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THE STRUGGLE   IN GUINEA-BISSAU
With the growing alliance of the forces of reaction, the NATO-Portuguese collaboration in the colonies, the cooperation of the Caetano, Vorster and Smith
regimes, it is imperative that the national liberation movements close ranks
against the common enemy. The fighting peoples of the Portuguese colonies
constitute one such  front. Since the establishment of the Conference of
Nationalist Organisations from the Portuguese Colonies(CONCP) in 1963t solidarity
among the peoples of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands
through their respective representative organisations, namely, the MPLA,
FRELIMO and the PAIGC has been growing steadily.
Recently, the Secretary-General of PAIGC(African Party for the Independence of
Guinea and Cabo Verde Islands), Comrade Cabral, who is also currently President
of the CONCP, paid a short visit to Tanzania and held extensive talks with the
representatives of the other two movements.
One evening he addressed a meeting of the FRELIMO and MPLA militants, in which
he outlined the progress of the struggle in Guinea-Bissau. He illustrated his
talks by showing two films on the struggle: one made by British Granada Television and the other by a Soviet team.
The enemy's military activities are daily aerial and naval bombardments, vain
attempts to invade and reconquer certain liberated areas by combined land, air,
and naval forces, and mopping up operations by helicopters, often supported by
marines. Apart from the small conventional weapons, they are intensifying the
use of fragmentation, napalm and phosphorous bombs. Hov/ever, the nationalist
forces are fighting vigorously and successfully on three fronts and have already
liberated two thirds of their country. Accurate shooting by anti-aircraft
gunners has destroyed about 40 percent of the Portuguese air power and forced
them to discontinue the use of their slow B-26, Dornier DO-27 and P2V bombers
in favour of jets - Fiat 91 and Sabre. Systematic attacks with cannon and
bazookas are carried out against Portuguese fortified camps. One of the few
means of transport left is by river, and there are intensive attacks against
boats carrying troops and merchandise. Commando operations against urban
centres, airports, dock installations stc. are particularly significant as
they greatly increase demoralisation among the enemy and discredit the colonialist troops in those areas.
In one such attack, against an airbase only 10 kms. from the centre of Bissau,
the control tower, barracks, and planes were destroyed. Inreasing amounts of
important war material are being captured, most of it NATO issue: West German
G—3's, Fall machine guns, American machine guns, Mauser rifles etc.
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