
Al J. Venter
Al J Venter (Albertus Johannes Venter) is
a South African war journalist, documentary filmmaker,
and author of more than forty books who also served as
an Africa and Middle East correspondent for Jane's
International Defence Review .
in Wikipedia
O livro (edição
inglesa):
"Portugal's Guerrilla Wars in Africa:
Lisbon's Three Wars in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese
Guinea 1961-74"

"Portugal's Guerrilla Wars in Africa:
Lisbon's Three Wars in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese
Guinea 1961-74"
author: Al J. Venter
publisher: Helion & Company
1st ed. Birmingham, Dec2013
560 pages (ill. )
Portugal's three wars in Africa in
Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea (Guiné-Bissau
today) lasted almost 13 years - longer than the United
States Army fought in Vietnam. Yet they are among the
most underreported conflicts of the modern era.
Commonly referred to as Lisbon's Overseas War (Guerra do
Ultramar) or in the former colonies, the War of
Liberation (Guerra de Libertação), these struggles
played a seminal role in ending white rule in Southern
Africa.
Though hardly on the scale of hostilities being fought
in South East Asia, the casualty count by the time a
military coup d'état took place in Lisbon in April 1974
was significant. It was certainly enough to cause
Portugal to call a halt to violence and pull all its
troops back to the Metropolis. Ultimately, Lisbon was to
move out of Africa altogether, when hundreds of
thousands of Portuguese nationals returned to Europe,
the majority having left everything they owned behind.
Independence for all the former colonies, including the
Atlantic islands, followed soon afterwards.

Lisbon ruled its African territories for more than five
centuries, not always undisputed by its black and
mestizo subjects, but effectively enough to create a
lasting Lusitanian tradition. That imprint is indelible
and remains engraved in language, social mores and
cultural traditions that sometimes have more in common
with Europe than with Africa.
Today, most of the newspapers in Luanda, Maputo -
formerly Lourenco Marques - and Bissau are in
Portuguese, as is the language taught in their schools
and used by their respective representatives in
international bodies to which they all subscribe. Indeed,
on a recent visit to Central Mozambique in 2013, a
youthful member of the American Peace Corps told this
author that despite having been embroiled in conflict
with the Portuguese for many years in the 1960s and
1970s, he found the local people with whom he came into
contact inordinately fond of their erstwhile 'colonial
overlords'.
As a foreign correspondent, Al Venter covered all three
wars over more than a decade, spending lengthy periods
in the territories while going on operations with the
Portuguese army, marines and air force.
In the process he wrote several books on these conflicts,
including a report on the conflict in Portuguese Guinea
for the Munger Africana Library of the California
Institute of Technology.
Portugal's Guerrilla Wars in Africa represents an
amalgam of these efforts. At the same time, this book is
not an official history, but rather a journalist's
perspective of military events as viewed by somebody who
has made a career of reporting on overseas wars,
Africa's especially.

Venter's camera was always at hand; most of the images
used between these covers are his.
His approach is both intrusive and personal and he would
like to believe that he has managed to record for
posterity a tiny but vital segment of African history.
Foreword
In 1961, Portugal found itself fighting a war to retain
its colonial possessions and preserve the remnants of
its empire. The country was totally unprepared, as its
leaders never believed that what had happened in other
parts of Africa could happen to them.
Portugal had been in Africa for almost five centuries,
longer by far than any other colonial power, and its
notion of the permanence of its empire drove it to
defend its colonies or ultramar at all costs. For this
small European nation, the importance of the colonies
was captured in an editorial by Marcello Caetano in O
Mundo Português (Portuguese World) that appeared in
1935: "Africa is for us a moral justification and a
raison d'être as a power. Without it we would be a small
nation; with it, we are a great country."

While other European states were granting independence
to their African possessions, Portugal chose to stay and
fight despite the small odds for success.
When war was thrust upon it by the March 1961 uprisings
in the north of Angola, it opened a new chapter in the
lives of its citizens and the many others who would
become involved in the 13-year conflict – one that would
extend to three theaters, Angola, Guinea, and
Mozambique, and exhaust the treasure and manpower of the
country.
The Portuguese army had virtually no experience or
training for this sort of war and little or no
experience of any sort in serious fighting. Few had seen
a shot fired in anger. On the other hand, they were very
brave and had the ability to live and fight under
conditions that would have been intolerable to other
European troops. They could go for days on a bag of
dried beans, some chickpeas and possibly a piece of
dried codfish, all to be soaked in any water that could
be found – probably infected with bilharzia – then
cooked and eaten in the evening. At night they would tie
themselves up in trees to sleep. They were capable of
covering on foot and through elephant grass and thick
bush distances of over a hundred miles over a three-day
patrol. They endured heat and humidity that took your
breath away. The insects attacked them in "airborne
waves" and poisonous snakes were constantly slithering
underfoot. They learned how to fight and did so
successfully for thirteen years across their three
fronts. It was a remarkable achievement for a nation of
such modest resources.

Al Venter was attracted to this war during the late
1960s and recorded his first experiences and
observations on Angola in his "The Terror Fighters"
(1969). Subsequent reporting on the other two theaters
produced "Portugal’s War in Guinea-Bissau" (1973) and "The
Zambezi Salient" (1975).
He immersed himself in these wars, writing from personal
observation at the center of the action. His combat
descriptions are riveting and remind the reader of
General George Patton’s famous observation, "Compared to
war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to
insignificance."
This book brings together his earlier experiences and
heretofore unrevealed ones in a broad perspective of a
war that was overshadowed by the United States
involvement in Vietnam and is now largely forgotten by
non-Portuguese audiences.
He combines vivid descriptions of the fighting, the
daily lives of the soldiers in combat, and the larger
campaign perspective through a broad range of interviews
and observations as a seasoned war reporter.
He further draws on personal papers and published
sources to produce an informative, valuable and readable
account of the agonies and successes in the progress of
Portugal’s guerrilla wars in Africa.
While not defeated on the field of battle, Portugal
ultimately had to recognize the futility of the struggle
in 1974.
Its decolonization proceeded at a rapid and
ill-considered pace and brought peace to none of its
former colonies. No one was happy with the outcome, and
Lusophone Africa became a continuing battleground for
local and international interests for decades afterward.
Al Venter offers a thoughtful conclusion in this work on
a nationally cathartic war that ended in tears both for
a nation and its European and African citizens.
John P. Cann, PhD (former US Navy Captain)
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 21 October 2013























