In 1965, the late leader of Guinea-Bissau, Amilcar Cabral, opened the first Conference of Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies (CONCP) in Dar es Salaam, by articulating some of the unique features common to the liberation movements of Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and So Tom. For a number of historical reasons, CONCP ceased to exist after its principal objective – Portuguese decolonization – was achieved. Nor was it immediately superseded by a single institution. Since independence there has been no formal political organization that binds together the African nations whose official language is Portuguese. Yet this group of nations continues to maintain group solidarity, based on their common historical armed struggle and ideology, and their shared Portuguese colonial inheritance, which left all of them more structurally underdeveloped than most other African countries. The author chronicles the vicissitudes of relations between the five lusophone African nations and their heads of State, as well as the complicated relations with Portugal, in the years 1975-1986. She notes that the greatest challenge facing the lusophone African nations at present is to maintain their ideological commitments and unity in the face of an increasingly intolerant, pervasive and conservative Western-dominated international system. Note, ref.
