24
PRESENCE A t R  I C A 1N E
PORTUGAL AND THE COLONIES OF ANGOLA AND GUINEA
25
Even to-day wc are bound to recognise the tragic fact that Portugal, in the face of the claims of the African peoples, only knows
a single argument — repression — and a single language — armed
force.
With regard to events in Angola, the Belgian weekly La Gauche
published in its number of 3 October, icpo a letter from a correspondent in Thysville under the heading « Police Terror in Angola ».
We should like to cite a few passages from this document.
« In the course of July » writes the correspondent of the Gauche,
« the Portuguese Police launched a terror campaign against the
Angolan population ».
« It goes without saying that the Press Agencies of the country
have not been authorised to reproduce this news, and still less to
report on the ignoble measures which have been taken. But must
we therefore remain silent? If African solidarity did not act in
this case (at the level of political, trade union and cultural organisations), if international democratic opinion did not sound the
alarm by means of a press campaign, the Portuguese Fascists would
feel that they had a free hand. »
« In the town of Luanda alone (the capital of Angola) more than
l5o people were arrested during last July. »
« The motive for these imprisonments is to be found in simple
mistrust of the Africans who do not submit to the colonial system
or do not declare their allegiance to the « Portuguese Fatherland ».
« Thus, the Police arrested in Lisbon, where he happened to be
on holiday, an intellectual very well known in Luanda African circles, Mr. Ilidio Machado, while Mr. Belo Catuto Fernandas, who
was making a stop at Funchal, was taken to Lisbon by the orders
of the Portuguese Gestapo, the P.I.D.E. »
« Among those detained in the town of Luanda, the following
names will be noted; Mr. Carlos Aniceto Vieira Dias, Director ol"
the Folklore troupe « Ngola Ritmo » (\ngolese Rhythms), Gabriel
Leitao, Pereira, Iligino Aires, Viana de Almeida, Henrique and
Mario Guerra, Mingas, Graca, and the brothers Benge, one o/
whom lias become dumb and {Kiralysed as a result of the violence
he suffered in the cells. »
« They are mostly State officials. Mr. Bento Ribeiro, who was
for some time the Representative of the native populations on the
Council of Government, was also imprisoned but was quickly
released. »
And the correspondent of the Gauche further adds; « We find
ourselves in fact at the beginning of the process which might had
to the large scale extermination — and I weigh my words — of
the colonial populations; systematic intimidation by imprisonment
and brutalities. Will it also end by colonial war ? Some Portuguese
hope so,  to « do,  once and for all  » away with the opposition
of the Africans. »
Events had, moreover, already justified the fears of the correspondent of the Gauche,
In fact on aG April, iooV), a crowd estimated at 100,000 strong
(mostly Portuguese colonists) massed at the airport of Belas on the
outskirts of the town of Luanda, applauded the jump of the first
parachutist to land on Angolcse soil, and a certain Father Martins,
the chaplain who accompanied the Air Force from Lisbon. This
was the beginning of the process which marked the installation of
the Air Force in Angola.
Subsequently, bombing, target practice, exercices punctuated by
machine-gun fire, and finally precision raids with 45 kg napalm
bombs, completed the programme of this military demonstration,
described by the Luanda daily paper 0 Journal do Comcrcio as
a the first Festival of the Portuguese Air Force ».
<( The operations were carried out as though on a battlefield »
writes the Gauche again, « the authorities having made it quite
clear that this was a question of thc form of combat they would
apply in the event of their having to crush an anti-colonialist
rebellion, or better still, the day when they decided to quell 'by
anticipating them' attemps at popular rebellion against colonialism. »
<( Agile, athletic, goose-stepping, — so the enthusiastic colonial
press tells us — the soldiers astonished the European population.
And several observes, we are told, apparently only wished one
thing; that it had not been a mere exercise. »
a Other demonstrations of this kind were arranged in the regions
<>f the Centre and South of Angola; Nova Lisboa, Sa da Bandeira,
Lobito, Bcnguela. »
<( The colonial Deputy for Mozambique in the Portuguese National Assembly, claimed on his account the installation of military
(air) forces in this « province » of the East Coast. »
On the same evening of 26 April, 1959 after the demonstrations
of the Air Force and at a banquet in honour of the Portuguese
Tiidcr-Secretary of State for Air, the Governor-General of Angola
made a speech in which he said; « In our days peace is only pos-
sihle so long as States possess adequate forces to meet the challenge
r»f agitators and disruptive elements, generally inspired by communism and under more veiled forms. The country cannot defend
itself unless it possesses military arms. Wherever there is a corner
"f Portuguese soil, the land and air forces must be present and
vigilant to forestall any yielding to covetousness or false ideas. »
« And that is not all; these troops must be morally strong so as
'0 resist the various forms of propaganda which seek to undermine
tern, since we know that the army is the main obstacle to the