Heavy security for Gaetano’s visit

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33279, 17 July 1973, Page 15

Heavy security for Gaetano’s visit

GV.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) LONDON. July 16. Heavy security precautions surround the Portuguese Prime Minister (Dr Marcello Caetano) during his four-day visit to Britain which protesters have threatened to oppose until he leaves.

The official visit to mark the anniversary of Britain’s 600-year-old alliance with Portugal is the first by a Portuguese Prime Minister to Britain. It began with Dr Caetano's arrival today, but the protests began yesterday when 5000 demonstrators marched peacefully through the streets of London.

Except for a minor scuffle outside the Portuguese Embassy, there were no incidents as the protesters carried signs and shouted slogans declaring their opposition to Portugal’s African policies and in particular the alleged massacre of African villagers by Portuguese troops in Mozambique.

Scores of police officers, including 50 on horseback, manned the Embassy in Belgrave Square and other potential flash-points. A spokesman for Scotland Yard said that although police leaves were not cancelled, extra officers from outside points were being deployed inside London, supplemented by a 100-man special group seconded by the Yard for the visit.

Six police Six policemen have been assigned to accompany Dr Caetano while he is in Britain. Reports today said that more than 100 people at the rally yesterday had been paid bv an employment agency to distribute pro-Portuguese leaflets at the demonstration, but the Portuguese Embassy denied strongly that it was renting crowds for the visit. A spokesman said: “It’s fantastic. I am amazed.” Hostility to Dr Caetano spurted during the last week after a newspaper article by a Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. Adrian Hastings, that Portuguese forces massacred African villagers in Mozambique last year, including 400 men, women and children at the village of Wiriyamu. Village site “The Times” newspaper, which printed Father Hastings’s allegation, carried a letter for him today in which he pinpointed the village as being about 15 miles south of the provincial capital of

Tete, east of the main road linking Tete to Beira. The “Guardian” (liberal), in a report from Tete, said the village mentioned as the source of the massacre seems now to be Wiliamo, 12 miles from Tete. The paper said Africans pronounce it with an “r” instead of an“i”, thus giving the name Wiriyamu.

It added that there was no hard evidence to substantiate

the allegations of massacre, although there were strong indications that Portuguese troops had indulged in indiscriminate violence against civilians in Tete province.

Dr Caetano will meet Queen Elizabeth and will have talks during his visit with British leaders, including the Prime Minister (Mr Edward Heath) and the Foreign Secretary (Sir Alec Douglas Home).

Their discussions are exIpected to review British-Por-tuguese relations, European security matters and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation matters. United Nations and other world developments, and diplomatic observers expected that questions concerning Africa and Portugal’s African territories would also be discussed. The "Guardian,” in an edi-

torial today, said that the Portuguese people could be honoured for 600 years of friendship, but “it is wrong to honour the Portuguese Prime Minister.” The editorial said: “Dr Caetano cannot be shown to represent the Portuguese people and he heads a Government which in most respects is inimical rather titan friendly to British interests. The main quality of public life towards which Britain aims — the fullest freedom for the individual consistent with respect for other people’s freedom — is that which the Portuguese Government firmly rejects.” The newspaper said that there were two reasons why “Britain should have withheld the nauseating congratulations about to be heaped on Dr Caetano.” The first is that he does not enjoy the consent of the governed in Africa or Portugal and his regime cannot be removed by popular vote.

The second, the “Guardian” said, is that the sanctions policy with which Britain hopes to remove “the white supremacist regime in Rhodesia—the only issue of foreign policy , for which Britain is mainly responsible—is being deliberately nullified by the man who dines with the Queen tomorrow.” Not welcome The popular tabloid, the “Daily Mirror,” said that Dr Caetano “is not a welcome visitor. Indeed there would be no cause to celebrate his arrival here today even without last week’s report of 400 Africans brutally massacred by Portuguese troops.” The newspaper said that the Portuguese Government “is doubly harsh and doubly repressive in its treatment of its African colonies, and has done all it can to sabotage sanctions against Rhodesia. While eagerly claiming the title of Britain’s oldest ally.” The newspaper called on demonstrators this . week to resist violence. Sweden would double its annual aid to the Mozambique African guerrilla organisation Frelimo from two million Swedish crowns to four million crowns, the Swedish Foreign Minister (Mr Krister Wickman) said in a week-end radio interview.

Mr W’ickman remarked that “an official visit by a Swedish Minister to Portugal is inconceivable,” without directly referring to this week’s visit to Britain of Dr Caetano. Mr Wickman said that Sweden has urged that the United Nations Committee on Colonialism be convened to discuss the massacre charges.

On the activity of Swedish firms in Portugal, where wages are lower than at home. Mr Wickman said that the firms “ought to be careful that they don’t incur problems regarding their employees in Sweden.”

“The Swedish Government welcomes union member actions with respect to the behaviour of their firms abroad,” he said.