The struggle for independence in Portuguese Guinea (later Guinea-Bissau) raged mainly in the maquis, where armed rebel groups, led in particular by Luis Cabral and Kemo Mane, lived with the peasants, training them in combat and inculcating in them a pan-Africanist ideology against the Western occupiers. Gilles Caron went there in December 1968 to witness the daily struggle, which culminated in the proclamation of independence for the new Guinea-Bissau in 1973.

When Gilles Caron arrived in Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau since independence in 1973) in December 1968, the country was in deep crisis. A Portuguese colony since 1879, the region had been the scene of escalating conflict for around ten years. In 1956, Luis Cabral and his brother Amilcar founded the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, with a revolutionary and independence-oriented outlook, in line with the pan-Africanist movement. In 1959, a workers’ strike that ended in a massacre by the Portuguese law enforcement spread the wish for an independence revolution among the population.

Meanwhile, neighbouring French Guinea chose to break all cultural and political ties with the former colonial occupier: while General de Gaulle proposed in a referendum (September 1958) to join a French Community bringing together the West African colonies, Guinea refused and proclaimed its independence on 2 October 1958. Ahmed Sékou Touré (1922-1984) became the first president of the new Republic of Guinea.

This new balance of power enabled the independence fighters in Portuguese Guinea to intensify their struggle. Touré, who had obtained the support of the Soviet Union and was the first African president to make an official trip to Communist China, which also gave him considerable support, became a figure of pan-Africanism and supported the rebels in Portuguese Guinea. Although destabilised by his failure to found a stable democracy in his country and by attempts to destabilise the former French colonial occupier, he was nevertheless able to provide tactical and economic support to the rebels in Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde, also a Portuguese colony in the process of fighting for independence.

Led by Luis Cabral and Kémo Mane, commander of the Front for the liberation and national independence of Guinea (Portuguese), the struggle movement took root in the maquis and established itself as the main counter-power. Gilles Caron arrived on the scene at a time when the Republic of Guinea, a former French colony, had already set the tone by initiating a « socialist cultural revolution » that introduced education in Guinean languages rather than French, and when the rebels in Portuguese Guinea had also found strong legitimacy among the population, particularly peasants, through a policy of literacy, economic support and revolutionary and ideological education.

In this report, comprising around 1,000 photographs, Gilles Caron provides an insight into the conflict raging in Portuguese Guinea. Accompanied by journalist Michel Honorin, the photojournalist travelled to the maquis controlled by the rebels, where he found himself at the heart of the guerrilla movement and its organisation, especially in the north-east of the country, close to Mali, which was also part of the Pan-African movement. He documents collective life in times of conflict, for example with series depicting military training, also aimed at civilians and children, sometimes using substitute weapons such as wooden sticks. He also emphasised the presence of real weapons, allegorising the tension in the region, although Caron did not directly document the fighting. For the most part manufactured in China, these weapons were imported directly from the Communist nation, against the backdrop of the Cold War and the rebalancing of the dominant geopolitical forces. Some of the signs that Caron gleaned bear witness to the Chinese Communist support made possible through the Republic of Guinea, such as a pin featuring a portrait of Mao on the beret of a Guinean rebel. The rebellion, led in particular by Luis Cabral and Kemo Mane, from whom Caron drew several portraits, was also depicted as it advanced towards the front, during which the rebel soldiers, carrying weapons, passed through villages decimated by Portuguese air strikes.

Nevertheless, Caron, who has made a habit of doing this, also takes care to collect images that bear witness to everyday life in times of conflict: military training grounds, for example, are sometimes transformed into a place of communion, giving rise to ritual dances in full regalia attended by the rebels and their families.

1968, Portuguese Guinea, Guinea-Bissao, Independance, conflict, violence, rebellion, uprising, army, weapons, civilians…