In the text of the petition – accusing Portugal of “not being grateful” for the service or for the blood they shed – they recall: “We Guinean veterans of the Portuguese armed forces saw comrades and friends, parents and brothers fall for Portugal. Portuguese; we were full citizens since 1961. At the time of all decisions, when Portugal needed us, we were at its disposal. We are what is left of those nearly 20,000 children of Guinea who did not refuse what was an unassailable civic duty for us. Because we were born Portuguese, we serve Portugal as Portugal asked us to serve it. That was the highest honor.”
These petitioners, who are represented by Amadu Jao, President of the Association of Former Fighters of the Armed Forces of Guinea-Bissau, allege that the 1974 Algiers agreement, assuming responsibility for their fate and rights, was thwarted by decree-law of 1975, drafted by the socialist António Almeida Santos, in which their Portuguese citizenship was revoked.
“Never before has a state deprived such a large proportion of its citizens of the right to citizenship by invoking a strict racial criterion – that is, a strictly racist criterion. Of the approximately twenty-five million Portuguese we were in 1974, 60% were declared non-Portuguese suddenly, involuntarily and illegally – illegally because in clear violation of international law, the United Nations Charter and the constitutional order before or after 1976,” they write.
They also condemn the suffering of the years that followed, saying they were considered “traitors” by the Guinean authorities because they had suffered “exile, persecution and death”.
“Between 700 and 5000 Guinean veterans of the Portuguese army were shot, many with their families. Lisbon remained silent when in Cumeré, in Farim, in Mansoa, in Bafatá or in Bissau, our comrades, our husbands, our parents. Many of us fled to Senegal, where we have grown crops for years.”
The ex-combatants believe that “Never before has Portugal abandoned its people so completely”, but assure that 46 years later they are not looking for a reckoning. They only claim nationality.
“Besides being very immoral, it is something that can be resolved and restored,” Rafael Pinto Borges, president of Nova Portugalidade and one of the initiators of the petition, told DN Rafael Pinto Borges. This was also signed by, among others, Francisco Camacho, leader of the JC, the former Secretary of State Pedro Sampaio Nunes and two deputies from Chega, Diogo Pacheco de Amorim and Rita Matias.
Source: DN
