Parliament will debate and vote this Thursday on a BE proposal that recommends that the government declassify all pre-1975 documents in military archives, especially those related to the Colonial War, from 1961 onwards. draft resolution. It is not the first time that deputies have addressed the issue: two years ago an identical initiative fell throughwhich PS and PSD voted against, because such a measure could harm the national interest.
The discussion immediately raises an inevitable question: what is left in military archives and why? The answer is anything but linear and, curiously enough, goes by a name that now sits on the floor of the plenary presidency: Augusto Santos Silva, now President of the Assembly of the Republic, was Minister of Defense in 2010, when he received a request for the disqualification of the National Defense Archive (ADN) documentary collection funds. In response to a message dated December 14, 2010 (internal information, which has not been made public), the then minister ordered the release of all documents that were in archives before 1975. Problem solved? No, far from it.
Aniceto Afonso, soldier and historian (co-author, with Carlos Matos Gomes, of the work War Colonial ), he was also director of the Military Historical Archives (which belongs to the Army) between 1993 and 2007. The colonel tells DN that the release of documents in that period was ultimately done on a case-by-case basis: when a reader knew a document existed and wanted to read it, the document went to “a committee”. and was released”. “all documents are declassified, they can be read even without declassification” of that committee. The principle is general, with the exception of documents that “are subject to their own rules, for example in the field of justice or health”.
This is another plan that can determine the impossibility of accessing a document. According to the law, in the case of documents containing “nominative data” (i.e. personal information), they can only be accessed “provided that 30 years have passed from the date of death of the persons” or, if the date of death is not known of death, “40 years have elapsed from the date of the documents” and not less than “ten years from the time of knowledge of death” (a limitation that is not absolute, provided that personal data is removed from a document before to be consulted). These are provisions that apply to all files. In the case of the military, there is also the possibility of a specific security classification – top secret, secret, confidential and reserved – and that is what is at stake in today’s debate.
Aniceto Afonso says that “generally all documentation is available for consultation” both in the National Historical Archives and DNA, but admits that “there is resistance”, namely with regard to the archives more directly related to the branches of the armed forces. On the other hand there are documentation that “will not be [acessível] for any hesitation in considering that the order of the Secretary of Defense is sufficient to disqualify”. For that reason, he does not look down on a law that clarifies this declassification and confirms the order, which is used “a little casually”.
But it’s not enough, because there is another problem that replaces this: “Often the documentation is not legible because the funds from the archives are not handled, it is not known what is there, that research has not been done. This is the main problem and it would be good if the law required people who could doing”.
For example, as far as DN has been able to find out, ADN already had a dozen employees and is currently reduced to two/three.
Colonel Borges da Fonseca, who also headed the Military Historical Archives, also guarantees that “at least in the military archives, all documents are accessible” within the limits imposed by law.. “I don’t know anything that isn’t available according to the security rating”underlines the DN, who qualifies as “a myth” that there is a cloak of secrecy around military documents. “Now there is a lot of talk about the Wiriyamu massacre. Wiriyamu’s report is available. Instead of thinking it is very secret, it is better to go and see it, consult it” the files, defends.
What do historians say?
The experience of various historians heard by DN is different. Irene Flunser Pimentel, who has argued that the 50th anniversary of April 25 (which takes place in 2024) should set the tone for unlocking all historical documentation related to the Estado Novo and the colonial war, does not point to the present day, but has a very vivid memory of when he continued with his dissertation. The obstacles to accessing the resources were such that it ultimately changed the object of the investigation: “I was going to write a dissertation on the Colonial War, but eventually gave up”. He eventually obtained his PhD in 2007 with a (acclaimed) study on the political police.
Historian António Araújo, on the other hand, says he has no specific reasons to complain about the military archives, on the contrary: “They have always been one of the most open”. It was this circumstance that enabled him in 2008 (with António Duarte Silva) to publish four documents proving the use of napalm by Portuguese troops, which at the time were still classified as “top secret” or “secret”. Only then were they disqualified, at the request of the two historians, who state this in the study itself: “YOU documents were in the National Defense Archives, in Paço de Arcos (…), having been released at the request of the authors”. “They had no problem declassifying it,” the historian recalls, but adds that it makes sense “to clarify once and for all that the documents are accessible.”
Fernando Rosas has no doubt that there are barriers to accessing the documentation kept in military archives, either because the documentation is classified or because there is still a lot of material that has not been dealt with. “In my experience, there are both situations. I still belong to the time when to consult the Military Historical Archives it was almost necessary to hit a wedge in general, some guesses were needed, that was very difficult. With Aniceto Afonso [como diretor] this changed substantially, it became a rules file. But then it went downhill I guess. And an expired file facilitates the existence of formal or informal criteria to restrict access. The two things come together”, argues the historian, speaking “of a kind of gray bureaucracy in which nobody is very interested in the archive”. “there is no good will on the part of military officials in terms of facilitating access to certain types of documentation” – “The memory of the colonial war sometimes remains traumatic.”
Carlos Matos Gomes, captain of Abril, co-author of The Colony Warl, is a frequent visitor to the military archives and also points to the lack of resources and the resulting poor organization of the available documentation as the main problem. “There is no political problem of secrecyalso because the army has its archives open, it is a matter of lack of resources and organization,” he tells DN. “I think that the presidency of the Council of Ministers, because it is an interdepartmental matter, should verify an form and what rules exist for these archives, to know what is there, because we have no idea,” emphasizes Carlos Matos Gomes, defending that “it is not necessary to make a new law, it is necessary to make effective what already exists”.
As for the issue of secrecy, it does not concern what is in the archives, but what is not there: “There have been secret files locked in cupboards for 50 years.” Example? “The case of the Angoche ship, about which nothing is known. It is known that a trial is underway, but it has been closed.”
DN questioned the Department of Defense about the files it held and the policies it followed regarding document accessibility, but Helena Carreiras’ office did not respond.
Source: DN
