1980 Guinea-Bissau coup d'état
Map of Guinea-Bissau.
Date 14 November 1980 Location Bissau,Guinea-Bissau 11°51′N15°34′W / 11.850°N 15.567°W /11.850; -15.567 Result Coup attempt succeeds with minimum disruption. PresidentLuís Cabral removed from office. Prime Minister GeneralJoão Bernardo Vieira took control of the country.
Belligerents
Government of Guinea-Bissau PAIGC	Revolutionary Council Military PAIGC
Commanders and leaders
Luís Cabral	João Bernardo Vieira
Casualties and losses
No casualties reported.
class=notpageimage| Nexus of coup in Bissau (marked green), Guinea-Bissau

The1980 Guinea-Bissau coup d'état was a bloodlessmilitarycoup that took place inGuinea-Bissau on 14 November 1980, led byPrime Minister GeneralJoão Bernardo Vieira.^[1] It led to the deposition ofPresidentLuís Cabral (half-brother ofanti-colonial leaderAmílcar Cabral), who held the office since 1973, while the country'sWar of Independence was still ongoing.

General Vieira announced the creation of the Revolutionary Council, which would exercise all executive and legislative powers in the country. Eventually, a power struggle developed^[2] between Vieira andVictor Saúde Maria, Prime Minister andVice President of the Revolutionary Council, the only civilian member of the body, with the latter being forced into exile inPortugal in March 1984. Two months later a newConstitution was promulgated, proclaiming Vieira as President and returning the country to civilian rule.

Vieira himself was deposed in the1998–99 Civil War and exiled to Portugal in June 1999,^[3][4][5] but returned to the country in 2005^[6] and was againelected to the presidency,^[7] and held the office until his assassination by a group of soldiers on 2 March 2009.^[8][9][10]

The coup resulted in the abandonment of the proposedunification of Guinea-Bissau withCape Verde, a fellowLusophoneWest African country. Prior to the coup, the unification was written into the two countries' constitutions,^[11] and thePAIGC party (the rulingsole legal party in both countries) viewed them as "sister republics" with "two bodies with only one heart", and the countries had nearly identical flags and shared anational anthem.^[12]

However, the elites in Cape Verde opposed unification,^[12] and eventually Vieira toppled the government of President Cabral (himself of theCape Verdean origin) in Guinea-Bissau in a bloodless coup, which initial reports^[13] credited to racial strife between theblack population of Guinea-Bissau and the "foreign"mulatto (mestiço) population of Cape Verde, which Cabral embodied.

The coup led to Cape Verde separating on 20 January 1981.^[12][11] The Cape Verdean branch of the PAIGC party broke away and formed the newPAICV party under the leadership ofAristides Pereira,President of Cape Verde and former Secretary-General of the PAIGC.^[14]

• 
  Flag of Guinea-Bissau.
• 
  Flag of Cape Verde, in use until 1992.

• History of Guinea-Bissau
• Cape Verde–Guinea-Bissau relations

• 1980 in Guinea-Bissau
• 1980s coups d'état
• Conflicts in 1980
• Military coups in Guinea-Bissau
• November 1980 in Africa

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