Portugal: 'A grave moment’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33934, 29 August 1975, Page 9

Portugal: ' A grave moment’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LISBON, August 28. The pro - Communist Prime Minister of Portugal (General Goncalves) was cheered wildly last night when he told 35,000 people: “This is a very grave moment for our country. If we do not want to return to bloody Fascism, we must struggle.”

In the northern city of Oporto, 40,000 Socialists were demonstrating against the local pro-Communist military commander — reinstated on Sunday after being suspended last week — and against the Goncalves Government. General Goncalves and President Costa Gomes appeared before the crowd ' i Lisbon on the balcony of the Belem Presidential Palace to welcome the formation this week of a new Left-wing Popular Unity Front made up of Communists and allied parties. General Goncalves, whose presence at the rally was not announced until the last minute, spoke before the President, and was given a rousing reception to what was seen as a show of his determination to remain in office.

He and his provisional Government — the fifth since the coup d’etat that ended the Right-wing dictatorship in April of last year — have come under increasing attack in the last 2| months from non-Communist political parties and from sections of the Armed Forces Movement that headed the coup. The crowd gave General Costa Gomes, who is considered a moderate, a very different reception. It boo d and jeered at him at some points in his speech, and groups began to drift away as soon as he stepped to the microphone while others chanted: “Down with Social Democracy.” A storm of boos and whistles broke out when he said: “Your Front . . . will achieve a truly national di-

mension only when it includes all the other political forces indispensable for the construction of a new society.” In Oporto, there were no incidents during the demonstration against the regional army commander, Brigadier Eurico Corvacho: local proCommunist neighbourhood councils had appealed to the people not to join the demonstration.

The Socialist party, Portugal’s largest party, resigned from the Government last month and is strongly opposed to General Goncalves and his supporters. The Lisbon press yesterday put forward the Navy chief of staff (Vice-Admiral Jose Pinheiro de Azevedo) as another possible candidate for the Prime Ministership. Some newspapers had suggested previously that the Army chief (General Carlos Fabiao) might take over.

Violence increases Anti-Communist violence has increased throughout Portugal. Mobs rampaged through Leiria in central Portugal Leftist headquarters and yesterday, sacking three the homes and businesses of two leading pro-Communists. The police said that the crowds roamed the streets at will, burning several cars owned by known Leftists and beating up every Leftwinger they saw. Two were taken to hospital with serious injuries and others

| were treated for lesser | wounds. i In the northern- town of Esmoriz, crowds ransacked and burned the contents of the Communist headquarters after wounding with ’ shotguns two of the soldiers guarding the building. A bomb exploded beneath! the car of a Communist in the Madeira Island without, causing injuries. A second, bomb was found and defused in a Leftist party headquarters in Lisbon.

The Socialist Party issued a statement accusing the Communist and their supporters in the military of preparing an armed coup. “There is a putsch being prepared in the Lisbon area and in some regions of the south,” the statement said. In Lisbon tough Rightwing commandos burst into the offices of the Armed Forces’ Propaganda and Information Services after

1 its pro-Communist officers had threatened to defy the country’s military leadership. Armoured cars drew up outside the headquarters of the propaganda services — known as the fifth division — at dawn and commandos occupied all its other installations in the capital. The move came 24 hours after the Military Council of the Revolution suspended the activities of the fifth division, which had involved President Costa Gomes’s name without his consent in a propaganda campaign to keep General Goncalves in power.

Three British Broadcasting Corporation men who were filming the outside of the Fifth Division building were detained by ■ Portuguese troops for three hours. They had to hand over the film they had shot before being released.