Lisbon appeal to guerrillas

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33527, 7 May 1974, Page 17

Lisbon appeal to guerrillas

(ts .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LISBON, May 6.

A member of Portugal’s military junta today appealed to guerrilla fighters in the country’s African territories to lay down their arms and profit from the new spirit of freedom in Lisbon to negotiate.

General Francisco da Costa Gomes, the Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff and the man regarded as the second-ranking member of the seven-man junta, issued the appeal in a statement before leaving the Angolan capital of Luanda, where he had talks with military and civilian leaders. “Let us lay down the weapons of war and take advantage of the new possibilities of the liberal atmosphere which we are now experiencing in Portugal,” he said. Meanwhile, the Portuguese Communist Party, acting openly for the first time in nearly half a century, today nublicly threw its full supnort behind the new ruling military junta and declared that an alliance between them was essential. The Communist Party’s Central Committee, in its first statement since the Party Chief. Mr Alvaro Cunhal, returned from 13 years

of exile in Eastern Europe last week, “fervently saluted” the Armed Forces which toppled the previous regime. The party also said that it would combat “adventurist” extreme Left-wing groups, like the one which yesterday disrupted the embarkation of troops for Mozambique, Angola and Portuguese Guinea. According to a junta spokesman, 12 soldiers were kidnapped at a local air base by the Maoist demonstrators. Two soldiers later reported to the military authorities, but 10 are still officially missing.

The seven-man junta, led by General Antonio de Spinola, has pledged to form a provisional Government by mid-Mav and to hold genera! elections for a Constituent National Assembly within the year. In Luanda, the Portuguese armed forces today took over the National Broadcasting System of the West African territory because it had been “retarding” news and information.