SUMMARY
[Note to reader: this Country page primarily contains brief information about state-based violence during the period 1946–1974, and to some extent 1975–1988. For more detailed information on organized violence after 1989, please consult the specific Conflict and Dyad pages available on the left-hand side of this page. These pages contain more detailed information regarding all three categories of organized violence in this country from 1989 and onwards (when applicable), as well as detailed information about state-based violence 1975–1988. The left-hand side menu also contains links to Actor pages for all groups involved in organized violence since 1989 in this country, as well as actors involved in state-based violence 1975–1988.]
A major colonial power during the 15th and 16th century, Portugal lost much of its status with the break-away of its largest and most profitable colony Brazil in 1822. The first Portuguese Republic was established in 1910. After a period of instability marked by coup attempts and a brief military rule, António de Oliveira Salazar was appointed prime minister in 1932. Portugal remained under Salazar’s authoritarian government until 1968, when Salazar suffered a stroke and was succeeded by Marcelo Caetano.
At a time when other European countries began to withdraw from their colonies, Salazar and his successor were determined to maintain Portugal’s overseas empire. Thus, when pro-independence movements emerged in the largest Portuguese dependencies, Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea (present-day Guinea-Bissau) the colonial authorities attempted to suppress them.
From 1961 to 1974 Portugal fought extra-state conflicts against three Angolan pro-independence movements, the FNLA (Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola; National Front for the Liberation of Angola), the MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) and starting in 1966 the UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola; National Union for the Total Independence of Angola). Similarly, in Mozambique, the Portuguese were confronted by the insurgence of the Marxist-Leninist FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) from 1964 to 1974. In Portuguese Guinea the PAIGC (Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) launched an armed struggle in 1963 that continued until 1973.
The costly conflicts were increasingly regarded as futile among the Portuguese. Coupled with dissatisfaction within the military this led to the formation of the Armed Forces Movement that seized power in a bloodless coup in 1974. The Armed Forces Movement established a provisional military government, which ushered in a new democracy. By the end of 1975, Portugal had withdrawn from all of its colonies (with the exception of Macau).
Portugal provided secondary warring support to the government of Morocco against POLISARIO in a conflict over Western Sahara from 1975 to 1979. Portugal also joined international coalitions intervening in Kuwait 1991, in Yugoslavia (Kosovo) 1999, and the intrastate conflict in Iraq, which started in 2004. Moreover, Portugal sent troops to Afghanistan to support the USA against al-Qaida and to back the government against the Taleban in the 2000s.
Since 1946 Portugal has experienced the extra-state category of UCDP organised violence.
