The Portuguese Colonial War (Portuguese: Guerra Colonial Portuguesa), also known in Portugal as the Overseas War (Guerra do Ultramar) or in the former colonies as the War of Liberation (Guerra de Libertação), and also known as the Angolan, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambican War of Independence, was a 13-year-long conflict fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974. The Portuguese regime at the time, the Estado Novo, was overthrown by a military coup in 1974, and the change in government brought the conflict to an end. The war was a decisive ideological struggle in Lusophone Africa, surrounding nations, and mainland Portugal.
The prevalent Portuguese and international historical approach considers the Portuguese Colonial War as was perceived at the time—a single conflict fought in the three separate Angolan, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambican theaters of operations, rather than a number of separate conflicts as the emergent African countries aided each other and were supported by the same global powers and even the United Nations during the war. India's 1954 annexation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and 1961 annexation of Goa are sometimes included as part of the conflict.
Throughout the period, Portugal faced increasing dissent, arms embargoes, and other punitive sanctions imposed by the international community, including by some Western Bloc governments, either intermittently or continuously.[33] The anti-colonial guerrillas and movements of Portuguese Africa were heavily supported and instigated with money, weapons, training and diplomatic lobbying by the Communist Bloc which had the Soviet Union as its lead nation. By 1973, the war had become increasingly unpopular due to its length and financial costs, the worsening of diplomatic relations with other United Nations members, and the role it had always played as a factor of perpetuation of the entrenched Estado Novo regime and the nondemocratic status quo in Portugal.
The end of the war came with the Carnation Revolution military coup of April 1974 in mainland Portugal. The withdrawal resulted in the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Portuguese citizens[34] plus military personnel of European, African, and mixed ethnicity from the former Portuguese territories and newly independent African nations.[35][36][37] This migration is regarded as one of the largest peaceful, if forced, migrations in the world's history although most of the migrants fled the former Portuguese territories as destitute refugees.[38]
The former colonies faced severe problems after independence. Devastating civil wars followed in Angola and Mozambique, which lasted several decades, claimed millions of lives, and resulted in large numbers of displaced refugees.[39]Angola and Mozambique established state-planned economies after independence,[40] and struggled with inefficient judicial systems and bureaucracies,[40] corruption,[40][41][42] poverty and unemployment.[41] A level of social order and economic development comparable to what had existed under Portuguese rule, including during the period of the Colonial War, became the goal of the independent territories.[43]
^Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World, 1997, p. 306.
^Telepneva, Natalia (2022). Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961–1975. The University of North Carolina Press. p. 73. ISBN978-1-4696-6586-3.
^The Soviet Union and Revolutionary Warfare: Principles, Practices, and Regional Comparisons, 1988, pp. 117–118.
^Selcher, Wayne A. (1976). "Brazilian Relations with Portuguese Africa in the Context of the Elusive "Luso-Brazilian Community"". Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. 18 (1): 25–58. doi:10.2307/174815. JSTOR174815.
^Cite error: The named reference Lloyd-Jones, Stewart p. 22 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^PAIGC, Jornal Nô Pintcha, 29 November 1980: In a statement in the party newspaper Nô Pintcha (In the Vanguard), a spokesman for the PAIGC revealed that many of the ex-Portuguese indigenous African soldiers that were executed after cessation of hostilities were buried in unmarked collective graves in the woods of Cumerá, Portogole, and Mansabá.
^Cite error: The named reference Munslow, Barry 1981 pp. 109-113 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Aniceto Afonso, Carlos de Matos Gomes: Guerra Colonial. Lisbon 2000, p. 528.
^Clodfelter, Micheal (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015 (4th ed.). McFarland. p. 561. ISBN978-0786474707.
^Portugal – Emigration, Eric Solsten, ed, 1993. Portugal: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress.
^António Barreto, 2006, Portugal: Um Retrato Social
^Stuart A. Notholt (Apr., 1998) Review: ‘The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa: Metropolitan Revolution and the Dissolution of Empire by Norrie MacQueen – Mozambique since Independence: Confronting Leviathan by Margaret Hall, Tom Young’ African Affairs, Vol. 97, No. 387, pp. 276–78, JSTOR723274
^ abcSusan Rose-Ackerman, 2009, "Corruption in the Wake of Domestic National Conflict" in Corruption, Global Security, and World Order (ed. Robert I. Rotberg: Brookings Institution), p. 79.
^"Things are going well in Angola. They achieved good progress in their first year of independence. There's been a lot of building and they are developing health facilities. In 1976, they produced 80,000 tons of coffee. Transportation means are also being developed. Currently, between 200,000 and 400,000 tons of coffee are still in warehouses. In our talks with [Angolan President Agostinho] Neto we stressed the absolute necessity of achieving a level of economic development comparable to what had existed under [Portuguese] colonialism."; "There is also evidence of black racism in Angola. Some are using the hatred against the colonial masters for negative purposes. There are many mulattos and whites in Angola. Unfortunately, racist feelings are spreading very quickly." Castro's 1977 southern Africa tour: A report to Honecker, CNN