Hope for the best but be prepared for the worst

In Guinea as in Cape Verde, our struggle has made considerable advances (we might say great strides) since the First Party Congress, held in one of the liberated areas in the south of Guinea in February 1964.

In Guinea, with the elimination of various errors which had been committed on the political level, with the strengthening of our human and material resources and with the creation of our People's Army and strengthening of our guerrilla forces, the armed struggle has been spread to new areas (Boé, Gabu, S. Domingos) and we are inflicting new defeats on the enemy, who have gone on to the defensive. We have implanted guerrilla warfare in the ‘Manjaco Territory’ and we have taken control of new areas of the country. A great part of the decisions of our Congress (on party reorganisation, developing of production, supply to the population, the founding of schools, health assistance, the creation of a People's Militia, etc.) has been put into practice and we have seen some very encouraging successes.

In Cape Verde, where difficulties specially geographical (namely, communications and co-ordination) have not allowed a more rapid advance in the struggle, important steps have been taken in the last two years. The organisation of the party was strengthened, mobilisation of the population reached a high level, notably in the main urban centres and in some rural sectors. On the other hand, new efforts made by the party leadership, ably helped by conscientious militants who had begun to devote all their activity to the party and to the struggle, have brought results which are today translated into a full ripening of the political situation in the main islands.

This situation thus demands the shift of the struggle into a new phase, in which we must lay hold of all the available means to eliminate colonial domination from the islands. Our party and the mass of the people of Cape Verde have been energetically preparing in all the domains needed to unleash armed struggle in the archipelago.

We must do this, but we must do it under the most favourable circumstances and bearing in mind the particular characteristics of armed struggle for liberation in this very special geographical environment.