Cape Verde will host, on May 1, 2024, an evocative ceremony on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the release of the last political prisoners from the Tarrafal concentration camp, the Portuguese Minister of Culture announced this Sunday.
“We celebrate 50 years of Portuguese democracy on April 25, 2024 and we are having long celebrations, with various dimensions in which clearly the struggles for independence in the former colonies are also very important,” said Pedro Adão e Silva, in the city. da Praia, on the last of a four-day official visit to Cape Verde.
For the Portuguese official, this ceremony of evocation and joint celebration “will launch” the candidacy process of the former concentration camp of Tarrafal as a UNESCO world heritage site, still without a specific date to advance.
“In Tarrafal, a shared memory between Portugal and the Portuguese-Speaking African Countries (PALOP), a traumatic memory, but in a way that was released at the same time with our democracy in Portugal and with the independence of the former colonies,” he recalled. the minister.
Located in the town of Chão Bom, the old Tarrafal Concentration Camp was built in 1936 and received the first 152 political prisoners on October 29 of the same year, having functioned until 1956.
It reopened in 1962, under the name “Campo de Trabalho de Chão Bom”, intended to imprison anti-colonialists from Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. In total, more than 500 people were imprisoned in this “slow death camp”: 340 anti-fascists and 230 anti-colonialists.
After its deactivation, the complex functioned as a military training center, since 2000 it houses the Museum of the Resistance and in 2004 it was classified as National Cultural Heritage and is included in the indicative list of Cape Verde as UNESCO heritage.
During the four days in Cape Verde, within the framework of the celebrations of June 10, Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities, the museum of the former Tarrafal concentration camp was one of the many places that Pedro Adão e Silva visited , having made a “very positive” assessment of the entire trip to the African archipelago.
“The balance is very positive, in addition to the protocol program at the embassy and with the Portuguese communities, I wanted to learn about the cultural reality in its various dimensions,” stressed the minister, who was also in Cidade Velha and in many other places and projects, including those financed by the Portuguese cooperation.
As part of this trip, the Portuguese official today visited murals of urban, modern art and community intervention in the neighborhood of Achada Grande Frente, in Praia, within the scope of the “Xalabas” project, of the non-governmental organization Africa 70, and financed by the Delegation of the European Union in Cape Verde.
Among the various artistic murals -created by national and international artists- there is one by Amílcar Cabral, the work of the Portuguese artist Vhils, a work that also had the support of the Portuguese cooperation in Cape Verde, in alliance with the European Union and the Ministry of Culture. and Creative Industries of Cape Verde.
“I tried to see a bit of everything and this has given a very positive signal from Cape Verde and a signal that I believe that the Portuguese Ministry of Culture can help contribute, through cooperation, helping local projects, but also working together in the Campo de Tarrafal. So there is a lot of room and path for us to do it together,” he said.
Pedro Adão e Silva, who has been the Portuguese Minister of Culture for just under three months, promised to help mobilize and “energize” the cooperation between Cape Verde and Portugal, which he believes has “a lot of potential”.
Source: Observadora
