Portugal
For forty years Dr. António de Oliveira Salazar has tranquilized Portugal with a dictatorship which has managed to wend its way from fascist origins to inclusion in today’s “free world,” via NATO membership. Press censorship, a rigid ban on political opposition, and an economic policy which has sacrificed development to stability have combined to preserve a society in which a small elite enjoys wealth and privilege. At the same time, Portugal clings to the distinction of being the last of the colonial powers. This is so in spite of the mounting monetary and human costs of counterinsurgency in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea, Portugal’s three territories in Africa.
Steadfast in the face of adversity and confident in what it conceives to be the national destiny, the Salazar government has tried to make a virtue of intransigence. The government practices aggressive public relations with an emphasis on tourism. As the world’s attention is focused on crises far from Lisbon, the regime has not found it hard to project an image of Portugal as an unqualified tourist’s delight, sunny, quaint, and picturesque.
“I know . . . what I want”
The present political structure in Portugal came into being in response to the chaos which shattered the country during the second and third decades of this century. In 1910, liberal forces overthrew the monarchy and established a republic. Continual conflict between the liberals and the monarchists, as well as among the liberals themselves, rendered the republic too weak to deal with the economic and social problems it inherited from the monarchy. Instability occasionally lapsed into complete anarchy, a constant procession of new governments could do nothing, and the global financial crisis that followed on World War I worsened matters. The military intervened in 1926, but the generals and admirals had no better solutions to offer.
In 1928 they turned in desperation to Dr. António de Oliveira Salazar, a professor of economics at the University of Coimbra. He agreed to take over the Ministry of Finance, on condition that he be granted extraordinary powers. His philosophy, as true today at it was when he succinctly stated it in 1928: “I know quite well what I want and where I am going. . . . For the rest, let the country study, let it suggest, let it object, and let it discuss, but when the time comes for me to give orders I shall expect it to obey.”
Unlikely dictator
By the standards of the day Salazar was an unlikely dictator. A nonsmoking, nondrinking bachelor, he shunned both publicity and public appearances. He imposed his own strict code of behavior upon those who worked for him. To the Portuguese people, he was to become a stern father who always knew best.
Salazar became the president of the Council of Ministers in 1932. In 1933, the adoption of a new constitution formalized the creation of what was called the “New State.” In theory Salazar was subject to dismissal by a figurehead President of the Republic, but in practice he retained his complete control over the government. The institutions of the New State had their parallels in Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, and later in Franco’s Spain: a single party (the National Union), secret police (PIDE), the structuring of all sectors of the economy into “corporations” under the ultimate direction of the government, a paramilitary organization available to help maintain internal security (the Portuguese Legion), and a superpatriotic youth group (Mocidade).
Franco’s victory in Spain scaled the fate of Salazar’s opponents, and they have never made a comeback. Its borders secure, the New State could ignore political exiles in France and North Africa while doing as it pleased with opposition within Portugal. Government tactics have included just about every form of harassment and repression. The opposition cannot organize or disseminate its views. PIDE agents and informers are everywhere. Dissidents, real or suspected, may be arrested and held for up to six months without formal charges.
Tight lid
In 1958, the lid on Portuguese politics momentarily loosened. An air force general, Humberto Delgado, ran against the government’s candidate for President of the Republic and declared himself in formal opposition. He promised, if elected, to remove Salazar. Though in the past the regime had been able to prevent any semblance of a contest for the presidency, Delgado’s prestige enabled him to conduct an exciting public campaign despite government efforts to stifle him. When Delgado received 23 percent of a vote controlled and counted by the regime, Salazar immediately amended the constitution to provide for the indirect election of the President. Delgado had to take refuge in the Brazilian Embassy and later managed to flee the country. In 1965 he was mysteriously murdered in Spain.
Today the opposition includes three principal elements: Socialists, progressive Catholics, and Communists. The Communist Party works underground, quietly organizing and waiting. The Socialists, as far to the left as Britain’s Labor Party, and the progressive Catholics, who identify with Christian Democratic movements in Europe and South America, constitute an overt opposition which has been pervasively frustrated by the regime. Virtually all they can do is present petitions of protest to the government periodically.
The government ignores these protests. Any tentative move toward organized activity is quickly crushed. For example, not long ago a group of Catholic intellectuals formed a study group, which they called Pragma, to discuss current issues and events. Just before a session which was to deal with emigration, a sensitive subject in Portugal today, the police raided Pragma headquarters and claimed to find “Communist literature.” The group was disbanded and declared illegal.
Overt and covert
What makes life even more difficult for the progressive Catholics is the archconservatism of the Church in Portugal. The Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, Dom Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira, was a university classmate of Salazar’s and has done nothing to jeopardize a long friendship. In December of 1967, the Cardinal Patriarch published a pamphlet entitled “In the Hour of Dialogue,” in which he defended himself from his critics and insisted that the Church in Portugal should stay out of politics. Dr. Raul Rêgo, a Socialist journalist, decided to take literally Dom Manuel’s call for a dialogue. On May 10‚ 1968, he published a booklet called “Toward a Dialogue With the Cardinal Patriarch.” He respectfully suggested that Dom Manuel had not really answered his critics. Pointing to many instances where the Church had identified itself with the regime, he asked why the hierarchy had remained silent when the government went so far as to delete phrases from quotations of Pope Paul’s speeches printed in the daily press, and to exile the bishop of Oporto, a critic of the regime. As soon as the pamphlet appeared in a bookstore, the police confiscated all copies and arrested Rêgo, whom they held without charges for nine days.
The Catholic opposition has never really recovered from the Pope’s visit to the shrine at Fatima several years ago. The government interpreted this as a papal endorsement of Salazar and a rebuff to dissident Catholics, who had pleaded with His Holiness not to come to Portugal.
The Socialists too have suffered a recent setback. This past spring they lost their most distinguished and effective leader, Dr. Mario Soares, exiled by the government to the African island of São Tomé. Soares, an attorney who had represented Delgado and a number of political prisoners, had long been a thorn in the side of the regime. Most observers feel that the reason for his banishment was the government’s belief that he had furnished a visiting British journalist with details of a hushed-up sex scandal involving top government and industry officials with a penchant for very young girls.
The most interesting of the covert opposition groups is LUAR, the League of Union and Revolutionary Action. Supposedly composed of military people inside Portugal and political exiles in Paris, LUAR has asserted credit for a bank robbery in Figueira da Foz in May, 1967, and a raid on a military post in Evora the following September. The organization claims to be working toward an overthrow of the Salazar regime, although its own ideology is obscure. This past January, three armed LUAR men tried to enter Portugal from Spain but were arrested just beyond the border between France and Spain. It is difficult to assess LUAR’s actual and potential strength, since opposition groups tend to exaggerate their capabilities. Present developments suggest that the PIDE has succeeded in infiltrating the organization.
At seventy-nine, Salazar has given no indication that a succession problem exists. His immortality appears to be a basic assumption of the regime. From time to time he allows one of his ministers to attain the status of potential successor, but then delights in cutting the man down. Though there is a monarchist sentiment in the country, no one takes seriously the pretender, Dom Duarte Nuno. It seems inevitable that the armed forces will ultimately settle the issue of succession.
An essential feature of the New State has been its ability to control the dissemination of information within Portugal. Article 22 of the constitution states: “Public opinion is a fundamental part of the policy and administration of the country; it shall be the duty of the State to protect it against all those influences which distort it from the truth, justice, good administration, and the common weal.” Of course it is the State alone which defines “truth, justice,” and so on. In the exercise of this function, government censors must approve everything printed in a Portuguese newspaper, journal, or magazine. Books are not precensored, but the threat of punishment effectively deters critical authors and their would-be publishers. At the same time, Article 23 of the constitution requires newspapers to print any official notices sent to them by the government.
The result is a totally moribund press, which transmits only what the government wants the reading public to know, and only when the government deems divulgation appropriate. Foreign papers and magazines are often the only source of information about certain events, yet relatively few Portuguese can afford to buy them.
The Portuguese universities are not exempt from rigid state control. There is no such thing as free intellectual inquiry of a sort that might lead to criticism of government policy. The structure of the universities adds to the stagnation. Tenured professors often have outside jobs, lecture from stale notes, and have little contact with the students.
Pyramid
Student protests appear to be cyclical. Every three years or so, the students feel organized enough to test their strength against the government. When they do occur, protests meet immediate repression. PIDE agents and informers have effectively infiltrated the universities, and as a result students can do virtually nothing without police surveillance and response. On February 21 of this year, club-swinging police with dogs charged into a demonstration of from 150 to 300 students denouncing the Vietnam War in front of the U.S. Embassy in Lisbon. They made a few arrests, bashed a few heads, and for good measure clubbed an AP photographer on the scene.
Though they constitute an opposition force, university students reflect the elitist nature of Portuguese society. The educational system in Portugal is a vast pyramid. Primary education (six years) is compulsory and free. Hut secondary education (seven years) requires payment of fees and expenses which put it out of reach of working-class children who do not win scholarships through competitive examinations. The universities are even more expensive, although scholarships are still available. In a recent survey of all university students, only 7.8 percent indicated that they came from a working-class background.
Beneficiaries and emigrants
The thrust of national economic policy and the nature of the economic structure further underscore the elitism which characterizes Portuguese life. Upon assuming his extraordinary powers, Salazar set about to stabilize the economy by balancing the budget and taking a cautious approach to economic growth. Prime beneficiaries of his policies have been the relatively few families and individuals who control most of Portugal’s wealth. The government has taken no steps to disturb the concentration of economic power in their hands.
Portugal’s membership in the European Free Trade Association (EFTA, or the so-called “Outer Seven”) has put some of the younger Portuguese economists, technicians, and businessmen in contact with modern ideas about economic development. They have been quietly criticizing Salazar’s policies and calling for the government to play a more active role in encouraging growth.
While making comparatively little use of its potential power to stimulate the economy, the government has continued to organize the productive sectors of the economy in such a way as to ensure stability. The “corporative.” structure places all workers in syndicates, employers in guilds, professional men and women in orders, and farmers in what are called “people’s houses.” Each of these units serves a particular region. For example, the hotel employees of Lisbon belong to one syndicate, and hotel owners to a guild. Elected representatives of the syndicate and the guild meet to determine wage levels and conditions of employment. (The Ministry of Labor must approve the syndicate’s choice of its representative.) Their decisions are subject to approval by the Ministry of Labor. If they disagree, the Ministry of Labor settles the matter.
Though the upper classes have little of which to complain, the poor register their dissatisfaction in the only way open to them: emigration. Official figures put the number of emigrants at 89,056 in 1965, and 120,239 in 1966. No one knows how many smuggle themselves out clandestinely, often swindled by racketeers who take their savings without furnishing promised passports or work permits. In the northeast of Portugal, a blighted area because of soil and climatic conditions, whole villages are without ablebodied men. Most go to the Common Market countries. There may be as many as half a million Portuguese in France; more Portuguese live in Paris than in any other city save Lisbon. They tend to work at menial jobs and are the first to be discharged during slack periods. They also confront hostility from the French workers because of their willingness to work at low wages.
Though the money which the emigrants send back to Portugal has become the country’s biggest source of foreign exchange earnings next to tourism, the exodus has caused a domestic labor shortage, driving up wages and prices. In addition, the wars in Africa require an increasing number of men, and the government would like to encourage emigrants to settle in Angola and Mozambique. For these reasons, late in 1967 the Ministry of Interior severely restricted emigration outside Portuguese territories.
Holding onto empire
The struggle in Africa has affected many other aspects of Portuguese life. For example, despite a crying need for more public spending in areas such as education, health, and housing, about 40 percent of Portugal’s budget is now allocated to defense and counterinsurgency. A tightening of the draft regulations has contributed to unrest in the universities. Some 120,000 troops, out of a population of 9 million, are in Africa.
While colonialism collapsed around the world in the years following World War II, Portugal was one of the few to cling to its overseas possessions: Angola and Mozambique, enormous territories on the west and east coasts of Africa respectively; Guinea, a substantial enclave on the West African bulge; a number of islands in the Atlantic, including the strategically located Azores in mid-ocean (where the United States leases an important air base), Madeira, Cape Verde, São Tomé, and Principe; several tiny enclaves, including Goa, on the coast of India; Macao, on the coast of China; and a portion of Timor, an island near Indonesia.
These territories continue to be of vital importance to the Portuguese economy and ego. Angola and Mozambique are extraordinarily rich in natural resources. The other possessions provide more of a psychological benefit, conjuring up memories of Portugal’s past role as a world power. The overseas provinces constitute a market for nearly one quarter of metropolitan Portugal’s exports. Thus, for the Portuguese these territories have always been nonnegotiable.
After years of controversy, in December, 1961, India finally occupied Goa and the other enclaves on its coast. This was a great shock to the Portuguese, but nothing compared with the earlier trauma when on March 15, 1961, Angolan exiles descended from the Congo upon northern Angola and began a bloody wave of attacks aimed at driving out the Portuguese. The uprisings spread to Mozambique and Guinea, and today Portugal is fighting unpublicized wars on three fronts in Africa.
Muted U.S. voice
The failure of the United States to recognize Portugal’s interest in Africa has greatly disturbed the Salazar government. In the United Nations the United States has often supported attacks on Portugal’s African policy or has abstained. What has angered the Portuguese even more is their belief that the CIA is furnishing financial support to the rebels. A sole and slender substantiation of this claim stems from the fact that during the spate of disclosures of secret CIA financing two years ago, a CIA conduit was found to have given some money to a foundation which provided several scholarships to political exiles from Angola and Mozambique.
On the other hand, the insurgents criticize the United States for arming Portugal, via NATO, and for allowing American companies to invest heavily in Africa. The U.S. position on the former point is that NATO agreements forbid the use of NATO arms outside Europe, and that the equipment Portugal receives as a NATO member is unsuited for counterinsurgency activities in the tropics.
What further complicates Portuguese-American relations is the air base on the Azores which the United States has leased from Portugal since the beginning of World War II. The base is important but not absolutely essential to the defense of the Atlantic. Despite an occasional veiled threat about terminating the lease, the Portuguese thus far have refrained from using the base as a means of seriously pressuring the United States.
If there is anything incongruous about Portugal’s membership in the “family of free nations,” U.S. policy has made little note of it. Pressure from African and Asian nations has forced the United States to criticize Portugal in the UN, but the loud anti-Communism of the Salazar regime, as well as Portugal’s strategic location on the Atlantic near the Mediterranean, has far outweighed any suggested reappraisals of the American attitude toward Salazar.
— Joseph A. Page
(A Report on Portuguese Africa will appear in next month’s issue.)
REPORT CONTRIBUTORS
John S. Carroll has been covering Vietnam for the BaltimoreSUN.Stanley Meisler is the Los AngelesTIMES’SAfrica correspondent. Clayton Fritchey is a veteran Washington observer. Joseph A. Page, whose reports on Brazil have appeared in these pages, has recently been in Portugal; this fall he became associate professor at Georgetown University’s Graduate Center of Law.