Lisbon firm after coup bid

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33791, 13 March 1975, Page 17

Lisbon firm after coup bid

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LISBON, March 12. The Portuguese Government today seems secure in spite of an abortive military revolt yesterday, which fizzled out when the former President. General Antonio de Spinola, fled to Spain.

At least one soldier died and 10 were wounded in fighting. But most of the forces, apparently loyal to the Government, brought the revolt under control after rebel air attacks yesterday on an artillery barracks near Lisbon Airport, which dissident paratroopers took over and closed for 10 hours. Surveillance President Francisco da Costa Gomes has accused 27 officers, headed by his predecessor, General Spinola’. of being involved in the uprising. He branded the revolt as treason. General Spinola, is under Spanish Government surveillance—at the Portuguese Government’s request. General Spinola became president after the revolution on April 25, 1974, but fell from power through dis-

agreemnts with vounger coup leaders.

The effective commander of Portugal’s Copcon internal security force. Brigadier Otelo Sariva de Carvalho, said last night that Spain had been asked to arrest the general and some dissident officers, who fled with him in three helicopters from the big Tancos air base near Abrantes, in central Portugal, before loyal troops took it over.

During the fighting, some units of the para-military National Republican Guard mutinied and paratroopers led by dissident officers, blew up the transmitting station of a Left-wing radio.

The Portuguese Communist Party, which is represented in the Government, said the uprising was part of an attempted coup. It proved that security measures were insufficient and that the authorities had been too complacent about the activities of conspirators. Rebel list

The Communists also condemned “certain anarchic actions carried out under cover of support for the Armed Forces movement,” saying these could only benefit the forces of reaction. The comments came after angry Left-wingers sacked the headquarters of the Christian Democrats and their allies for next month’s elections, the centre-Right Centre Democrat Party, in both the northern citv of Opporto and Lisbon. The list of rebel officers named by President Costa Gomes included representatives of all branches of the armed forces and several crack units, but the majority of soldiers did not join in. Portuguese television early today broadcast a long film report in which rebel paratroops complained they were misled by officers into believing they were taking action to prevent extreme Left-wing forces in the artillery from carrying out a massacre of 2000 prominent civilian and military figures. Violence

The film showed hundreds of paratroopers laying down their arms and rushing to join the artillery unit, whose barracks they were supposed to storm.

A report from the port of Setubal gives an impression of the atmosphere in Portugal. Troops there are guarding an empty police station after an 18-hour seige.

About 50 policemen were driven from the building in army lorries to an infantry barracks last night after being trapped there by about 300 Leftists with whom they exchanged shots on Friday night. Today the town was calm, and the police said they were working as usual from their second station, despite demands from the Leftists that they should be permanently withdrawn. But with one person dead and 26 injured, it was the worst outbreak of violence since last year’s military coup.

The clashes, which started when the police tried to repulse demonstrators attacking a rally of the Popular Democrat Party, cast doubt on whether the election campaign due to start on March 20 can be held without serious bloodshed.

The troops, anxious not to be associated in people’s minds with the oppressive measures of the old regime, are clearly not prepared to take the offensive against attacks by Left-wing extremists. The police, aware that they

■are identified as the servants !of the old regime, have asIsumed a very low profile I since the April coup, leading |to widespread complaints that they are turning a blind I eye on compion crime. i The Setubal violence was i condemned by the militaryl dominated provisional Govjernment and by the three civilian parties which serve in it, the Communists, Socialists, and P.P.D. But a P.P.D. spokesman commented: “If this is what is happening now, what on earth will happen when the election campaign starts?”