The Estado Novo
After being appointed Finance Minister in 1928, Salazar introduced stringent reforms which stabilised the Escudo and balanced the budget within a year. He was widely credited with saving Portugal’s finances, and that gave him a power base far beyond his portfolio. In 1931, the British ambassador described him as “Portugal’s outstanding figure”. The next year he was Prime Minister, backed by the army, the church, and a few financial groups. With his wide powers, he continued heavy reforms and ruled with an iron hand. His corporate constitution, accepted by popular referendum, has been in force since 1933. There are parts of this constitution that require elaboration, as all decisions affecting Angola are made in Lisbon under this system.
-The Head of State is the President, who is responsible for appointing a Prime Minister and a Cabinet. -The President is advised by the council of state. The members of this body are the Prime Minister, the chairmen of the National Assembly and the Corporate Chamber, the Attorney-General and five ‘persons of outstanding ability’, appointed for life by the President.
-The government is comprised of the Prime Minister (answerable only to the President and not the National Assembly) and the council of ministers.
-Matters pertaining only to the Overseas Territories are handled by the Overseas Ministry as the chief executive body. (In this capacity it
de facto forms a state within a state.)
-The power to legislate is vested in the national assembly, with 130 members elected for four-year terms through direct but limited franchise. It can not table financial legislation. In regards to the overseas territories, it can only alter the organic charter of said territories. It also acts as a watchdog over the granting of foreign concessions in these territories.
-The corporate chamber is the highest consultative body. It consists of 185 delegates of local government and economical, cultural, social, and religious interests. All legislation submitted to the Assembly was first reviewed by the chamber. While officially a consultative body alone, it gave the delegates and the organisations they represented formidable power and prestige.
-Various civil liberties were enshrined in the constitution, but mechanisms were included to “prevent by precautionary or restrictive measures the perversion of public opinion in its function as a social force”, specifically against “all those influences which distort it from the truth, justice, good administration and the common good.” This was interpreted as liberally as you’d expected.
The Salazar regime is described by the opposition as an autocratic body with zero tolerance for opposition, maintaining power over a largely illiterate and uneducated population by force. Allegedly, power and wealth are limited to a small and privileged elite of eleven families and the population’s standard of living had been deliberately reduced to balance the budget. In spite of this, the church and military play ball and formed a strong part of the regime’s power base, augmented by the secret police, PIDE, and the Portuguese Legion. Its opponents include commercial and industrial employees in the lower and lower middle class, a few small landowners, and junior officers - the final group would historically do the Estado Novo in. The zero-tolerance policy towards opposition also makes it so that the communist party seems much bigger and more dangerous than it is.
It was not a high-powered fascist system such as Italy’s and not at all like that of Nazi Germany, but more of a “clerico-corporative” regime in which the initial inequalities in society were sanctioned while the political system itself developed a certain genius for stability and continuity”
The New State’s Africa policy - Lusotropicalism
Blatantly stolen from Portugal’s War in Angola by W.S. Van Der Waals
What were the reasons behind and the motive for Portugal’s Africa policy? To be sure, colonialism and the profit motive played there part, but there were other factors. There was a geographic dimension in the sense that Portugal, a small country, controlled the world’s third largest empire. This was allied to a deep sense of pride in Portugal’s epic voyages of discovery, which spread Western civilisation and evangelism to the “heathen” black people of Africa. In terms of the profit motive, the colonies did not meet expectations and became liabilities during Salazar’s reign. In that context, Portugal’s stepped-up defence of these territories cannot be attributed to economic advantages. This was in sharp contrast to British and Belgian colonialism where the profit motive was paramount. Portugal’s African possessions were described on the one hand as a burden and a drain on all national energies and, on the other, as assets because they represented a living link with the past and formed the bulk of an empire which gave Portugal a veneer of weightiness in the world.
Throughout its history, Portugal’s sturggle for survival relied heavily on all the forces of colonialism, authoritarian government, and nationalism - and all three were the dominant factors in the Salazar era. The Pan-Lusitanian philosophy of Lusotropicalism, upon which the Africa policy of the New State was based, emphasised the centuries-old Portuguese presence, the glories of the past, the spread of civilisation and the Christian doctrine, multiracialism and patriotic abstracts such as duty, faith, and humanity. According to a Portuguese assesment, this philosophy differed radically from European imperialism because it worked. “...not by exploitation, often iniquitous, but by altruism, abnegation, faith and a historic responsibility of civilisation.” On those high-sounding principles the new colonial policy took hold and motivated action in Africa until the military coup in 1974.
Society in Angola
Colonial legislation stemmed mainly from the Colonial Act of 1930. It put the administrative responsibility of the colonies directly in Lisbon, defined the duties of the Overseas minister and colonial governors, the degree of autonomy and decentralisation in matters of finance and development, and provided a special judicial system for the natives. It further inhibited the independence movement in Angola by linking its economy with the restrictictions and policies of the metropole. On more positive notes, colonial legislation abolished forced labour for private employers and obliged all to pay black labour in cash. Recognition was extended to tribal practices and white and black communities were distincted. The long-term aim was to integrate the indigenous peoples into the Portuguese family.
In reality, it created an apartheid in the colony with the population divided into two categories: the ‘indígenas’, the majority black population, and the ‘não-indígenas’, the whites, mestiços, and the “assimilated”. Those in last group were Portuguese citizens. The rest would be assimilated into civilisation overtime. To qualify as assimilated, a person had to be eighteen years old, speak fluent Portuguese, and be able to produce a birth certificate, a certificate of health, two references and a statement of loyalty. In return, one would receive citizenship, an identity document, be enrolled as a taxpayer, and with that be exempt from six months of forced labour for the state the indigenous Africans had to do if they failed to pay their hut tax. Few Africans could meet these standard, and by 1960 only 1% of black Angolans were citizens of Portugal.
The period following WWII was marked by increasing criticism of colonialism. leading to the redesignation of Angola and other territories as ‘Overseas Provinces’, rather than colonies, in 1951. The 1950s were the golden age of Portuguese colonialism, with real growth at last taking place. New roads, bridges, hydroelectric dams, railways, factories, harbours, airfields and settlements were built and exports increased dramatically. Portugal’s balance of trade was improving and metropolitan industries found markets in the overseas. As Africa became more and more troubled, Angola and Mozambique seemed like calm, peaceful, and progressing lands.
But despite the strong growth figures, there was little political change. As stated earlier, the Overseas Ministry is virtually a state within a state. It controls the civil service, the judiciary, public works, concessions and the budget. It has its own departments for justice, education, health, public works and customs and appoints the governors-general and veto their decisions.
The governor-general of Angola is the Chief Executive Officer. Again, authority is very centralised here. More often than not, they are military officers and are appointed for five-year terms. They have wide powers to legislate by decree on native affairs and matters outside the scope of the national assembly, the overseas ministry, or the provinces. However, in this regard Angola was just another colony and the Governor-General exercises the prerogatives of these three organs. He has a Provincial Government Council, consisting of himself, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the territory, provincial secretaries, the director of the territory’s finances and two members of the legislative council who he picks every year. This council consists of thirty-six members, six of whom are nominated blacks. The remaining nominated whites were from various backgrounds such as the church and economical organisations. Fifteen members are elected - three by taxpayers, three by economic organisations, three by workers organisations, three by black authorities and three by civil servants. However, only the non-indigenous and assimilated members can vote. The only real power the council has is to approve the budget, otherwise it is an advisory body.
Angola is divided into a number of districts, overseen by a district governor and are assisted by district councils. The municipal councils, the rural wards, and the administrative posts here extend Lisbon’s authority throughout the entire territory and are in closest contact with nearly the entire population through tax collectors, magistrates, and other government employees. This centralised control was allied to the minister’s power to veto any acquisitions or decisions of provincial and local councils, and was the cause of widespread resentment against Lisbon - and not just among the indigenous peoples. International hostility to Portuguese policy and the grievances the indigenous peoples had convinced the whites that Portugal’s one-nation theory was unacceptable.
(I’m in a hurry now, but I’ll add more stuff later.)
Resistance in Angola and the rebellion
By 1961, a number of anti-Portuguese movements had sprung up. These included the Movement for the Liberatian of the Enclave of Cabinda, the Ovamboland People’s Organisation(Which fought for a unification of the Ovambo on both sides of the border), and the Liga Nacional Africana, a mild and Mestiço organisation which was at times officially sanctioned. However, two of these were to become major players: The MPLA and the UPA. They were, in a way, exemplary of the main division in Angolan nationalism: that between modernism and and ethno-nationalists.
The MPLA was founded in December 1956 after a fusion of various Communist Party-inspired groups. It represented those Angolans with the most exposure to Portuguese influence. It was only natural that the embryo for it was laid when the Portuguese Communist Parties spread its tentacles to Angola in 1949, and at home it retained close contact with the Centre for African Studies. Its largest support base was on the coast, with the Mestiços and assimilated Africans forming its core, and in Luanda’s Mbundu hinterland. In its manifesto, issued upon its founding, the core principle of the MPLA’s theory was that Portuguese colonialism could only be defeated by an all-out struggle, waged by a united front of Angolan anti-imperialists. “
This requires that the Angolan people mobilise and struggle on all fronts in order to weaken imperialism and Portuguese colonialism, to make Angola an independent country and to install a democratic and popular Angolan government.” PIDE promptly responded by thwarting the MPLA’s efforts at creating a united front and paralysed its leadership in Angola, and sending the rest into exile where Mario de Andrade became its leader. Its only activity in Angola was agitating among its core of urban assimilados.
The UPA was founded in the rolling hills of the old Congo kingdom. It grew in the Bakongo areas in an area where political awareness and black nationalism was awoken in the 1950s with the dramatic increase in white settlement during that time and was helped by the influence of Baptist missionaries and its ties with the Belgian Congo. Antagonism against the Portuguese was fed by the latter’s inteference in the succession of Kongo monarchs. It was from this dispute that a new resistance movement was born which eventually went territory-wide as the UPA. Its leader was one Holden Roberto, with close links to the American Committee on Africa. He also attended the first All-African People’s Conference in Ghana, where he established cordial ties with great names such as George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Kenneth Kaunda, Tom Mboya, and Frantz Fanon. At the next conference he became close with President Bourguiba of Tunisia, and in 1960 he attended the UN General Assembly as a delegate of Guinea. Roberto was schooled in anticolonialism and thought the restoration of the Congo kingdom as too narrow an objection. He was uncompromising in this, which served to alienate the Bakongo of the area. The loss of support here was offset by his friendship with Patrice Lumumba, Cyril Adoula, and Joseph-Desiré Mobutu who allowed the UPA an external base after Congolese independence.
Angola was cooking, and the Portuguese were given fair warning. But it continued to march to the beat of its own drum,and did not take any measures against the oncoming storm until it was too late. On February 4th, 1961, Luanda was crawling with foreign press, present for a bizarre incident involving the hijacking of the Santa Maria, which was anticipated to arrive in Luanda. The MPLA reasoned an opportunity to launch an insurrection with so many eyes focused on Angola would never come again, and a group took to the street demanding the release of the MPLA leadership in Angola. They also moved to act before the UPA did, but the true first action came from Luanda’s slums. A mob armed with clubs and knives attacked a police patrol, the São Paulo prison, the military detention barracks, a police station and the local radio station. All attacks were abortive, and by the end of the day seven officers and forty rebels lay dead. Fighting continued sporadically for a week, and the only result was a rise in ethnic tensions and a white militia was founded to aid the police in dealing with unrest. Still, the MPLA managed to polarise the city and thus activate the black population, and the international press broadcast it to the wider world.
But the insurrection truly started a month later. Holden Roberto already warned that “some very important things were going to happen in Angola on March 15th”. On that day, a total of 5,000 poorly armed terrorists attacked small settlements, administrative posts and coffee plantations in the São Salvador area near Congo-Leópoldville and around Dembos. A horror that shall forever haunt the area took place over the coming weeks as whites, mestiços, and blacks (mainly Ovimbundu contract workers) were slaughtered. Within a day, up to 300 whites were massacred and a few hundred more whites and six thousand blacks were added to that number at the end of that fateful week. It was logical to expect something, but not something on this scale. The ferocity of the atrocities was made worse by the absence of Portuguese troops in the worst-affected areas and the absence of infrastructure to fly them in. Some managed to flee to Luanda, but most -white and black alike- remained to defend themselves. The loyalty of the Ovimbundu contract workers remains notable. The Portuguese first reinforcements came only on May 1st, showing how inefficient the Portuguese army was after fifty years of peace.
Luanda was marked by chaos and confusion, as the only information from the Bakongo areas were few and far between rumours and news reports. The idea of good race relations was forever destroyed. White settlements were kept in the dark about the situation, as the Portuguese believed that they would panic upon hearing what was going on out there. There is little doubt about this contributing to the high death toll. As the UPA spread its tentacles, the Portuguese dug in to defend themselves and an untold number of Bakongo fled to the Congos.
The most infuriated of all was Salazar, who reshuffled his cabinet and took the defence ministry upon himself. He realised that the Lusotropical view of Angola as a territory of good race relations had been a farce and put his trust in military action. This was desperately needed, as the majority of Portuguese defenses were the settlers in Zaire and Uíge supported by the few aircraft the Portuguese Air Force had available, which itself was supported by local aviation clubs. Their heroic efforts bought time for the motherland to bring reinforcements in. Yet in May 1961, it all seemed desperate. Roberto claimed to have 60,000 armed men at his disposal, that he controlled an area of 300 by 350 kilometres, and that the FLN was assisting the UPA militarily and politically. He demanded the creation of a provisional government. While he was inflating his power, his troops certainly had infiltrted large parts of the Luanda, Cuanza Norte, Uíge and Malanje districts. Many administrative posts, urban and rural alike, were evacuated. The city of Carmona, ten concelhos and eight outposts still resised the UPA. However, the port of Ambriz was threatened and seventy kilometres from Luanda itself; The countryside around the towns of Maria Tereza and Catete were infested by terrorists, and Ucua was under siege. However, the grim picture brightened as it became evident the UPA could not sustain military action, and the Portuguese began their counterattacks by May 13th and in July and August received 20,000 reinforcements from the Metropole. This military face lasted until October 7th, when Governor-General Deslandes announced that the military phase was over and the policing phase had begun.
The situation by the end of the March 15 revolt was appalling. The region became a human desert, the economy was destroyed, and administration paralysed as over a hundred towns and outposts were occupied, sacked, or rendered ineffective by the rebels. Over a thousand Europeans were dead and an unknown number of Africans. Communications were destroyed, thousands of white refugees went to Luanda or the Metropole, and thousands of black refugees were headed for the Congo.
Roberto wished for immediate independence and thought he could drive the whites from Angola as they were driven from Congo. But he failed to realise the difference between the Belgians and the Portuguese. Belgium by 1960 was a well-off country with plenty of opportunity for those who came from Congo. The average Portuguese, however, didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. And the settlers knew that. And they would fight tooth and nail for their place in Africa, as their country was determined to do, until the bitter end.