| Cape Verde 35 years after independence | ||||
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Cape Verde today marks the 35th anniversary of its independence from Portugal, fulfilling the designs of the flag that waved in the wind for the first time on July 5, 1975, announcing a free country aware of its own sense of belonging and that insisted on building its own world on the unbearable lightness of being. This year’s independence day coincides with events that attest to Cape Verde’s diplomatic importance in modern days.
In the year that also marks the 550th anniversary of the discovery of the islands by Portuguese navigators, Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva will be present at the ceremonies celebrating Cape Verde’s independence. Portugal will thus help Cape Verde fulfill “this destiny that belongs to us all,” as was announced by Jorge Barbosa in his poem “Prelúdio” – a destiny that was later confirmed, on July 5, 1975, by Abílio Duarte, who proclaimed Cape Verde’s independence with the words “we, the people of the islands, hereby break the chains of colonial subjugation and freely choose our African destiny.” Cape Verdeans constitute a people who learned to make the world their home early on, and over these past 35 years as an independent nation appear to feel comfortable with themselves and their Atlantic vocation, which is fulfilled in peace, work and freedom. And thus, with new social, economic and political achievements, the dream of Amílcar Cabral and of all Cape Verdeans moves one step closer to fulfillment. |
