ABSTRACT
Cape Verdean assimilados were spread throughout top positions in the infrastructure of Portuguese Guinea. The African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAIGC) was the organizational descendant of the Movement for the National Independence of Guinea (MING), founded in 1954 by Henri Labery and Amilcar Cabral. The main difference between the MING and the PAIGC was that independence for the Cape Verde Islands was a goal of the PAIGC but not the MING. The African Liberation Committee of the Organization of African Unity helped to coordinate political and military support for the PAIGC and other movements, which gave these movements valuable experience in international relations. As early as 1962, Amilcar Cabral became fond of saying that the PAIGC was a party of "soldiers for the United Nations." The group's leaders were influenced by the Portuguese Communist Party and other European Marxists and social democrats but were creative in applying their theories to local circumstances.
