portugal and the end of ultra-colonialism

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Portugal and the End of

Ultra-Colonialism 3

Perry Anderson

National Liberation

Mass forced labour: de facto pass laws: omnipresent foreign capital:an incendiary white lumpenproletariat: a superstructure of magic: aneconomic and social machine turning in a void, driven by pure terror.This was the system of Portuguese imperialism at the opening of 1961, the most primitive, the most defective and the most savagelyexploitative colonial regime in Africa. Insulated from the world

outside, functioning on force alone, it believed itself timeless, immuneto the disorders sweeping the rest of European Africa. Like theBelgians in the Congo, the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambiquethought they had abrogated history.

In fact, while Lisbon and Luanda and Lourenço Marques laysunk in silence, history was gaining momentum and political geo-graphy was closing in on the isolated enclaves of Portuguese Africa.The wave of African liberation, achieving its first successes in Egyptin 1952, at Bandung in 1955, in Ghana in 1957, became tidal in the

last five years of the decade. Colonial power disintegrated in areaafter area, bringing the frontiers of freedom ever closer to Angolaand Mozambique.

The significance of this continental advance for the Africans of the Portuguese colonies was two-fold. In the first place, it enormouslyaccelerated their political awakening; the victories of African move-ments to the north made the possibility of independence for the firsttime visible and real. At the same time, these victories provided theindispensable material and geographical base from which movementsof national liberation could be launched. There had never been anyquestion of legal trade union or party activity in the Portuguesecolonies—all political activity of any kind was forbidden to Africans,and the prohibition was enforced by a ruthless apparatus of repres-sion. Any African suspected of dissidence was arrested, and oftendeported to prison camps in the Cape Verde Islands or the remoteinterior. Protests were met with massacres (in June, 1960 when thevillages of Icola and Bengo met to demonstrate peacefully againstthe arrest and deportation of Agostinho Neto, the eminent Angolanpoet and intellectual, they were shot down and their villages burnt

to the ground). In these conditions, the difficulties of organizing



resistance from within the colonies alone were enormous. Theemergence of independent African countries nearby transformed the

situation. It meant financial and organizational support, materialequipment, and freedom of movement. When the former BelgianCongo became independent on June 30, 1960, a final and decisivefactor came into play: a contiguous border in very rough country,across which political and military operations could be organized.The accession of the Congo to independence in mid-1960 wasundoubtedly the precipitate which catalyzed the Angolan revolt sixmonths later. Nationalist headquarters could move to a point onlysome 85 miles from Angola territory, in a major city, fully equipped

with modern matériel and integrated into a global communicationssystem.The terrain from Leopoldville southwards as far as Malange in

Angola is, except for a small coastal zone, ideal guerilla country:mangrove swamps along the Congo estuary, forest-savannah mosaicin the Bembe triangle, moist forest from Carmona down to theCuanza river, and savannah country to the west and east; highlandsaround Candola and Nambuangongo. The country on the both sidesof the border is occupied by the Bakongo peoples, making the terraineven more favourable for military action.1

All the factors which made possible the classic armed action of theFLN in Algeria were thus assembled: a continental context of de-colonization, a contiguous border with an at least formally friendlyindependent country, ethnic unity across the border, and roughcountry with continuous cover for guerilla units. These were thecrucial preconditions of a successful insurrection, and by the springof 1961 they were all present. The “causes” of the revolt were simplythe conditions of its success. Portuguese colonialism was always anintolerable and hated system, ready at any moment to be sprung into

the air by the sufferings and passions it suppressed. But the materialpossibility for a successful revolt had never existed before. When itcame, the revolt broke out almost immediately.2

I. Insurrection

On February 4, 1961, a series of synchronized attacks suddenlystruck at military and police points in Luanda. Groups of Africansattacked the military prison, the police barracks and the civil prison:

others ambushed isolated units on the outskirts of the town. Fiercefighting followed before the assaults were beaten off. Seven Portu-guese police and soldiers were killed, and, officially, 14 Africans;53 were wounded and 100 arrested. The next day there was a publicfuneral for the Portuguese killed. A lynch mob of whites ran riot inthe presence of the Governor-General, crying “Mata Todos” (KillThem All) and attacking every African in sight. Young whites maderaids into the African quarters and sporadic firing continued through-out the night. At least 24 Africans and three Whites were killed(Guardian, 7.2.61). In the ensuing days more nationalist attacks,

were made on prisons and police posts in and around Luanda,

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bringing African casualties to about 100. The Muceque and SãoPaulo quarters (the African townships) were cordoned off and

patrolled by armoured cars and paratroops, while 17-pounderartillery pieces were mounted on high ground round the areas andtrained on them ( Johannesburg Star , 15.2.61). A few days later the

New York Times headlined its story from Luanda “Angola relaxesas Clashes Cease” (18.2.61).

On March 10, the Security Council voted to discuss the Angolansituation. A resolution was moved by Liberia, the UAR and Ceylon,condemning Portuguese repression in Angola. On March 15, a votewas taken and the motion defeated, five votes for, none against, and

six abstentions. The countries abstaining were Turkey, Ecuador,Chile, France, Britain and Formosa. The USA, in a widely notedpolicy volte-face, voted for the motion with its sponsors and theSoviet Union. The decision to reverse the traditional State Depart-ment policy of Atlantic solidarity on colonial issues was taken solate and in such extreme haste that there was no time for the US towarn its client states at the UN of the change. As the New York Timescommented two days later: “Turkey, Chile, Ecuador and NationalistChina were left stranded on the “colonial” side of the issue and maynot have known until Adlai E. Stevenson took the floor near the end

of the discussion.” (17.2.61) The new administration’s vote waswidely interpreted as a decisive break with the past, and the publictoken of a new African policy.

On the morning of March 15, the day of the Security Council vote,the national insurrection broke out. Armed units struck at town aftertown in Northern Angola, across a vast area three times the size of Portugal itself. The attacks were swift, simultaneous and caught thePortuguese completely by surprise. A hundred and fifty casualties

were reported. On March 18, the official Portuguese News agency,Lusitania, reported that the following towns had been attacked:Maquela do Zombo, Carmona (Congo Province), Quitexe andQuibaxi (Cuanza Norte Province), Nova Caipemba and Nambuan-gongo (Luanda Province).

A glance at the map reveals the scale and coordination of theuprising. The Tunisian paper, Afrique Action, published weekslater an account of the operational planning behind it which, in thelight of Tunisian-Angolan contacts, is probably the most authorita-

tive available. Twelve units of 20 men each, armed with automaticweapons, infiltrated across the border at different points fromMarch 10th onwards. Gathering support en route, they strucksimultaneously at communications and urban targets, selected tomaximise the disruption of Portuguese presence in the north. Thespeed and scale of the offensive paralyzed Portuguese resistance.The initial success of the strike of March 15 was overwhelming.Within days virtually the whole of Northern Angola was in nationalisthands.

Desperately, the Portuguese administration mounted an air-lift

for the mass evacuation of Portuguese settlers south to Luanda.

Portugal and the End of Ultra-Colonialism



Madimba, M’bridge, Mavoio, Cuimba, Sao Salvador, Calombato,Damba, were encircled and attacked by the nationalists; by March 21

the New York Times reported there were 3,580 refugees in Luanda.Admiral Lopes Alves, Minister for Overseas Provinces, left Lisbonfor Angola the next day, while rioting Portuguese threw the USconsul’s car into the sea at Luanda. New towns and villages werecited daily in Lusitania despatches from the combat-zone to thenorth. Confident communiques from Luanda (“the security forceshave the situation well in hand”—March 28) made no difference tothe flow of refugees south, many of them now en route for Lisbon.Local industrial, commercial and agricultural associations (“The

Property Owners Association of Luanda”, etc.) cabled Lisbonfrantically for a £25 million grant to restore the economic situation,for military rule throughout Angola, and for the transfer of theMinistry of Overseas Province to Luanda.

On April 1, the Vicar-General of Luanda, Canon Manuel Mendesdas Neves, was arrested for “organizing terrorism”. A wave of plotsand arrests were announced all over Angola, well behind the battlezones: Luanda Island (6.4.61), Bocoio near Benguela (7.4.51),Luanda (11.4.61), Quibala (17.4.61), Novo Redondo (18.4.61,21.4.61), Silva Porto (22.4.61), Vila Nova do Seles (26.4.51), Benguela

(26.4.61), Porto Amboim (22.5.61). The Portuguese were attemptingto secure their rear by a campaign of mass terror against all potentialresistance in the south. Foreign missionaries later reported that asystematic search of the major towns was carried out, in which anyeducated Africans were dragged out of their homes and shot. InLisbon a drastic cabinet reshuffle resulted in the dismissal of theMinisters for the Overseas Provinces (formally retirement for reasonsof ill-health), Defence, Army and the General Chief of Staff (14.4.61);in Angola the reservists were called up. The next day another wave of

attacks swept northern Angola—Ucua, Quitexe, Cuango—and aninvasion of Cabinda was launched. The Lisbon Diaro de Noticiasreported on April 16 that “the terrorist activities in the provinceof Angola have entered on a new phase . . . the use of automaticweapons and radio . . . has now begin”.

National operations were reaching a new climax. On April 15 theTelegraph reported “Thousands attacked the village of Ucua in whatwas described as the heaviest frontal assault since trouble first flaredin the African territory two months ago”; Beu, Sacandica, Cuila Futa,

Mucaba, Bembe, Bungo, and Puri were evacuated, and Portuguesewere falling back everywhere. On April 20, Lusitania officiallyannounced that the “terrorists” controlled “vast unoccupied terri-tories” in N. Angola. The New York Times reported that “Africanrebels are reported to have seized a vast corridor stretching to theCongo Republic”, through which hundreds of reinforcements werecrossing the border every day. The pro-Portuguese Sunday Timesdispatch from Luanda on April 23 read: “Even senior governmentofficials express doubts that the Europeans can conquer the ferociousrebel bands ravaging the northern areas”. The “rebel area” was

“five times the size of Wales” and “according to the government”

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runs from the border to the Luanda-Malange railways. The Telegraphof the next day stated: “A vast area of Angola, three times the size

of Portugal itself and containing the whole coffee-growing regionon which the country’s economy largely depends, has now fallen intorebel hands.” At this point, nationalist forces were so confident thatthe coffee crop was left untouched in liberated areas; capturedprisoners said they hoped to clear Angola of the Portuguese by Juneand sell the crop on the world market. Morale among the Portuguesewas at a nadir: repeated lynchings in Luanda testified to the blindpanic and impotence of the white population. These became so badthat a curfew had to be imposed in Luanda on May 1, after an

outbreak in which 24 Africans were killed, and their houses burnt tothe ground. Richard Beeston, in a now celebrated dispatch for theopenly pro-Salazar Telegraph, cabled on May 3: “The first sea-bornemilitary reinforcements arrived in Luanda, the tense capital of Angola today. Preparations began for the launching of a calculatedwar of extermination against the terrorist uprising in the north.

“Among both white civilians and troops there is a rising tide of hatred against the Angola African population . . . Last night Portu-guese troops raided the African township of São Paulo, on theoutskirts of Luanda, in a hunt for terrorist infiltrators. The Africans

resisted with knives and 33 of them were shot dead. There were nocasualties among the troops . . .

“The land and air offensive against the rebels in the north is due tostart next month when the dry season begins.

“ ‘We will hunt the terrorists down like game’ a Portuguese Airofficer said to me. ‘We have no alternative but extermination. TheUnited Nations can protest as much as it likes, but it will make nodifference.’

“The Portuguese authorities are making no secret of their plans

for the offensive. As a preliminary, they are blasting African villageswith rockets, machine guns and napalm to drive the Africans intothe bush . . . when elephant grass and trees are tinder dry they aregoing to start fires with napalm dropped from the air and burn theterrorists out of their hiding places. Those who try to break out willbe shot and those who remain in hiding will die of thirst and star-vation. It will be impossible to discriminate between innocentAfricans and the terrorists . . .

“In Luanda the arrival of the vanguard of reinforcements from

Lisbon has been greeted by a sigh of relief from whites who have beenliving in constant fear of massive attack from tens of thousands of Africans living in surrounding townships. This peril has certainlybeen increased by white provocations in the form of killings, beatingsup of Africans in the European quarter of Luanda.”

From the scattered and confused newspaper reports of this perioda fairly coherent picture of the situation in Angola at the early stageof the uprising can be reconstructed. It is evident that the Portuguesewere caught completely by surprise by the attack of March 15. No

adequate defence force could be mobilized to meet the insurgent




offensive. In the face of the attacks, settlers were simply evacuatedby air and the white community beleaguered itself in Luanda. The

overwhelming implication of reports from this period is that Portu-guese troops were hopelessly under-organized and under-strength.No reliable official figures of military strength were given, and un-official ones from foreign journalists were ludicrously over-estimated(it was often said that there were 25,000 Portuguese troops inAngola). Probably the most accurate estimate was given in themiddle of April by the Daily Telegraph’s Lisbon correspondent:3,800 metropolitan Portuguese and 7,000 altogether (i.e. includingnative troops) 17.4.61. Initial estimates by journalists were almost

certainly inflated by the inclusion of sepoy detachments which werefar too unreliable to be used by the Portuguese, and from whichthere were reports of desertions right from the beginning.

Thus when the insurrection came, the Portuguese were terrifiedthat there would be risings in the central and southern towns, and inLuanda itself. The classic phenomena of political and military dis-integration immediately appeared. Unable to resist the insurrectionto the north, the Portuguese vented their fear and defeat on thecivilian populations in the south, instituting a systematic whiteterror in the towns, while saturation-bombing villages to the north.

The populations attacked in this way were, inevitably, decimated.As early as May 7, less than two months after the revolt began, theObserver correspondent reckoned that 20,000 Africans had beenkilled while thousands were reported interned in concentrationcamps at Baia dos Tigra, Damba, Porto Alexandre and Silva Porto.The immediate consequence was a vast exodus of Angolans acrossthe border into the Congo. By May 20, the Observer reckoned thatthere were 40,000 Angolan refugees in the Congo, and the numberwas to rise rapidly thereafter.

Devastation was the obverse of impotence. By the end of May thePortuguese had still not succeeded in mounting a military build-upanything like sufficient to advance out of the Luanda district. At thistime the total number of Portuguese troops in the province wasperhaps 6,000. Portuguese logistics had turned out to be almostunbelievably bad, and settler-army tension was rising dangerously.A report from Luanda at this time gives a graphic account of thecomplete moral and administrative decomposition of the regime:“ ‘Show your gratitude: to leave at this hour is treason’ shout the

government posters as the Portuguese Army prepares to crush theAngola rebellion. The exhortation to fear-stricken settlers may provean epitaph for the most frightening moral and psychological break-down a European colony has ever seen . . . Wave after wave of Africans have been arrested, 1,500 of them in the Lobito area alone.There are no known camps in the area. The local prison holds only100, and the total disappearance of the arrested Africans has givenrise to the most sinister fears.

“People arrested include schoolteachers, ‘assimilados’ and almostevery African who is literate. Possession of a grammar primer, a

wireless set or even just a bicycle has been enough to lead to a man’s

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disappearance. African priests have in many cases been inexplicablytransferred to Portugal in an attempt to empty the country of every

potential African leader.“The alleged discovery of ‘plans’ on those arrested has led in turn

to a new outbreak of European hysteria. Passages to Lisbon are nolonger obtainable before January, 1962. Queues form at banks forpermits to transfer money to Europe. And still the refugees arrive,their trunks piled high with household possessions, bringing newtales of atrocities from the north. Some morale has been restored bythe arrival of troops reinforcements, the first of whom disembarkedfrom the Niassa, went north on May 12. They took 150 jeeps, 20

four-ton lorries and six fuel trucks. The rest remain in Luanda andare much poorer in numbers and quality than Portuguese communi-ques suggest . . .

“The disembarked battalions have done no military training sincethey arrived and lounge about their billets in town . . .

“Already, the northern countryside is desolate. Villages and farmsare gutted ruins. For hundreds of miles, as seen from the air, theonly sign of life is here and there a rising smoke trail. As one drivesout of the capital, only 45 miles from reaching rebel territoryAfricans by the roadside hasten frightenedly to doff their hats

50 yards before you reach them.“Between 30,000 and 50,000 people are now thought to have died

—nearly a thousand of them Portuguese. But there is no sign of either side relinquishing.” (Observer , 21-5-61).

June opened with the full merger of civil and military administra-tions in Angola under military command. General VenancioDeslandes, veteran of a Franco bomber squadron in the SpanishCivil War, was appointed simultaneously Governor-General and

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in Angola. However, itwas a full three weeks before the new Governor-General arrived inLuanda, and meanwhile the situation showed no improvement.Attacks on outposts and now on plantations continued, at Damba,Lucunga, Samba Caju, Sanza Pombo, Quimbele, Ipanumbungo,Ambriz, N’gage and other places. Coffee plantations in particularwere now being systematically burnt. Roads and bridges weremethodically destroyed by the rebels, so that the few army convoysto leave Luanda had to proceed at a snail’s pace behind bulldozers.

The plan to burn savannah and forest to hunt the nationalists out of their hiding places was a signal failure, revealing how little thePortuguese army knew of combat conditions in the colonies. RichardBeeston, who had first reported the plan, now wrote: “Though thetroops have burned down elephant grass at the roadside they cannotdestroy trees and thick vegetation sufficient to conceal an army of terrorists . . . From N’gage Air Force base I flew over hundreds of miles of rebel-dominated forest and bush . . . Earlier forecasts thatonce the dry season came it would be possible to burn the terroristsout of their hiding places are now being proved completely un-realistic. The thick forest which provides their main cover just does




not burn down.” ( Daily Telegraph, 4.7.61). Mobile columns sporadi-cally relieved or recaptured towns and villages in the north—”but

even in day-time their control of these places extends only to a radiusof five or six miles. At dusk they are obliged to retire on their strong-points and watch from a distance while the rebels burn neighbouringplantations at a rate of five or six a night.” (Observer , 23.7.61).Behind the battle-area, terror continued: on June 20, the discoveryof a “plot” at Porto Alexandre in the far south was announced, inwhich 400 out of the town’s total labour force of 5,000 were“implicated” ( Le Monde, 21.6.61).

However, if the Portuguese were unable to make any advance in

the North, at the same time the nationalist offensive did not succeedin penetrating farther south than a line running roughly from VilaSalazar to Malange. The insurrection had not been able to spreadto the central and southern plateaux. Too many factors were againstit there: the lines of communication with the Congo were too long, theethnic context changed (Ovimbundu rather than Bakongo andKimbundu), the terrain was too open. The new tactic of crop des-truction marked a change in the nationalists’ expectations andperspectives: the prospects of swift victory were receding, and it wasnow crucial that the enemy should be weakened economically, at the

cost of long-term damage to the economy itself (a coffee crop takessix years to replace).

Meanwhile reinforcements from Lisbon were at last arriving inmore considerable numbers. By July 8, Portuguese military strengthhad risen to 18,000. Thus, even while the settler paper Jornal doCongo was violently attacking the army for “complacency” anddeclared “we are surrounded by terrorists. After four months theyare still masters of the situation”, the dynamics of the militarysituation were changing, and the Portuguese were beginning for the

first time to be in a position to make a serious advance north.

II. The Portuguese Offensive

On July 18, the Portuguese army began a huge encircling operationon the heavily mountainous and forested area round Nambuangongo,some 80 miles to the north-east of Luanda, where the Portuguesebelieved there was an Angolan military headquarters. Troops slowlybegan to converge on the Nambuangongo area in an arc running

from Ambriz on the coast to Bessa Monteiro, Bembe, Lucungadown to Songo, Carmona, N’gage and then across to Quitexe,Quibaxi and Caxito. Throughout the last week of July there washeavy fighting round Carmona, Songo, Sanza Pombo, Quimbeleand N’gage. By August 6 Quincunzo, 25 miles east of Nambuangongohad been reoccupied by the Portuguese. Finally, on August 10, afull three weeks after the offensive began, the “fall” of Nambuan-gongo was reported, and the Army High Command announced: “Aheavy moral and psychological blow has been inflicted on therebels.” The news was reported in Luanda and Lisbon as a major

military and political triumph.

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Further successes followed. On August 15, Madimba to the northwas taken. On August 19, Buela on the Congo border was reoccupied.

The N’gage commander was telling American correspondents con-fidently: “Until two weeks ago we were on defensive. Now we areattacking everywhere” ( New York Times, 17.8.61). São Salvador,Maquela do Zombo, Cuimba, Damba, Bembe were in Portuguesehands by the end of the month. September opened with the re-occupation of more small villages in the north (Icoco, Cuila Pombo,Quimbonge). Paratroop attacks were launched on the Serra de Candaredoubt. By the third week of September Sacandica, at the farthestnorth-eastern point of nationalist-held territory, had been retaken.

The Pedra Verda area was “cleared” the following week. On October8 Deslandes announced to the Legislative Council of Angola thatthe rebellion had “ceased”: “Armed Forces’ operations have endedand given way to military police activity.” All villages and policeposts in the north were, he claimed, reoccupied, and freedom of movement had been restored throughout the entire territory formerlyheld by the “rebels”. Civil administration would now be reintroducedinto the pacified areas. On October 13 the Baptist Missionary Societyreported that large number of refugees were again crossing theCongo border, confirming the presence of the Portuguese in the

extreme north.What was the real military significance of this pacification cam-

paign? The Portuguese account of it can in no sense be taken at facevalue. Throughout, the official communiqués described the actionof the Army in the pure language of classical warfare—”engage-ments”, “advances”, “reoccupation”, “HQ’s”, etc. Yet this termi-nology is wholly misleading in the Angolan situation, where thewar is quite obviously and indisputably a guerilla struggle. Thus, themuch vaunted “successes” of August and September, 1961, were

often ludicrously inappropriate descriptions of quite minor events inthe war. The most flagrant examples of the use of the vocabulary of classical warfare in what was really a radically different pattern of guerilla war, occurred at the time of the Nambuangongo operation inearly and mid-August. This “decisive moral and psychological blow”to the nationalists was represented as the full-scale onslaught andcapture of a major, operational headquarters—indeed, even anadministrative “capital”. In fact, of course, no guerilla army has“fixed” headquarters of any kind at all, let alone an administrative

capital. When the Portuguese Army finally reached Nambuangongo,after a lumbering advance lasting a full three weeks, it found whathad always been there—a few deserted huts on top of a hill, of nostrategic importance of any kind at all. A few alert journalists pointedthis out at the time. The Guardian correspondent wrote on 16.8.61:“Although government officials strenuously deny this, there seems nodoubt that its ‘capture’ was in fact nearly an unopposed occupationof an empty town. And this a mere 80 miles from Luanda, aftersix weeks or more of intensive, dry season operations.” The NewYork Times correspondent flew over the Nambuangongo area in a

Harpoon bomber out on a strafing and “anti-personnel” bombing

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sortie, and reported that in spite of the claims of a major victory inNambuangongo, “after 12 days in the village the Portuguese control

only a small perimeter. Wooded ridges less than a quarter of a mileaway are in rebel hands.” (27.8.61)

III. “Stabilized Resistance”

As the Portuguese Army moved north in heavily armouredcolumns, along dry roads, it met with little or no resistance in thevillages and towns it was making for. But its control went no further.The countryside itself, much of it densely forested, remained in

Angolan hands. At night the army barricaded itself in its “conquests”.All the reports of this period tell the same story. The New YorkHerald Tribune correspondent wrote from N’gage on 18.8.61: “It isapparent at this military headquarters that Portuguese army controlonly extends to the highways and main towns and villages”. TheObserver correspondent reported from the Congo border that thePortuguese army “confines itself to daylight sorties from Cuimbaand São Salvador . . . the Portuguese still have no control over thegreater part of the countryside. They content themselves withpolicing it from the air.” (20.8.61). On September 18 the Christian

Science Monitor reported: “At the moment, in spite of the deploy-ment of more than 27,000 troops, main roads in the rebel zone arestill liable to be cut at any time.” Meanwhile, the military build-up inAngola continued (2,000 infantry left Lisbon on 22.10.61, threecompanies of sharpshooters on 31.10.61.)

Then, less than two months after the “end of ” the war had beenofficially proclaimed, the Angolan resistance suddenly struck acrossthe north. On November 27, “renewed terrorist activity” wasreported from five widely separated areas of Angola: Luanda, Colua,

Caxito, Ucua and Noqui. Paratroops were dropped north-east of Luanda, while fighting spread to the Uige area (7.12.61). Attacksflared round Carmona, Aldeia Viscosa, Quitala-Banga and in theSerra Camarga (27.12.61). Luanda remained gripped with check-points, road-blocks and guard-units around all water and powerinstallations ( New York Times, 29.12.61).

It was clear that, far from having ended, the war had entered a newphase. Faced with the advance of the Portuguese Army north, theAngolan resistance had regrouped and redeployed its forces. It was

now adopting the classic “mercury” tactics of guerilla warfare—fluidity of front, retreat when the enemy advances, harass him whenhe halts, strike when he withdraws. As a Portuguese officer in theCaxito area was to confess some time later: “The terrorists nolonger attack en masse . . . They are broken up into groups of about50 each. . . They hit and run. It is virtually impossible with our smallforce to round them up.” ( New York Herald Tribune, 20.6.62.) Theofficial Portuguese communiques still referred to the “pacification”of the north, but the foreign press, at least, showed few illusions.The Observer reported on February 11: “This war is still going on,

not on a scale that makes front-page headlines, but inexorable




momentum, which can have only one end: the collapse of thePortuguese economy . . .”

Ambushes erupted in province after province. By late Februarythere was fighting around Zalala, Songo, on the Lucunga-Madimbaroad, near Ambrizete, at Pedraboa, Quibaxe, Aldeia Viscosa, on theCalambingo river, in the Bessa Monteiro region to the east (21.2.62).Raids on Noqui and Buela rapidly followed (3.3.62). Even the mostloyally pro-Portuguese sources abroad were now pessimistic. Onthe first anniversary of the revolution the Daily Telegraph reportedfrom Leopoldville: “Portuguese land and air efforts to dislodge theguerillas have failed. The profitable colony has become a drag on the

Portuguese budget. Observers believe a long Algerian-type warstretches ahead with a nationalist victory on the horizon.”Throughout April, May, June, July, the war continued. The

military organization of the resistance was steadily improving, andmodern equipment was at last beginning to reach it. In April, theAmerican journalist, Arthur Herzog, reported Angolan sentries andcheck-points everywhere in the border area hear the Congo. Weaponswere still mainly ancient muzzle-loaders, but now also includedmachine-guns, rifles and grenades. Portuguese bombers flew repeatedsorties overhead, strafing and dropping fragmentation bombs. He

concluded: “After a year, the war in Angola is a vicious stalemate.The Angolans, though short of weapons and medicine and arguingamong themselves, seem firmly in control of the ground, while thePortuguese are trying to stampede them from the air.” By May thePortuguese Army itself had tacitly abandoned the pretence of “pacification”. It now claimed that “only a fifth of Angola is nowheld by the rebels” (28.5.62). The clashes and raids continuedunabated: Quibala, Bessa Monteiro, Lufico (29.4.62), Dange, Uige,Loge (11.5.62), Zalala, Quitexe (20.5.62), Toto, Ucua, Muxualuando

(6.6.62), Noqui, Maquela (10.8.62). In July, the Portuguese AirMinister publicly admitted in Luanda: “We shall have to maintainthe emergency dispositions for perhaps a long time”.

Meanwhile the flow of armaments to the resistance was increasing.By September, Angolan units were using land-mines, bazookas andplastic explosives. A nationalist training-camp had been set up nearThysville in the Congo, and FLN-trained cadres were returning fromTunisia to assume area commands in the north. An Observer correspondent now reported “impressive” morale and organization

in the fighting zone, an effective communications and intelligencenetwork, and a considerable range of modern equipment. The reportconcluded: “It is clear that the rebels are operating vigorously allthe way down to the Luanda-Malange line.” (23.8.62). A year afterthe Portuguese offensive north, the resistance was still active in thefull extent of the territory it had controlled when the war began. Thefront had been held.

In a classic analysis, the Vietnamese Truong Chinh divided thetypical war of national liberation into three main stages. A suddenuprising gains initial successes, due largely to surprise. There rapidly

follows a colonial military build-up, and the first real phase opens, the

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“defensive” period: loss by the revolutionaries of villages and towns,withdrawal into impassable country, faked concessions or creation

of puppet governments by the colonial administration.The Vietnamese, Indonesian, Algerian and Angolan wars have all

showed this opening pattern. The insurrection of March 15 seizedcontrol of vast tracts of northern Angola. The Portuguese were inevery way slower to move than the French, and it took them fourmonths to complete a sufficient build-up to enable them to marchnorth out of Luanda. In this crisis, ultra-colonialism remained trueto character. Its military response to the revolution was a final,barbaric testimony to its essential nature, now in its last hour reduced

to its most unalleviated and elemental form. Unable to mount aviable expeditionary force to reconquer northern Angola because of the archaic debility of its military machine, the Portuguese Armyresorted to mass bombing of defenceless populations from the air.For four months, the ground remained undisputed in Angolanhands, while Portuguese bombers droned endlessly overhead,destroying villages and devastating plantations. The colonial systemwas ending in paroxysm of impotence and savagery.

In July, the Army was at last ready to march north, and the“defensive” period for the nationalists began. By October, as has

been seen, Portuguese troops had regained formal control of all theterritory to the Congolese border. Behind the lines, the customaryderisory “concessions” were made, as the French had made them inVietnam and Algeria, and the Dutch in Indonesia. Village “councils”were announced and some revisions were made in the Labour Code;the Indigenato was abolished, and the African population of thecolonies accorded the same formal status as the whites.

The second phase of the war Truong Chinh called “stabilizedresistance”. The army of national liberation adapts itself to the new

pattern of struggle, masters guerilla tactics, and consolidates itsdiscipline and unity. Losses are heavy, but the economy and socialstability of the colony are effectively disrupted. By the end of 1961,the Angolan resistance was successfully pursuing these tactics. AsPortuguese officers testified, its units had become smaller, and itsaction was directed against economic and communications targetsrather than towns or villages. While the bombers resumed theirsorties, the Portuguese Army remained immobilized in its lagers inthe north, and guerilla strikes multiplied.

The Portuguese Army had far less chance of consolidating itssummer campaign of 1961 than even the French or Dutch armiesafter their initially “successful” campaigns in Vietnam in 1946, inIndonesia in 1947 and 1949, and in Algeria in 1956. There seemslittle likelihood of a Challe Plan in Angola. Portuguese lines of communications are ten times longer than those of the French inAlgeria. The potential combat zone is three times larger. There is noprospect of securing collaborationist elements in the Angolanpopulation, as the French were able to do in Vietnam and the Dutchin Indonesia. There is far more cover for guerilla activity in the moist

forests of northern Angola than there was on the Maghrebine massifs.




At the same time, the dispersal of the Portuguese Empire presents athreat of perilous over-extension to its armed forces, whose total

effectives amount to only some 79,000 men (army 58,000; navy8,000; air force 12,500). A serious revolt in Mozambique wouldprobably make the Portuguese position in Angola rapidly impossible.Finally, the dilapidated Portuguese Army, whose combat experiencein 45 years was confined to the solitary presence of one division withthe Nazi Army on the Russian front, is a feeble shadow of its Frenchcounterpart.

The final phase of the national revolution is “offensive”. Theimpotence of the colonial army to win a true military victory becomes

clear, internally and internationally. The morale of the army andgovernment is sapped. International political pressures now movedecisively to the forefront. On the one hand diplomatic coordinationand démarche isolates the colonial power more and more beforeworld opinion. On the other hand military and economic aid to thearmy of liberation begins, or threatens to, take on major dimensions,Confronted by this dual process of internationalization, the nerveof the colonial power snaps, and the negotiations that will lead toindependence are sullenly begun—often enough heralded by up-heavals in the political regime at home. The Vietnamese, Indonesian

and Algerian struggles all ended in this way. The Angolan nationalistsare fully aware of this classic parabola of decolonization. Theirstrategic perspectives were expressed trenchantly and lucidly in thewords of one of their leaders in August, 1961: “Victory for us liessimply in our ability to continue the war: and this I assure you wecan do. In the end the Portuguese will be forced to negotiate with us.A political settlement will lead to independence.”

Perspectives

Ultra-colonialism in its agony has its own advantages. It is nothampered by any articulate domestic opposition. It can impose analmost total blackout on news from the colonial area in revolt. It hasmassive armed corps professionally trained to repression. It has boththe framework and the means to act with maximum ruthlessness. Itcan mount a war of extermination more easily than any “normal”colonialism: the Portuguese campaign in Angola would not have

been possible for any other European colonial power, even France.At the same time the other polar characteristic of Portuguesecolonialism, its primitivism, contradicts and saps the advantages of itsextremism, and renders Portugal more vulnerable and Portugueseimperialism more fragile than any of their peers elsewhere in theworld. From March, 1961, onwards, a series of determinants wereset in motion which have become largely independent of the ebband flow of the military engagements, and which will sooner or laterbring the Portuguese empire in Africa to an end. These reveal the lastmetamorphosis, and presage the final outcome, of the archaism which

has stamped Portuguese colonialism since the 19th century.

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I. International

The insurrection was timed to coincide exactly with the SecurityCouncil debate on Angola on March 15. It was then that the USAmade its spectacular volte-face, and for the first time since the Suezaggression of 1956 voted against a western ally on a colonial issue.This was a major blow to Salazar’s régime, as could be seen imme-diately in the officially inspired riots against the American Embassy inLisbon and the more spontaneous settler outbursts against the USconsulate in Luanda. The new US policy was a reflection of theKennedy administration’s keener awareness of the irresistible

advance of decolonization in Africa and Asia (Latin America, whereits own suzerainty was at stake, was another matter), and of thegrowing strength and influence of the Eastern bloc.

Traditional US policy towards Portugal had been based on thecrudest military and power-political considerations. The New YorkTimes wrote on February 16, before the insurrection in the northbegan: “The Salazar Government is ready to offer military facilitiesto the US in both of the territories (i.e. Angola and Mozambique).Current Pentagon thinking is understood to regard the two areas aspotentially of great importance in the event of war, above all from a

naval viewpoint.” On the day before the insurrection itself, theChristian Science Monitor commented, underlining the global inter-dependence of western strategy: “The right to land in the Azoresunder a treaty with Portugal has been prized by United States militarymen. The Azores stopover was used during the Lebanon crisis.”With the insurrection nearly two months old, the London Times wasopenly writing: “Angola’s 960-mile Atlantic coastline is a valuableasset to Atlantic defence. The province’s vast possibilities as a worldlarder of meat and grain, and of essential supplies such as oil and

minerals, are important to the west” (5.6.61).These considerations were clearly still operative in the State

Department, where a sharp struggle was taking place over the furthercourse of US Portuguese policy. On April 20, an Afro-Asian resolu-tion was moved in the General Assembly, repeating in identical termsthe Security Council’s call to Portugal to begin decolonization, andproposing the creation of a subcommittee to investigate the situationin Angola and report back to the General Assembly. In the voting,Stevenson repeated his gesture of March, but the Cuban invasion

had occurred a week before, and the US vote naturally impressedfew delegates. The Afro-Asian resolution was carried by a nearunanimous majority: 79–2, with only Spain and South Africa votingagainst. A committee composed of representatives of Bolivia,Dahomey, Finland, Malaya and Sudan, was appointed to study theAngolan situation and prepare a report on it. The committee wasimmediately refused entry to Angola by the Portuguese Government,and had to proceed to Leopoldville in July as its nearest point of inquiry.

As reports of the war of extermination in Angola began to reach

the world, international shock and anger was intense and almost




universal. On May 31, 40 Afro-Asian nations, Cyprus and Yugo-slavia asked for an urgent meeting of the Security Council to con-

sider the Angolan situation. On June 6, when the Council met, theLiberian delegate moved a motion which called upon the Portugueseauthorities to “desist forthwith from repressive measures”, to admitthe investigating committee, and to proceed to implementation of the former’s General Assembly Resolution of December, 1960,which called for immediate and universal decolonization. Americanmanoeuvres were instrumental in seriously weakening the text of the resolution. As the New York Times reported on July 7: “Priorto today’s meeting, the Asian and African nations had discussed the

possibility of a call for economic sanctions against Portugal. But inthe hope of winning United States support, they softened theirstand a number of times, finally even deleting a specific request thatPortugal admit the investigators” (7.6.61). The same report madeclear the basis of the new administration’s colonial policy: “Washing-ton’s break with precedent and with its major allies on the Angolaquestion has already complicated the operations of the NorthAtlantic Treaty Organization. However, decisions by the UnitedStates to retreat now and not support the Asian-African move herewould lend credence to Soviet charges that Washington’s expression

of support for colonial peoples was merely ‘opportunistic’.” Inspiredby this renovation of the principles of Jefferson, the US delegateYost voted for the Afro-Asian resolution, which passed nine votes tonil, with Britain and France abstaining. However, a Soviet resolutionwhich was a straightforward condemnation of Portugal’s action inAngola did not receive American support. It secured only four votes infavour (USSR, Ceylon, UAR, Liberia) to three against (UK, France,Formosa), with four abstentions (USA, Chile, Ecuador, Turkey).But the cumulative effect of the Security Council’s resolution in

March, the General Assembly Resolution of April, and the SecurityCouncil’s second resolution in June, with ever more massive majoritieson each occasion, was extremely grave for Portugal.

Placed in open international quarantine, Lisbon reacted bydesperately trying to form alliances with other states in a similarposition. On May 20, Salazar, gratified by Spain’s vote in the UN inApril, travelled to the Spanish border to confer with Franco, and thetwo leaders discussed the spread of Communism in Africa. It wasnot long before Portugal’s other lone defender at the United Nations,

South Africa, was in close touch. In a discreet visit at the beginning of July, the South African Defence Minister, Fouché, had talks withhis opposite number in Lisbon (4.7.61). Almost certainly, the Portu-guese requested military aid at this meeting. The official communiquemade no mention of this, but reports from South-West Africaindicated an open intensification and coordination of militaryactivity there. The Observer correspondent in Windhoek cabled:“In the past three weeks South African security forces have movedinto Ovamboland, now taken over as part of the South West African‘police zone’. Aircraft operating from two airfields, one in the Caprivi

strip and the other at Ohopoho, in the west, have begun a patrol to

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watch for Angolan refugees and infiltrators.“Units of the mobile watch sent up from Potchefstroom, near

Pretoria, are patrolling the ground in cooperation with the Portuguesepolice. Sixteen permanent police posts are being built, linked bywireless. The Walvis Bay defence base, which is Republic territorythough administered by the South West African Administration, is toreceive a garrison of 1,500 regular troops in the next few months.Its airport is being enlarged to enable them to be flown to the Angolafrontier in less than two hours.

“The situation has made its impact on the civil population, and inWindhoek itself, with a European population of 20,000, there are

now some 15,000 registered firearms.” (2.7.61).Meanwhile great efforts were being made to activate Portugal’s“Oldest Alliance”—with the UK. Britain had voted against theSecurity Council’s resolution of March, had abstained on theGeneral Assembly resolution of April and the Liberian SecurityCouncil resolution of June, and had voted against the Sovietresolution in June. Gestures of sympathy and solidarity continuedthroughout the summer. On May 15, HMS Leopard arrived fromFreetown and Lagos in Luanda on a “goodwill visit” with theCommander of the British fleet in the South Atlantic aboard. On

May 16 the British consul in São Paulo refused the Portugueseoppositionist Galvão an entry visa to Britain. On May 26, Lord Homearrived for talks in Lisbon on another goodwill visit. The discussionwas lengthy and “cordial”. The British Foreign Minister remarkedthat Portuguese policy in Africa, like that of Britain, was based onrespect for the human personality. The Diario de Noticias returnedthe compliment: “Lord Home is a gentleman. It is no accident thatthis profoundly English word cannot be translated into any otherlanguage.” What this meant was clear a few weeks later: complaisance

in genocide. On June 15, the Macmillan Government refused tocancel or postpone the NATO training exercises of the 19th BrigadeGroup in Northern Portugal. On June 16, six frigates of the 7thSquadron of the Home Fleet sailed into Lisbon after exercises withthe Portuguese navy and air force. And on June 17, the sale wasannounced to Portugal of two “refitted” Bay class frigates, of KoreanWar vintage.

As the gestures of solidarity and connivance multiplied, there wasa storm of criticism from political, religious and social organisations

in Britain. Faced with overwhelming opposition, the MacmillanGovernment made a limited withdrawal: the joint military exerciseswere cancelled, and a “fact-finding commission” was sent to studythe Angolan war. The commission consisted of a colonel and agroup-captain: the first was military attaché in Lisbon, the second—air attaché in Madrid. The results of this enquiry were never madepublic. Meanwhile the Labour Party was invoking the example of the US to show the government that it was politically mistaken.Gaitskell said in the House of Commons on July 5: “Their policy(i.e. the Government’s) has been foolish even if their fundamental

aims have been sound enough.” He added naively: “Our major




argument against the Communist threat is that we continue to enjoydemocracy and freedom and don’t wish to give it up. Remove that

argument by removing democracy and there is precious little leftof our case.” The government’s reply recalled him to realism:“The solidarity of NATO was the bedrock of the Government’sDefence policy. No State had left NATO since its inception, and if the essential unity of the Alliance was disrupted by the withdrawalof a member, the damaging effects would be far-reaching.” (5.7.61.)

Real opposition, however, did continue, and in July the Govern-ment was forced to place an embargo on the further sale or armsto Portugal. But its basic diplomatic policy had not changed: in

October, Galvão, after a triumphal reception in Sweden, landed atLondon Airport, and was put under criminal arrest and then de-ported immediately. Britain was being restrained from lending directmaterial support to Salazar, but its diplomatic support remained asstrong as ever.

Spain, South Africa, Britain—and Katanga. This final allianceemerged in late July. From the very outset of Katangan secession,the Elizabethville régime has been vitally dependent on the Lobito-Benguela railway for the transhipment of the Union Minière outputwhich has financed it. With the Congolese “Voie Nationale”

(Elizabethville–Port Francqui–Leopoldville–Matadi) closed, theLobito route was Katanga’s lifeline to the capitalist world outside.As early as autumn, 1960, the Katangan “Foreign Minister” Kimbahad paid a visit to Lisbon. Observers might have wondered whethereven the Tshombe régime would not hesitate openly to condoneracial extermination of Africans by a white colonial power. Theexact opposite was true. The action of the Portuguese army innorthern Angola inspired Tshombe to his most fulsome expressionsof praise for Portugal. After visiting the Angolan pavilion at the

Elizabethville international fair, he told the Luanda paper Comercio’ sspecial correspondent: “The Portuguese and Katangans in Africa,by their common multi-racial way of life, form the only indestructiblefront in the world which Communist covetousness cannot destroy.”Kimba, in a public speech on the same occasion, expressed gratitudefor Portuguese confidence in the future of Katanga, as manifested inthe Angolan pavilion at the fair. “As you know”, he said, “our policyis like yours: we do not take into account the colour of a man’s skin.”Tshombe himself summed up the position: “Matters are not yet

entirely clear between our two countries, except for one point—wehave the same ideas and are fighting for the same ideal. The rest willfollow after talks between the responsible officials.” (26.7.61).

Meanwhile, a mounting tempo of anger was sweeping the Afro-Asian world, which found fierce expression at the Belgrade Con-ference of Non-Aligned powers in September. The Conferencedenounced “the intolerable measures of repression taken by Portu-guese colonial authorities against the Angolan people” and called on“all peaceful countries, particularly member states of the United

Nations, to help the Angolan people to establish without further

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delay a free and independent state.” At the same time, the New YorkTimes reported from Belgrade that “concrete aid to nationalists in

Algeria and Angola had been promised by the governments that wererepresented in the conference of non-aligned nations. Conferencesources said the help would be ‘diplomatic and practical’ . . .”

When the UN reassembled for the 63rd session in December, it hadbefore it the Report on Angola of the Enquiry Commission. TheReport found unanimously that the insurrection was caused by“genuine grievances”. It called on Portugal to implement “drasticreforms” to prepare the territory for self-government. It furtherstated that the situation in Angola was deteriorating and constituted

a threat to international peace and security. A bitter condemnationof Portugal seemed imminent. The US, however, was determined toprevent this. As the New York Times reported on January 15: “TheUnited States . . . will seek a moderate resolution in an effort toavoid ‘pushing’ Portugal further and further into isolation’, as onesource put it.”

Thus when the Afro-Asian bloc met to draft a resolution onAngola, US pressure was already intense. A long delay followed, asthe text of the resolution was progressively weakened to satisfyWashington. The Kennedy administration vetoed any “condem-

nation” of Portugal. Instead the resolution had simply to “deprecatedeeply” Portugal’s “armed action” ( New York Times. 24.1.62). Itsmaximum demands were for Portugal “to desist forthwith fromrepressive measures”, to release all political prisoners immediately,and to set up freely elected and representative political institutionswith a view to “the transfer of power to the people of Angola”. TheBritish delegate was later to regret the “extravagant tone” of thisresolution, and to call the demand for the release of political prisoners“unrealistic”.

Meanwhile Poland and Bulgaria had tabled a resolution bluntlycondemning Portugal for its action of extermination in Angola, andcalling on the Security Council to consider economic sanctionsagainst it. The Czech delegate, Kenka, commented accurately enoughthat the difference between the two resolutions was that one wasanxious to help Portugal and the other to help Angola. On January30, votes were taken. The Polish-Bulgarian resolution was defeated,26 votes against 43, with 32 abstentions. Besides the Eastern bloc,voting for were: Cameroun, Ethiopia, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan,

Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Tanganyika, Morocco, Iraq, UAR, India,Indonesia, Cuba and Yugoslavia. The “Afro-Asian” resolution waspassed 99 votes to 2 (Spain, South Africa), with France abstaining.The USA voted for the resolution only after Stevenson had securedthe withdrawal of a clause calling for the UN’s Committee onDecolonization to give urgent attention to the question of Angola,with a view to the “speedy achievement of independence by thepeople of Angola.” The word “independence” was too much for it.

Portugal’s respite was brief and unlikely to recur. The Januaryresolution was overshadowed by an event of far greater importance

for the world and for Portugal. On November 6, the General




Assembly voted by 67 to 16 (including the US, Britain and Portugal)to recommend economic and diplomatic sanctions against South

Africa. The move was unprecedented. It dramatically reflected a newawareness among the Afro-Asian nations of the inefficacy of verbalresolutions designed for neo-colonial consumption. The resolutionfurther called on the Security Council to consider the expulsion of South Africa from the UN, if it still did not abandon apartheid. It wasclear that no effort would now be omitted to ensure that UN resolu-tions against South Africa had practical force. The precedent was of immense and ominous importance for Lisbon. The next target of new Afro-Asian determination could only be Portugal.

II. Economic

Portugal’s economic dependence on its colonies is greater thanthat of any other colonial power, past or present. It has never had aclassic “export-and-re-export” colonial economy; it has relied insteadsimply and overwhelmingly on the foreign currency earnings of itscolonies. A glance at the OEEC table below shows the extent of its

dependence:

Balance of Payments of the Escudo Area (OEEC, 1960)

(US million dollars)Current Transactions 1956 1957 1958 1959Imports of Metropolitan

Portugal ... ... ... 354·0 394·7 369·3 363·8Exports of Metropolitan

Portugal ... ... ... 231·0 218·1 212·0 209·2

Trade Balance of Metropolitan Portugal ... 123·0 176·6 157·3 154·6

Overseas Provinces’ importsfrom third countries ... 89·2 99·9 101·4 88·8

Overseas Provinces’ exports to

third countries ... ... 141·3 149·3 168·4 160·9Trade Balance of

Overseas Provinces ... ... 52·1 49·4 67·0 72·1

Invisibles (net) ... ... ... 43·9 43·8 63·1 39·3Private Transfers ... ... 34·3 48·7 49·4 57·0

Current Transfers ... ... 78·2 92·5 112·5 96·3

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Private Capital Transactions:Long term … … … 0·6 1·7 2·1 1·2

Short term … … … 14·0 19·3 1·8 3·0

14·6 21·0 0·3 4·2

Public and Banking CapitalTransactions … … … 15·3 12·2 12·1 25·5Long Term … … … 4·7 2·1 0·3 2·9Short Term … … … 6·1 7·6 6·4 3·7

16·7 17·7 18·8 18·9

Net Total … … … 38·6 4·0 41·3 36·9

As the Christian Science Monitor remarked in late 1961: “It isestimated that one third of Portugal’s total national income comesfrom the overseas provinces. Only 5 per cent of Belgium’s nationalincome was derived from the Belgian Congo.” The absolutely crucialimportance of the colonies to Portugal is clear; and, by the sametoken, the vulnerability of the Portuguese economy. What has beenthe impact of the war upon it?

The insurrection was of course most immediately and dramaticallyregistered in Luanda. Throughout April, settlers beseiged banks,travel-agencies, retail-shops. The official Portuguese news-agencyreported that such commodities as potatoes, rice, lard and saltedcod had risen 200 per cent. Dislocation of air, shipping and bankingrepatriation mechanisms was for a period almost complete. Innorthern Angola itself, almost all rational human endeavour hadceased; the only norms were devastation and evacuation. Elsewhere

atrophy set in. The Observer reported this sombre phase of the war:“If the siege develops the Portuguese situation is lost for good.Already the burning of plantations (120 since the beginning of thismonth) represents a loss of one-tenth of the coffee potential whichcannot be replaced for five to seven years. Plantations not destroyedbut merely unharvested are useless for two years because of the effecton the soil . . . to hold on to the north in such circumstances is toturn the richest area of the Portuguese Empire into a liability, costingat present estimates between £15,000 and £30,000 a day. (23.7.61).

Small business in Luanda and upcountry collapsed, Ambrizete andBenguela decayed through loss of traffic, settler discontent withPortugal’s military and political tactics grew more vociferous. Whenthe rains ceased, an ‘Economic Recovery Corps’ of Africans fromSouthern Angola (2,000–5,000 men) was established to harvest thecoffee crop under armed guard. The Robusta crop (as in East Africa)had attained record dimensions, and probably between a half andtwo-thirds of it was rescued. But this isolated success did little torelieve the general situation. A Reuter cable of August 18 noted the

acute labour shortage and disruption caused by the war: economic




life, apart from coffee, was more or less “at a standstill”. TheMavoio copper mine had ceased production, and its 4,000 labour

force had fled, leaving the white technicians to be evacuated. Gulf Oil had ceased their prospecting in Cabinda. Only Diamang, trueto Katanga type, had been able to continue operation through thecrisis.

At home, overseas stocks had plunged. On the Lisbon bourse thevalue of overseas shares fell 60 per cent between January and June,1961. All the major companies were hit. CADA’s nominal 900 escudoshares, valued at 4,250 escudos in 1958, had slumped to 1,100 in

June, 1961. Azucar de Angola’s 1,500 escudo shares fluctuated

between 1,330 and 930. Shares of the Sociedade Agricola do Casse-quel (sugar), quoted at 1,016 in early 1961, were down to 650 byAugust. The July bulletin of the Economist Intelligence Unit reported:“In a number of cases owners of shares in Portuguese overseascompanies have been unable to sell their holdings at any price.”Even Diamang’s position had been weakened. Reports that “thecompany has substantially reinforced its private garrison” (8.9.61)had evidently not been wholly reassuring. Shares valued at 520escudos in 1960 were down to 430 by May, 1961, and 396 in August.The index of government stocks themselves had dropped 30 points

by June.The capital market, always a sensitive barometer, had begun to

show disquieting features early on. One of the Salazar regime’s mostboasted achievements wsa the rock-hard stability of the escudo. ByApril, 1961, the Finance Ministry was forced to announce stringentwarnings against capital outflow, which had been evading controlby the Inspectorate of the Credit and Insurance Department. The£ moved from 80 to 83 escudos on the official market. The shift wasapparently marginal, but journalists observed that banks, beseiged

by anxious purchasers, simply had no foreign exchange left to sell.The Times reported on April 17: “In Lisbon, in spite of exchangeprecautions taken earlier by the Bank of Portugal, dollars, poundsSwiss francs and gold virtually disappeared from the exchangemarket. Official prices remained stable, but few exchange bureauxhad currency to sell. A few were selling dollars at 35 escudos insteadof at the official rate of 28.90.” It was naturally illicit transactionsthat worried the government most. On April 26, Finance MinisterNunes said on his return from an OEEC policy meeting in Paris that

capital outflow since the beginning of the uprising amounted to5–6 per cent of the country’s total revenue. The drop in exchangereserves spoke for itself—

December, 1960 … … 794 million dollars January 31, 1961 … … 784

” ”February, 1961 … … 773

” ”March, 1961 … … 751

” ”April, 1961 … … 732

” ”(including

14 million dollars deposited withthe International Monetary

Fund.)

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By August, reserves were down to 641 million dollars, and Dr.Stucky de Quay, editor of the Jornal Português de Economica e

Finanças, was writing in the Diario de Lisboa: “Portugal is todayfacing a grave financial crisis arising from a lack of liquidity greatlyaccentuated by the military campaign overseas.” While the escudofaltered, military costs were rising rapidly.

The exceptional costs of the war had to some extent been anticipatedin the January budget. As usual there was an excessive ratio of extra-ordinary to ordinary estimates: 104.5 million escudos were trans-ferred from the ordinary budget account to help balance extraordinaryexpenditures. The increases in extraordinary spending went mainly

to the Defence Department: its allowance was doubled, and cameto account for almost two-thirds of the total rise in expenditureforecast for the whole budget:1961 Budget Ordinary Extraordinary(mil. escudos Revenue ... ... ... 8,238.4 3,549.5

Expenditure ... ... 8,126.9 3,654.0Estimated Extraordinary Expenditure 1960 1961Total (mil escudos) ... ... ... 2,751.3 3,654.0

Defence Department ... ... ... 799.8 1,656.9Public Works ... ... ... 1,053.9 1,086.9

On June 13, the Portuguese Government was forced to allocate afurther credit of 500 million escudos to National Defence. This wasto be spent on the immediate purchase of materials essential to thedefence of Portugal’s overseas provinces. This single extraordinarycredit represented 62.5 per cent of 1960’s total defence estimates: andabout 30 per cent of 1961’s vastly increased appropriations. Howwas this to be paid for?

At the beginning of July “temporary” tax increases were announced

by the Government. Direction taxation (surtax) was upgraded, but thebulk of the revenue was to come from indirect increases. Purchasetax on “superfluous and luxury consumption” was to go up by15 per cent; the petrol tax was increased by 20 per cent; tobacco,beer and mineral waters rose 15 per cent; the tax on motor carsrose by about 16 per cent, and a building and building land tax wasimposed. Further taxes affected property sales and insurance com-panies. Even tourists had to contribute to Portuguese repression: on

July 9 Lisbon and Oporto were officially declared tourist zones,

making visitors liable to a spot tax. The sociological implication of the taxes was clear. The crisis had forced the régime to take the riskof antagonizing the privileged minority who are the chief beneficiariesof Salazar’s rule, simply because there was nothing further to bedrained from the oppressed majority.

As the war settled into a guerilla pattern in the autumn, thedeterioration of the economic situation was checked. Panic gaveway a routine insecurity in Luanda. Businesses re-opened andcommercial life returned to something like normal in Angola southof the Malange line. Colonial equities continued to fall, but at a less

dramatic rate: by February the overseas share index was down a




further 6 points, by May 11 points. In October exchange reserves rosefor the first time to $644 million, and thereafter continued to improve

slowly. Paper circulation had increased 19 per cent in 1961, but thiscould be expected to taper off. Assistance from friends of Portugalabroad began to become available. West Germany granted therégime a loan of $37 million. The World Bank provided $1,500,000for a strategic road-building programme in South-West Angola, forwhich South Africa supplied the technical assistance.

However, the 1962 budget showed the heavy strain of the war.Military expenditure rose a massive 31 per cent, while the much-advertised Development Plan was allocated a derisory extra 2 per

cent. A 10 per cent profits tax was imposed on all companies enjoying“monopolistic concessions, special privileges or an especiallyfavoured position on the market”. In June an additional AngolanDefence Tax was announced, a profit tax of 5 to 35 per cent on allfirms in Angola with a profit exceeding 3 million escudos. A billiondollar loan to the colony followed. But confidence had gone, andcould not be restored. In September, the Financial Times reportedtersely: “The Portuguese investor shows little inclination to placehis money in the country”.

Shored up by accumulated reserves, foreign loans, and extra-

ordinary levies, the régime can probably withstand the directlyeconomic effects of the war for some time to come. It is the indirecteffects which will be more serious. To pay for its vast militaryoutlay, the régime has been forced to penalize increasingly heavilythe very strata on which it has always relied for its political support—the Portuguese rich of cartelized industry and the latifundia. Theconsequences of this remain to be seen.

III. Political

The Salazar régime is not only economically, but also politicallydependent for its existence on the empire. As has been seen, thecolonies function as the ultimate rationale of the régime, its onlycompensation for 35 years of nullity and stagnation. Their loss wouldmake its bankruptcy insupportable and final, even to much of Portuguese reaction. The disintegration of the Portuguese empirewould mean the end of Portuguese fascism. The present régime

cannot survive the independence of its colonies.The gravity of the Angolan situation for the régime was evidentalmost as soon as the insurrection started. Within less than a monthafter the nationalist offensive began, the power structure of Sala-zarism was in full crisis, and a military coup d’état was only narrowlyaverted. As became clear subsequently, the majority of the armycommand was dismayed both by the extent of the insurrection andby the international isolation of Portugal following on the SecurityCouncil vote of March 15. Its own policy towards Angola may havebeen “liberal”—i.e. in favour of the tactic of concessions—or simply

one of greater military rationalization and efficiency. Probably, it

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was a combination of both. What is certain is that the integrationof the Portuguese Armed Forces inside NATO had led to strong

American influences on the General Staff. “Atlantic” norms andtactics began to impinge on the archaic world of the Portuguesemilitary caste. Thus, when the USA publicly disavowed Portugal inthe Security Council in March, the shock for NATO-orientatedofficers must have been acute. A coup to overthrow Salazar andinstall a loyal western military régime was planned for the middleof April. The junta behind it included practically the whole topmilitary echelon in the country: the Minister of Defence, GeneralBotelho Moniz, the Minister of War, Lt.-Col. Almeida Fernandes,

the C.-in-C. of the Portuguese Air Force, General Albuquerque deFreitas, the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Belleza Verraz, andthe Military Governor of Lisbon. Marshal Craveiro Lopes, Presidentof the Republic from 1951–58, probably connived at the plot.

According to the most authoritative account, de Freitas sent amemorandum to Botelho Moniz at the end of March demanding anew Angolan policy more in accordance with Atlantic methods, anda new Government to carry it out. Moniz, Fernandes and othersenior officers agreed. A plan was drawn up to oust Salazar at ameeting of the Supreme Defence Council on April 8, proceeding

purely by constitutional methods. Warned, Salazar avoided themeeting and mobilized the “pure” Salazarist corps, the NationalRepublican Guard. On April 13, he announced the dismissal of Moniz, Fernandes, Ferraz, and the Military Governor of Lisbon.Forestalled in its own constitutional manoeuvres, the junta lost itsnerve and collapsed. General de Freitas returned to Lisbon froman official visit to Washington on April 19, and was dismissed onApril 29.

Salazar had survived, but with a very narrow escape. The unity

and stability of his régime was now clearly precarious. On May 3, afurther drastic Cabinet reshuffle installed new Ministers of ForeignAffairs (Alberto Franco Nogueira), of the Interior (Alfredo Rodriguesdos Santos); of Education (Manuel Lopes de Almeida), and of Corporations (José Gonçalves Proença). The Ministry of OverseasTerritories had already passed to Professor Adreano Moreira in theApril 13 decree. On June 3, General Venancio Deslandes of Francobomber squadron experience and former Ambassador in Madrid, wasappointed Governor-General and C.-in-C. of the Armed Forces in

Angola, replacing Admiral Silva Tovares and General MonteroLiborio in these positions. The changes in the administrativeapparatus of Salazarism was well-nigh complete, involving sevenMinisteries out of 14, including the crucial posts of Foreign Affairs,Defence, Army, Interior, and Overseas Provinces. The social‘ground’ of the régime threatened to become quicksand. As theluxury and gasoline taxes hit home, and the escudo weakened, themonied upper class itself began to lose confidence in the régime, andcapital filtered clandestinely abroad. Patriotism was small counter-weight: the Observer reported on July 2: “Morale is low and on

Monday the Army had to cancel medical boards for drafted officers




after the scandal of the overcrowding of the Lisbon Military hospitalby personnel reluctant to serve overseas.”

Meanwhile, the colonial crisis and mass conscription were clearlyeffecting a certain crystallization of political organization and con-sciousness in the working class and peasantry. The evident jeopardyof the régime was helping to destroy the mesmeric effect of 35 yearsof inert, uninterrupted power. Attempts to arouse working-classchauvinism were of little use in face of the absurdity and hardshipof the call-up. Already, many reports have found their way intoconservative, pro-Salazar foreign newspapers, indicating that deser-tions and resistance have been occurring on some scale. The Sunday

Times reported: “In the hot poverty-stricken plains of the Alentejoin the south . . . many have taken to the fields to avoid call-up.Recently, police and national guardsmen were called to the town of Evora to deal with incipient mutiny on a troop train . . . There isnow growing fear of an armed uprising in Portugal. . . Portugal, itseems, now has its maquis. At present this consists mainly of menwho, fearing arrest for subversive activities, in some cases no moreserious than incitement to strike, have sought refuge in the Serra daEstrella mountains of north-central Portugal. Many have securedarms. In most cases, the arms have been smuggled from Spain,

supplied by anti-Franco elements who hope for a joint rising.”While reports of this kind could reasonably be treated with caution,

they had some prima facie plausibility, particularly when appearingin organs otherwise sympathetic to Salazarism. The nervousness of the regime was plain. It was reinforced by the existence, for the firsttime in decades, of an organized external front of opposition. TheDelgado-Galvão front was important mainly because of the pastpolitical careers of its leaders. Both of them are former high function-aries in the régime (Delgado C.-in-C. of the Air Force, Galvão

Inspector-General of Angola) and then spectacular oppositionists(Delgado in the elections of 1957, Galvão from his trial in 1951 tohis escape in 1958). Galvão in particular had compromised theinternational position of the Salazar government by his seizure of the Santa Maria at the opening of 1960 in a riot of world-widepublicity. The declarations of the two men on the colonial issueremained vague and contradictory, and showed traces of chauvinism.But the importance of their campaign to the struggle of nationalliberation in Africa was independent of their positions. Salazar

could not survive the loss of the colonies. The reverse is also true:the colonies will almost certainly not survive the end of Salazarism.Once the sclerosed stasis of 35 years of fascism is broken in Portugal,a process of radicalization will set in which at the very least willpreclude any possibility of preserving the Empire. The installationof Delgado and Galvão in Morocco in the summer increased thethreat to Lisbon. In a detailed dispatch from Portugal on October 28,the Observer reported that “fears of a political uprising have alertedthe country’s defence . . . Seven naval vessels are now lying off theAlgarve and the Portuguese Air Force is circling the seas between

South Portugal and North Africa. At the Alfeite naval dockyard,

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repairs to two of Portugal’s three submarines are being given toppriority, and concentrated on Beja, the capital of the Alentejo and

an area of rampant political unrest, is an armoured division with atank unit intended for Angola. Large sectors of the Algarve coastare now fortified and vehicles entering the district are being stoppedby armed patrols and their passengers questioned.”

The fears of the régime proved justified. On November 10, aPortuguese airliner was hi-jacked by Galvão and forced to circleover Lisbon dropping pamphlets urging revolt. Within a month, onNew Year’s Day, 1962, a group of armed men attacked the barracksat Beja itself. After a fierce engagement, they were beaten off. The

Under-Secretary for the Army was killed in the fighting as he arrivedfrom Lisbon. The Portuguese Army was immediately put on thealert, and arrests were made of the escaping insurgents. The attackhad been led by an army officer, Captain Joao Varela Gomes, anda former Catholic Youth leader, Manuel Serra. Delgado was laterto claim responsibility for the attempt.

Although the attack had failed, its political effect was to weakenthe regime still further. The Sunday Times reported from Lisbon:“Alarm and despondency are at a new peak in Portugal. Despiteefforts to rally support and diversionary attacks on her nominal

allies, the régime appears to have begun the year with less realpopularity than ever before.” (7.6.62.) Open disaffection now for thefirst time began to appear. At the end of the month, a crowd of 5,000 rioted in Oporto, shouting “Long Live Liberty”, and were metwith police fire. In Lisbon, the Times reported: “A constant streamof people appears before the criminal courts on trial for subversiveactivities.” On March 9, 10,000 demonstrators marched through thestreets of Oporto. In April, two people were killed and 15 arrested ina demonstration in the mining-town of Ajustrel in South Portugal.

On May Day police and demonstrators (mainly working-class)clashed for three hours in Lisbon. A week later more demonstratorsin Lisbon and Oporto were followed by a hundred arrests. The prisonswere now so overcrowded with demonstrators that the newest group,12,000 Lisbon University students, had to be held in police barracksoutside the capital.

Trouble had started in the University on March 24, when theMinistry of Education banned the traditional Student Day celebrationsIn face of rising opposition, the ban was cancelled, and then re-

imposed on Salazar’s orders, over the resignation of the veteranSalazarist rector, Marcelo Caetano. In protest, 15,000 studentswent on strike (6.4.62). Their leaders were arrested. On June 2,students demonstrated in Lisbon against the arrests; many of themwere arrested in their turn. Two days later the police invaded theprecincts of Lisbon University itself and clashed with students andprofessors there. In July, the students were still on strike, “the mostunified and defiant opposition Dr. Salazar’s regime has yet en-countered” (Observer Foreign News Service. 22.6.62).

Meanwhile a series of arrests of “communists” was announced:

students, technicians, public servants, artisans (July), transport




workers (August), labourers, clerks, chauffeurs (October). Resistanceto the regime clearly embraced almost all social strata. On September

25, the Governor General of Angola, Deslandes, was abruptlydismissed: he had tried to accelerate African education and to assertmilitary autonomy in Angola. After a considerable delay an unknownjunior officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Silvino Silverio Marques, formerGovernor of the Cape Verde Islands, was appointed to his post.The Minister for the Overseas Provinces, Adreano Moreira, bitterlyremarked in Lisbon: “It would be a victory for our enemies if theyknew of all the discord that exists between us” (4.10.62).

His words received spectacular confirmation eight weeks later. On

December 3, the Cabinet was suddenly and dramatically purgedagain. Moreira and his Under-secretaries of Overseas Administrationand Development were dismissed. His replacement was the governorof another of Portugal’s minor colonies, Portuguese Guinea, Com-mander Antonio Peixoto Correia. The Minister for the Army, GeneralMario da Silva, was eliminated and his place taken by a former policecommander, Colonel da Luiz Cunha. The Defence Ministry was givento the former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. Professor LuizTeixeira Pinto became the new Minister of the Economy. The Ministerof Education, Lopes de Almeida, was ejected: the acting director of

Lisbon University (in office since Caetano’s resignation in April)immediately resigned in protest. The purge was a direct index of thedeterioration of Salazar’s position. The sudden dismissal of Deslandes, Moreira and da Silva showed how disastrously theAngolan war was going for Portugal, both politically and militarily.Deslandes and Moreira, appointed in early 1961 as vigorous newadministrators capable of reversing the tide in Angola, had lastedjust over a year. To replace them, Salazar could only find forgottenjunior officials who pliancy, and incompetence, could be guaranteed.

Military disaffection was met by placing the Army Ministry under apolice official. A new Minister was appointed to shore up the con-tinuingly precarious state of the economy. And in a final confessionof failure, the sensitive Ministry of Education, in charge of studentaffairs, was transferred to another Salazarist professor. The de-moralization of the régime was unmistakable.

It only remains to sum up.3 The process of disintegration is clear.As the Angolan war continues, the political apparatus of Salazarism,

despite desperate appeals for patriotic support, becomes more andmore introverted and isolated from any other social force in thecountry. A disabused army takes its distances and prepares a respect-able future: businessmen surreptitiously despatch their capitalabroad: students and workers mobilize: conscripts take to the hills:the exiles gather. The end of an epoch is imminent.

See over for notes.

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1 There are five main ethnic groupings in Angola: the Bakongo in thenorth—500,000; the Kimbundu in the country below Luanda—1,000,000;the Ovimbundu (called Bailundu by the Portuguese) on the Benguela

plateau—1,000,000; and the Lunda and Ganguela peoples in the east of thecolony—350,000 and 320,000 respectively. 1950 census, approximate figures.2In the sections which follow, no attempt will be made to give an account

of the Angolan nationalist political organizations. In the conditions of extreme repression and censorship in the Portuguese colonies, politicalactivity was necessarily clandestine throughout the fifties. Since theoutbreak of the war, more information about the Angolan political partieshas become available, but much of it is unreliable. Hence, no seriousanalytic account of the Angolan nationalist parties is possible at present.It need only be said that the two principal parties, both with headquartersin Leopoldville, are the MPLA (Movimento de Libertaçâo de Angola),led by Agostinho Neto—who escaped from Portuguese imprisonment —and Mario de Andrade; and the UPA (União dos Populaçôes de Angola),now merged into the FNLA (Frente Nacional de Libertacao de Angola),

led by Holden Roberto and John Pinnock.The experience of both Algeria and Cuba has shown how prematurespeculations about the exact political character of revolutionary organiza-tions involved in an armed struggle can be. The purpose of the accountbelow, by contrast, is to analyze the war of liberation as an objective andtypical process, which is relatively independent of the particular politicalparties involved in it.

3 A concluding note on method may perhaps be appropriate, for thepurpose of this study has been to some extent methodological as well assubstantive. An initial aim was to show that a precondition of any accountof a colonial area is one account of the metropolitan country. Neither thetype of colonial system nor the course of decolonization can be understoodwithout a direct analysis of the specific economy and society of the colonialpower. This should be a truism, but practically every colonial study of

recent years has ignored it. The result has been a plethora of books onthe Congo, Indonesia, Indochina, Nigeria, etc., in which Belgium, Holland,France or Britain are treated as more or less indistinguishable, inexplicabledei ex machina. A second aim was complementary: to show that any studyof an imperial system should be made in a comparative perspective. Again,this is an elementary sociological rule, but it seems to be foreign to mostwriters in the field. Even the extreme idiosyncrasy of Portuguese imperi-alism has not moved its major historian, James Duffy, to the smallestgesture towards a wider comparison. The emphasis in this study has,in consequence, been deliberately typological.

A much more difficult problem, however, arises over and above theseconsiderations. Any study of imperialism faces one of the key dilemmasof the social sciences: how can a diachronic and a synchronic perspectivebe combined? The reconciliation of history and sociology is easy enough

in principle, but extremely hard in practice. It will be remembered that deSaussure defined a diachronic order as one in which each ‘moment’ canonly be understood in terms of all those which have preceded it: thus in abridge game, the meaning of any trick depends on all the tricks before itand cannot be understood without knowledge of them. In contrast, asynchronic order is one in which the meaning of every moment is visiblein the present: it is coextensive with the relationship of all the existingdata to each other. Thus, at any move, a game of chess is always com-prehensible without any knowledge of the previous moves. It is clear thatany society has both of these dimensions: it is at once a structure whichcan only be understood in terms of the interrelationship of its parts, and a

process which can only be understood in terms of the cumulative weightof its past. The difficulty is to synthesize the two aspects in any actualstudy. Liberal history and formalist sociology represent extreme opposed

attempts to divorce the two dimensions altogether. History becomes, inVan Leur’s words, “chronological whimsy”, a promiscuous and garrulousnarrative devoid of method or principle (Taylor’s The Struggle for the

Mastery of Europe). At the other pole, sociology becomes a hallucinatinguniverse of static and vacant abstractions, whose only relation to concretesocial reality is an ultimate, impalpable consecration of it (Parson’sThe Social System). The coexistence of the two in the Anglo-Saxoncountries marks the limits of the penetration of Marxism in these cultures.For Marxism is the only thought which has rigorously united develop-mental and structural analysis: it is at once pure historicity (denial of allsupra-historical essences) and radical functionalism (societies are significanttotalities). This synthesis remains unique.

The procedure of this study has been to try and concentrate diachronicand synchronic perspectives in as pure a form as possible, and then to

juxtapose them sharply against each other in sequence. Thus a rapidrésumé of the development of Portuguese imperialism over three centuries




necessarily subordinated the range of data severely to the time-scale. Thiswas followed by a functionalist analysis of the Portuguese colonial systemin Africa, ignoring the history of the period. Finally, this section has

attempted a relatively close-up account of the Angolan war, again with aselective focus, this time omitting any treatment of the growth of Africanconsciousness and organization. The intention has been to show the orgin,structure and collapse of the largest remaining European colonial empire.Obviously, the method outlined is, in a sense, artificial. In particular, nofunctionalist analysis can properly account for the démise of a system:hence the abruptness of the opening passages of this section. The lackof documentation of African reaction and resistance (i.e. what would bethe ‘dysfunctional’ elements in the system) made this inevitable. Moregenerally, the approach adopted here probably suffers from a tendencyto ‘totalize’ the data too rapidly into significant ensembles. But thisemphasis is in deliberate contrast to the existing studies of Portuguesecolonialism, and can be checked against them, since most of the sourcematerial used is the same. The great advantage of the approach is that

method, accentuated in this way, becomes directly open and accessible todiscussion.

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portugal and the end of ultra-colonialism

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