According to abbreviationfinder, CV is the 2 letter abbreviation for the country of Cape Verde. The population of the two groups of islands, divided into two districts with 13 municipalities, amounted in 1970 to 271,864 units, mostly mestizos. The economic structure is based on plantations – sugar cane (9070 t in 1971); bananas (5409); sweet potatoes (1469); cassava (1067) -, on fishing (4209), salt production (33,000), and transit trade. The industry is underdeveloped and 80% is involved in food processing; landed property, in the hands of a small oligarchy, has always forced part of the population to emigrate, even in the condition of contratado for semi-vacant work in the plantations of Angola and s. Tomé. The prolonged drought that began in 1968 naturally had a negative influence on the economy, bringing the balance-of-payments deficit to Escudos 527 million in 1971 ; the Portuguese commercial area is in increasing decline; food needs are not covered by local agriculture for more than 5%: hence the need to resort to massive imports, especially corn, for tens of thousands of tons.
The country followed the administrative evolution of the other overseas provinces, obtaining in 1972 a new statute that granted limited autonomy through the establishment of a Legislative Assembly (21 elected members) and a Consultative Council as adjunctive organs of the Portuguese governor.. Improvements in health and education (in 1972 there were 356 primary schools with 50,062 pupils, and 14 secondary schools with 2,971 students) were achieved after the start of the unrest by the PAIGC (Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné and Cabo Green), formed in September 1956 by Amilcar Cabral. After some attempts of legal struggle between the urban population of the I., the PAIGC in 1963 decided to take direct action by transferring the armed struggle to the continent, in Guinea-Bissau, given the strong presence of islanders in that territory: the struggle The independence of the I. developed in this way above all as propaganda, keeping the Portuguese government a contingent of 5,000 men with an expenditure, in 1971, of 10 million escudos. Despite the assassination of Cabral, which took place in January 1973, the unilateral proclamation of independence was reached on 24 September and, after the Portuguese internal revolution of 25 April 1974, the definitive recognition of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau.
With the Lisbon agreements of 19 December of the same year, the I. of the CV obtained independence on 5 July 1975. The requests of the PAIGC for a merger of the I. with the continental part clash with the hostility of the traditionally inclined Guineans to identify the intruders in the islander mestizos – a contrast to which not even the assassination of Cabral, a native of the I. seems unrelated – and with the strategic importance of the archipelago, an object of interest on the part of the major powers.
When the Portuguese settled in Cape Verde islands in the 15th century, the islands’ name (Verde = green) corresponded to nature. They were covered by dense tropical rainforest that was in sharp contrast to the black volcanic rocks and the blue sea. 400 years later, the colonization had transformed the islands into a “floating desert.” According to countryaah, a large part of the population was forced to flee from hunger, and those who remained depended on assistance from abroad.
In the 16th century, Cape Verde was an important intermediate station for the ships carrying slaves to America. The repeated attacks by English, Dutch and French pirates forced Portugal to transfer farmers from the Alentejo province of Portugal to the islands, to give them a more permanent settlement. The settlers introduced agriculture that was not very suitable for the terrain and which quickly destroyed the thin fertile mound. From the 18th century, therefore, periods of drought continued, which continue to our day.
The deteriorating agricultural opportunities triggered a mass exodus among Cape Verde’s inhabitants. The majority of them went to Guinea-Bissau – another Portuguese colony that had traditionally had close links with the archipelago. Later, the emigration also sought Angola, Mozambique, Senegal, Brazil and the United States.
The liberation struggle further strengthened the ties between Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. An important step in this development was the formation of the African Party of Guinea and Cape Verde Independence (PAIGC) in 1956. The party had members in both places, and the party’s founder and ideologue, Amílcar Cabral imagined the conduct of joint struggle and development when independence first was a reality.
In 1961, the guerrilla struggle in Guinea began, and hundreds of people from Cape Verde went to the continent to join it. In April 1974, the dictatorship in Portugal collapsed. In Cape Verde a transitional government was created and in 1975 the independence was proclaimed. For the first time in world history, the same party (PAIGC) ruled in two countries. In Cape Verde, Arístides Pereira was elected president and guerrilla commander Pedro Pires assumed the post of prime minister. The party leadership now took the initial steps to establish a federation between Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. The national assemblies in both countries formed a Union Council.