Jaime Nogueira Pinto was on the run on November 25, he had an arrest warrant for September 28. He was one of the last volunteers to fight for the empire. He was close to the commandos who fought in the last battle against the military left. He believes that it was the secret services of the US and the Soviet Union that prevented that day from ending in civil war.
There is a book called Novemberwhich ends on November 25, 1975?
The action starts in the summer of 1973 and ends on November 25.
Where were you on November 25, 1975?
I was outside Portugal. I had a warrant for my arrest after September 28th. At the time the order was issued, I was in northern Angola and fled to South Africa. I must have been the last volunteer for the war, I exchanged with a comrade of mine a few weeks before April 25. As a defender of the Portuguese overseas territories, I thought the least that was required of me was to go and fight there. But because I was well classified and the mobilizations were carried out in reverse order of classification, I was supposed to stay here, but I exchanged with a comrade from the army’s psychological action promotion team a few weeks before the revolution. On September 28, I was caught in Carmona and fled to South Africa, where I stayed for a year, then to Brazil and then to Spain. On November 25 I was in Rio de Janeiro.
How did you read November 25 at the time?
In Madrid I was closely associated with the so-called resistance of the ELP (Portugal Liberation Army) and the MDLP (Democratic Movement for the Liberation of Portugal) – José Manuel Fernandes always told me to write about these resistance movements, I said – what already in the November, and that this was the best way to talk about these things. A lot of nonsense has been written about this period. We try to base ourselves on official documents. What is always limited in these cases, for example with regard to the Holocaust, a written order for the so-called “final solution” has never been found. These things are never written in official documents.
But was an extermination order issued in Portugal?
There’s that famous ‘Easter murder’ trap [suposta liquidação de chefias militares de direita que justificaria a tentativa de golpe de Estado do 11 de Março]. I don’t know if people are naive or really stupid. Hundreds of officers would be killed, as if hundreds of people were killed in the same way in Portugal. Whoever started that rumor was quite intelligent, because it brought out forces that were not allowed to come out at the time.
Can anything else be said about November 25 in reverse?
What I find curious about this is that it talks about everyone from Doctor Soares to Melo Antunes, without mentioning the people who were on the ground, those five companies of commandos, two of which were formed by former commandos in the reserve who were called up by the Commando association. No mention is made of the actors and direct participants. The companies of conscripts, 121 and 122, were commanded by two men – one of them still alive, Manuel Sampaio Faria. I got to know all these people from the commandos very well, because I had a lot of friends, like Victor Ribeiro, who founded and led the Commandos Association. These people are essential on the ground. There are also air force officers who are important.
And Ramalho Eanes too?
He is a coordinator. But it’s not the same. Actually, it was as if we were talking about April 25, about the PCP, Doctor Soares and not about Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho and Salgueiro Maia. The people on the ground also count.
And is there, in political terms, a significant difference between the people who were on the ground and in command of them: the group of nine and Ramalho Eanes?
That was the case, because the people on the ground did not have the same capacity for political expression. Resistance movements are defined in politics by things that Machiavelli and Carl Schmitt explained: what makes the terrain of politics is the choice of the enemy. As a force becomes hegemonic, alliances are formed against it. In the summer of 1975, an alliance emerged between the Socialist Party and people from the far right against the PCP.
How did you read November 25 at the time?
I knew the structure of the Commando Association well, in October 1975 I had been to Madrid and spent almost a month there, and had a lot of contact with all these people. He knew well the structures created by the Commando Association. I got to know Victor Ribeiro, who founded the association, very well. He was a long-haul TAP pilot, and when he had time, he spent that time traveling around the country investigating people, with his old commandos. It is these 260 players who have helped make the difference. These people had military experience, went to the regiment and were very important on November 25. Then there is the famous non-intervention of the Marines, which is supported by the PCP and which I believe stems from the Soviet Union’s position. Frank Carlucci [embaixador dos EUA em Portugal na altura e que foi posteriormente nomeado para um cargo cimeiro na CIA] in his memoirs he revealed that the Soviet ambassador to Portugal assured him that the Soviet Union did not want to endanger Yalta, [que dividiu em fevereiro de 1945, a Europa em duas áreas de influência]. The Marines didn’t leave and Dr. Cunhal knew, especially because he was an intelligent man, that he could win in a civil war for a while, but then lose. I am not saying that the communists did not want to take to the streets on November 25, but the leadership did not want that. There was still the problem of Spain. Franco died on November 20, 1975, and any civil war in Portugal would have meant no transition to democracy in Spain. If Portugal were a kind of Cuba in Europe, Spain would remain a kind of authoritarian state. Something that existed a lot at the time worked, but today that is no longer the case, it was a bipolar world, there was control. There are things that are scary today that were impossible in 1975: the Soviet and US spy services ended up being everywhere. After November 25, they were certainly important in stopping the right-wingers from going further.
However, most of the right-wing bomber network’s attacks took place after November 25.
The bomb network was one thing: there were a few guys who planted the bombs, relatively few and mostly marginal, and there were a few guys who charged for the bombs. I met a banker who was in Paris and who, poor man, was very old. Whenever there was a bomb, beings would appear and say they had done it, and they would charge him money. This was a doll. But it was that popular resistance that led to the descent from the north that counted. There is, in fact, something funny: a kind of reactionary and popular geography that corresponds to the revolt of Maria da Fonte, partly to the monarchical reaction in the north.
Source: DN
