President of Portugal suggests debt cancellation to repair colonial legacy

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said Saturday that Portugal can use several methods to pay reparations for atrocities committed during the slavery and colonial era, such as canceling debts owed by former colonies and providing financing.

Between the 15th and 19th centuries, six million Africans were kidnapped, forcibly transferred across the Atlantic on Portuguese ships and sold into slavery, mainly to Brazil.

The president said on Tuesday that Portugal was responsible for crimes committed during transatlantic slavery and the colonial era and suggested that reparations were needed.

His words provoked strong criticism from right-wing parties, including the junior partner of the ruling Democratic Alliance coalition, the CDS-Partido Popular, and the far-right Chega party.

The leader of the CDS-Partido Popular parliamentary group, Paulo Nuncio, stated on Thursday that his party “does not need to revisit colonial legacies and reparation duties that seem imported from outside.”

Chega’s leader, André Ventura, said that the president’s behavior was a “betrayal of the country”.

“We cannot sweep this under the rug or put it in a drawer. We have an obligation to pilot, to lead this (reparation) process,” the president told reporters this Saturday.

He stated that the country needs to take “responsibility for the good and bad aspects of what happened in the Empire and draw the consequences.”

The country’s colonial era lasted more than five centuries, with Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor and some territories in Asia subject to Portuguese rule.

The decolonization of African countries and the end of the African empire came just months after the “Carnation Revolution” on April 25, 1974, which overthrew Europe’s longest fascist dictatorship and ushered in democracy.

Rebelo de Sousa said that reparations can take different forms, “such as debt forgiveness” for countries that were colonized, “lines of credit, financing and special cooperation programs.”