cann 1997 counterinsurgency portuguese way of war

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COUNTERINSURGENCYIN AFRICA

The Portuguese Way of War,1961-1974

JohnP

CannForeword by General Bemard E. Trainor

Contributions in Military Studies, Number 167

GREENWOO PRESS

Westport, Connecticut London


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h

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Cann, John P. 1941-Counterinsurgency in Africa the Portuguese way of war 1961-1974John P Cann ; foreword by Bernard E. Trainor.

p. cm. - (Contributions in military studies, ISSN 0883--6884; no. 167)

Includes bibliographical references p. ) and index.ISBN (}-313-30189-1 (alk. paper)I. Portugal-Colonies-Africa. 2. Portugal-Colonies-History.

3. Africa, Portuguese-speaking-History, Military.4. Counterinsurgency-Africa, Portuguese-speaking-History-20th

century. 5. Counterinsurgency-Portugal-History-20th century.6. Angola-History-Revolution 1961-1975-Campaigns.7. Mozambique-History-Revolution 1964-1975-Campaigns. 8. GuineaBissau-History-Revolution 1963-1974---Campaigns. I. Title.11 Series. -DT36.7.C355 1997960.3 26--dc20 96-38260

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Copyright 1997 by John P. Cann

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may bereproduced, by any process or technique. without theexpress written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-38260ISBNo (}-313-30189-1ISSNo 0883-6884

First published in 1997

Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

@The paper used in this book complies with thePermanent Paper Standard issued by the NationalInformation Standards Organization (239.48-1984).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

G

For my uncle

LANGBOURNE M. WILLIAMS


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viii ontents

10. The Portuguese Way 187

Selected ibliography 197

Index 207

T BLES

1.1 Per Capita GDP n U.S. Dollars 8

1.2 National and Per Capita GDPs 1962-1970 9

5.1 Able-Bodied Males 89

5 2 Recruitment n the Metropole 89

5.3 Military Academy Permanent Officer Commissioning 92

5.4 Army Combat Deaths by Recruitment Source 105

8.1 Primary Education n the Ultramar 147

8.2 Health Standards for Guine and Actual Figures by Source 150

9.1 Airfield Capability by Theater 173

9.2 Ratios of Deaths to Wounds 180

10.1 Combat Deaths per Day of War per Thousand Combatantsfor Selected Conflicts 189


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FOREWOR

The archetypal small war is more relevant than ever today. Althoughsuperpower confrontation and its proxy wars o national liberation are quiescentat the moment ethnic re ligious political and economic rivalries remain onevery continent. n sub-Saharan Africa particularly, where animosities havebeen a fact of life throughout recorded history, armed conflict driven by ancientantagonisms and modem political ambitions has again become symptomatic.These struggles largely follow the Maoist prescription of protracted war, alwaysa difficult and insidious threat for any incumbent government to fight and win.And yet there are tried and proven solutions to gaining victory in thesecircumstances. Dr. John P. Cann provides just such a case study in this work.

Portugal was the first colonial power to arrive in Africa and the last to leave.s other European states were granting independence to their African

possessions, Portugal chose to stay and fight despite the small odds for success.That it did so successfully for thirteen years across the three fronts of Angola,Guine, and Mozambique remains a remarkable achievement, particularly for anation of such modest resources. Dr. Cann calls attention to this importantcounterinsurgency campaign, one that was overshadowed by the United Statesinvolvement in Vietnam and that is now largely forgotten by non-Portugnesescholars. He dispels the conventional thinking that such a campaign cannot bewon, particularly by a country lacking wealth in manpower, treasure, andexperience. While the military plays a key role in counterinsurgency, at heartit remains a political struggle. Consequently, the jo of the armed forces is notnecessarily to deliver an outright military victory, but rather to contain violence,protect people from intimidation, deny guerrillas access to the local inhabitantsand their supply of food and recruits, gain the people s confidence wi thpsychological and social initiatives, and through these activities prodnce enough

respect among the insurgent leadership to induce political negotiations.


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x Foreword

The Portuguese military accomplished all of these things. Its route to successwas not always direct; however, it profited from its mistakes and remainedflexible in its thinking. It was able to learn while doing. Unfortunately, in theend Portugal's politicians squandered the hard-won military gains by refusing tocome to terms with the insurgents.

Dr. Cann's work is the first comprehensive account in English of how the

Portuguese armed forces prepared for and conducted their distant campaigu.The Portuguese military crafted its doctrine and implemented it to match theguerrilla strategy of protracted war, and in doing so followed the lessons gleanedfrom the British and French experiences in small wars. Portugal defined andanalyzed its insurgency problem in light of this accumulated knowledge oncounterinsurgency, developed its military policies in this context, and appliedthem in the African colonial environment. The Portuguese approach to theconflict was distinct in that it sought to combine the two-pronged nationalstrategy of containing the cost of the war and of spreading the burden to thecolonies, with the solution on the battlefield. Dr. Cann argues the uniquenessof this approach by highlighting it through a thematic military analysis of thePortuguese effort and a comparison with the experiences of other governmentsfighting similar contemporaneous wars. Since many records of the campaiguswere destroyed in Portugal's April 1974 revolution and many more wereabandoned in Africa during the decolonization process, Dr. Cann s work drawsprimarily on his wide-ranging intervie'-':S of participants and decisionmakers andon the extensive use of their personal papers. This original material is ablyblended with published sources in both Portuguese and English to produce aninformative, valuable, and readable account o the agonies and successes in thedevelopment of Portugal's counterinsurgency capabilities. Even today Portugal 'ssystematic and logical approach to its insurgency challenge holds valuablelessons for any nation forced to wage a small war on the cheap.

Harvard UniversityCambridge, Massachusetts

29 July 1996

General Bemard E. Trainor

':

PREF CE

The origin of this book can be traced to the time between 1987 and 1992, whenI participated in maritime exercises as a naval officer temporarily augmentingthe staff of the Commander-in-Chief Iberian Atlantic Area at NATOheadquarters in Oeiras, Portugal. Every Portuguese officer with whom Iworked during these exercises was a veteran of the African Campaigus of1961-1974, a lengthy war that was not well known or understood outside ofPortugal. There is little written about the conflict in English, and those worksthat are available are relatively obscure. Consequently, as my interest in lowintensity conflict and guerrilla warfare matured during subsequent assiguments,I was offered the opportunity to pursue this topic.

There are invariably two sides to the story of every war, and the Campaigusare no exception. The Portuguese military was faced with the difficult job ofwinning a war of national liberation in an era when it was not politic to retainone s colonial empire. n such a war, victory may be achieved militarily, but

more than likely it will be achieved by producing a stalemate in which thegovernment has gained credibility through military and social initiatives and hasthereby induced the guerrillas to negotiate. Such an accomplishment is no smallfeat in a war in which the guerrillas seek a total displacement of authority. ThePortuguese military achieved outright military victory in Angola, a crediblestalemate in Guine, and, with additional resources and spirited leadership, couldhave regained control of northern Mozambique. Unfortunately, Portugal 'spolitical leaders remained shortsighted and removed from reality, and themilitary and social successes were squandered through political intransigence.When victory was within Portuga l's grasp, political inflexibil ity created afrustrated military and a revolution in 1974.

This book is the story of the Campaigus from the perspective of the

Portuguese military. It addresses the conflict through a thematic military


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xiv Preface

analysis of the counterinsurgency effort from the time of the Angola uprisingson 4 February and 5 March 1961 until the military coup in Lisbon on 25 April1974. t describes how Portogal defined and analyzed its insurgency problem,how it developed its own particular military policies and doctrines, and how itapplied them in the African colonial environment. Its object is to show howPortogal s national strategy to bus band and preserve its meager resources wastranslated into policies and practices at the campaign and tactical level, and howthis strategy was effective in permitting Portogal to conduct a sustained andlengthy campaign in three distant colonies. In following both broad and narrowcampaign strategies, Portogal attempted to disrupt the organization of thenationalist movements through the operations of agents and to counter theirarmed action with appropriate military force and diplomatic pressure.Concurrently, it sought to protect its people from insurgent contact and to wintheir loyalty by elevating their standard of iving and redressing their grievances.These elements their particular combination and their style o execution reflectwhat may be termed a Portuguese way of war. This book seeks to analyze eacho these factors to examine their coordinated and synergistic application tocompare them with other contemporary counterinsurgency experiences and toemphasize their uniqueness.

Research for the work, conducted between 1993 and 1996, focused on howthe Portoguese, through imaginative leadership and management of theCampaigns, fought a three-front colonial war 8,000 kilometers from home forthirteen years on a very limited defensebudget. Since many official records onthe wars either were destroyed in the 1974 Portoguese revolution or abandonedin Africa upon decolonization, the central research challenge has been toreconstruct events largely through the process of interviewing key participantsand decisionmakers. To those who so graciously supported me, I owe a largedebt of gratitude.

CKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank Professor Patrick Chabal, head of the Department of Portoguese

and Brazilian Studies, and Dr. Martin Navias, Department of War Studies,King s College, London, both observant critics, for their skillful guidance andsupport during the research and writing of this work. Their careful reading ofthe manuscript immensely improved the quality of the final product, and theyhave been perfect advisers and ideal friends throughout.

I am most grateful for the assistance and hospitality offered in Portogal byGeneral Joaquim Chito Rodrigues, Director of the Instituto de Altos EstudosMilitares (IAEM), and his entire staff, who spent many hours helping me.Particular thanks are due to Colonel Femando Jose Pinto Simoes, Director ofthe Library at the IAEM, who along with his staff gave so generously of theirtime. General Jose Manuel de Bethencourt Rodrigues, Brigadeiro RenatoFemando Marques Pinto, and Colonel Luis Alberta Santiago Inocentes deserve

special thanks for their tireless help in explaining the African political andmilitary environment for introducing me to the appropriate experts on variousunique aspects of the wars, and for reading earlier drafts of this book. GeneralPedro Alexandre Gomes Cardoso, Presidencia do conselho de Ministros, andhis staff; General Jorge Brochado de Miranda, former Chief of Staff of thePortoguese Air Force, and his staff at the Arquivo Hist6rico da Fof9a AereaPortoguesa; Colonel Lufs Valen.- Pinto, Commandant of the Escola PniticaEngenharia, and his staff; Colonel Ant6nio Rosas Leitiio, instructor at theAcademia Militar; and Lieutenant Colonel Aniceto Afonso, Director of theArqnivo Hist6rico Militar, and his staff, deserve particular thanks for theirhelpful support.

Deep appreciation goes to my good friend of three decades, Stephen W.Woody, who has taken a personal interest in the success of this volume from itsinception and who introduced me to Colonel A. Marques de Carvalho, who in


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xvi Acknowledgments

turn was instrumental in helping me at the beginning in Portugal. I owe aparticular debt to the many participants in the Campaigns who so patientlyhelped me to fill in the gaps in information that contributed to a fuller picture.To General Jose Lufs Almiro Canelhas, General T 1ruis George Concei9iio Silva,General Joaquim Mignel Duarte Silva, General Manuel Amorim de SousaMenezes, Vice Admiral Nuno Gon9alo Vieira Matias, Brigadeiro Helio Felgas,

Colonel Dionisio de Almeida Santos, Colonel Carlos Fabiiio, Colonel Carlos daCosta Gomes Bessa, Colonel Cesar Augnsto Rodrigues Mano, Colonel Lufs A.Martinho Griio, Inspector Oscar Cardoso, the Duke of Valderano, and Mr.Colin M. Beer, each of whom provided an invaluable and unique perspective onthe wars, I am deeply grateful for their patience and care in helping me tounderstand the many facets of the conflict. Without exception they gave freelyof their time and experience, and I hope that I have done justice to their views.

My research in published sources uncovered a varied array of experts whoseadvice and counsel proved indispensable. I am indebted to the very professionallibrary staffs throughout the University of London, most particularly to CaroleRadanne, whos e tireless initiative, knowledgeable assistance, and dear friendshipremain an integral part of this book. To Caroline Tyssen of Livraria Galileo inCascais and to Fritz Berkemeier o Livraria Hist6rica e Ultramarina in Lisbonwhose encyclopedic knowledge of the literature on Portuguese Africa proved asindispensable as their stimulating discussions, I owe a special debt. Manythauks are due my cartographer, Edyyard Haile, whose personal interest inPortuguese Africa lent a special dimension to th maps.

Funding of the original research for this work was received from theDepartment of War Studies, King s College, London, and from the OverseasResearch Students Awards Scheme as administered by the Committee of V ceChancellors and Principals of the Universities of he United Kingdom, for whichI am most grateful.

Finally , I owe a particular debt to my family-Courtenay Jay, and Jamie-allof whom lived patiently with the domestic chaos of this work.

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cann 1997 counterinsurgency portuguese way of war

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