Carmen Pereira

Biography

Carmen Maria de Araújo Pereira was born on 22 September 1936 in Bissau, then Portuguese Guinea, the daughter of one of the territory's very few African lawyers. In 1962, a year before the armed struggle began, she joined Amílcar Cabral's PAIGC, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde. Forced into exile, she lived in Senegal during the war and received medical training in the Soviet Union, becoming part of the liberation movement's health infrastructure as well as its political leadership.

When the PAIGC Central Committee committed in 1966 to mobilising women on equal terms, Pereira rose to become a political commissar and commander, the party's most senior woman, with responsibility for the southern front, and served as a delegate to the Pan-African Women's Organization in Algeria. After independence, declared in 1973 and recognised by Portugal in 1974, she was Deputy President of the People's National Assembly from 1973 to 1984 and Minister of Health and Social Affairs from 1981 to 1983. When the new constitution took effect in May 1984, she, as head of the National Assembly, served as Acting President of Guinea-Bissau from 14 to 16 May 1984 during the constitutional transition, making her the first woman ever to act as head of state of an African country.

She then presided over the People's National Assembly from 1984 to 1989, sat on the Council of State, and served as Minister of State for Social Affairs and briefly Deputy Prime Minister before being dismissed by President João Bernardo Vieira in 1992. She died in Bissau on 4 June 2016, aged 79.

Historical Context

Portuguese Guinea saw one of Africa's longest and most successful liberation wars, from 1963 to 1974. The PAIGC under Amílcar Cabral was distinctive in deliberately integrating women into political and military command; village councils in the liberated zones were required to include women. The movement's victory helped topple Portugal's dictatorship in the 1974 Carnation Revolution. Post-independence politics, dominated by Vieira after his 1980 coup, remained turbulent, and Pereira navigated all of it from the inside.

What She Fought For

The end of Portuguese colonialism; the principle, learned in the liberated zones, that national liberation and women's liberation are inseparable; and healthcare and social protection in one of the world's poorest new states.

Major Achievements

• Joined the PAIGC underground at the start of the independence movement (1962).
• First female political commissar of the PAIGC, with command responsibility for the southern liberated zones during the war.
• Deputy President of the People's National Assembly of newly independent Guinea-Bissau (1973–1984).
• Minister of Health and Social Affairs (1981–1983).
• Acting Head of State of Guinea-Bissau, 14 to 16 May 1984: the first woman to hold head-of-state power in any African country.
• President of the People's National Assembly (1984–1989).

Her Impact Today

Pereira stands with Titina Silá and Teodora Inácia Gomes as proof of women's command role in Africa's liberation wars, and her 1984 precedent opened the line that runs through Sylvie Kinigi and Ruth Perry to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Samia Suluhu Hassan. The Musée des Civilisations noires in Dakar profiles her among Africa's great figures. Three days as head of state; a permanent change in what African women could be said to have already done.

Sources: Wikipedia (Carmen Pereira, English and Portuguese), Musée des Civilisations noires (Dakar), BUALA, PAIGC histories.