LONDON — A couple of hundred people, including many families, joined a July 11 festival here to celebrate Cape Verde’s 51st anniversary since winning independence from Portuguese colonial rule. It was a lively event, with music, singers, dancing, speakers, and stalls with food and other wares.
Many participants took the opportunity to visit the Pathfinder book stall set up at the festival to browse, discuss and buy books. There was particular interest in the new book, Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: The Fall of the Last Colonial Empire in Africa, by Cuban revolutionary leader Víctor Dreke.
Paula Rocha bought the book along with a copy of the Militant. She explained to Communist League member Andrés Mendoza that she was born in Portugal and visited Cape Verde for the first time this year. She said it was important she visit there because growing up in Portugal, she had always looked down on Africa.
In all, 39 books were sold, including 27 copies of Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. Also purchased were copies of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by Socialist Workers Party National Secretary Jack Barnes, Thomas Sankara Speaks, and other books by Sankara, the central leader of the 1983-87 popular revolutionary government in Burkina Faso.
Many of those who visited the Pathfinder table were keen to be kept informed about meetings to discuss the new book by Víctor Dreke.