Former Guinea-Bissau President Luis Cabral has died in Portugal at the age of 78. Cabral was the brother of PAIGC founder Amilcar Cabral who was assassinated in January 1973. Luis Cabral was overthrown in a coup in 1980.
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The first post-independence President of Guinea-Bissau, Luis Cabral, has died in Portugal's capital, Lisbon, aged 78.
Mr Cabral was president from 1974 until 1980 when he was overthrown by his prime minister, Joao Bernardo Vieira, who was assassinated three months ago.
Mr Cabral was a half-brother of the liberation movement leader, Amilcar Cabral, who died before independence.
The government is expected to hold an emergency session to organise a three-day period of national mourning.
"It is with shock and sadness that the government and people of Guinea-Bissau have learnt of the loss of one of their most illustrious sons, Luis Cabral," the government said in a statement, reported AFP news agency.
The BBC's Tidiane Sy, in neighbouring Senegal, says it is ironic that the ex-Guinean leader is now being mourned by the country which rejected him nearly three decades ago.
'Eternally optimistic'
His half-brother - who led the African Party of Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde movement - was assassinated in 1973.
Mr Cabral then took over as leader of the liberation struggle and brought the country to independence from Portugal a year later.
He was described by his fellow comrades during the liberation struggle as an eternally "optimistic and enthusiastic leader".
Mr Cabral was also remembered as a man who contributed much to the education of the masses during the first years after independence.
But our correspondent says his effectiveness as head of state was weakened by widespread hunger in the country in the late 1970s.
These hard times culminated with the November 1980 military coup which ousted Mr Cabral.
It opened a crippling era of military insurgencies, coups and counter coups for Guinea-Bissau.
After his overthrow, Mr Cabral was jailed for six months before being released following the intervention of the Cuban government.
The former Guinean president then spent some time in exile in Cuba, before settling in Lisbon in 1984.
Mr Cabral refused to make any public criticism against his former prime minister who had chased him from power.
Mr Vieira, who won elections in 2005, met a bloody end in March when he was assassinated by soldiers.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8076565.stm
Published: 2009/06/01 08:30:54 GMT
First president of Guinea-Bissau dies aged 78
BISSAU (AFP) — Luis Cabral, the first post-independence president of Guinea-Bissau who was later toppled in a military coup, has died of a heart attack in Lisbon, officials announced on Sunday. He was 78.
"It is with shock and sadness that the government and people of Guinea-Bissau have learnt of the loss of one of their most illustrious sons, Luis Cabral," the government announced in a statement.
The government was to hold an emergency session to organise preparations for a three-day period of national mourning, the statement added.
Natural Resources Minister Oscar Barbosa, a close ally of the former president, said that Cabral had died of a heart attack in the Portuguese capital on Saturday night.
Cabral was a half-brother of Amilcar Cabral, long-time leader of the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) liberation movement, who was assassinated in 1973 -- the year before Guinea-Bissau attained its independence from Portugal.
Cabral ruled in Guinea-Bissau until he was overthrown in a coup led by "First Commissar", or prime minister, Joao Bernardo Vieira on November 14, 1980.
After his ouster, Cabral was imprisoned for six months before being released after the intervention of the Cuban government.
He then spent most of the rest of his life in exile in Portugal, although he did make a brief return to Guinea-Bissau 1999 after Vieira was toppled in another coup.
News of his death comes less than three months after Vieira, who returned to power in 2005 elections, was assassinated by soldiers in the hours after a bomb attack which claimed the life of the West African country's military chief.
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