ep 3/18 part 3/7

[Abel Fialho Rico - Professional Hunter in 1961] our people's reaction was: to kill, to destroy. when we saw a corpse of a child, (or) of a woman, torn apart, our human reaction was also (one of) ... repeating the feat (and) pay them on the same coin. [Holden Roberto - UPA President in 1961] ...if we were afraid to show, to display what the portuguese army did... [NBC's white paper #7 "Angola: a journey to war", 1961] [Colonel Carlos Fabião - Captain in 1961] In (?), where hundreds of guys were thrown down. And then there were some uncomfortable systems, like hammering a nail in the head of a guy until a guy drops dead. [Abel Fialho Rico - Professional Hunter in 1961] In my hometown, Bungo, there were 50 or so prisoners, and when we went to that skirmish on the road, 6 km (3.7 miles) away, when I came back they had slain all the prisoners, (because) they were afraid of all the crowding, of those who came, those who were already here and so on... Well done or not, it was how it was done. [Colonel Carlos Fabião - Captain in 1961] - Do you know the gladiator fights? Some guys would fight each other and then in accordance to the roman fashion one would thumb down or thumb up as one wished. There was also this thing were a guy would try to run across a bridge and there was someone down there shooting at him, and if the guy made it across the bridge, something which was rare, but that I know happened, he could run away, if he couldn't make it he would fall dead. And of course, eventually things like that end up being noticed. Commented in the international press, the portuguese answer to the massacres, would not be known in Portugal in its true dimension. Many prisoners were killed, accused of having connections to the UPA, as were the Tocoístas, the religious followers of Simão Toco, for refusing to fight. Initially the prisoners were interrogated by civilian militias, and then also by soldiers who in the meantime had arrived to the villages. Despite the seemingly incipient character of the rebel's organization and the methods used in the interrogations, in general the prisoners didn't give any information. [Captain Joaquim Santiago - Sergeant in 1961] They lowered their heads and said nothing... [Abel Fialho Rico - Professional Hunter in 1961] Nothing... (I once) spend the whole night interrogating one in Bungo's church, in french, and the only thing he said was that his flag would fly: "My flag will fly!", no more than that. Dear viewers, here's a terrorist, and a very distinctive type of terrorist indeed, as we'll see through the conversation we are about to have with him. A portuguese, gone times ago to the Belgian-Congo, where he was lured and bought by a measly sum in order to come back and do thuggeries in portuguese territory. ( - What usually happened to the prisoners? were they (all) killed or what?) - In general, yes... in general. there were some who were not (killed), there was (also) a lot of them from my area that went to the Tigres Bay, to São Nicolau... [Holden Roberto - UPA President in 1961] There were no survivors, they would immediately kill them. I knew a lot of commanders that disappeared, they were caught alive, (made) prisoners, but that... none of them was ever found. [Abel Fialho Rico - Professional Hunter in 1961] I heard that many of the so called Tocoístas, Toco, the followers of Simão Toco, I heard, but I didn't see it. That they were embarked in NordAtlas airplanes and that they were "disembarked" in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. You know, even within the military operations, at the beginning of the war, it worked almost like tooth for a tooth, you know... terrorism against terrorism. [Domingos Estrela - UPA fighter in 1961] Dinis Salgado arrived at Ambriz and contacted another portuguese he had found there, then one monday morning, the workers were taken by surprise by the portuguese army and as soon as they were caught some were killed, others were taken... (and) I know that one of them, his name was Magalhães Afonso, was killed, but before he was crucified on a cross, he was crucified and then they shot a burst (?) at him That time they killed about 18 people. (reenactment made by the Cartographic Service of the Portuguese Army) Accusations of crucifixion are mutual, as suggested by this reenactment. The violence knows no bounds. First from the UPA and then from its victims whose answer includes death sentences reached in summary trials held in several villages. [Abel Fialho Rico - Professional Hunter in 1961] It happened in Bungo, and it must have also happened in other villages. I am talking about the one in Bungo because I was there and I watched it. It was... prisoners but not only, and they were prosecuted in a sort of court-martial, and that was... Because the theory of the military officers... right or wrong, I am not able to tell, was that all the elements within us, that lived among us, could be hypothetical informers outside (of the village), as soon as he left for here or there, he would inform how many whites were there and when, what they do in this or that outpost and so on. He would be a very dangerous informer, well, and some military officers that at that time didn't allow anyone who had been in contact to leave... ...so they were eliminated. [Captain Joaquim Santiago - Sergeant in 1961] Whatever was done was done with good intentions, it was done as perhaps the only way out of very delicate situations where the military were at that time, military and civilians! All the blacks that were there had to face the court martial, and the sacramental question was: "So what do you know about this?" "You know nothing?" "knows nothing...knows nothing..." "So move to that side!", "Next!". Knowing nothing was like saying, look, everyone is going to be convicted. They were shot, a hundred at a time. ( - "And where they all men or were there also women convicted?") - No, no! There was an unpleasant situation were there were children... it was a bit unpleasant, (but) not women. The women were not (convicted) also because there was no women there. There was no women, they had all run away. In a case that was revealed to us, about 100 africans were arrested in Bungo and accused of having connections to the UPA, after some propaganda (pamphlets) had been found in the possession of one of them. Then, in May 6th, next to the "Paládio" Bar a court was constituted with a jury of six members, including a military officer that presided. People who were present report that the trial was framed with the portuguese flag and that it was held according to the RDM, the Regulation of Military Discipline, given that the village was under martial law, enacted by the paratrooper force commander. After interrogations that had (supposedly) revealed (they had) a plan to poison everyone in the village, around 50 of them were accused of involvement in the "March 15th", convicted and then killed by the civilians. The so called Bungo trial, had been authorized by Mota da Costa, the Ensign Commander of the paratroopers, then away in Negage and that 3 days later would be killed in an ambush apparently related to those events. In the North Angolan hinterlands, the law of survival dominated among the populations. Military or civilians armed with what they could find, the portuguese fortified their houses against enemies which seemed to come from everywhere, they barricaded themselves behind boards and sandbags. They feared the threats that came from the outside of the villages and were suspicious of the loyalty of the africans who had stayed in Bungo and elsewhere like Negage. Where Mário Pádua was at the time, sent to Angola in the first contingent as an Ensign Medical Doctor, militant of the Portuguese Communist Party, he defected to Congo and in the meantime published a book where he reported situations of similar violence. ["Angola 63" - World TV Press] - "All these stories... they don't leave my memory." (-"What is the attitude of settlers in Angola?") - "When I was there... they had completely lost their minds." - "They killed africans without a flinch... just because they were black..." - "It is a theory based in racism."