Colonial Wars, Colonial Alliances

The Alcora Exercise in the Context of Southern Africa

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4603258
AutoresMaria Paula Meneses (0000-0001-9812-2177, University of Coimbra), Celso Braga Rosa (University of Coimbra), Bruno Sena Martins (0000-0003-3367-9155, University of Coimbra, autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Volumen43
Número2
Páginas397-410
Fecha de publicación2017-03-04
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03057070.2017.1290413
OpenAlexW2595579864
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas6

Images of violence have marked the political landscape of southern Africa since the independence of Portuguese and British colonies. The recent discovery of secret documents attest to the alliance linking white supremacist governments in South Africa and Rhodesia with Portugal’s corporatist-fascist regime. This article focuses on the roots of so much of this violence: the formation of a little-known but crucial white alliance in the subcontinent, code-named ‘Exercise Alcora’, which aimed to perpetuate the minority regimes in the region. South Africa, Rhodesia and Portugal, with its two colonies of Mozambique and Angola, thus constituted a political project that sought to frustrate African liberation movements. A critical approach to the (re)construction of national memories is then crucial to understanding the roots of present-day social and political crises in southern Africa, as well as to recognising how important Exercise Alcora, as revealed in confidential documentation, was for the maintenance of white hegemony in this region until the very end of the 20th century. While South African-Rhodesian relations have been extensively dealt with in the literature, the relations between those countries and Portugal were more tenuous and shadowy

Alliance · Archaeology · Colonialism · Context (archaeology · Hegemony · Independence (probability theory · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Portuguese · Sociology · White (mutation · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Gender Studies · History · Law · South African History and Culture