Alcora Exercise
Formation | 14 October 1970 |
---|---|
Founder | South Africa Portugal |
Dissolved | 1974 |
Type | Military alliance |
Purpose | Internal and external defense |
Headquarters | Pretoria |
Region served | Southern Africa |
Membership | South Africa Portugal Rhodesia |
Official language | English, Portuguese, Afrikaans |
Director-General, PAPO | Major-General Clifton |
Main organ | Alcora Top Level Commission (ATLC) |
Alcora Exercise (
The official goal of Alcora Exercise was to investigate the processes and means by which a coordinated tripartite effort between the three countries could face the mutual threat to their territories in Southern Africa. The immediate goal was to face the African revolutionary movements that fought guerrillas wars against the Portuguese authorities in Angola and Mozambique, to limit the spread of the action of these movements in South West Africa and Rhodesia and to prepare the defense of the Portuguese, South African and Rhodesian territories against an expected conventional military aggression from the hostile governments of the African neighbor countries.[3]
Alcora was the formalization of informal agreements on military cooperation between the local Portuguese, South African, and Rhodesian military commands that had been in place since the mid-1960s. Alcora was kept secret and referred to as an 'exercise' (not an alliance or treaty), mainly due to the pressure of the
Under Alcora, South Africa, Portugal and Rhodesia cooperated in the Angolan War of Independence, the Mozambican War of Independence, the South African Border War, and the Rhodesian Bush War.[5]
The Alcora alliance collapsed due to the Portuguese Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 and the subsequent independence of Angola and Mozambique that followed.[6][7]
References
- ^ Guardiola, Nicole (2009). A aliança secreta do apartheid, Rodésia e Portugal (in Portuguese). vho.org.
- ISSN 0739-182X. Archived from the originalon 2018-03-10. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
- ]
- ISSN 1413-4519. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
- ISSN 0870-757X. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
- ISBN 978-989-8633-01-9.
- ^ Murtagh, Peter (25 April 2014). "A military alliance between Portugal and African states that few knew about". Irish Times. Retrieved 25 April 2014.