In the 1960s and 70s, Amilcar Cabral led the armed struggle to end Portuguese colonial rule in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde in West Africa. Cabral was an unusual rebel leader. He was an agricultural engineer, writer and poet who founded the liberation movement, the PAIGC, in 1956 to end Portuguese rule of his home country. In Guinea Bissau, the PAIGC fought a successful guerrilla war against a much larger Portuguese army.