajectories.

The separation did not sever all ties of memory. Amílcar Cabral remained present in both countries through schools, monuments, archives, publications, and academic research. The same is true of figures such as Aristides Pereira, Luís Cabral, and Pedro Pires, whose paths cross national borders. The shared history survives primarily as a shared and debated heritage, and not as a program for state unification.

This transformation is crucial for understanding these 70 years without confusing historical memory with party loyalty. The PAIGC of 2026 is integrated into the Guinean political system, while Cape Verde followed its own institutional path. The legacy of 1956 involves two independence processes and different social experiences, as well as a prolonged discussion about unity, sovereignty, and identity.

Seven decades later, the commemorations return to a geographical area of ​​circulation. The Casa do Alentejo, in Lisbon, has been announced as the main venue for the ceremonies on September 19th, with historical leaders, academics, researchers, young people, and political representatives invited. The program is part of a cycle that began in April in the Portuguese capital and includes other activities held outside of Guinea-Bissau.

The concentration of celebrations abroad gains weight in light of the situation in Guinea-Bissau. On November 26, 2025, the military seized power, suspended the electoral process, and detained leaders. The African Union and the UN condemned the breakdown of constitutional order. Afterwards, the PAIGC reported difficulties accessing its national headquarters and held meetings digitally.

Domingos Simões Pereira, president of the PAIGC, arrived in Lisbon in July after the military court suspended his pre-trial detention to allow for medical treatment. The central event of this anniversary was announced with a speech by him. The leader's presence in Portugal lends a political dimension to the event, although the 70 years refer to a history prior to the partisan disputes of the present.

Lisbon has long occupied an ambivalent place in this memory. It was the capital of the colonial power against which the PAIGC organized, but also a city of formation and encounter for several generations of Africans, as well as a place of exile. Today it welcomes Guinean and Cape Verdean communities, archives, associations, and spaces where anti-colonial history continues to be studied, discussed, and transmitted.

Celebrating 70 years away from Bissau transforms distance into a historical fact, not just a logistical circumstance. The diaspora becomes a space of memory, while the absence from the Guinean center recalls the recent institutional rupture. Between Lisbon, Bissau, and Praia, the anniversary raises the question of how to preserve a shared history without erasing the differences that have always been part of it.

At 70 years old, the PAIGC remains linked to a history that transcends its status as a party in Guinea-Bissau. Its founding in 1956 also belongs to the memory of Cape Verde, to the trajectory of Amílcar Cabral, and to the cycle of struggles that contributed to the end of the Portuguese colonial empire in Africa. This legacy encompasses achievements, ruptures, and divergences that independence did not resolve.

The anniversary, celebrated primarily outside of Guinea-Bissau, makes this memory especially visible. Lisbon emerges as a meeting point for generations, archives, and diasporas, while the distance from Bissau exposes the weight of the recent political situation. The event therefore necessitates distinguishing the shared history from the immediate partisan dispute without separating one reality from the other.

Between Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, a shared history remains, which the 1980 rupture did not erase. Remembering it requires acknowledging the common project and the differences that have permeated it from the beginning.