Amidst controversy over former colonies. Marcelo on a three-day visit to Cape Verde

The Tarrafal camp, also known as the “slow death camp”, operated irregularly between 1936 and 1974 and received, in total, more than 500 people. Initially, it received Portuguese opponents of the regime.

Between 1936 and 1956, 36 people died at this location32 of which were Portuguese who challenged the dictatorial regime.

In a second phase, in 1962, it reopened under the name Campo de Trabalho de Chão Bom and received guerrillas from liberation groups from African countries. During this period, two Angolans and two Guineans died.

The Carnation Revolution allowed the end of this concentration camp, today the Resistance Museum. Fifty years later, this will be the central stage of the celebrations, which will feature the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, his Cape Verdean counterpart, José Maria Neves, and the Guinean president, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, and a representative of the president of Angola, thus completing the range of four countries of origin of political prisoners.

“Paying the costs” of the colonial past
The visit of the Portuguese head of state comes at a time when his statements about the former colonies have caused an uproar. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa defended, at a dinner with foreign journalists, that Portugal must “take full responsibility” for what it did in the colonial period and “pay the costs”.

Even after being criticized, the president insisted on his thesis. “We cannot put this under the carpet or in a drawer. We have an obligation to pilot, to lead this process, because if we do not lead it, taking responsibility, what happened to countries that, having been colonial powers, will happen after x years have lost the capacity for dialogue and understanding with the former colonies”, he warned last Saturday.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa gave as examples debt forgiveness, cooperation or granting lines of credit and financing. And he argued that the current Government should continue with the process of surveying the heritage assets of the former colonies in Portugal, started by the previous Government, to later return them.

“It is an issue that has to be dealt with by the new Government, in respect with the Government’s executive functions and has to be dealt with in contact with these States”, he declared.

In addition to the heritage of the former colonies, the head of state recalled that The problems of former combatants and those “dispossessed” of their property in former colonies remain to be resolved and forced to return to Portugal.

Marcelo’s agenda
Celebrations at the Tarrafal Concentration Camp take place on May 1st and include the unveiling of a commemorative plaque, a special session with heads of state and a conference about the Tarrafal field by historian Victor Barros.

In the afternoon, the presidents take a guided tour of the countryside and the day’s celebrations end with a concert with Mário Lúcio (Cape Verde), Teresa Salgueiro (Portugal), Paulo Flores (Angola) and Karyna Gomes (Guinea Bissau), with free entry .

Before that, this Tuesday, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa visits the Book Fair in the capital, Praia, where he is welcomed by his Cape Verdean counterpart. Then, the two visit the exhibition “50 Years of April – Before and After”, at the National Historical Archive of Cape Verde.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa ends the day with a welcome to the Portuguese community.

w/ Lusa