Cape Verde only war for independence against Portugal between 1974 and 1975, the efforts of the Caboverdean Armed Forces have now been turned to combating international drug trafficking. In 2007, together with the Cape Verdean Police, they carried out Operation Flying Launch ("Operacão Lancha Voador"a), a successful operation to put an end to a drug trafficking group which smuggled cocaine from Colombia to the Netherlands and Germany using the country as a reorder point. The operation took more than three years, being a secret operation during the first two years, and ended in 2010. Although located in Africa, Cape Verde has always
History of Cape Verde 1956, Amílcar and Luís Cabral founded the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde.) Although the Cape Verdeans were treated badly by their colonial masters, Portuguese treatment of Cape Verdeans was distinct from their treatment of other colonized regions, and the people of Cape Verde fared slightly better than Africans in other Portuguese colonies because of their lighter skin. A small minority received an education and Cape Verde was the first African-Portuguese colony to have a school for higher education. By the time of independence, a quarter of the population could read, compared to 5% in Portuguese