It is with deep regret and sadness that the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Portuguese Communist Party announces the death today, February 8, at the age of 92 years, of Sérgio Vilarigues, one of the outstanding communist leaders during more than eight and a half decades of the history of the PCP, and a life dedicated to the struggle of the workers and to his everlasting party, to freedom, democracy and socialism.
Sérgio de Matos Vilarigues, a sausage factory worker, joined the Federation of the Portuguese Communist Youths in 1932 and the Portuguese Communist Party in 1935.
He was arrested in 1934, held at the Peniche and Angra do Heroísmo prisons before being transferred in 1936 to the Tarrafal Concentration Camp in Cape Verde, from where he came out in 1940.
A leading participant in the 1940/41 reorganization, he went underground in 1942, where he remained uninterruptedly until April 1974. He was elected to the Central Committee in the 3rd. Congress in 1943, was responsible, among many other tasks, for the Algarve, South Tagus, North, Beiras and Lisbon Regional Organizations. He was directly responsible for the Party press, during large periods between 1947 and 1972, a total of 16 years.
A member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the PCP since 1947, and from the 5th. Congress onwards was successively re-elected to the Central Committee, the Political Committee and the Secretariat of the PCP, ceasing to belong to these executive bodies in 1988, when he integrated the Central Control and Cadres Committee.
Sérgio Vilarigues held important responsibilities in the executive bodies of the Central Committee. He was responsible for the international relations of the Party and carried out tasks of great importance and historical meaning, an example of which was his presence at the proclamation of the independence of Angola on November 11, 1975.
As an anti-fascist and Tarrafal camp prisoner he recently participated, invited by the Cape Verde government, in the commemorations that marked the 70 years of the opening of the Tarrafal Camp.
One of the most outstanding examples of resistance against fascism, of struggle for freedom, democracy and revolutionary changes of the April [Revolution], Sérgio Vilarigues was an example of a fraternal and deep human relationship, associated to an unbending combativeness and firmness in the political struggle.
The Secretariat of the Central Committee presents its heartfelt condolences to his family.
The information on the organisation of the funeral will be announced in due time.