Operation Beta

In the archive documents of the month (October) we present the third document from the territory of Africa. It is linked to Portuguese Guinea, where an armed struggle for independence has been going on since the 1960s. The most prominent figure in the national liberation movement was Amilcar Cabral, President of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC). Mr. Cabral visited Czechoslovakia several times to solicit support for his efforts and was recruited as a secret collaborator of the Czechoslovak Foreign Espionage Service (I. správa MV) under the code name “Secretary” (File No. 43197).

The PAIGC members, besides other things, organised a sabotage mission against the Portuguese colonial administration under the material support and consultancy with the former Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. In the role of the PAIGC’s military advisor/expert was Maj. František Polda “Petak” from the Foreign Espionage Service, who officially acted as a member of staff of the Czechoslovak Embassy in the neighbouring Republic of Guinea. In reality, however, he was the instructor of the PAIGC’s guerrilla units. He commonly operated with them in Portuguese Guinea where he planned and coordinated their activity. František Polda was appointed several times to the Republic of Guinea, or in fact Portuguese Guinea, and his work was such a success that the PAIGC actually treated him as their main military advisor.

Files of the former Department I (Foreign Intelligence Service) include documents proving Polda’s participation in organising a sabotage operation under the code name BETA. Its objective was to ambush Portuguese troops in the small town of Bedanda and get hold of a higher amount of arms to be able to conduct further fighting. The operation was eventually cancelled, but detailed diagrams of the barracks have been preserved as Permanent Value Materials No. 21334, including the directions of possible assault.