Words and Deeds
Canada, Portugal and Africa

Publisher:  Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa, Canada
Year Published:  1977
Pages:  97pp   Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX450

These essays culminate three years of research by the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa (TCLSAC), an organization working in support of the liberation movement of Southern Africa and on issues which link the concerns of Canadians to these struggles.

Abstract: 
These essays culminate three years of research by the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa (TCLSAC), an organization working in support of the liberation movement of Southern Africa and on issues which link the concerns of Canadians to these struggles. The essays argue, that while Portugal was fighting to retain its colonial grips in Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Angola, "official Canada" paid lip service to African demands for freedom in these three territories. Yet, in practice, Canada supported the Portuguese economically, militarily, and diplomatically. The volume presents an in-depth study of the kind of duplicity which thus underlay this country's stance towards Portugal's wars in Africa - examining Canada's link of trade and investment to colonial Mozambique and Angola, its tacit involvement in NATO's backing of Portugal, and Canada's evasiveness, in the United Nations of Guinea-Bissau.

Ginea-Bissau, Mozambique and Angola are now independent. Nontheless, the authors argue that the precedent established by Canadian policy toward Portugal in Africa remains an instructive one. For, as the African struggle for freedom from white minority rule escalates elsewhere in Southern Africa - in Zimbabwe, Manibia and South Africa - the authors suggest that "Offical Canada" will again be drawn into the wrong side of the confrontation. For this reason, the present volume services as a continuing invitation to Canadians to examine and change those features of our society which have given rise to such unattractive and indefensible policies.