When the Portuguese arrived in Cape Verde in 1460, they found islands that didn’t have much to offer, apart from their spectacular landscapes and miles of beaches. There were no valuable natural or mineral resources on the islands and their dry and arid climate made conventional agriculture impossible. Its geostrategic position was of great importance, since it could serve as a starting point for the exploration of the continent or as a transitory port to America or Asia, but Portugal wanted to turn Cape Verde into a rich and prosperous colony, which generated wealth for itself. for the metropolis and offered an alternative to all those Portuguese citizens willing to take to the seas. This seems difficult to achieve on islands with hardly any resources, but Portugal quickly saw the solution.
The slave trade
To encourage the occupation of the islands and their development, the Portuguese Crown granted all colonists permits to trade with slaves who lived on the island of Santiago; Quickly, this activity would become the main economic engine of the islands. The nerve center of the slave trade was the capital at that time, Ribeira Grande—now Cidade Velha, ‘old city’—the first city built by Europeans in the tropical colonies. The slave ships landed there with hundreds of slaves from the coasts of Guinea and Sierra Leone, who were sold to the settlers in what has been defined as open-air slave “hypermarkets,” an authentic sale and purchase of human beings that marked complete the history of the country and that had its greatest peak in the period that runs from the 17th century until the abolition of slavery on the islands, in 1876.
Most of these slaves were forced to continue their journey to America, but many stayed and began to populate the country. Cape Verde does not have a genuinely native population, since it was discovered uninhabited, but among these slaves who remained, the first signs of Cape Verdean collective memory can be rescued. It is then that the Creole language of Cape Verde emerged as a form of communication between slaves of different origins, a language that the slaves would take with them to America and that would give rise to the rest of the creole languages in the French and English colonies of the American continent.
With the end of slavery, Cape Verde lost part of its importance, but by no means lost everything. Many ships continued to navigate its waters, with the only difference that, instead of slaves, they now transported oil. However, the situation for Cape Verdeans remained dire. The settlers had the wealth of the archipelago at their disposal while the rest of the people lived in misery. Between 1900 and 1950 alone there were seven major famines that killed some 300,000 Cape Verdeans, a situation that forced thousands of citizens to emigrate to the metropolis and Europe.
In 1926 the dictatorship was established in Portugal and many of those who stayed saw only one way out: the fight. In the following years, popular revolts and violent confrontations would occur, which greatly bothered the dictatorship. The Salazar regime increased repression against the rebels and thousands of Cape Verdeans were sentenced to forced labor in Sao Tome and Principe – to which Cesaria Évora, their most recognized artist, sang – or in the concentration camps built in Cape Verde itself.
The repression gave wings to the rebels, who quickly gained popular support. Meanwhile, in Lisbon, at the Empire Student House (CEI), many students from the Portuguese colonies were gathering and training who would become fundamental figures in the anti-colonial struggles against the Portuguese Empire. Among them, one especially stood out: Amílcar Cabral. Born in Guinea Bissau to Cape Verdean parents, Cabral founded the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which sought to free both territories from the domination to which they were subject and build a new social order without exploitation. They wanted to become independent, but not only from the Portuguese.
The struggle of a people
For any independence struggle to succeed, it is essential that the people have a national identity, a common feeling that unites its members under the same culture and customs. In a country like Cape Verde, where there were colonists and colonized, masters and slaves, whites and blacks, achieving that unity was simply impossible. Nor was that what the PAIGC was looking for, which from the beginning made it clear that it was with only one side: that of the oppressed. Inspired by communists such as Rosa Luxemburgo or Alvaro Cunhal, Cabral made the concept of town one of its main political and ideological weapons; Analyzing the roots of domination, he ended up finding the basis of Cape Verdean and Guinean identity and managed to unite the majority of the population under the banner of independence and socialism.
With the PAIGC at the helm, the rebels became increasingly fearless and determined; They inflicted greater and greater blows on the Portuguese army and gained the support of the international community, so that when Cabral was assassinated in 1973 there was no turning back in independence. However, Cabral’s murder was a very hard blow for the PAIGC, which lost its leader and ideologue in one fell swoop. The revolutionary ideological unity was lost little by little and many people settled for independence and left aside the economic and social conquests that Cabral dreamed of for his people.
On July 5, 1975, the independence of Cape Verde was proclaimed and it became governed by the PAIGC, which as a binational party jointly led Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, something that happened for the first time in history. In fact, the idea was for Cape Verde and Guinea to unite in the same country, until in 1981 a coup d’état in Guinea caused the division between the two countries and also between the two branches of the PAIGC, from which the African Party emerged. for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV), which limited its action to this country. Since independence, the PAICV governed as a single party, but the ineffectiveness of its policies and the fall of the Soviet bloc forced it to accept a multiparty system and in 1991 it held elections in which it would lose.
In these first fifteen years of independence, the PAICV nationalized important sectors of the economy, such as fishing and banks, and carried out several agrarian and forestry reforms that managed to improve food production, despite the drought and little soil. arable—barely 10% of the earth’s surface. However, the new country lacked almost everything: infrastructure, trained personnel, industry, roads… and the PAICV could not or did not know how to satisfy those needs with the urgency that was demanded from the streets. The arrival of the liberal Movement for Democracy (MpD) eliminated any trace of Cabralism in the State: it meant the privatization of many public companies and the opening of Cape Verde to international markets, a fundamental requirement of organizations such as the World Trade Organization or the International Monetary Fund.
Since then, the MpD and the PAICV have alternated in power, without either of them managing to significantly improve the situation in the country. In these years, the PAICV has been abandoning most of its founder’s Marxist ideas and embracing social democracy, privatization and, ultimately, the market economy. Thus, Cape Verde is now trying to ensure that foreign investments boost the national economy and generate wealth for the population, but it is not so clear that investors seek the same. For the moment, this policy has motivated the return of old acquaintances to the archipelago (Europe), but also the arrival of new partners (China).
Cape Verde, a little candy
That Cape Verde does not have many resources does not mean that there is no potential. In a country with more than 700,000 km2 of exclusive economic zone, it is clear that there have to be treasures somewhere, and one of the most important is submerged underwater. Fishing has historically been one of Cape Verde’s main resources and is doubly essential due to the islands’ low agricultural capacity. Since the first day humans arrived, Cape Verdean waters have fed its people with fresh fish, and they needed nothing more than a small boat to collect it. Nowadays, with all the technological advances available, access to fish has become a challenge for traditional fishermen, who have seen how large European and Chinese fishing vessels, thirsty for fishing grounds after despoiling theirs, They occupy its waters and take most of the fish. Fishing agreements with other governments or institutions, such as China or the EU, give up the rights to exploit Cape Verdean waters in exchange for practically nothing and leave the population without fish and without benefits.
Another of the most important sectors in the country – and probably the one with the most potential – is tourism, which is already the sector that contributes the most to the national GDP. The tropical waters and volcanic landscapes attract more and more tourists, which has led to the construction of many foreign-owned hotel complexes. Located in some of the most beautiful parts of the country, the complexes only allow access to those who can pay their prices, among whom the local population is not usually found. These ghettos of tourists, who generate million-dollar income for the companies that own them, turning many of the most valuable places in the archipelago into their exclusive property. The one that allows this is one of the most corrupt institutions in the country: Cabo Verde Investments (CVI). This body, dependent on the Ministry of Economy, approves foreign investment projects and intercedes with the Government to obtain the granting of lands and licenses.
We have the most bloody example on the island of Boa Vista, one of the most beautiful and fragile in the country. There, the construction of a mega hotel complex was approved in 2001; However, the investor was not satisfied with the island’s communication, since it would be difficult for tourists to reach the hotel. He presented his claim to CVI, which convinced the Government that an international airport had to be built on the island, with barely 6,000 inhabitants. And it was built there, thanks in part to the investment of public money and despite apparent priorities such as 30% of the population living in extreme poverty.
For some time now, the PAICV and MpD have been ironing out their differences to the point that, on issues such as foreign investments, their policies are practically the same. The sale of the country’s main assets has become a constant for more than two decades, more than enough time for…