Return to
homeCape Verde is a cluster of islands home to just 500,000
people. With beaches and a dramatic mountain landscape, it has long
relied on tourism to build its economy.
(http://news.yahoo.com/ex-leader-cape-verde-wins-5m-african-prize-101025547.html) c1450 The
Portuguese brought slaves to the uninhabited Cape Verde Island.
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A8)
1487 Bartolomeo Dias,
Portuguese explorer, set out from Lisbon in August, and sailed south
to the Cape Verde Islands and past Cape Cross. Storms forced him out
to sea and when the winds moderated he continued east but found
nothing. He turned north and then sighted land.
(V.D.-H.K.p.173)
1956 Aristides Pereira
(1924-2011) co-founded of the African Party for the Independence of
Guinea and Cape Verde, or PAIGC, which operated in secret in
Guinea-Bissau and in Cape Verde.
(AP, 9/22/11)
1974 Mario Soares, the foreign
minister of Portugal, helped negotiate a cease-fire that led to
independence.
(SFC, 4/19/00, p.A10)
1975 Jul 5, The Cape Verde
Islands officially became independent after 500 years of Portuguese
rule. Aristides Pereira, a former guerrilla fighter against the
Portuguese colonial administration, became head of state following
independence. Pedro Verona Pires was appointed as the first prime
minister and remained in the post for 16 years, then lost his
country's first democratic elections in 1991.
(SFC, 8/5/9, p.A8)(AP, 7/5/00)(AP, 9/22/11)(AP,
10/10/11)
1992 Singer Cesaria Evora
recorded her album "Miss Perfumado." She was discovered by producer
Jose Da Silva who established her in Paris.
(SFC, 9/13/99, p.)
2001 Mar 22, Pedro Verona
Rodrigues Pires began ruling as the President of Cape Verde
and continued to September 2011. He was Prime Minister from 1975 to
1991.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Pires)
2006 Dec 21, Cape Verde PM Jose
Maria das Neves said Africa must stop blaming its colonial past for
its problems and instead point the finger at the continent's
leaders.
(AFP, 12/21/06)
2007 Feb 8, In Cape Verde 3
Italian women, aged 17-33, were brutally attacked while vacationing,
dragged into the woods, pelted with stones and left for dead at the
bottom of a hole. One woman survived. 3 local men were arrested.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2009 Aug 14, Hillary Clinton
ended her whirlwind seven-nation African trip at Cape Verde, with a
tough love message that Africans must tackle their own problems.
(AFP, 8/14/09)
2009 Aug 17, Russian media
reported that the Arctic Sea has been found near Cape Verde and that
the ship's 15-man Russian crew has been taken aboard a Russian naval
vessel.
(AP, 8/17/09)
2009 Sep 27, In Venezuela Pres.
Hugo Chavez proposed that South American and African nations unite
to create a cross-continental mining corporation to keep control of
their resources. Chavez made diplomatic inroads in Africa at a
summit of South American and African leaders where he offered
Venezuela's help in oil projects, mining and financial assistance.
Venezuela signed agreements to work together on oil projects with
South Africa, Mauritania, Niger, Sudan and Cape Verde.
(Reuters, 9/27/09)(AP, 9/28/09)
2010 Dec 28, West African
leaders Boni Yayi of Benin, Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma and
Pedro Pires of Cape Verde met with incumbent Ivory Coast leader
Laurent Gbagbo to deliver an ultimatum from the ECOWAS regional bloc
to step down or face removal by force. But Gbagbo's government
signaled he was unlikely to agree to cede power to Alassane
Ouattara.
(Reuters, 12/28/10)(SFC, 12/29/10, p.A4)
2011 Aug 7, Cape Verde
islanders voted for a new president as Pedro Pires wrapped up two
terms at the helm of a nation hailed for its stable democracy. His
ruling party faced a split vote. A run-off was scheduled for August
21.
(AFP, 8/8/11)
2011 Aug 21, In Cape Verde, one
of Africa's most stable and prosperous nations, liberal opposition
candidate Jorge Carlos Fonseca unseated the party which held the
presidency for a decade. Fonseca, a former foreign minister, won
54.90 percent of the vote, besting his socialist rival Manuel
Inocencio Sousa, who garnered 45.91 percent of the vote.
(AFP, 8/22/11)
2011 Sep 22, Former Cape Verde
president Aristides Pereira (87), who fought Portugal's colonial
rule, died in Portugal. He was the West African country's first
post-independence president.
(AP, 9/22/11)
2011 Oct 10, The $5 million Mo
Ibrahim award for good leadership in Africa, withheld the previous
two years because of a lack of qualified candidates, was bestowed to
Cape Verde's former Pres. Pedro Verona Pires (77) for promoting
democracy and development on his archipelago.
(AP, 10/10/11)
2011 Dec 17, Cape Verdean
singer Cesaria Evora (70), nicknamed the "barefoot diva", died in a
hospital in her native country. Her 1992 album, “Miss Perfumado,"
earned her 5 gold records.
(AFP, 12/17/11)(Econ, 1/7/12, p.86)
2013 Mar 23, Spanish,
Portuguese and British police boarded a ship loaded with nearly two
tons of cocaine destined for sale in Europe and arrested nine
people. The ship was in the Atlantic Ocean, some 700 miles southwest
of Portugal's Cape Verde islands.
(AP, 3/24/13)
2013 Apr 4, Cape Verde Islands
Radiotelevisao Caboverdiana reported that Rear Adm. Jose Americo
Bubo Na Tchuto and four other Guinea-Bissau nationals were
apprehended by US authorities aboard a yacht in international waters
in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. The US Treasury Department designated
Na Tchuto as a drug kingpin in 2010 for his alleged role in the
cocaine trade in Guinea-Bissau.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2014 Nov 23, In Cape Verde the
volcano Pico do Fogo erupted forcing more than 1,000 people to
evacuate from the Cha das Caldeiras region. By mid-December lava
flow destroyed two villages and threatened a forest reserve.
(AFP, 12/16/14)
