Lilica Boal

Maria da Luz Freire de Andrade (born 1934), better known as Lilica Boal, is a historian, philosopher, educator, and anti-fascist activist in Cape Verde. She fought for the independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, and against the Portuguese Estado Novo dictatorship.

Quotes

"The great escape that changed Africa’s future" (2015)

"The great escape that changed Africa’s future", The Guardian (March 8, 2015)

• Once they were in the colony there was almost total silence about their lives.

• When I came to study in Portugal, Guilherme’s family welcomed me, and took me to visit the families of the other political prisoners in Tarrafal.

• All this leaves its mark on a 20-year-old woman. When people started talking about our liberation, I saw reasons to join the fight.

• I was not under suspicion because I was studying on a loan given by the Portuguese Youth Organisation, a movement led by the fascist government and based, I came to understand, on the Hitler Youth. What the police wanted to do was warn me not to mix with those ‘communists’ at the house of the students of the empire.

• We were told that in two days we would be leaving and that we could only take 5kg.

• We had just set up home. We ended up closing the door, taking only the clothes that were necessary.

• It was only a small canoe. We could only go two by two, but in our group there were babies who were with their parents.

• There were very hard moments though.

• I worried the secret police would use our daughter to pressure us and said this to my husband. He said when a person joins this sort of thing, they have to be prepared for anything. It wasn’t easy.