Osvaldo Vieira
Osvaldo Vieira | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) A statue of Viera outside the airport in Bissau. | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Osvaldo Máximo Vieira 1938 Bissau, Portuguese Guinea |
| Died | 31 March 1974 Conakry, Guinea |
| Resting place | Fortaleza de São José da Amura |
| Political party | African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde |
Osvaldo Máximo Vieira (1938 – 31 March 1974) was a pioneer of the Bissau-Guinean independence movement and a key military commander during the War of Independence. He was the cousin of Nino Vieira, who would later serve two separate terms as president.[1]
Vieira was one of many early recruits from the so-called "revolutionary petty bourgeoisie", a group which Amílcar Cabral entrusted with instigating the war of independence.[2] His father worked at the Sociedade Comercial Ultramarina, while his grandfather had worked in the postal service, owned land, and was considered a "small intellectual".[3]
Before his revolutionary career, Vieira worked as a pharmacy assistant to Sofia Pomba Guerra, a white Portuguese feminist who was active in the burgeoning independence movements of Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. In 1961 he, along with nine other young PAIGC fighters, trained at the Army Command College of the Chinese People's Liberation Army in Nanjing, China.[1]
The Osvaldo Vieira International Airport in Bissau is named in his honour.
References[edit]
- ^ a b Mendy, Peter Karibe (2019). Amílcar Cabral: A Nationalist and Pan-Africanist Revolutionary. Athens: Ohio University Press. ISBN 9780821446621.
- ^ Sarrazin, Chantal; Gjerstad, Ole, Sowing the First Harvest: National Reconstruction in Guinea-Bissau (PDF) (Pamphlet), Oakland, California: Liberation Support Movement
- ^ Davidson, Basil (2017). No Fist Is Big Enough to Hide the Sky: The Liberation of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, 1963-74. London: Zed Books. ISBN 9781783609994.