Portugals Guerrilla Wars in Africa

Posted on 26 March 2018 by Al J. Venter

Portugal s three wars in Africa in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea Guine Bissau today lasted almost 13 years longer than the United States Army fought in Vietnam Yet they are among the most underreported conflicts of the modern era Commonly referred to as Lisbon s Overseas War Guerra do Ultramar or in the former colonies, the War of Liberation Guerra de Libertaao , these struggles played a seminal role in ending white rule in Southern Africa Though hardly on the scale of hostilities being fought in South East Asia, the casualty count by the time a military coup d e tat took place in Lisbon in April 1974 was significant It was certainly enough to cause Portugal to call a halt to violence and pull all its troops back to the Metropolis Ultimately, Lisbon was to move out of Africa altogether, when hundreds of thousands of Portuguese nationals returned to Europe, the majority having left everything they owned behind Independence for all the former colonies, including the Atlantic islands, followed soon afterwards Lisbon ruled its African territories for than five centuries, not always undisputed by its black and mestizo subjects, but effectively enough to create a lasting Lusitanian tradition That imprint is indelible and remains engraved in language, social s and cultural traditions that sometimes have in common with Europe than with Africa Today, most of the newspapers in Luanda, Maputo formerly Lourenco Marques and Bissau are in Portuguese, as is the language taught in their schools and used by their respective representatives in international bodies to which they all subscribe Indeed, on a recent visit to Central Mozambique in 2013, a youthful member of the American Peace Corps told this author that despite having been embroiled in conflict with the Portuguese for many years in the 1960s and 1970s, he found the local people with whom he came into contact inordinately fond of their erstwhile colonial overlords As a foreign correspondent, Al Venter covered all three wars over than a decade, spending lengthy periods in the territories while going on operations with the Portuguese army, marines and air force In the process, he wrote several books on these conflicts, including a report on the conflict in Portuguese Guinea for the Munger Africana Library of the California Institute of Technology Portugal s Guerrilla Wars in Africa represents an amalgam of these efforts At the same time, this book is not an official history, but rather a journalist s perspective of military events as viewed by somebody who has made a career of reporting on overseas wars, Africa s especially Venter s camera was always at hand most of the images used between these covers are his His approach is both intrusive and personal and he would like to believe that he has managed to record for posterity a tiny but vital segment of African history. Download Portugals Guerrilla Wars in Africa By Al J. Venter – kino-fada.fr The colonial wars in the three African Portugese colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea not only went on for a long long time but were succeeded by civil wars that were just as brutal and as long In Angola the Portugese faced insurgents from Zambia, the Congo and Angola from 1961 to 1974 in Mozambique the insurgents came from mostly from Tanzania and headed south from 1964 to 1974 and in Portugese Guinea in West Africa the freedom fighters came from neighbouring Guinea and Senegal between The colonial wars in the three African Portugese colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea not only went on for a long long time but were succeeded by civil wars that were just as brutal and as long In Angola the Portugese faced insurgents from Zambia, the Congo and Angola from 1961 to 1974 in Mozambique the insurgents came from mostly from Tanzania and headed south from 1964 to 1974 and in Portugese Guinea in West Africa the freedom fighters came from neighbouring Guinea and Senegal between 1963 and 1974 The armed forces and resources that a small country like Portugal put out to attempt to contain and countermand these liberation movements guerrilla activity drained the European home base and affected the armed forces and colonists in Africa as well as those back on the Iberian peninsula so much that what happened was the armed forces took over in Portugal in 1974 staging what is now known as the Carnation Revolution All three wars of liberation and I will call them that bec...Cold War creeping into dying ColonialismIt s hard to grasp that Portugal had African colonies up to the 1970s, when pretty much the entire world had left the Colonial bandwagon and waspreoccupied with the Cold War While the eyes of the world were on Vietnam, Portugal, one of the poorest countries in Europe, was waging three different wars at the same time in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea today s Guinea Bissau.The book Portugal s Guerrilla Wars in Africa meticulously analyzes Cold War creeping into dying ColonialismIt s hard to grasp that Portugal had African colonies up to the 1970s, when pretty much the entire world had left the Co...Very insightful, though rather one sided as the only people the author interviewed are Portuguese soldiers and officers, with the exception of Amilcar Cabral, who only gets a few paragraphs Surely it wouldn t have been t...

English
26 March 2018

Al J. Venter