Sinking the Lusitanian

One evening last week, television viewers in Portugal were watching a live broadcast celebrating the nation's recently won--and increasingly unruly --freedom. Suddenly, in the midst of a skit in which an actor impersonating the former Catholic patriarch of Lisbon was blessing the old secret police, the screen went blank. A few minutes later, a woman announcer appeared to say that a representative of the junta had ordered the program off the air. Four days earlier, in the small hours of the morning, plain-clothes police had knocked on the door of Jose Luis Saldanha Sanches, 29, a Maoist editor, and arrested him for publishing an article that urged Africa-bound soldiers to desert.

These were the first acts of censorship carried out by the Armed Forces Movement since it seized power April 25. Before the week was out, the government had taken full control of the television network, but it was the editor's arrest that touched at the heart of the junta's key problem: how to get out of Africa. That arduous process hit several distinct bumps last week, and there is the jarring prospect of more still to come.

The week had begun promisingly. Intermediate talks between representatives of Lisbon and liberation leaders from Portuguese Guinea had ended on a cordial note in London. During initial peace contacts in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, Foreign Minister Mario Scares (see box) had emotionally embraced Samora Machel, president of Frelimo, the Mozambique Liberation Front. Meanwhile, Tanzania, Zaire and several other African states that have long aided anti-Portuguese guerrillas were quietly helping Lisbon toward a solution.

Gradual Stages. Things seemed to be getting even better when President Antonio de Spinola inaugurated new governors for Angola and Mozambique, and then, for the first time ever in a public speech about the territories, used the word that Africans had been waiting for him to speak: independence. "Self-determination cannot be dissociated from democracy," he said, adding: "Neither can we dissociate self-determination from independence."

The declaration suggested that Spinola was willing to let sink his pet idea of a "Lusitanian Federation"--a close alliance of Portugal with semi-autonomous African territories. As the general's speech went on, however, a chill set in. In an apparent volte-face from his earlier tone, he outlined four gradual stages of decolonization, only at the end of which would the possibility of independence be broached.

All this may merely have been Spinola's way of asserting his determination not to see white settler interests sold down the river in the territories. However it was meant, liberation-movement leaders at the annual meeting in Mogadishu, Somalia, of the Organization of African Unity--composed of 42 African states--read neocolonialism into every word. Declared Frelimo Vice President Marcelino dos Santos: "Our attacks will be maintained and even increased until independence is conceded under the sole leadership of Frelimo." At week's end, talks with Guinean liberation leaders, which had been transferred from London to Algiers, were broken off as the two sides were "about to sign an agreement," according to Soares.

Nevertheless, the momentum toward a peaceful fim `a guerra colonial (end to the colonial war) has not been altogether lost. A de facto cease-fire still holds in Guinea, and neither side would rule out a resumption of the talks in the near future. Talks between Frelimo and the Portuguese are still scheduled to resume July 15 in Lusaka, although chances of a cease-fire in Mozambique are slight. As the OAU gathered in Mogadishu last week, Scares appealed to the organization to help settle differences that will arise in Lusaka and Algiers. Its ability to aid is doubtful, however. The OAU states have not even been able to coax any measure of agreement from the three rival movements fighting the Portuguese in Angola, one of which is itself split into three separate factions and another of which is holding rival guerrillas hostage.

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