SUMMARY
[Note to reader: this Country page primarily contains brief information about state-based violence during the period 1946–1974, and to some extent 1975–1988. For more detailed information on organized violence after 1989, please consult the specific Conflict and Dyad pages available on the left-hand side of this page. These pages contain more detailed information regarding all three categories of organized violence in this country from 1989 and onwards (when applicable), as well as detailed information about state-based violence 1975–1988. The left-hand side menu also contains links to Actor pages for all groups involved in organized violence since 1989 in this country, as well as actors involved in state-based violence 1975–1988.]
Once a colony of Portugal, incorporated into Portuguese Guinea, the independent republic of Guinea-Bissau was recognized in 1974. However, the road to independence had been conflict-ridden. As other colonial powers in Africa were conceding independence to their colonies in the 1960s, Portugal was reluctant to pursue similar policies. Thus the PAIGC (Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), established in 1956 by Amilcar Cabral and Raphael Barbosa, initiated an armed independence struggle against the Portuguese colonial government in 1961. The struggle reached the level of a minor extra-state conflict in 1963 and continued without interruption until 1973. The Portuguese view on its colonies suddenly changed mid-1974 when a bloodless military coup deposed the dictatorship in Portugal and installed a government which withdrew from its colonies, including Guinea-Bissau.
Governance in the country’s first two decades was autocratic with a single-party system until the 1990s when a democratization process was initiated. The first multi-party elections were held in 1994. Their outcome left the leader who had dominated post-independence politics, President Joao Bernardo Vieira, remaining in power. The subsequent three years saw mounting political tension, popular discontent and military disgruntlement. Hence, in 1998, General Ansumane Mané formed the popularly and militarily supported Military Junta for the Consolidation of Democracy, Peace and Justice (MJCDPJ) and began an armed struggle with the aim to overthrow the Vieira government. The intra-state conflict raged 1998-1999 and it ended with the ouster of President Vieira in May 1999. After a brief military rule, the junta under Mané relinquished power to an elected government.
Since 1946 Guinea-Bissau has experienced the extra-state and intra-state categories of UCDP organized violence.
