Pedro Pires

Pedro Verona Rodrigues Pires (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpedɾu vɨˈɾonɐ ʁuˈdɾiɡɨʃ ˈpiɾɨʃ]; born 29 April 1934) is a Cape Verdean politician who served as Prime Minister of Cape Verde from 1975 to 1991, and later as president from 2001 to 2011.

== Life and career ==

Pires was born in São Filipe, Fogo, Portuguese Cape Verde, to Luís Rodrigues Pires and wife Maria Fidalga Lopes. Later, he studied at Liceu Gil Eanes (Old High School) and Escola Jorge Barbosa in Mindelo during the 1950s and later abroad at the University of Lisbon in Portugal at the Faculty of Sciences. He fled to Conakry in 1962, then Ghana and afterwards headed to Algeria; he was trained in Cuba, the Soviet Union and Guinea-Bissau. He attended the Second PAIGC Congress in 1973. Before independence, he returned to Praia, Cape Verde on a Portuguese military ship on 13 October 1974.

=== Prime minister ===

Three days after the country became independent in 1975, he became the first prime minister of Cape Verde; the nation at the time was a one-party state under the rule of the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV). He opposed apartheid in South Africa and opposed foreign intervention in Africa. On 20–22...