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FREEDOMWAYS    THIRD QUARTER 1972

The government of Portugal benefits from the military, political and economic support of NATO, and the intensification of its criminal war against the peoples of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. NATO's member powers give their protection and support to the Pretoria-Salisburg-Lisbon politico-military bloc, whose fundamental aim is to destroy the democratic national liberation movement of the African peoples in order to maintain the colonial and racist regimes in Africa. They use military bases in Rhodesia, Namibia, in the Republic of South Africa and in the Portuguese colonies as a springboard of aggression against the colonial peoples.

Imperialism has set up a plan of aggression in Africa, whose aim is to launch an offensive against the liberation movements and the progressive independent States. The criminal aggression which the Portuguese colonies carried out on November 22, 1970, against the Republic of Guinea, with the consent of imperialist powers who are members of NATO, is a part of imperialist aggression against Africa. This aggression is an integral part of the world imperialism's global strategy. The peoples understand that the anti-imperialist struggle is a common one, and that victory must be ensured by a general offensive against imperialism.

Foreign investments from North America, France, Germany, England, Italy, Holland, South Africa and Japan are a political guarantee for the Portuguese colonial government. The United States of America has signed a new treaty with Portugal, which gives Portugal 436 million dollars for the next five years, in the form of economic aid. In return, the USA has a right to go on using the sea and air base of the Azores. We denounce and condemn this aid, which supports aggression against our African people. Marcello Castano, head of the Portuguese colonial government, makes no secret of his funds for the continuation of the war. One has only to read his speeches to see that he used the aid he receives to carry on the colonial war. The real villains are those who help and encourage the colonial and racist regimes; the imperialist countries who invest in the Portuguese colonies and derive enormous profits from them at the expense of African workers, and who have an interest in maintaining racism and racial discrimination.

Foreign economic and other interests create obstacles in the way of applying the Statement on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples. Monopolies directly contribute to the misery on the African population, by exploiting the natural resources and taking advantage of cheap labor. They help to keep the colonial

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GUINEA-BISSAU'S LIBERATION STRUGGLE    PINTO

governments in power and export the greater part of their profits from the colonial territories. The colonies’ resources are used neither to develop these countries’ economies nor to improve the economic and social level of the inhabitants of these countries. All members of NATO must bear some responsibility for the continuance of the colonial system. The struggle against colonialism and imperialism must be intensified in order to get rid of racism and racial discrimination which are the products of the colonialist and imperialist system. Material, moral and political aid must be guaranteed to those who are truly fighting for Africa’s peace and freedom. When we fight in Guinea and Cape Verde, we are also contributing to the full liberation of the African continent. We are defending an African policy which takes into account the interests of the African peoples, without forgetting the interests of all mankind; in a word we are in favor of a policy of collaboration with all the peoples of the world.

Our African people have taken up arms to reply to Portuguese colonialism's criminal violence, to free themselves from the foreign yoke, win their independence and have their own history. Colonial economic structures have been destroyed in our liberated zones, and the colonial type of production relations have been eliminated. Our struggle began with economic sabotage by destroying the means of commercialization and the infra-structures of the exploitation of our people. Monetary and financial sabotage took the form of forbidding Portuguese currency. We have got rid of the colonial political and administrative apparatus. The whole population of the liberated zones is organized national committees, which are comprised of regional committees, zone committees and village committees. The committees are the organs of popular power and are directly elected by the people.

Backward social habits which were kept up by the Portuguese colonialists themselves are progressively disappearing. We have not forbidden our people the use of amulets. Comrade Amilcar Cabral has stressed this fact, saying that “we have let our people find out for themselves that their fetishes are no good, and in the beginning, many of the comrades fought with the help of an amulet, but today they understand that a trench is the best amulet.”

We intend to go on fighting until the final victory. That is why we have developed and made deeper the political work in order to raise our people's national awareness and patriotism still more, to strengthen our forces and change our weak points into new strengths. OAU (Organization of Africa Unity) considers that our party is

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