Portuguese Colonial War

Portuguese Colonial War
Guerra Colonial Portuguesa
Part of the Cold War and decolonisation of Africa
Date4 February 1961 – 25 April 1974
(13 years, 2 months and 3 weeks)
Location
Portuguese Africa (Angola, Guinea, and Mozambique)
Result
Territorial
changes		 Portuguese overseas territories in Africa become independent[17]
Belligerents
Material support:
 Angola:
Guinea:
Mozambique:
Material support:
Commanders and leaders
Angola:
Guinea:
Mozambique:
 Angola:
Guinea:
Mozambique:
Strength

1,400,000 total men mobilized for military and civilian support service.[18]

  • 50,000 positioned in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea Bissau
  • 400,000 native African soldiers mobilized[18]
Average of 107,000 men deployed every year.[19]

40–60,000 guerrillas[20]

  • 30,000 in Angola[citation needed]
  • 10,000 in Portuguese Guinea
  • 10–15,000 in Mozambique
Casualties and losses

~29,000 casualties

  • 8,831 Portuguese killed
    • 6,338 from mainland Portugal[21]
    • 2,493 from Africa
  • 7,447 Portuguese African troops executed by PAIGC[22][23][24]
15,507 wounded (physical and/or psychological)[25]

41,000+ casualties

  • 41–46,000 killed
  • Unknown wounded
Civilian killed: 70,000–110,000 civilians killed
  • 30–50,000 in Angola[26][27]
  • 30–50,000 in Mozambique[26]
  • 5,000 in Portuguese Guinea[30]
  • At least 400 white settlers[31]
Over 300,000 Portuguese nationals evacuated.

The Portuguese Colonial War (Portuguese: Guerra Colonial Portuguesa), also known in Portugal as the Overseas War (Guerra do Ultramar) or in the former colonies as the War of Liberation (Guerra de Libertação), and also known as the Angolan, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambican War of Independence, was a 13-year-long conflict fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974. The Portuguese regime at the time, the Estado Novo, was overthrown by a military coup in 1974, and the change in government brought the conflict to an end. The war was a decisive ideological struggle in Lusophone Africa, surrounding nations, and mainland Portugal.

The prevalent Portuguese and international historical approach considers the Portuguese Colonial War as was perceived at the time—a single conflict fought in the three separate Angolan, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambican theaters of operations, rather than a number of separate conflicts as the emergent African countries aided each other and were supported by the same global powers and even the United Nations during the war. India's 1954 annexation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and 1961 annexation of Goa are sometimes included as part of the conflict.

Unlike other European nations during the 1950s and 1960s, the Portuguese Estado Novo regime did not withdraw from its African colonies, or the overseas provinces (províncias ultramarinas) as those territories had been officially called since 1951. During the 1960s, various armed independence movements became active—the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola, National Liberation Front of Angola, National Union for the Total Independence of Angola in Angola, African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde in Portuguese Guinea, and the Mozambique Liberation Front in Mozambique. During the ensuing conflict, atrocities were committed by all forces involved.[32]

Throughout the period, Portugal faced increasing dissent, arms embargoes, and other punitive sanctions imposed by the international community, including by some Western Bloc governments, either intermittently or continuously.[33] The anti-colonial guerrillas and movements of Portuguese Africa were heavily supported and instigated with money, weapons, training and diplomatic lobbying by the Communist Bloc which had the Soviet Union as its lead nation. By 1973, the war had become increasingly unpopular due to its length and financial costs, the worsening of diplomatic relations with other United Nations members, and the role it had always played as a factor of perpetuation of the entrenched Estado Novo regime and the nondemocratic status quo in Portugal.

The end of the war came with the Carnation Revolution military coup of April 1974 in mainland Portugal. The withdrawal resulted in the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Portuguese citizens[34] plus military personnel of European, African, and mixed ethnicity from the former Portuguese territories and newly independent African nations.[35][36][37] This migration is regarded as one of the largest peaceful, if forced, migrations in the world's history although most of the migrants fled the former Portuguese territories as destitute refugees.[38]

The former colonies faced severe problems after independence. Devastating civil wars followed in Angola and Mozambique, which lasted several decades, claimed millions of lives, and resulted in large numbers of displaced refugees.[39] Angola and Mozambique established state-planned economies after independence,[40] and struggled with inefficient judicial systems and bureaucracies,[40] corruption,[40][41][42] poverty and unemployment.[41] A level of social order and economic development comparable to what had existed under Portuguese rule, including during the period of the Colonial War, became the goal of the independent territories.[43]

The former Portuguese territories in Africa became sovereign states, with Agostinho Neto in Angola, Samora Machel in Mozambique, Luís Cabral in Guinea-Bissau, Manuel Pinto da Costa in São Tomé and Príncipe, and Aristides Pereira in Cape Verde as the heads of state.

  1. ^ Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin (1987). Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin. The Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms and why. p. 64. "Though Israel was busy establishing ties with newly independent African nations in the 1960s, it did not support all forms of decolonization. When it came to Portugal's colonies, Israel was on the side of continuing European rule.". Pantheon Books. ISBN 978-0-394-55922-3.
  2. ^ "The South African Air Force". saairforce.co.za.
  3. ^ Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World, 1997, p. 306.
  4. ^ Telepneva, Natalia (2022). Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961–1975. The University of North Carolina Press. p. 73. ISBN 978-1-4696-6586-3.
  5. ^ The Soviet Union and Revolutionary Warfare: Principles, Practices, and Regional Comparisons, 1988, pp. 117–118.
  6. ^ Adelman, Kenneth L. (1975). "Report from Angola". Foreign Affairs. 53 (3): 558–574. doi:10.2307/20039527. ISSN 0015-7120. JSTOR 20039527.
  7. ^ Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror, 2013, p. 81.
  8. ^ China and Africa: A Century of Engagement, 2012, p. 339.
  9. ^ Armed Forces and Modern Counter-insurgency, 1985, p. 140.
  10. ^ Cuba: The International Dimension, 1990, pp. 155–157.
  11. ^ Cuba in the World, 1979, pp. 95–96.
  12. ^ Abbott, Peter; Manuel Ribeiro Rodrigues (1988). Modern African Wars: Angola and Mozambique, 1961–74. p. 10.
  13. ^ "FNLA – um movimento em permanente letargia, guerracolonial.org" (in Portuguese).
  14. ^ Selcher, Wayne A. (1976). "Brazilian Relations with Portuguese Africa in the Context of the Elusive "Luso-Brazilian Community"". Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. 18 (1): 25–58. doi:10.2307/174815. JSTOR 174815.
  15. ^ The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: Macropaedia : Knowledge in depth. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2003. ISBN 978-0-85229-961-6.
  16. ^ Falola, Toyin; Oyebade, Adebayo O. (2010-07-01). Hot Spot: Sub-Saharan Africa. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 978-0-313-35972-9.
  17. ^ Mia Couto, Carnation revolution, Le Monde Diplomatique
  18. ^ a b Fátima da Cruz Rodrigues: A desmobilização dos combatentes africanos das Forças Armadas Portuguesas da Guerra Colonial (1961–1974), 2013.
  19. ^ "Os anos da guerra 1961–1975, Os portugueses em África, crónica, ficção e história" (1988) by João de Melo, p.396
  20. ^ "Portugal Angola War 1961–1975". Onwar.com. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
  21. ^ Campos, Ângela (November 20, 2008). ""We are still ashamed of our own History". Interviewing ex-combatants of the portuguese colonial war (1961–1974)". Lusotopie. Recherches politiques internationales sur les espaces issus de l'histoire et de la colonisation portugaises (XV(2)): 107–126. doi:10.1163/17683084-01502006 – via journals.openedition.org.
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference Lloyd-Jones, Stewart p. 22 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ PAIGC, Jornal Nô Pintcha, 29 November 1980: In a statement in the party newspaper Nô Pintcha (In the Vanguard), a spokesman for the PAIGC revealed that many of the ex-Portuguese indigenous African soldiers that were executed after cessation of hostilities were buried in unmarked collective graves in the woods of Cumerá, Portogole, and Mansabá.
  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference Munslow, Barry 1981 pp. 109-113 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ Aniceto Afonso, Carlos de Matos Gomes: Guerra Colonial. Lisbon 2000, p. 528.
  26. ^ a b c Mid-Range Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century retrieved December 4, 2007
  27. ^ a b Tom Hartman, A World Atlas of Military History 1945–1984.
  28. ^ "Portugal Angola War 1961–1975". Onwar.com. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
  29. ^ "Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls". users.erols.com.
  30. ^ a b "Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls". users.erols.com.
  31. ^ Clodfelter, Micheal (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015 (4th ed.). McFarland. p. 561. ISBN 978-0786474707.
  32. ^ "Portugal: Kolonien auf Zeit?". Der Spiegel (in German). August 13, 1973.
  33. ^ Consideration of Questions Under The Council's Responsibility For The Maintenance of International Peace and Security (PDF). Vol. 8. United Nations. pp. 113, 170–72.
  34. ^ Portugal Migration, The Encyclopedia of the Nations
  35. ^ Flight from Angola, The Economist (August 16, 1975).
  36. ^ Dismantling the Portuguese Empire, Time magazine (July 7, 1975).
  37. ^ Portugal – Emigration, Eric Solsten, ed, 1993. Portugal: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress.
  38. ^ António Barreto, 2006, Portugal: Um Retrato Social
  39. ^ Stuart A. Notholt (Apr., 1998) Review: ‘The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa: Metropolitan Revolution and the Dissolution of Empire by Norrie MacQueen – Mozambique since Independence: Confronting Leviathan by Margaret Hall, Tom Young’ African Affairs, Vol. 97, No. 387, pp. 276–78, JSTOR 723274
  40. ^ a b c Susan Rose-Ackerman, 2009, "Corruption in the Wake of Domestic National Conflict" in Corruption, Global Security, and World Order (ed. Robert I. Rotberg: Brookings Institution), p. 79.
  41. ^ a b Mario de Queiroz, Africa–Portugal: Three Decades After Last Colonial Empire Came to an End, Inter Press Service (November 23, 2005).
  42. ^ Tim Butcher, As guerrilla war ends, corruption now bleeds Angola to death, The Daily Telegraph (30 July 2002)
  43. ^ "Things are going well in Angola. They achieved good progress in their first year of independence. There's been a lot of building and they are developing health facilities. In 1976, they produced 80,000 tons of coffee. Transportation means are also being developed. Currently, between 200,000 and 400,000 tons of coffee are still in warehouses. In our talks with [Angolan President Agostinho] Neto we stressed the absolute necessity of achieving a level of economic development comparable to what had existed under [Portuguese] colonialism."; "There is also evidence of black racism in Angola. Some are using the hatred against the colonial masters for negative purposes. There are many mulattos and whites in Angola. Unfortunately, racist feelings are spreading very quickly." Castro's 1977 southern Africa tour: A report to Honecker, CNN