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PORTUGAL’S AFRICAN WARS Angola Guinea-Bissao Mozambique Portugal's African Wars Angola Guinea Bissao Mozambique ARSLAN HUMBARACI and NICOLE MUCHNIK THE THIRD PRESS Joseph Okpaku Publishing Company, Inc. 444 Central Park West, New York, N. Y. 10025 © Arslan Humbaraci and Nicole Muchnik 1974 All rights reserved Except for use in a review, the reproduction or utilization of this work or part of it in any form or by electronics, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, and recording, and in any information storage and retrieval system is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 72-93676 ISBN: 0-89388-072-8 First printing Printed in Great Britain Dedication This book is dedicated to Dr Kenneth Kaunda and Mwalimu Julius Nyerere without whose support the liberation struggle in Southern Africa would not have been where it is today. I have had the rare privilege of serving both and addressing them as ‘Brother’ or ‘Comrade’ President. Some, out of ignorance or malice, may misinterpret the latter term which with men like Kenneth Kaunda and Julius Nyerere takes its full human value. I wish there were more leaders like them, in the West and in the East, for it would be a better world. I am only sorry that in the last two years some elements in Kaunda’s Zambian administration, who have con ducted a ‘dialogue’ with South Africa under the table and done their utmost to stab the MPLA in the back, should have isolated Kaunda and misled Zambia into an unholy alliance with General Mobutu of Zaire. My friend and co-author Nicole Muchnik joins me in this dedication. A.H. Acknowledgements Thanks are due to Susan Watson for her assist ance in writing Parts I and III, for reading Part II and proof-reading the entire book, and to Dr Agostinho Neto for permission to reprint the poem which appears on p. 233. Contents Author's Note 9 Part I by Arslan Humbaraci Foreword 13 Angola: some basic facts 15 Guinea Bissao: some basic facts 18 Mozambique: some basic facts 22 Introduction 26 Milestones on the Great North Road 26 At What Cost Portugal’s Colonial Wars? 33 ‘The Border of Human Decency’ 45 The Emergent Black Bourgeois Nationalist Class 60 Part II by Arslan Humbaraci and Nicole Muchnik 1 The History of Portuguese Colonisation in Africa 77 The Setting 77 Portugal - The First to Come, the Last to Go 85 2 Five Centuries of European Presence - The Profits and Losses 99 3 The Birth of Three Nations 114 The Armed Struggle 114 Angola, Africa’s Black Mother 119 8 Portugal's African Wars Guinea Bissao, A Practically Liberated Country 133 Mozambique or The Threat of White Power 144 4 Portugal, The Servant of Great Powers 154 5 NATO’s Hidden Wars 172 For the Defence of the Western World 175 The Cost of Helping Portugal 186 6 The Colonies and the Church 202 Conclusion by Arslan Humbaraci 210 Notes 235 Maps Angola 16 Guinea Bissao 19 Mozambique 23 The Sphere of Influence of South Africa 32 Author's Note DURING the final stages of production of this book General Spinola, Portugal’s new President, has made overtures to freedom fighters in Africa. Will these overtures result in freedom? I am no futurologist and all I can formulate is an advanced, if personal, opinion. I believe the new General-President, in spite of his recent metamorphosis into a ‘liberal’, remains profoundly conservative in outlook and will do his utmost to bring about a NATO-approved neo-colonial solution, particu larly as regards Angola. In Guinea Bissao, poverty-stricken and strategically unimportant, the new masters of Portugal can afford to be more generous and recognise total in dependence - with the exception, I believe, of the Cape Verde Islands. In Mozambique, my guess is that Spinola will have to concede part of the country to FRELIMO, while turning a blind eye to a South African-backed UDI in the southern part of the country. Finally, in Angola, the fabulously rich, unexplored Eldorado of Africa, whose wealth is necessary not only to Portugal but to the USA themselves, the struggle for the future will provide a key test both for the new Lisbon regime and for the MPLA. Right across the Portuguese political spectrum one man is named as the only interlocuteur valable. He is Dr Agostinho Neto, the MPLA leader. The test of his undeniably great statesmanship is approaching. Will he survive and be able to lead Angola to a real in dependence through all the obstacles and temptations 10 Portugal's African Wars which the whole ‘right’, white, black and international, strewing in his path? May içj4 A.H.