A
Silence Made of Flames:
The
logic of settler and indigenous Cruelty in
Colonial Guinea-Bissau (1956-1974)
In Memoriam of all
those who perished guilty of being innocent.
1.
Introduction
There is a common understanding that the Portuguese
Bullfights are less violent than the Spanish ones, given the fact that the bull
is not killed in the arena in front of everyone. Naturally, this is an
inaccurate assumption if one considers the torture inflicted to the bull in
both spectacles, independently of their different outcome. In this comparative
metaphor, however, it is possible to find the deepest roots of what is the
difference between simply killing and painfully orchestrating the other’s
death. Bullfights are widely described as cruel because their purpose, no
matter the regional nuances, is to inflict pain to the bull until it gives up
on resisting. This “infliction of pain” traditionally confirms, if successful, the
bullfighter’s superiority as his dominion over the bull aches to a performing Art[1]
by opposing the rational sophistication of a human to the brutish nature of an
animal. Simply killing the bull without
all the ceremony would undermine the artistic and visual meaning of the
spectacle.
Normally, what comes to define cruelty in such
situations is that there is a “wicked” purpose of planning and even phasing the
process of painfully killing a living being. Would it be, then, less cruel to
replace torturing the bull with simply killing? Would that not be equally “wicked” if one
considers that the bulls’ passiveness in their natural environment is
deliberately altered by enraging it when entering the arena? The bull’s violent
reaction is rationally provoked to posteriorly justify its own annihilation.
Two questions remain: 1) what triggers the bull to react in such violent way?
2) what is the rationale behind the need for triggering the bull’s violent
reaction?
The spectacle is the answer by exploring the bull’s
natural instinct to react, in a process that aims to attest one’s superiority who
would be originally weaker in confronting the first. Similarly, War is a brutal
spectacle for power. Somehow, the difficulty to understand War’s nature, like
in what happens with bullfights, derives from the difficulty of understanding
Cruelty as an end rather than just a mean. Resorting to Violence in War is not
always instrumental nor an illegitimate crime[2],
it might be one legitimate purpose of the war itself. Cruelty in warfare might
be situated in the tenuous line between the utilitarian instrumentality of killing
another that is equally willing to kill and the meaning of which that killing
is based and processed.
This dissertation proposes Cruelty as an autonomous
and a non-essentially contested concept within Theories on Violence, by
tracking its philosophical and theoretical understanding and tracing its
History as a means-to-an-end in conflicts. Being an end in of itself means that,
in specific situations, there is no instrumentality in resorting to Cruelty to
reach strategic advantage over the enemy. Cruelty can be an objective itself.
Thus, the core argument is that Cruelty is a rational element of
strategy-making, particularly in contexts of asymmetric conflict. The aim is to
refute the current Neo-liberal Paradigm that War is a deviation of Human
behaviour and the application of extreme physical violence can either be a
pathological issue or the product of bureaucratic War Practises of Reciprocity.
The argument will be tested in the case study of the Portuguese Colonial War in
Guinea-Bissau, whose focus will be the logic behind the enactment of Cruelty by
both settler and indigenous armed forces from 1956 to 1974.
2.
The
Concept of Cruelty
Nietzsche’s quote is not innocent as he did not
himself believe in conceptual innocence. If the scientific neutrality of concepts
has been contested since, at least, the last two centuries, their ethical
connotation is equally and necessarily questionable. What does define the wrongness
or the rightness of an action? Moral realism[4]
reports to existing undiscussable moral facts which will then define the moral
falsehood or truth of something. This is achieved by the individual’s rational
understanding of his actions’ morality. In this aspect, Sidgwick’s[5]
contribution of proposing “Methods of Ethics” is useful to track the very roots
of moral objectivity as being defined as a rational procedure by which one
determines what individuals should do or what is correct for them to do. For
instance, moral non-cognitivism[6] rejects
any kind of Moral’s objectivity as it depends on either individual or
collective interpretation. Thus, this and other questions on Morality are
intrinsically biased as no one can give an impartial answer, but rather express
a personal judgement/perspective. Nevertheless, this Meta-Ethics’ core problem
crosses all ranges of Social Sciences by observing social phenomena which are
themselves socially constructed and differently perceived. For instance, if one
is questioned on Cruelty, Cruelty is consensually condemned, despite the
absence of a proper definition of what cruelty. This is because there is not a
proper conceptualisation of Cruelty thus far. What makes Cruelty then so intrinsically bad?
Can something be cruel just because it is considered cruel?
Assuming so, Cruelty might take part in any episode
of our daily life as the term has been made banal by media outlets and
political speeches to condemn something. One can observe somehow what Arendt[7]
would call regarding the famous Eichmann’s trial the “banality of Evil”, where
people do evil without realising that they are practising it, but in an
opposite sense, since people see irrational cruelty everywhere when there is
not even a proper conceptualisation of what Cruelty could be. Cruelty is a
vulgar adjective to describe extremely violent crimes, psychological assaults
or slaughters within conflicts, frequently found in varied political and
intellectual discourse on these issues. Unconsciously, people generally even
establish some sort of hierarchy between different “existing levels” of
cruelty, which is inaccurate. Thus, that is why it is important to reflect on
whether Cruelty is an essentially contested concept or not and, thereafter, to
assess whether it has conceptual autonomy or if it is a mere derivation of a
broader concept of violence. Even if it fails to prove the conceptual autonomy
of Cruelty, understanding the phenomenon might be an important contribution to
the dissection of the logic on which Cruelty lies.
It is not possible, however, to
conceptualise Cruelty without firstly exploring the conceptual meaning of Violence.
Bufacchi defends that Violence should be conceptually understood in two
different perspectives: the narrower and the broader one[8]. The
narrower or the minimalist[9] explains
Violence as an exclusively physical and deliberated act of force, with the
purpose of destruction and harm against others’ physical or material integrity,
following the contributions of Geras[10],
Coady[11],
Dewey[12]
and Pogge[13].
Also important is the note made by Audi that “(…) violence in this sense is
always done, and it is always done to something (…)”[14]
as it is consequently restricted to the consciously perpetrated action rather
than anything else. The broader or the
comprehensive[15]
extends its analysis to other kinds of violence, such as the psychological as
proposed by Audi[16]
and developed by Galtung, generally in Conflicts. The latter claimed that a
different kind of violence was deathlier than the conventional one which has
been named by him as “structural violence”. Structural Violence reports to an
intrinsic violence to social structures that produces “unequal power and
consequently (…) unequal life chances”[17].
The Minimalist Concept of Violence will be the
methodological reference of this piece onwards for two main reasons: 1) the
physical nature of violent acts is empirically more reliable and objective than
psychological ones, despite being acknowledged that psychological violence exists
but as consequence of physical violence (e.g. massive rape is a type of
physical violence with strong psychological damages apart from the physically
obvious) 2) a narrow perspective on Violence allows approaches to be focused on
Cruelty as a rational element of strategy-making by only considering physically
observable acts as elements of violence, apart from normative considerations. Nevertheless,
Cruelty is widely regarded as a normative phenomenon given that is always
evaluated from a moral perspective, despite not even having clear subjective
parameters for being measured as such. Even violence, being accountable for the
physical marks it leaves, can be an object of conceptual contestability.
In literature, Toal[18]
points that Cruelty has been a matter of fascination from the beginning of the
XIX Century onwards by influence of Sade’s controversial literary contribution.
In this regard, an interesting observation was made by the French poet Antonin
Artaud who assumed that whenever he mentioned cruelty, people would immediately
associate it with blood. This is because the Latin etymological origin of the
word “cruel” is “cruor” that means
“flayed and bleeding flesh”[19]. Etymology of Cruelty, then, supports the
methodological option for the Minimalist Concept of Violence as it is
essentially physical, even according to the etymological origin of the term
“Cruelty”. Nevertheless, it cannot be ignored that the literary use of Cruelty
and its visual component impacts on other’s psychological integrity, which
might have contributed to Cruelty becoming a normative phenomenon. Such framing
is owed to a particularly individual, chronological, special and cultural
interpretation of it. For example, killing a cow in Portugal is not considered
cruel, but killing one in India is deemed so cruel that it is illegal, nor was
slavery as cruel (or illegal) in the XVII Century as it is seen nowadays. This
relative understanding derives from and contributes to Cruelty as an
essentially relative and contested concept.
Gallie[20]
enounced four essential conditions for a concept to be essentially contested:
1) it “accredits some kind of valued achievement”[21];
2) “this achievement must be of an internally complex character”[22];
3) “the accredited achievement is initially variously describable”[23]
and 4) the concept must be “open in character” by admitting “considerable
modification in the light of changing circumstances”[24].
Following this line of thought, De Haan framed Violence as an essentially
contested concept since it is, in his belief, universally accredited, variously
describable, has a “wide variety of definitions”[25], is
internally complex by creating “(…) ample controversies concerning the question
what violence is and how ought to be defined”[26] and,
finally, is revisable and modifiable whenever the debate requires without being
“prescribed”[27]
to previous definitions or further modifications. Why does the classification
of the concept of Violence as an essential contested concept matter for the
discussion over Cruelty being or not an autonomous concept? Not only Cruelty is
based on the conceptual complexity of Violence as it is not only read as its
wickedest exponent but also represents an essential contested concept itself by
mirroring the philosophical and theoretical debate on Violence and the various
perspectives on it. But if Cruelty stands for a mere conceptual reflection of
Violence, why not use Cruelty also as a synonym of Violence?
The reason is that from the Latin term “cruor”
derived both “crudelis” which contemporarily means “cruel” or the status of
something being in flayed and bleeding flesh and “crudus” which means something
“raw or indigestible”[28].
Two illations can be drawn from this fact. Firstly, Cruelty can only be conceptually
applied if regarding animal living beings as its core etymology refers
exclusively to bleeding flesh, contrary to the wider range of matters on which the
concept of Violence can be applied. In fact, Violence derives from the Latin
word “Violentia” which means “vehemence, a passionate and uncontrolled use of
force”[29]
which charges the concept with an intrinsic subjective charge as well with a
certain degree of irrationality. Conceptually, violence can either be observed
in acts against living beings or mere inanimate objects.
One may argue that the psychological dimension of
Violence might undermine the discretionary nature of objects on whom violence
is applied because to psychology, one needs to find consciousness in such
objects for them to be considered. However, the psychological dimension is a
consequence of the product of violence and neither a product by itself nor even
a mean which the reason for the structural nature of Violence lies on, as pointed
out by Galtung[30].
Violence depends on a diversely complex structure composed by several different
factors and inputs which then naturally lead to the various interpretations of
it. Secondly, Cruelty implies physical
violence as its consequences lead to severe and irreversible harm on whom it is
applied, according to the own etymological definition. More: being physical,
Cruelty leads to Cruelty as a product, which secondary damages or consequences
should not be fallaciously related to, because a flayed and bleeding flesh is a
product of objectively flaying flesh. Being conceptually focused on an
exclusively physical product, an act of Cruelty is rational as it defines a
scope of physical harm towards a considered target. A point which might allow
this dissertation to identify Cruelty as an end of strategy-making.
From this argument, one can deduce that Cruelty has been
conceptually misused by reporting to a subjective dimension that does not match
with its original meaning, objectively provoking harm in the flesh, if one can
summarise it so. The subjective dimension of Cruelty is product of a deviation
from the objectivity of “cruor” to the subjectivism of “crudus” as indigestible
began to be used as a literary synonym to express something that is not
tolerable.
What does define Cruelty, then? Cruelty can be
defined as an exclusively physical action in both means and ends by resorting
to extreme violence as a mean to achieve the end of expressly and irreversibly
damaging the physical integrity of others without any secondary goal. Following this logic, one can assume that
cruelty is neither an autonomous concept from Violence due to the first’s
exclusively physical nature nor an essentially contested concept because it was
found to be neither variously describable nor internally complex, not even open
in character. A beheaded head on a spike will always be objectively a beheaded
head on a spike, and therefore, a cruel sight.
Nevertheless, if they were rewarded, then harming
the other was not an end by itself. There was a secondary goal: getting
material benefits. One would be right in concluding as much, but would also be
ignoring the broader picture: they were rewarded because there was an end-goal
of exterminating the enemy. One should not confuse incentives with ends. It is
reasonable to observe that much of the historical examples of Cruelty were
materially incentivised but that does not invalidate that goals would physically
destroy the enemy’s integrity by going beyond conventional violence. In this
regard, Martin & Frayer[36]
pointed out that violence is not an exclusive phenomenon of warfare as there
was non-warfare violence in primitive societies that Rousseau previously
defined as “noble savages”[37].
The absence of War does not necessarily mean the absence of violence but, most
important of all, there is a kind of violence that escapes to the conventions
of war and even, if one wishes, that is not subjected to the Clausewitzian
understanding of violence being instrumental to achieve political goals.
A window is opened to the acknowledgement of
instrumental violence not having other goal rather than harming, which Cruelty
stands for[38].
For example, Robb’s argument was that violence should be understood in its own
cultural terms[39]
rather than being merely categorised as irrational. The fact French Jesuits did
not understand the “parallel and isomorphic”[40]
meaning of both body and spirit to the Huron tribe in Canada, while the first
described it as “innate barbarism”[41],
reveals that the object of analysis was obvious despite having a deeper meaning:
Iroquois prisoners were tortured, burnt alive and then beheaded to feed those
Huron villagers who were assisting to their executions. The meaning of violence
can be historically and culturally discussed as “the French equated the
excessive and unregulated cruelty with diabolical unreason”[42]
which was not perceived as such by the Huron, but the fact is that Huron
consciously inflicted harm to their prisoners according to a death ritual that
was an end by itself[43]. Consequently,
one might have the temptation of assuming Cruelty as a civilizational matter.
Nietzsche was the most prominent proponent of such
argument by stating that “almost everything that we call “high culture” is
based on the deepening and spiritualizing of Cruelty”[44].
Why is this? Nietzsche once questioned what both the Roman Gladiator, the
Spanish Torero and the Working-class Parisian have in common and the answer he
came up with was: they “aspired to drink (…) the spiced brew of the great Circe
“Cruelty””[45].
Cruelty, according to Nietzsche, is not just about making the others suffer but
also about our own sacrifice that is inspired by a deeper “religious sense”[46]
which can be found in men’s demand for knowledge against their own will. Thus,
this “intellectual sacrifice”[47]
is the very basis of a civilizational tendency for harming “the will of the
spirit”[48]
and making the infliction of pain a constant necessity for the drawing of
“appearances and surfaces”, producing a certain cultural and even individual
coherence.
Despite Cruelty being exclusively physical, there is
no contradiction as Nietzsche was referring to the centrality of suffering in
the making of civilizational legacies. A suffering that is constituted by the
inner appetency to inflict pain either in ourselves or in others because of
one’s own “desensualized and decorporealized”[49]
existence by obeying to higher puritan values. The idea of one being “decorporealized”
was enough for Nietzsche to believe that one stands before a phenomenon of Civilizational
Cruelty. It might be rightfully questioned if the concept of Cruelty fits in
such understanding, but the important point is that the physical component of suffering,
as the individual was being deprived of their own body, sustained Nietzsche’s
argument. Thus, Nietzsche’s understanding of Civilizational Cruelty does not
collide with the exclusively physical dimension of Cruelty. In fact, reinforces
it.
Nietzsche identified Cruelty as being more than a product
but a path by stressing that both Romans, Spaniards and Parisians shared that
common trace in different historical periods. Can it be proved? If so, what
does it imply for the understanding of Cruelty as an end? Jones found in the
Antiquity the roots of Cruelty as a social phenomenon by identifying Homer’s
commemoration of Agamemnon’s implacability with his enemies by leaving “(…)
none alive, down to the babies in their mothers’ wombs – not even they must
live” [50]
as the classical influence for the Western cultural pattern of extreme violence
as a mean. This would be latterly complemented by the Old Testament and the
Book of Genesis “where God decides “to destroy all flesh in which is the breath
of life from under heaven””[51].
These two combined would settle the basis for Cruelty to be an absolute and universal
phenomenon of transformation of a certain reality in favour of a radical new
one by the ultimate and total sacrifice of the living flesh. Ever again, one
should not interpret this as Cruelty being merely instrumental because, even
though the use of physical violence in these two examples was effectively
definitive as physically destroyed the other to impose an incoming change,
there was no other goal in those very specific episodes beyond the intrinsic
one of flaying the defeated flesh. Ironically, neither God nor King Agamemnon
needed to gain advantage over others - cruelty was the consummation of their
own irreversible advantage.
Those classical influences are crucial to
understand the cruel dimension of some particularly violent historical
phenomena such as the Crusades[52]
or the Inquisition[53]
but especially that of the French Revolutionary Period from 1789 to 1815, which
was the paradigm of contemporary other examples. According to Tilly, unresolved
tensions are not enough to explain the violent nature of Revolution[54]
as there is no linearity between the individual demands and the endurable
violence that is expressed in a “collective culture”[55]. This
distinction between the individual and the collective levels of violence is
important to contest the broader literature that associates phenomena of
cruelty as being a product of a collectively expressed violent tendency, driven
by individual impulses[56]. This
understanding of phenomena of Cruelty as confirming the validity of
Frustration-Aggression Theories was revealed to be insufficient to explain them.
Therefore, Dwyer has identified the extremely violent nature of the French
Revolutionary Period with the consequence of the “extreme (…) rhetoric calling
for the extermination of the enemy”[57] shared by both revolutionary and reactionary parties
of the conflict. One can argue that even this cruel way of violence is purely
an instrument to achieve political goals in this case. Indeed, there were
political and ideological goals in the massacres that occurred in both Vendee
Civil War and the subsequent Napoleonic military campaigns, but such does not
invalidate Cruelty as an autonomous and non- essentially contested concept. As
quoted by Dwyer “the “normal rules of war” disappeared”[58]. If
on one hand one could observe conventional violence taking a tactical place to
achieve political goals in this specific period, on the other hand there was
also a clear gap between the conventional political use of violence and
atrocities[59]
being frequently committed by both sides with no particular end.
For example, the sacking and massacre of Montellano,
a Spanish village, by Captain Ballue’s troops in April 1810 was justified by
urging to retaliation based on false facts[60].
The Peninsular War was particularly paradigmatic in what concerns to Cruelty
practised by both sides as Captain François remembered that usually “tongues
were torn out, ears and noses cut off, (…) [French] captives were slowly burnt
and flayed alive (…)”[61]. Dwyer
admits that these acts were usually carried out by lower ranks of the French
Army or by popular resistance as retaliation[62],
but the truth is that most of these acts were also encouraged and sometimes
dictated by higher ranks. [63]
If it is understandable that soldiers in their psychological[64]
and physical exhaustion could react more violently on brutal attacks perpetrated
against their comrades, the prior existence of instructions from higher-ranks to
commit atrocities cannot be understood in the light of retaliation. Not even
intimidation can be considered because the reaction towards the invader proved
to be fearless and equally brutal, once those attacks occurred, but especially
because both military codes and the 1796 French Penal Code prohibited such acts[65]. If
that is the case, what was the point of officers instructing their troops to burn
and eradicate entire villages in the most violent way possible when they were
consciously already enjoying strategic advantage?
Hull, for instance, suggested that extremely violent
war practises might have been a product of “institutional routines and
organisational dynamics”[66]
without being driven by a rigid totalitarian ideology. Such argument was
applied to the German massacre of Herero tribes in Southwest Africa from 1904
to 1907, as the author stated that was the Prussian military culture of
actionism[67]
and annihilation “as the sole goal of war”[68] which made the German Army more prone to
resort to extreme solutions[69]
towards the eradication of their enemies. However, there are two debatable
points in this assumption: 1) Hull is not considering colonialism and the logic
of civilizational superiority as an ideological driver for such a product,
which is not accurate as Ferguson[70] would
notice when asked what had made the XX Century so bloody; 2) it is important to
conceptually distinguish genocide from cruelty as the first is perpetrated with
clearly socio-political goals of extermination[71],
while the second does not stand for it. While genocide has the sole goal of
eradication of communities according to their breed or culture, Cruelty is a
goal by itself with no other purpose rather than destroy by inflicting
exclusively physical harm to opponents, regardless of any other identities they
have.
This is an important note because there is a
tendency to identify genocides as acts of Cruelty when they are not. Shooting
or gassing thousands is not the same thing as dozens being hanged by their own
bowels or being buried alive with their mutilated genitalia in their mouths,
not even at a theoretical level. That is also the reason why this chapter will
not approach the German Holocaust or the Chinese Cultural Revolution as part of
Cruelty’s historical path. But if Cruelty is neither a mean to political goals
nor a product of military cultures, as was shown above, what is the rationale
behind it?
By not having a coherent argumentation, rather than
simply assume that arguing could reasonably replace resorting to violence on solving
queries and conflicts, those who oppose the acceptance of Violence’s
rationality adopt a subjective position which is based on ethical appreciations
of such a mean as being intrinsically wrong. Is that wrong? Mill refuted[75]
this notion by suggesting that an action could be right or wrong not depending
on its instrumental utility nor on its benefits but rather on the understanding
that the individual derives from it. Then, the remaining question is what takes
someone to painfully killing the other? Sustaining that killing is an emotive
act fails to address the question of killing by duty. Consequently, what takes
someone from killing by duty to start enacting Cruelty as it was previously
conceptualised?
Three justifications over this issue have been
suggested: 1) the excitement of danger activates a Freudian death instinct
which motivated “men keep fighting because they wanted to.” as Ferguson
suggested[76];
2) the so called “death instinct” is a product of an intensive training as
Bourke[77]
pointed out that recruits were initially reluctant in killing in World War One because
they were being taught all their lives that killing would be morally wrong; 3) Gray,
for instance, alluded to “the delight of destruction” as men sought some
compensation[78]
for their war efforts by cruelly torturing and killing the opponent. Such explanation
might also be found in an unexperienced sense of freedom that Nadelson[79]
observed in Vietnam’s fighters. Both Gray and Nadelson share the belief that
killing has the purpose to fill some sort of a gap as both also agreed that
violence is indeed instrumental to do it. Moreover, both perspectives report to
some sort of rational process of inputs and outputs, which synthetises the act
of killing by duty in a linear sequence of an imposed context, a necessary
choice and an unavoidable consequence. Thus, where does Cruelty fit in?
This Dissertation proposes Cruelty to be a
cumulative process of “creative destruction”[80]
being subjected to the principles of the emergence theory of creativity: 1)
Constraint; 2) Application; 3) Ideology. Regarding Constraint, performing
Cruelty is a micro-level phenomenon as it is not widely spread nor commonly
observed, which makes it locally constrained either by physical or human
factors. Regarding Application, those
situations have a “microdomain”[81] –
an unreproducible all-or-nothing environment where conflicting parties are
constrained by a mutual animosity built on the pursuit of different and
irreconcilable social, political, economic and cultural absolute goals that
drive them to a definitive but unknown solution in terms of action and its temporal
and spatial distance. The fact of not knowing the outcome originates
“constrained generating procedures”[82]
which can be a gradually driven offensive against the enemy by rationally
increasing the degree of violence and harm applied as the outcome is becoming
to be known. Like an entrepreneur who gradually constructs his final product by
testing and sophisticating the creative approach based on preferences and
utilities[83],
those enacting Cruelty follow the same logic of sophisticating the violence
that is applied until an end of physical destruction of the opponent is finally
reached at the microdomain. Finally, regarding Ideology, one must consider that
if absolute goals are ad principium dogmatic, there is no space for alternatives. Thus[84],
those fighting for absolute goals and causes would give up on their own lives,
as an absolute value per se, to make such goals possible. Being a binary
option, either to live or to die for the cause, procedures will be consequently
framed by rational choices, even without being evident, as Kauffman suggested[85].
Another Clausewitzian trope is the enemy’s total
destruction as an effective form of winning a war. What is interesting here to
the matter of Cruelty from this Clausewitz’s proposition is the concept of “adversary’s
centre of gravity”[88]
which concerns with dominating “enemy’s will”[89].
Clausewitz meant that either to control or to defeat opponents, one must provoke
them the strong impression that waging war would led to an “infinite
prolongation of conflict”[90]. This
is usually known as threat of escalation which is one threatening other by
using of force as a bargain and resorting to a demonstration of a “real
ability”[91]
of implementing it. This sequence of concepts is relevant as acts of Cruelty
are usually described as acts of dissuasion by supposedly portraying a proper
symbolism when applying extreme violence against adversaries (combatants or
non-combatants). These have been wrongly interpreted as signals of warning that
a major brutality could be further enacted.
This assumption is not accurate as it fails to
consider that Cruelty has no other scale rather than the physical perishability
of the human body. Cruelty is circumstantial, surgically applied to an event
which has not the possibility of being escalated. It was written previously
that a head on a spike was nothing else than a head on a spike, which means that
an act of Cruelty cannot be escalated to something else. One might
counter-argue that retaliation could be understood as a form of escalation of
an act of Cruelty. However, retaliating is not escalating the conflict, it is
just confirming the already observable violence within the conflict. A
subsequent counter-argument might be the proportionality of such response, but
the point is that Cruelty is not proportional ad principium because of its
cumulative nature. One cannot measure the proportionality of something when the
measurement in observance is unfixed. Plus, an act of Cruelty occurring means
that the threat of escalation was ignored before the imminent conflict started.
Thus, Cruelty can neither be understood as an act of dissuasion nor an act of
retaliation. As a cumulative process, Cruelty cannot be a cause but just a
consequence.
Can consequences
be part of strategic thinking? If one understands Strategy as a “system of
thought leading to action”[92]
by resorting to a rationalised use of violence[93]
as a means to pursue an end, certainly yes because action is in this case a
necessary consequence of thought. Following Betts’s suggestion that “strategies
are chains of relationships among means and ends”[94], this
interdependency stands for Cruelty as a rational element of strategy-making
process by implicitly acknowledging that consequences also structure and
systematise the process that leads to them. Cruelty is therefore an end that
shapes the process that leads to it. Despite being an unknown end at the
beginning, its cumulative nature determines that the gradual achieving of itself
is obtained precisely with that interdependent interaction among means and
ends. Is it possible to prove this empirically, though? The selected case-study
is the strategic purpose of enactments of Cruelty perpetrated by both parties[95]
at the Portuguese Guinea’s Liberation War, between 1956[96]
and 1974.
The shared History between Portugal and
Guinea-Bissau started in the XV Century when the first expeditions[97]
reached the coast of Guinea’s Gulf. The fate of Guinea-Bissau as a marginal
player within the Portuguese Empire started at the same period when King Afonso
V granted the commercial and exploration monopoly of this area to Fernão Gomes[98],
a merchant from Lisbon, who was responsible for the establishment of Elmina
Castle[99]
in 1483[100].
As Guinea-Bissau’s mainland was of difficult access and limited in natural
resources[101],
“tiny areas of old colonial elite (…) emerged”[102]
in Gulf’s different archipelagos, namely Cape Verde and Bolama[103]
(which was the first colonial capital of Guinea until 1942, after being
replaced by Bissau[104],
the current capital of the country), where the Portuguese initially established
off-shore settlements resorting to the abduction and forced exile of Jewish
children there[105].
Until Berlin’s Conference in 1885, very little Portuguese presence was noticed
in Guinea’s mainland which “was not “pacified” until the late 1930’s”[106]
This is an important historical note because, as Chabal pointed out, both
geographic[107]
and human factors[108]
played against an effective Portuguese colonisation of Guinea. That process,
though, was mainly led by ”Cape Verdean Creoles and Christian Guineans”[109]
who fought against other natives and ethnic groups on behalf of the Portuguese
Authorities during the pacification campaigns of 1890-1915[110].
During this period, the first movement of proto-nationalism emerged with the
Guinean League[111][112]
which would later inspire the emergence of PAIGC[113]
in 1956.
This historical contextualisation shows that the
complexity of the process of colonisation and the solidity of anti-colonial
resistance helped to shape one of the three principles of Cruelty as “creative
destruction”: ideology. On both sides, one observes two absolute ideologies
competing for a hegemonic legitimacy. On one side, the liberation movement led
by Amílcar Cabral, PAIGC, which was politically Marxist-oriented but deeply
rooted in African Traditional Elements, such as Animism[114],
by calling to a “Re-Africanisation”[115]
at all cost of Guinea-Bissau. The spiritualisation of Africanism was also
determinant to “inciting its supporters (…) to make sacrifices and even do
miracles”[116]
as divine intervention would prevent them from being killed[117]
by the Portuguese. On the other side,
Estado Novo’s ideology determined that Portugal was a multiracial[118][119]
egalitarian[120]
state, despite the Colonial Act of 1930 having established a differentiation[121][122]
regime among Indigenous[123]
and Assimilated – in Guinea, they were just about 0.3%[124]
of the population. This belief on the benevolent Exceptionalism[125]
of Portuguese Colonisation enthusiastically mobilised thousands of young and unexperienced
soldiers[126]
to the colonies under the singing motto “Punish the invaders / with ancestral
fearlessness! / To detain!/ To Mangle! / To Win! / To Chase Out!”[127].
There was neither space for conciliation nor tolerance.
This generalised tendency of identifying the
supporters of liberation movements with invaders or even inferior animals, that
had to be chased and hunted, had its influence on the military action. Second-Lieutenant
Pádua remarked that “if they cut off our ears, we had to cut their ears off as
well. That was the official language.”[128],
which one might deduce as being an example of reciprocity. However, other
testimonies pointed in a different direction. The refractory Baginha described
“There were very ferocious bombardments over Tabancas[129]
[Guinean villages] … [The Portuguese] burnt every plantation they found, rice
plantations, everything… There were also daunting stories from Schulz’s period
[Governor of Guinea from 1964 to 1968] of boats that went up River Geba[130]
with people tied by their hands and feet behind their back that were thrown out
to the river alive…”.[131] Two elements must be highlighted in this
testimony: 1) a clear identification of a superior hierarchical responsible,
which refutes the idea that only low-ranks are prone to enact Cruelty in
extreme cases of retaliation; 2) identification of a period that is
particularly characterised by those “awful stories”, which means that a
considerable number of incidents shared common features such as the responsible
military hierarchy and the gravity of them.
Two other reports made by non-identified
refractories to Dutch NOS broadcasting company in the 60’s confirmed the
previous scenario: 1) “One of the operations that revolted me the most was one
between Bula and Có[132],
when the Commandant ordered the whole population to be gathered, to keep the
young girls apart and send the others back inside the village. Then, they burnt
the all village, raped the young girls. They were lieutenants, sergeants… At
the end, they ordered to kill them all…”[133];
2) “As a Section Commandant, belonging to the Parachutist Division, I was
forced to act as a murderer, despite being against it… But I was the Section
Commandant, I had to give the example, otherwise my superiors would persecute
me… I saw them burning entire villages as I did it as well, killing children, killing
women…”[134].
The entire commitment and participation of superior ranks of the Portuguese
Army in ordering, forcing the execution and perpetration of such acts, with no
context of previous PAIGC’s similar attacks, becomes clear. When observing such
operational resemblances among those episodes, can one identify them as part of
a major strategy? If so, what was the purpose? Both previously described
locations that were geographically isolated, so the fear effect did not exist
at least as it should be expected. And if no one survived to spread the word of
such Cruelty as dissuasion, what is the strategic advantage of doing it?
Both descriptions validate Cruelty as an end derived
from a cumulative process of “creative destruction”. Firstly, regarding constraint,
one observes that both episodes occurred in isolated areas, which makes it
physically constrained, and that both episodes were constrained to the
Portuguese Army facing defenceless native populations. Secondly, regarding
application, the notion of micro-domain is reinforced where two parties shared
mutual animosity based on the differences we already explored, that drives one
of the parts to definitive but unknown solution. Those military companies
arrived at those villages but they did not know the outcome as natives may have
been able to resist them or an ambush may have been planned, which happened
frequently. So, the outcome, the enactment of Cruelty, is gradually constructed
resorting to constrained generating procedures, in fact methods to gradually and
painfully destroy those identified as opponents in that specific temporal and
special frame. One might raise the issue of those populations being unarmed and
thus non-combatants, but in a context of Liberation Wars, being a sympathiser
of liberation movements or simply living in a liberated area transforms one’s
image into that of the enemy.
Various reports confirm this idea. For example, in
the day after the attack to Tite Military Base on 23rd January 1963,
when the Liberation War in Guinea officially started, Guinean Folk Singer Sambu
described that “Captain Curto [a Portuguese Officer] (…) used to behead people
and then send their heads to their parents, saying: “Here’s your child’s head””[135].
This pattern of violence is also confirmed by the following statement: “It was
torture, violence… Everything!... (…) Sometimes, they [the Portuguese Army]
caught people, tied them up to cars and then they turned on the engine, started
moving and dragged them on the ground till they were dead…”[136] Other
example is reported by Corporal Silva Ramos regarding the treatment of PAIGC
alleged collaborators: “The way they treated prisoners[137]
was using the electric chair, whip lashes, lighting matches in their noses (…)
cutting off their fingers and putting them in bottles (…)”[138]
Simultaneously however, the PAIGC followed a similar
strategy not against the Portuguese, at a first stage, but against their own
populations who had not adhered to the movement. Forced recruitment by abduction
was described by Pedro Pires (PAIGC) as “not being the pretty thing as most of
the people say… (…) Many people joined the liberation cause as fighters because
it was imposed by (…) PAIGC”[139].
Other tendency of Cruelty’s enactment was observed until The First Party’s
Congress in the liberated area of Cassacá in February 1964, which centralised
the decision and action structures of the movement, as “various chiefs of PAIGC
used to burn people alive under the conviction of witchcraft (…) In other
areas, they used to pierce people’s eye”[140].
After the movement being organised and centralised, these acts started to be
observed against the Portuguese settlers by imitation of what other liberation
movements were doing in Angola and Mozambique. A paradigmatic example of such
acts is described by Merchant Cruz Alegre: “(…) I’ve seen a naked woman and her
little child all mangled on the ground (…)”[141]
The destruction of the very physical presence of the
enemy, as it has been presented with resort to these last testimonies, stands
for Cruelty as a rational element of strategy-making: absolutely destroying the
other in a micro-scale where advantage is used not to be expanded but to be
reinforced. This “illusion” of strategic advantage convinced soldiers from both
parts that they fighting to be victorious. The gradual application of violence
was just the way that those command structures find to empower their exhausted
men by giving them the management of their own force and inciting them to
explore it to the extreme. The point of being cruel is, then, being rationally
and deliberately cruel. The notion of creating destruction should be sufficient
to the perpetrating of acts of Cruelty as understood as strategically useful.
This is because Cruelty is the last stage of destroying the enemy as Clausewitz
suggested by reinforcing the troops’ own morale without having to destroy enemy’s
morale first.
6.
Conclusion
Divided in four chapters, this dissertation broached
Cruelty in its conceptual understanding, in its History, in its rationality
and, finally, in its strategic utility to prove that Cruelty is factually a
rational element of strategy-making. Conceptually, one concluded that Cruelty
is, indeed, an autonomous and non-essentially contested concept as it was
proved to be an exclusively physical phenomenon which lies on the utter undoing
of the body’s integrity without any secondary goal rather than the end of
destroying the other. It was also acknowledged the role of Violence as a mean
and not as synonym of Cruelty, thus contesting a widely spread understanding
that is also profoundly wrong according to the evidence shown, and based on the
term’s Latin etymology. The objectivity present in an act of Cruelty makes the
core argument supporting the essential contestability of Cruelty’s concept as a
wrongly perceived subjective matter
invalid.
Historically, Cruelty was originally described by
Nietzsche as a civilizational phenomenon which was validated by resorting to
anthropological and historical evidences of Cruelty being a cultural process
with the end being Cruelty itself. The biblical legacy of God’s omnipotent capacity
to destroy “all the flesh” led others to emulate such power and became
incorporated in their own way of thinking and projecting others’ destruction. Analysing
the validity of Cruelty as a product of Frustration-Aggression Theories, one
could observe that such an idea has no proper foundation, as Cruelty stood for
rational purposes rather than emotional ones. Another hypothesis that was
rejected was Cruelty being a product of bureaucratic war cultures because
Cruelty does not seek other goals rather than Cruelty itself as Cruelty is not
instrumentally tactical. Regarding the rationale of it, Cruelty was framed within
the emergence theory of creativity by being subjected to the principles of
“creative destruction” and being consequently identified as a cumulative
process.
Finally, Cruelty as a Strategy was verified as being
exclusively applied to micro-domains as an end and product of the previously
mentioned cumulative process of “creative destruction”, which was used by command
to both improve troops’ morale in extreme environments as well as inflicting
definitive and total defeats on the enemy in a micro-scale. Other interesting
conclusion is that Cruelty is only applied within contexts of contested
superiority with an unknown outcome. The
essential question of this dissertation was what was the purpose of being
cruel, if cruelty was not an instrument. The final response might be both polemic
and unsatisfactory because, similarly to the logic underlying bullfights, the
rational purpose of cruelty is not to prove superiority but to test it like if
it was a product. A product of the performing art which is the destruction of
the other.
7.
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8.
Appendix
A – Maps and Pictures
1 – A Map of Guinea Bissau. Source: Wikimedia
Commons
2 - Aerial view of Bissau in the 60’s. In
the center, the Government Palace and the Empire Square. Source: Edição Foto Serra
3 – Distance between Bula and Có. Source: Google
Maps
4- Tabancas were the villages where the Indigenous used to live in remote areas of Guinea. Such exotic places used to provoke great curiosity on Portuguese soldiers as the third photos shows two men posing there, probably to send it back to their families or just for territorial recognition purposes. Source: Francisco Da Mata’s Personal Archive
6
and 7 – Negatives of unsuccessful military manoeuvres in surrounding areas of
Geba River. Source: Francisco Da Mata’s
Personal Archive
8- Capture of PAIGC collaborators. This photo is interesting because both semblances do not show any kind of fear or worry, which indicates a certain degree of confidence from PAIGC on keeping the war going. Source: Francisco Da Mata’s Personal Archive
9-
Indigenous Barber being observed by Soldier.
10-
The preparation of an Animistic ritual.
Source:
Francisco Da Mata’s Personal Archive
11
– Battalion marching over the streets of Bissau. Source: Francisco Da Mata’s Personal
Archive
13
– Portuguese Officer in Guinean Balante [ethnic group] traditional warrior
costume. Source: Francisco Da Mata’s
Personal Archive
14 – Differentiation: The Child of Portuguese Settlers is posing to photography with Indigenous Servants. Source: Francisco Da Mata’s Personal Archive
Pictorial Sources:
·
"A Map of Guinea Bissau." Map. Wikimedia
Commons, the free media repository. October 24, 2007. Accessed July 29, 2017. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Un-guinea-bissau.png&oldid=147157522.
·
Da Mata, Francisco Coelho Vitorino. "Various Photography."
Cartoon. In Personal Archive. Guinea-Bissau, 1964-1968.
·
Distance between Bula and Có. Map. Google Maps.
Accessed July 29, 2017. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Bula, Cacheu,
Guinea-Bissau/Co, Guinea-Bissau/@11.8223791,-14.9905674,9z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0xee6e3bd42a8f597:0x15dc1daa089f8217!2m2!1d-15.7087128!2d12.1062929!1m5!1m1!1s0xee71ddb5394db59:0x88577950ce78fde1!2m2!1d-15.811862!2d12.0806799!3e0?hl=en.
·
Edição Foto Serra. "Bissau." Digital
image. Luís Graça & Camaradas da Guiné . March 29, 2014. Accessed July 29,
2017. https://blogueforanadaevaotres.blogspot.co.uk/2014_03_23_archive.html.
9.
Appendix
B: Acknowledgements
In
first place, I would like to show my profound gratitude to Dr Frederick Laker,
Dr James Hughes and Dr Heather Jones for believing in my subject and advising
me on the bibliography. I would also like to praise the Government Department
for their academic excellence and professional competence in providing me a
notable experience of a challenging intellectual activity.
At
last, but definitely not the least, I would like to thank my parents for their
hard-work and their never-fading support to all my academic, personal and
professional aspirations.
Thank you all very
much.
[2] “I
find myself in the somewhat painful position of holding that no single one of
the combatants is justified in the present war, while not taking the extreme
Tolstoyan view that war is under all circumstances a crime.” in Russell, The
Ethics of War.
[4]
“They maintain that there are moral facts and that our moral statements are
capable of being true or false in virtue of the moral facts.” in Sheehy, Doing the Right Thing (Part I)
[6]
“Non-cognitivists tend to argue that moral claims are subjective sentiments of
approval or disapproval or expressions of emotion or grounded in convention,
agreement or our acceptance of norms.” in Sheehy, Doing the Right Thing (Part
I)
[7] “As
for the base motives, he was sure that he was not what he called (…)a dirty
bastard in the depths of his heart—and as for his conscience, he recalled
perfectly well that he would have had a bad conscience only if he had not done
what he had been ordered to do (...)” in Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem – I
[10] “
(…) the exercise of physical force so as to kill or injure, inflict direct harm
or pain on, human beings (…)” ibid
[11] (…)
normal or ordinary understanding of the term ‘violence’ is in terms of
interpersonal acts of force usually involving the infliction of physical injury
(…)” in ibid ,195
[12]
(…) violence is force gone wrong, or, put another way, force that is
destructive and harmful (…)”, ibid.
[13] “(…)
a person uses physical violence if he deliberately acts in a way that blocks
another’s exercise of her legitimate claim-rights by physical means (…)”, ibid
[20]
“Then I shall list, with a view to logical “placing” of this kind of concept, a
number of semi-formal conditions to which any concept of this must conform (…)”
in Gallie, Essentially Contested Concepts, 169
[27] “(…)
and such modification cannot be prescribed or predicted in advance.” Gallie,
Essentially Contested Concepts, 172
[34] “(…)
modified the hunter-gatherers’ social structure (…) toward an increase in the
size of bands and a decrease in consultation and gender equality” ibid
[38]
“Both pain and suffering, should therefore, be included in any definition of
cruelty.” in Tanner, Clarifying the Concept of Cruelty, 819
[39] “(…)
One way to demonstrate this is to examine cases when
violence cannot be understood as a function of these other factors and must be
interpreted upon its own terms.” In Robb, Meaningless Violence and the lived
body – the Huron-Jesuit Collision of World Orders, 90
[43] “(…)
the French did not object to torturing people to death per se, but it
had to be on their own terms. For the Hurons, inflicting pain, like warfare,
was an end in itself (…)” ibid
[52] “The
scenes of torture and public spectacle were duplicated by Christians themselves
during Europe’s medieval era (approximately the ninth to fourteenth centuries
CE). This period produced onslaughts such as the Crusades: religiously
sanctified campaigns against “unbelievers,” whether in France (the Albigensian
crusade against heretic Cathars) or in the Holy Land of the Middle East.” Ibid,
5
[53]
“Bernard Gui gives us a sketch of the ideal inquisitor. He is (…) careful in
his sentences that no ground shall be given for the charge of cruelty or
rapacity.” In Turberville, Medieval Heresy and the Inquisition, 179
[59] “The
sacking of towns, during which soldiers committed murder and rape in what is
often described as an uncontrolled ‘frenzy’, was part and parcel of
eighteenth-century warfare.” Ibid, 385
[62]
“Veterans were more prone to explaining the violent excesses they were guilty
of in terms of retaliation for the types of atrocities committed against the
French.” Ibid, 388
[63]
“Napoleon could be just as brutal; he was known to have urged the eradication
of villages for resisting.” Ibid
[64]
“(…)the basic psychological motive, or cause, of violent behaviour is the wish
to ward off or eliminate the feeling of shame and humiliation – a feeling that
is painful and can even be intolerable and overwhelming – and replace it with
its opposite, the feeling of pride.” In Jones, Genocide – A Comprehensive
Introduction, 268
[65] “(…)
dispensed harsh punishments for those caught looting, raping or killing (…)
Dwyer, It still makes me shudder, 386
[67] “(…)
a romantic ruthlessness and actionism (exaggerated driven for action (…) on the
part of officers in order to bridge the gap between risk and reality (...)”
ibid, 2-3
[69] “(…)
standard operating procedures and developing doctrine on how best to fight
wars; in both, one can identify the tendency toward extreme warfare (Kriegführung)
produced by military culture.” Ibid, 2
[70] “(…)
the twentieth century’s problems were the consequences of extreme versions of
political ideologies (…) as well as earlier evil -isms, notably imperialism.”
in Ferguson, The War of the World, XXXVII
[71] “The
perpetrator intended to destroy, in whole or in part, that national, ethnical,
racial or religious group, as such.” Article 6 (3), Elements of Crime, International
Criminal Court
[72] “If
one reasons with an opponent, one might persuade him by one’s arguments and get
what one wants without injury to either.”
Magil, Justification for Violence ,1090
[73] “That one should be open to either possibility is characteristic
of what Popper takes to be the attitude of reasonableness: a commitment to
give-and-take discussion.” ibid
[74] “If there are reasons for thinking that one’s opponent’s
willingness to negotiate is a pretense, or that negotiations are being
deliberately drawn out, this can also be weighed against alternative means.”
Ibid, 1091
[75] “If, then, it is asserted that there is a
comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and
that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may
be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by
proof.” In Mill, Utilitarianism
[77] “(…)
recruits expressed an inherent resistance to killing and that this had to be
overcome by training. (…)” ibid
[78]
“Happiness is doubtless the wrong word for the satisfaction that men experience
when they
are possessed by
the lust to destroy and kill their kind. . .” ibid, 230
[79] “He
argued that once an initial resistance had been overcome in training, soldiers
became addicted to the excitement and sense of freedom created by the licence
to kill, while the act itself could assume the quality of sexual arousal or
drug-induced ecstasy.” Ibid, 230
[80] “(…)
phrase for entrepreneur-driven innovation originally proposed by Joseph
Schumpeter—clearly
the theoretical
emphasis is on the creative side of the furor.” Liu, Thinking Destruction, 1-2
[81] “(…)
In the microdomains where creativity starts, everything is perspectivally or
locally enframed. After all, the cardinal rule of emergence theory is that
there is no knowledge or action at a distance, whether spatial or temporal.
(…)” ibid 10
[82] “(…)
Holland speaks of “constrained generating procedures,” he focuses on a
micro-scale far below that of the usual discussions of (…) other constraint
(…)” ibid
[83]“ (…)
I earlier instanced so strictly implement one of the favorite teaching examples
of rational choice theory: the “menu” of choices with calculable “preferences”
or “utilities. The decision trees of such algorithms—off vs. on, if vs.
then—are unambiguous instantiations of rational choice that clarify the logic
of preference interactions via hard-coded rule (…) ibid
[84] “(…)
war’s tendency to escalate to even greater violence, the more the passions of
the people are involved (…)” Heuser in Clausewitz, On War, p. XXVIII
[85] “Kauffman
at last brings emergence theory to bear on “our” ideology (…) Western
cognitive, artificial intelligence (…) celebrate their cause as a way to swear
allegiance to democracy without seeming also to swear by any old-fashioned
individualism, nationalism, or industrial capitalism making rationalist decision
(…) in the background” ibid 12
[88]
“Schwerpunkt [German original term] (…) is the attack of the main forces of the
enemy in what should become a decisive battle, in which the enemy’s army is
beaten devastatingly and bloodily (…)” Ibid, XXIX-XXX
[95] “(…)
war cannot be determined unilaterally and are instead produced by the
interaction of both (or all) parties to a conflict.” Wirtz, Book Reviews, 115
[99]
Located in Ghana, Elmina Castle was established with the purpose of trading
gold and slaves from Guinea’s Gulf.
[107]
“This, then, was the territory over which the Portuguese exercised control in
the thirties: (…) small and poor territory with no apparent resources and a
reputation for a fearsome climate.” Ibid
[108]“The
main ethnic groups in Guinea (Fulas, Mandingas, Manjacas and Balantes) are
related to those of adjacent French-speaking countries (…). Up to one third of
the inhabitants of Guinea are Muslim, most notably Fulas and Mandingas. The
rest are animist since only a handful were Christianised.” Ibid
[109] “(…)
Cape Verdean Creoles and Christian Guineans, locally called Kriston, who had
for centuries been active commercial brokers on the Guinean Mainland”, Havik,
Virtual Nations and Failed States, 46
[111] “(…)
Liga Guineense (1910-1915), an association of Cape Verdean Creoles and local
Kriton Elders (…) which shared a nativist platform with proto-nationalist
elements” Ibid
[117]
“(…) I prayed to the Lord asking (…) that nothing could harm us, not even
bullets (…) Closed my eyes, prayed and
moved forward. (…)” Own Translation from “Eu pedia a Deus que nos ajudasse e
nada nos atingisse nem que as balas nos tocassem ou passassem perto de mim ou
dos meus camaradas. Fechava os olhos, fazia a oração e avançava.” In A Guerra,
Furtado (Dir.), perf. Agostinho de Sá (PAIGC)
[127] Own
translation from the original “(…) Aos invasores/
Castigar com Destemor/ Ancestral / Deter, Destroçar, / Vencer, Escorraçar. (…)”,
which is the extract of the most famous War Anthem “Angola is Portugal”
composed by Duarte Pestana and written by Santos Braga. Interpreted in June
1961 by National Federation for Joy in Work (FNAT). In RTP, Canções de Guerra.
[128] Own translation from “(…) Se nos cortavam as orelhas, tínhamos de
cortar-lhes as orelhas também… Era a linguagem oficial.” In A Guerra, Furtado
(Dir), perf. Mário
de Pádua.
[131] Own translation from “Havia bombardeamentos contra tabancas de uma grande
ferocidade… Queimavam-se as culturas, do arroz, de tudo o que lhes aparecesse à
frente… Havia histórias muito más (…) sobretudo do tempo do Schulz… Desde
barcaças que subiam o Geba com gente amarrada de pés e mãos atrás das costas e
que eram despejadas vivas para o rio…” in
Ibid, perf. Fernando Baginha.
[133] Own translation from “Uma operação que foi a que me encheu mais de
indignação foi entre Bula e Có, quando o Comandante da Força que lá estava
ordenou tirar as raparigas mais novas, meter as outras lá dentro. Queimou a
aldeia toda, violou as raparigas, ele e vários furriéis, sargentos… e no fundo,
mandou matá-las a todas.” in Ibid, perf. 1st Anonymous Refractory.
[134] Own translation from “ Como Comandante de Secção e como pertencendo às
tropas paraquedistas, fui obrigado muitas das vezes a actuar como um assassino,
embora fosse contra isso. Mas como Comandante de Secção, tinha de dar exemplo
senão os meus oficiais perseguiam-me… (…) Vi incendiar aldeias assim como eu
incendiei algumas também, matar crianças, matar mulheres (…)” in Ibid, perf. 2nd Anonymous Refractory.
[135] Own translation from: “(…) No dia seguinte, atacaram o Capitão Curto que
estava em Falacunda, o tal que matava as pessoas degolando-as e depois enviava
as cabeças aos pais e as mães: “Aqui, está a cabeça do vosso filho” (…)”in Ibid,
perf. Sambu.
[136] Own translation from: “ (…) Era tortura, era violencia...
era tudo! (...) Ás vezes, prendiam as pessoas, amarravam-nas ao carro e
punham-no a trabalhar, a pessoa caia e iam a arrastá-la até acabar por morrer.”
In A Ibid, perf. Luciano Soares
[138] Own translation from: “A maneira como eles tratam os
prisioneiros é como sendo cadeira elétrica, chicotada, fósforos acesos metidos
dentro do nariz, (…) cortar dedos e metê-los dentro de frascos (…)” in Ibid,
perf. António Silva Ramos
[139] Own translation from: “ (…)A coisa não é tão bonitinha
como a gente diz… Eu fui voluntário, mas há muita gente que integrou a luta de
libertação como combatente por imposição das forças dos PAIGC.” In Ibid, perf.
Pedro Pires
[140] Own translation from: “ (…) Até ao Congresso, haviam
chefes do PAIGC que nas suas áreas queimavam pessoas por serem feiticeiros… (…)
Noutra áreas, o PAIGC era capaz de furar um olho a uma pessoa (…)” in Ibid,
perf. Luís Cabral
[141] Own translation from: “(…) Quem viu como eu vi, uma
mulher toda nua, toda escortinhada e uma criança toda escortinhada também...”
in Ibid, perf. Manuel Cruz Alegre.
Dissertation
submitted by Bernardo Marinho da Mata Candidate No 60605 to the Department of
Government, London School of Economics and Political Science for the MSc in
Conflict Studies.
Bernardo
da Mata
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