Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is in Bissau for a 24-hour official go to. If the go to is an element of the strengthening of the historic relations between Lisbon and Bissau, it’s a chance for descendants of former troopers of the colonial military to say the “blood pension” owed to their dad and mom by the previous colonial energy.
Marcelo de Sousa is the third Portuguese head of state to set foot on the bottom on this former West African colony, 31 years after Mario Soares. The challenge of “blood pension” had been raised a number of instances on the web page. Conferences between the Bissau-Guinea authorities and their Portuguese counterparts, however to no avail. Many of the Bissau-Guinean troopers within the Portuguese colonial military died with out transferring a single penny from their pension; at the moment it’s their descendants who complain about it loud and clear.
The Portuguese President’s visitation program additionally offers for a gathering between Marcelo de Sousa and the collective of descendants of former colonial troopers.
Portugal requires our dad and mom to have Portuguese nationality to demand cost of their pensions and different rights, their spokesman defined. This isn’t honest. They’d engaged our dad and mom within the warfare once they have been nonetheless very younger. These had defended the Portuguese flag and have been thought-about Portuguese.
The challenge of pensions was raised in Algiers in 1974 throughout negotiations resulting in Guinea-Bissau’s independence. The PAIGC, the motion that led the nation to independence, didn’t need to hear about it. Portugal then solely took under consideration former troopers of Portuguese nationality and left behind hundreds of Africans. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s go to subsequently makes it potential to take this prickly query again to the desk.
► Learn additionally: Testimony of the autumn and fall of the Portuguese colonial empire
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