The struggle for our freedom and independence is closely linked
with the cause of freedom throughout the world.' First of all with
the cause of the peoples of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia,
oppressed like us by the racist and fascist coalition established
by Portugal, South Africa and Rhodesia and aimed at maintaining
this whole southern region of Africa in a state of destitution and
perpetual slavery. But our struggle also takes on international
proportions because of the wide support given to Portugal by certain Western powers* Our struggle proves with greater clarity each
day that the Portuguese government could not conduct a war on three
fronts without extensive aids the massive assis-tance in arms and
all kinds of military equipment and the political, financial and
diplomatic aid given by certain Western countries, especially
those which are members of NATO. This solidarity behind the
oppression and exploitation of the colonies calls for the solidarity
of all free men and the progressive forces of the world.  It calls
in particular for the solidarity of the peoples whose governments
are, morally and materially, one with the fascist Portuguese regime
and its colonial policies.
In this context the mobilisation of public opinion in the West has
become, through the development of our struggle, a task of the
first importance. The Conference of solidarity with the peoples
of the Portuguese colonies and Southern Africa held at Khartoum
a year ago already showed a strong current of solidarity and
friendship towards our struggle and our peoples.
Now the progress of our struggle makes it necessary that we hold
a Conference in Western Europe, dedicated to an extensive mobilisation of world opinion and of a mass movement capable of imposing a
change of attitude and direction on those governments which still
support -the colonial policies' of the Portuguese fascist regime.
This Conference would also aim to strengthen the mobilisation of
the forces in solidarity with the peoples of the colonies in
practical support of the struggle and of the rights of these peoples.
The Preparatory Meeting for this Conference, which has taken
place in Home under the auspices of Italian political and trade
union forces, has decided to hold the Conference at Rome, on
27,28,29 June,
We, the national liberation movements of'the Portuguese colonies,
the Mozambique Liberation Front, the People's Movement for
the Liberation of(Angola, the African Independence Party of Guinea
and the Cape Verde , call on all organisations, political parties,
trade unions and individuals - in fact on all supporters of the
just struggle of the peoples of the Portuguese colonies - to
participate in the International Conference of Support and to
strengthen the expression and the content of their solidarity.
Not to be dispersed into sentimentality, this solidarity must
stand as an expression of the deep interaction between the fight of
the peoples of the Portuguese colonies against colonialism and
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