5 - African dilemmas

Summary

Spínola wanted to make the FNLA's Holden Roberto leader of Angola with Chipenda and UNITA's Jonas Savimbi at his side.

Admiral Rosa Coutinho (July 1975)

The same forces that oppressed the peoples of the former territories under Portuguese administration also oppressed the Portuguese people. It is with great modesty and humility that we must say, without ambiguities, that the struggle of the colonial peoples against Portuguese fascism also aided our liberation from the same fascism.

Colonel Vasco Gonçalves in Lourenço Marques (June 1975)

In the first months after the April 25 coup, the young officers of the Armed Forces Movement stayed very much in the background, preferring to remain as anonymous as possible. This did not mean they had any desire to see the fruits of their victory taken away from them. In a conversation with David Martin of the London Observer, Major Vítor Alves commented pointedly that the problem with the coup of 1926 was that “although the soldiers knew what they did not want they did not know what they did want. They had no program.” In 1974 Major Alves' CCP had already rectified the error of their predecessors. The problem was how the program that existed was to be interpreted and by whom.

The MFA's ambiguous phrases about colonial policy and the “need of a political not military solution” had been, if anything, gross understatements.