— "Guinea and Cape Verde Liberation Movement (MLGCV)", August 3, 1959

Since January of 2021 in Guinea-Bissau, civil servants have called for subsequent strikes demanding an end to labour injustices and wage inequalities. The strikes had the greatest impact on the health and education sectors in the country.

In July of 2021, the National Union for Guinean Workers (UNTG) began the first of a series of protests, the last one to be held on the 3rd of August, in response to the deteriorating conditions of labour in comparison to the rising travel subsidies of politicians in the country. Their claim was that the rising taxes did not pay for improving the quality of life of the people, but rather that of the country’s rulers.

Demonstrators gathered at the UNTG headquarters in the capital, Bissau but were met with violent repression as police forces released teargas to disperse the gathering. Protestors were also dispersed in Gabú and Bafatá in the east of the country, as well as Bubaque, the commercial hub of the Bijagós islands.

With rising tensions between syndicalists and the state in Guinea-Bissau in 2021 as well as the symbolism of the 3rd of August being employed by UNTG, we are compelled to remember the worker’s strike that launched the 10-year War of Independence when more than 50 dock workers were made martyrs in 1959. 

3rd of August 1959

Pindjiguiti is the port in Bissau that continues in operation. Under Portuguese colonial rule, the docks were under the monopoly of Casa Gouveia, a subsidiary of the company that controlled most of the trade in the country, Companhia União Fabril. The labourers of Casa Gouveia worked either on the dock or in the boats, transporting goods to the different regions of the country where Casa Gouveia also owned shops. Their wages were approximately 30 pence per day. 

The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cabo Verde (PAIGC) had been founded in 1956 and its members had been meeting secretly in Bissau. There had already been altercations between colonial police forces, and workers who had been protesting working conditions and meagre wages. Many Guineans did not have work and were struggling to make ends meet; conditions were not much different for those who were in employment. So, in July of 1959, the dockworkers organised a strike movement, demanding higher wages so that they could afford staples like rice and dry fish. When António Carreira, who had been managing Casa Gouveia refused to meet with the workers’ representatives, they decided to strike.

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On August 3rd of 1959, 500 workers gathered at Pindjiguiti and demonstrated, halting operations at the port installations entirely and refusing to work until such time that their wages were increased.

In his testimony of the events, Joao Emilio Costa who had been one of the strikers said, “Carreira came down and shouted and swore, but we just looked at him without moving. At about 4:30 in the afternoon several trucks of armed police arrived. First, they sealed off the gate to the street, then they ordered us back to work.” The confrontation escalated violently and in response to the brutality of the officers, the dockworkers resisted using the tools at their disposal like oars and metal bars. 

The workers’ strike came in the context of decolonisation movements across the African continent. Neighbouring Guinea had gained its independence only a year earlier, and the colonial powers had reconfigured its local military forces to repress any liberation movements that had begun to stir under Amílcar Cabral’s leadership. Two years earlier, the Portuguese International and State Defence Police (PIDE) had installed itself in Guinea-Bissau to control any movements.

As the workers continued resisting work and the aggression of security and police forces, the military were alerted to the events and an order to fire was given, “this old captain friend of mine, Ocante Atobo, was leaning against the wall of the office shed. When the line of police reached the spot where he was, an officer suddenly raised his gun and shot him point-blank in the chest,” Costa added. 

With guns and grenades, the colonial forces were able to repress the insurrection and when the firing settled, at least 50 workers had been murdered and hundreds were injured. Many of the survivors were imprisoned (some tortured) and interrogated by PIDE so that they could prevent future worker uprisings. 

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But among Guineans, the events of the 3rd of August only consolidated the struggle further. The lessons from the Pindjiguiti massacre were countless. It was based on the massacre that PAIGC had reorganised its strategy as to not engage political forces in urban spaces, but rather in rural areas with the mobilisation of the peasant class. The liberation movement learned to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, in the likely case, as exemplified by the Pindjiguiti Massacre, that colonial forces were not receptive to their demands for Independence. It had also been out of here that the UNTG was born and was put in service of the Guinean people.

In his 1972 address at the United Nations, Amílcar Cabral summarised the lessons, “[The Pindjiguiti Massacre] was a painful lesson for our people, who learned that there was no question of choosing between a peaceful struggle and armed combat; the Portuguese had weapons and were prepared to kill.”

The 3rd of August 1959 had been a turning point and the day became a symbol of Bissau-Guinean emancipatory aspirations. 

3rd of August 1961-63

— Amílcar Cabral, 1964, declaration to the Mahgreb Arab Press for the 5th commemoration

The year after the assault on striking workers, waves of police violence were documented as they entered neighbourhoods and villages armed and arrested Guineans arbitrarily. Military forces were strengthened with weaponry, a famine was manufactured Bissau-Guinean population by mass exporting agricultural produce, and forced labour was reinforced. On the second anniversary of the massacre, PAIGC shifted its strategies from a “peaceful” political approach to armed struggle and sabotage attacks after fruitless attempts to begin independence negotiations with the Portuguese government. Throughout the year, PAIGC interfered with communications to exasperate and disorganise Portuguese armed forces and they ransacked and raided Portuguese trading companies to undermine the colonial economy. Many of the shop managers of Casa Gouveia had fled during the struggle, and the facilities became known as Armazéns do Povo (The People’s Shop), where primary necessities were provided to the populations of liberated areas.

Guerrilla warfare began in 1963, and by August 3rd of that year, PAIGC had managed to liberate eighteen per cent of the country. A year later, liberated territories would grow to fortyper centt. Every year, on the same day, liberation leaders of Guinea-Bissau and across the Portuguese colonies of Africa would write messages of commemoration and solidarity, and every year reaffirm the reasons for the struggle.

3rd of August, 2021

In commemoration of those killed in the massacre, the sculpture of a black fist called the Monument for the Martyrs of Pindjiguiti was erected and inaugurated in the port of Bissau after Independence. The symbolism of the day remains instrumental in workers’ organising. The violent repression we witness in 2021, though, is also reminiscent of colonial police violence.

In 2015, member, and secretary-general of the UNTG, Estevão Có, upheld that the aspirations of the dockworkers on the day of the massacre had not been met. In this new decade, Bissau-Guineans workers of all industries continue to struggle for consistent and liveable wages.