Portuguese invasion of Guinea, 1970

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Portuguese invasion of Guinea, 1970
Part of Guinea-Bissau War of Independence

Memorial to the 22 November 1970 attack in Conakry.
Date 22 November 1970
Location Conakry, Guinea
Result Attack repulsed
Territorial
changes		 None
Belligerents
Portuguese Military, Guinean dissident forces Guinean People's Militia (Milice Populaire and Milice Nationaux), PAIGC
Commanders
Alpoim Calvão, António Spínola Lansana Conté, Sekou Toure
Strength
350-400 unknown
Casualties and losses
~200 ~100

The Portuguese invasion of Guinea, 1970 (known in Portuguese as "Operação Mar Verde", "Operation Green Sea") was a 22 November 1970 seaborne attack on the Conakry area of Guinea by Portuguese led Guinean dissident forces. While the attack, and periodic incursions across the Guinea-Bissau border in 1971, were quickly repulsed, they had the effect of intesifing the internal repression of Ahmed Sékou Touré regime, while doing little to slow the Guinea-Bissauan independence movement of the PAIGC, whose leadership in exile were the ostensible target of the attack.

Contents

[edit] Background

[edit] Attack

On the night of 21-22 November 1970 some 200 armed Guineans, arrayed in uniforms similar to those of the Guinean Army, commanded by Portuguese officers, plus 220 African-Portuguese and Portuguese troops, landed at points around Conakry. Four unmarked ships, including an LST and a cargo vessel disembarked troops at Conakry city center, while others landed near the president's summer house in Belle Vue and the airport. There they burnt Sékou Touré's home (he was in the Presidential Palace at the time), briefly captured two army posts, and the headquarters of the PAIGC, freed 26 Portuguese POWs held by the PAIGC, and quickly withdrew. The main body of Portuguese raiders attacked the headquarters of the PAIGC in suburban Conakry, but their presumed target, Amílcar Cabral was in Europe. They then moved on to the Airport, where their intelligence indicated several MIG fighter aircraft were stationed. The MIGs were inland, their pilots still in training by the Nigerian and Algerian air forces. Each of these three collumns of troops were quickly met by Guinean Milita forces, and the raiders ships retreated under heavy fire, abandoning around half their forces. 20-40 African-Portuguese troops defected during the operation.

[edit] Consequences

[edit] Guinean crackdown

The months that followed the attack both strengthened and weakened the Toure government. By all accounts, civilians participated in the fighting, and the opposition to what was a essentially a coup attempt by Portuguese was near universal domestically and across Africa.[citation needed]

The reaction of the Guinean government, though, was a taste of the repression that was to grow through the 1970s. Within a week, Sekou Toure had placed himself in charge of a new ten person committee which would run the country, largely by decree: the Haut-Commandement, the High Command. Staffed with loyal members of the Political Bureau, the High Command oversaw arrests, detentions without trial, and executions, mostly among previously trusted government and police officials. After a five day trial, on 23 January 1971, the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal handed down 29 executions (carried out three days later), 33 death sentences In absentia, 68 life sentences at hard labor (including of those Portuguese-African troops who defected), and 17 orders of confiscation of all property. 89 of those officially charged were released, though dissidents say more people "disappeared" into prison or were summarially executed. Those sentenced to die included members of the governing party (including the neighborhood party chiefs in Conakry), the Conakry chief of Police, a secretary to the President, an assistant minister of finance, and at least five Guinean soldiers. Those who had their property confiscated were entirely French or Lebanese, and a number of Europeans were rounded up to a variety of fates. Among those condemned to life were former government Ministers, heads of state industries, a former regional governor, and the top two officials of the National Museum. The trial gave strong indications of a purge.

Dissident leaders have claimed that a high proportion of Fula officials in those arrested was an indication that the so-called Peul plots of 1976 (purges of Peul/Fulbe notables from the Fouta Djallon region, accused of an attempted coup) began in the reaction to the 22 November events. Whatever ethnic, ideological, or anti-colonial dimension this purge had, in retrospect it was the beginning of a government that became ever more obsessed with ferreting out internal opposition -- real or imagined -- for the next decade.

[edit] Pan-African response

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Guniean government directives following 22 Nov

[edit] recollections of Portuguese soldiers

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