In the field of intelligence, apart from
the close fundamental links between the
CIA and PIDE, it was recently learned
that there were CIA agents with General
Kaulza de Arriaga in Mozambique for
training «special forces)). All the treaties
and agreements on military assistance confirmed the use of American weapons to
the North Atlantic Area, despite the attempts Portugal had already made at the
time of the signing of the North Atlantic
Treaty to have it extended to the colonies. However, the violations of this
agreement, which have been acknowledged
both by the US House of Representatives
and the State Department itself, have not
stopped this military assistance. This is
not surprising if one recalls that Art. II
of the U.S. Treaty on military Assistance
agrees to facilitate the production and
transfer to the Government of the United
States of raw materials and semi-manufactures required by the US and which
can be obtained in Portugal or in the
territories under its administration. It can-
be said that even when it comes to the
official written word, the US is innocent
of colonialism. This is a most important
factor which makes it possible to follow
the thread of American policy through
the years.
In March 1961, when the US voted for a
United Nations resolution openly criticising Portugal for its repression in Angola,
relations between the US and Portugal
became somewhat strained. The repression unleashed by the Portuguese colonial
army in Angola had shocked world opinion and the Kennedy Administration,
which wanted to give an apparent «new
look» to its African policy, had to subscribe to the universal condemnation.
It is interesting to recall that only a year
earlier the United States had voted with
Portugal to try to prevent the Portuguese
colonies from being included on the list
of non-autonomous territories which the
United Nations was drawing up.
This position was also dictated by consideration of an economic nature.
The independence of Angola and other
Portuguese colonies, particularly of Mozambique, a reservoir of considerable resources, would inevitably remove the
obstacles to the direct penetration of US
capitalism to exploit the wealth which
had up to then been the preserve of the
Portuguese and their traditional allies,
like the British.
The American position was therefore
determined by both political and econo:
mical factors and the Portuguese response
took into account the same factors.
Politically, they played the card of the
Azores, for which the lease was about to
expire. Salazar flatly stated on a number
of occasions that Portugal was not prepared to comply with the European needs
of the Free World in Africa.
Meanwhile, such leading figures in the
United States as former Secretary of State
Dean Acheson pleaded Portugal's case.
And this pressure proved effective in only
a few months.
But it was Portugal's economic response
which, although slower, has doubtless
more profoundly influenced American
policy making over the past years. With
the introduction, in 1965, of decree No.
46, 312. Portugal utterly changed it colonial economic policy, opening wide the
doors to western investment in the colonies. Seeking to dispel the fears and discontent this aroused among traditionalist Portuguese capitalists, Franco Nogueira, then Portuguese Foreign Minister,
gave what is still the best explanation of
this total economic turnabout when he
said that it was «to make the governments
to which this capital belongs more closely
associated with our remaining in Africa)).
This new situation facilitated American
capital penetration in the colonies. Each
specialised economic journal or UN report
which comes out provides new evidence
of increased American economic involvement in Angola and Mozambique, parti
cularly in the fields of hydrocarbons,
mineral prospecting and construction. The
United States was therefore able to catch
up in only a few years and by 1970 it was
the third biggest investor in the Portuguese colonies.
In this same connection, a partial explanation for the Azores agreement can be deduced from the Anglo-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce's very swift reaction to
the signing of the agreement and the
announcement of the size of the loans
which are felt to threaten the predominant position Great Britain has held
in Portuguese trade since the end of the
18th century. The British Ambassador
in Lisbon hastened to state that: cThe
simple answer is that the UK authorities
and institutions were and are both willing
and ready to provide facilities like those
provided for the US Export-Import Bank)).
Moreover, the signing of this agreement
cannot be dissociated from the Nixon
administration's African policy, as outlined in the 1971 «State of the World
Message)), which condemned the white
minority regimes, but no less firmly rejected any solution that called for violence or even pressures in that region of
Southern Africa. The total lack of concern on the part of the United States as to
what the international community, or
even those African countries which are
its friends, might think, has been shown
by the fact that no attempt at verbal
explanation has been made, not even
what one American Congressman has referred to as «blatant hypocrisy)). At the
Addis Ababa meeting of the Security
Council the American delegate merely
repeated over and over again like cracked
record, and against all the evidence to the
contrary, that the United States could
support only ((peaceful change)), while the
representatives of the fighting peoples gave
that very same meeting irrefutable proof
of the intransigence of colonialist barbarism.
US support for Portugal must be seen
within the context of preventing any
change in the status quo in Africa. This
is partly due to the fact that the independence of Angola and Mozambique would
completely change the whole situation in
Southern Africa, but also because the
Portuguese colonies in Africa are considered, together with South Africa, to be
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