Portugal's Guerrilla Wars in Africa: Lisbon's Three Wars in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea 1961-74 Hardcover – December 19, 2013

It’s hard to grasp that Portugal had African colonies up to the 1970s, when pretty much the entire world had left the Colonial bandwagon and was more preoccupied with the Cold War. While the eyes of the world were on Vietnam, Portugal, one of the poorest countries in Europe, was waging three different wars at the same time: in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea (today’s Guinea-Bissau).The book Portugal’s Guerrilla Wars in Africa meticulously analyzes the period. South-African journalist Al Venter is a veteran war correspondent in Africa and the Middle East, and witnessed first hand Portugal’s fight against it’s former colonies. The book has a very good combination of factual research and the author’s own perspective on the conflicts. That was essential for the understanding of someone like me, who knew squat about it. The book also comes with several photographs and maps that help a layman make sense of the conflict.“It is difficult to tell a man’s age in the bush: a 13-year-old often looks 18 or older and it was no secret that many of those captured were barely 14 or 15, all of them armed. It was the same in old Stanleyville (today Kisangani) in the Congo: some of the worst brutalities were perpetrated by children not yet into their teens.”It is a conflict in a different scale than Vietnam. Helicopters and bombings were rare, as were direct confrontations. The norm were cat and mouse skirmishes, of slow and constant attrition. More than all, those were wars of wills. The books defends that the Portuguese pride, that wanted to keep a self-image of a colonizing powerhouse, kept Portugal for decades stuck in a war it couldn’t win. There was a crucial imbalance of determination between the colonies and Portugal.The book describes several atrocities, perpetrated both by the government and the revolutionary groups. The first traces of distress date back to 1961, when Angolan peasants revolted because they had to sell their cotton by a price fixed by Portugal, a lot lower than the international market price. The Portuguese commanders simply bombed dozens of villages with napalm, killing 7 thousand locals.“During bush operations, everything in their path would be destroyed; livestock slaughtered, crops and villages burnt, the local people rounded up for questioning and anyone acting in a suspicious manner arrested and hauled back to base. Tribesmen who attempted to escape this treatment were regarded as “fleeing terrorists”, and shot. The death would then be formally listed as a “terrorist kill”.”Most of the Portuguese soldiers, young and poor, felt like they were dragged into a meaningless conflict and did the minimum necessary until their campaign was over. It is sad to see how, like in any conflict, the local population suffered the hardest blows. They were pushed both by the government and revolutionaries. It is very interesting how the book explains the guerrilla’s backgrounds, many insurgents were trained in China and incorporated tactics by Mao Tse Tung and Che Guevara in the African context, like using propaganda and mobility. It’s the beginning of the Cold War creeping into dying Colonialism.It is also sad to know how these revolutions would end up after Portugal packed away from Africa. The former colonies were taken by even bloodier conflicts, that echo to this day in the continent because of the arbitrary divisions set up by the European nations.Portugal’s Guerrilla Wars in Africa is at the same time an informative and personal book about an obscure period of our recent history.

This book was a treasure trove of facts and information about a war that the US press covered very minutely if at all. In fact only when the Carnation Revolution came to pass did most Americans realize that Portugal had been fighting 3 Vietnams at one time, and with somewhat better success than the US did. Shame that American political leaders never read books like this, or have advisors who do rather than make policy decisions on partisan politics. This book really details these conflicts and Mr. Venter had the luck to have visited some of the theaters of operation and came back to tell the tale.

A good review of Portugal's post-1960 wars in Africa, the difficulties they Portuguese faced and how they tried to solve them. Venter is a journalist rather than a historian or academic, which adds flavour to many of the events and people with which he interacted but does detract occasionally from lesser attention being paid to events with which he was not privy.

“Portugal's Guerrilla Wars in Africa: Lisbon's Three Wars in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea 1961-74” is a virtual diamond in the rough concerning information and little known facts of Portugal’s three colonial wars that were fought between 1961-1971. The hardest thing for me to understand is why I had never heard of these wars until this book; I mean I enjoy reading all types of military history, but these wars received little, if any press coverage from the American media during their duration. The absolute most interesting thing is that these colonial wars were raging almost simultaneously with our very own colonial-type war in Vietnam. Perhaps that, in a nutshell, is why these wars are minutely known and understood here in the States.The book does a terrific job of breaking down how difficult the Portuguese had it when trying to effectively wage, and win, essentially three Vietnam styled wars all at one time. The odd thing for the reader to comprehend at first is that they actually fared somewhat better than we did in Nam, and with exponentially less resources at their disposal might I say. The book does a masterful and vibrant job od recreating the details of the conflicts, and it is really a treat to know that Venter actually was “on the ground” covering these areas to bring us this story. The book also has several interesting photos and maps, but I greedily wish it had more photos of the actual Portuguese military at the time; it does have some to let you know what the military looked like, but some more pictures of the metropolitan Portuguese would have iced the cake. This, of course, is a trivial complaint on my part and takes nothing away from the actual story that the books details.If you, like me, have any interest in post-World War II colonial conflicts in Africa or elsewhere, this book is an almost must-have for your collection. I enjoyed it thoroughly and am sure you would as well.

Ich will mich kurz fassen:Ich habe gestern (14.01.2014) das Buch erhalten und war sehr positiv überrascht, wie ausführlich das Geschehen auf den drei Kriegsschauplätzen Angola, Mosambik und Guinea-Bissau nebst Vorgeschichte und Nachbereitung beschrieben wird. Dazu ist das Buch mit unzähligen Fotos garniert, die das in sehr gut verständlichem Englisch verfasste Werk auch optisch abrunden. Schon beim ersten Überfliegen der über 500 Seiten wurde mir schnell klar, dass dieses Buch fesselnden Lesestoff für viele Stunden beim nächsten Strandurlaub bieten wird. Daher volle 5 Sterne und ein dickes Lob an den Autor!

Very good comprehensive book detailing the history of Portugal's military involvement in Africa. Bought it to give to my father as a birthday gift since he performed his mandatory military service in Africa during this time. Can't wait to give it to him.

I enjoyed Reading about my country's african wars from the perspective of someone who travelled there extensively and did not try to take a stand for or against but rather related his contacts and what he experienced there.

A good book to understand this conflict that was unknown to a big part of the world population. Some Portuguese words are not well translated, but in general it is a good book.

Da es zu diesem Thema leider keine Literatur auf deutsch gibt,war ich sehr erfreut bei Amazon eine einschlägige Auswahlthemenbezüglicher Bücher vorzufinden.