Cape Verdean Armed Forces
| Cabo Verdean Armed Forces | |
|---|---|
| Forças Armadas Cabo Verdeanas | |
 |
|
| Service branches | National Guard and Coast Guard (includes air wing)[1] |
| Leadership | |
| Commander-in-Chief | Jorge Carlos Fonseca (President of Cape Verde) |
| Chief of Defense | Felipe Tavares |
| Manpower | |
| Conscription | 14 months |
| Active personnel | 1,200 |
| Expenditures | |
| Percent of GDP | 0.7% (2005) |
| Industry | |
| Foreign suppliers |
 United States Brazil Germany Serbia Russia China
|
The Cabo Verdean Armed Forces (Portuguese: Forças Armadas Cabo Verdeanas) or FACV are the military of Cape Verde. They include two branches, the National Guard and the Coast Guard.
Before 1975, Cape Verde was an overseas province of Portugal, having a small Portuguese military garrison that included both Cabo Verdean and European Portuguese soldiers.
At the same time, some Cabo Verdeans were serving in the People's Revolutionary Armed Forces (Forças Armadas Revolucionarias do Povo, FARP), the military wing of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde that was fighting for the joint independence of Guinea and Cape Verde in the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence. The FARP became the national armed forces of Guinea-Bissau, when its independence was recognized by Portugal in 1974.
The Armed Forces of Cape Verde were created when the country became independent in 1975, being also officially designated the People's Revolutionary Armed Forces (Forças Armadas Revolucionarias do Povo, FARP). The Cabo Verdean FARP consisted of two independent branches, the Army (Exército) and the Coast Guard (Guarda Costeira).
In the early 1990s, the designation "FARP" was dropped and the military of Cape Verde started to be designated the Cabo Verdean Armed Forces (Forças Armadas Cabo Verdeanas, FACV).
In 2007, the FACV started a major reorganization that included the transformation of the Army into the National Guard (Guarda Nacional).
Together with the Cabo Verdean Police, the FACV carried out Operation Flying Launch (Operacão Lancha Voadora), a successful operation to put an end to a drug trafficking group which smuggled cocaine from Colombia to the Netherlands and Germany using Cape Verde as a reorder point. The operation took more than three years, being a secret operation during the first two years, and ended in 2010.
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