Word: spinola
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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General Antonio de Spinola, the head of the Portuguese junta, has said he favors the establishment of a Portuguese federation of allied autonomous states, including Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Angola...
...prospect of earlier self-rule it raises for Portugal's rebelling African colonies and for the tremendous joy and revolutionary spirit it set off in Portugal itself--has ironies enough to make it a good symbol for the last year's limited advances. Antonio de Spinola, the country's new strong man, has no great democratic biography--his military service came as a Fascist volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, as an observer with the German army in World War II, and as a commander with Portugal's colonial army in Guinea-Bissau. He doesn't stand for independence...
Such a confederation would involve a tenuous balance between the fears of the white settlers and the aspirations of the African people, Rogers and Dike explained. Both men agreed that Spinola will attempt to isolate the militant independence fighters in each colony by directing his appeal for reconciliation to moderate blacks...
Rogers said Spinola seems confident that a majority of the blacks in each of the colonies will not want to sever all ties to Portugal. Dike, noting that the revolutionary armies in each colony have already publicly rejected anything less than full independence, said that the wars, which have been waged for over a decade, may continue...
...intentions of Spinola and the military men who support him are difficult to fathom, Rogers cautioned. "It is not yet clear whether Spinola really is a humanitarian liberal or a tool of the big businessmen who want to continue grinding down the masses," he said...