Portugal and the Press
Parenti, Michael
The real concern is to make the world safe for the corporate system Portugal and the Press MICHAEL PARENTI During the half century that the people of Portugal endured the oppressions of...
...a loan program was set up for small businessmen and farmers...
...The American press gave uncritical play to unsubstantiated tales promulgated by t h e Pentagon and the CIA about how Moscow was sending $3 million, or $5 million, or $10 million a month to the Portuguese Communist Party...
...State Department led us to believe...
...leaders and the American press...
...Today there exists in Portugal two competing views of "democracy...
...Willy Brandt and other Western leaders served notice that no financial assistance from Western European nations would be forthcoming until Portugal instituted a government more to their taste...
...Furthermore, while hailing Soares as the savior of democracy, t h e American press reported nothing about the complaints directed against him from within his own party...
...price controls and other measures were taken to discourage profiteering and speculation...
...Because of the rightist terrorism, publications advocating a left viewpoint cannot be safely distributed in many northern towns...
...The official newspapers of t h e anti-left Socialist Party and the center-right parties were circulated freely...
...Far from concerning itself with democracy, our Government gave the fascist regime $450 million a year to pursue its colonial wars in Africa...
...Thus, in the areas where the left has had strength, freedom of the press and political' 'pluralism" have flourished...
...True democracy comes only when the people participate directly in decisions regarding the production and use of social resources and share more or less equally in t h e economic benefits...
...If anything, the corporate system is defended asakey component ofthe "pluralistic society...
...Despite the intensive news coverage Portugal was now getting, hardly a word of this could be found in the American press...
...Little attention is given to changing the class structure or eliminating the enormous powers of the corporate system...
...MichaelParenti is a visiting professor of government at Cornell University and author of' 'Democracyfor the Few.' 'He recently returned from Portugal...
...Indeed, the image of Portugal planted in our heads was of a "staunch NATO ally," and a stable, sunny vacation spot...
...Incidentally, another unreported fact: the campaign waged by Socialist Party leader Mario Soares and the center-right parties was itself typified by an extreme kind of red-baiting, complete with anti-communist scare stories that would have won the admiration of the late Senator Joseph R. McCarthy...
...Workers began setting work conditions, equalizing wage scales, and in some cases taking control of enterprises...
...It was Soares and his centerright allies who changed' 'the rules of the g a m e " after the election, by reneging on their pledged support for the MFA program, demanding full power, and, failing that, resigning from the government, using the worker takeover of Republica as the pretext...
...In fact, the Portuguese were exercising a freedom of political expression unequaled in most other countries, including our own...
...agricultural cooperatives were formed...
...In areas where the center-right forces have strength, political conformity and intimidation have been the rule...
...It was the nationalization of the banks and insurance companies and other measures designed to transform the private profit economy into a socialist society that won the alarmed concern of U.S...
...But none of this was treated in the American press as interference in Portugal's internal affairs...
...By 1975, the MFA government, with "communist-sympathizer" Vasco Goncalves as Premier, had reduced military appropriations by 40 per cent, increased public health and education expenditures by 40 and 50 per cent respectively, and initiated a $200 million public housing program...
...leaders regarding the torture chambers of the secret police, the prison camp at Tarrafal, the murder of rebellious soldiers at Beja, the assassination of dissenters, the atrocitie^ against striking miners in the Alentejo, or the bloody attacks on student demonstrators and on workers' hunger marches in Lisbon...
...In addition, a host of center-right political parties were operating freely throughout Portugal...
...Government...
...Leftist bookstores, union halls and information centers have been pillaged and firebombed, along with more than fifty Communist Party and other leftist party offices...
...Portugal, asserted Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, was falling under the "domination of a dictatorial minority" (a problem that never troubled him in regard to pro-capitalist nations such as Chile, Spain, Paraguay, Brazil, and others...
...Another " d e t a i l " never mentioned in the United States: "Renascenca" has two broadcasting stations...
...But did not the MFA and their communist cohorts violate t h e ' ' democratic rules of the g a m e ' ' by refusing to recognize the results of last April' selections, in which, as our press tirelessly reports, the Socialist Party (SP) and Popular Democrats together won 63 per cent of t h e vote...
...The MFA honored the election results: the Assembly was convened, presided over by a SP delegate, and has been writing a constitution—all during the period that "totalitarianism" was supposedly reigning...
...Once more we are drawn to the conclusion that, whether it be Chile or Portugal, the real concern of U.S...
...Worker and neighborhood councils were formed throughout the poorer areas with the support of the MFA...
...When the privately-owned newspaper Republica and the Church-owned radio station "Renascenca" were taken over by their "ultra-leftist" workers, the last independent voice of opposition and "moderation" was stilled in Portugal—or so we were told...
...This last point is the heart of the matter, for it explains why a "democratic socialist" like Soares can win Kissinger's support while a democratic socialist like Salvador Allende of Chile incurs his enmity: Soares is encouraging private business investments, while Allende was nationalizing industry...
...They have since turned against Soares and the SP, without, however, joining the Communist Party...
...Yet, these developments, too, were largely ignored by the U.S...
...This is exactly contrary to what the American press and U.S...
...French, German, English, and American newspapers, books and periodicals of pro-business and often quite conservative hue were readily available in the large urban areas...
...Above all, the country is being made safe for foreign investments and private profits...
...Unlike t h e United States, newspapers supporting a variety of socialist viewpoints enjoyed a wide daily circulation, and socialist ideas were freely discussed in the media...
...The fascist violence in the North increased at an alarming rate...
...The United States refused the Portuguese government's request to assist in the emergency airlift of refugees from Angola until Goncalves was removed as premier...
...The neighborhood councils, functioning mostly in the shanty towns and low income areas of large cities, began building houses, organizing against landlord abuses, and participating in the administration of their communities...
...Measures which sought to end the dominance of the large corporations, despite the popularity they received from broad sectors of the Portuguese public, were described as the work of a conspiratorial selfwilled Communist Party and treated as a sign of growing "totalitarian" influence...
...Also, three independently owned centerright dailies and several weeklies, all critical of t h e MFA, published uninterruptedly in Lisbon and other cities...
...policymakers and the American press is not to make the world safe for democracy but for multinational corporations...
...correspondents like Marvin Howe of The New York Times are writing about the need for "order and discipline i n . . . t h e country as a whole...
...Then in 1974 t h e dictatorship was overthrown and the new government under the leadership of leftist members of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) began instituting changes...
...There, all the daily newspapers are privately owned, pro-right and antileft...
...A minimun wage law improved the income of the lowest paid in Portugal...
...In August, a group of eight activists resigned from the SP, complaining of its pro-capitalist, anti-socialist leadership and charging that their dissenting views could not get published in the SP newspaper nor receive a fair hearing in party councils...
...Suddenly, with a uniformity of opinion and lack of "pluralism" that would be called "totalitari a n " were it manifested in certain other countries, American political leaders together with the press laid down an endless barrage of proclamations, reports, and editorials about how freedom in Portugal was being endangered by the Red Menace...
...The real concern is to make the world safe for the corporate system Portugal and the Press MICHAEL PARENTI During the half century that the people of Portugal endured the oppressions of fascism there was no substantial outcry in the United States on behalf of their democratic rights...
...The Goncalves government found its foreign investment credits frozen, loans denied and trading contracts delayed...
...Assuming that legalities are as important as American leaders pretend them to be, let us note that under the April 1975 election Soares had no more right to claim power than would a Constitutional Convention, elected in America for t h e purpose of amending the Constitution or drafting a new one, have the right to declare itself the elected U.S...
...In the summer of 1975, the center-right anticommunist offensive gathered momentum...
...free health centers were started and doctors were now obliged to do their residency in the countryside, often among people who had never before seen a doctor...
...European Social Democrats crowded into Lisbon to voice their admiration for him...
...Portugal, Time magazine reported, now had a "communist-controlled p r e s s ." Once more we were being lied to...
...But little of this was considered newsworthy in the United States...
...Despite the inflation (no worse than in other Western countries) the real buying power of the great majority of workers increased...
...Little was heard from the American news media or from U.S...
...Uncultivated lands were leased to poor peasants...
...Scores of CIA operatives moved into Portugal, including some who had been active in Chile, Vietnam, and Greece...
...For similar reasons, another fifty middle-level officials and activists broke with the SP to form a new socialist party...
...What, then, was deemed newsworthy about Portugal...
...Meanwhile, Soares, who was receiving large sums from Western political leaders and the CIA, was treated as the purveyor of Portuguese independence...
...I encountered a number of persons who had voted for the Socialist Party because they mistakenly had thought it was socialist...
...some unused homes of the wealthy were transformed into nurseries and clinics...
...It has been announced that there will be no more nationalizations, and presumably no more worker takeovers nor worker self-management councils...
...For the first time substantial numbers of Portuguese were playing an active, democratic role in shaping the conditions of their own lives...
...The first argues that democracy cannot exist while the wealthy few control the land, labor, and lives of the impoverished many...
...With Soares' party now in office, U.S...
...The second view, morefamiliartousandtheone supported by Soares and his allies, equates democracy with certain political forms such as multi-party elections and parliamentarism...
...About this violence, Soares had not an unkind word, except to imply that the communists had brought it on themselves...
...In t h e anti-communist North one finds little of the "pluralism" that reportedly is one of the democratic goals of the anti-communists...
...As part of that order the transition to socialism had been aborted...
...The one in the North, reaching a far larger audience than t h e workercontrolled one in the South, is still firmly under the control of a Catholic hierarchy that can barely contain its longing for t h e old fascist regime...
...Not all of Portugal enjoyed unencumbered political freedom...
...And Kissinger warned the Soviets not to meddle in Portugal's affairs...
...It is intended that the communist influence in the media will be eradicated (with no concern for maintaining a "pluralistic" diversity of opinion), and communists elected to office in trade unions now must somehow be "unelected.'' Center-right military officers, some sympathetic to the ultra-conservative former provisional president Antonio de Spinola, are moving back into a dominant position within the MFA...
...Actually, the April poll was not to elect a government but a Constituent Assembly, whose task was to write a new constitution...
...Communist victories in union elections were reported as "communist takeovers...
Vol. 39 • December 1975 • No. 12
