WI: Portugal de ultramar

POD: 1974. OTL's Carnation Revolution was, quite understandably, possessed of an Anti-Colonialist flavor. Many of the army officors who helped overthrow the Estado Novo were veterans of the colonial wars in Portugese Africa and out of a combination of sympathy for the natives and a desire to write off the bleeding ulcer the new government in Lisbon pulled out everywhere but Macau, the Azores, and Madiera.

In TTL, the Junta de Salvação Nacional sends feelers to the various revolutionary factions and colonial administrations with an offer of full citizenship and the franchise extended to the whole population, complete personal mobility within the Portugese Republic, and provencial self-rule on the same basis as the new North Atlantic Regiões Autónomas.

FRELIMO in Mozambique and the MPLA (along with UNITA) in Angola rejected the offer out of hand. Canbida, Macau, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor's Portugese sector, all eyeing larger neighbors, decided that coming under the Portugese military alliances with the U.S. and U.K. was a good idea and signed on.

PAIGC in Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde waffled for a year despite having the most military success, and finally held referenda. Guinea-Bassau opted for independence while the insular areas of Cape Verde sent it's MPs to Lisbon in 1976.

Since then, the Regiões de ultramar have held the odd position tagging along with Portugal as the latter joined the EEC and the EU (with all the economic benefits and comparative politcal stability). More tellingly, the situation in Macau inspired the U.K. to hold elections and political restructuring in Hong Kong (whilst getting a new lease on the New Territories in return for recognition of Beijing).

Thoughts?

HTG
 
Angola and Mozambique had very long memories of Portugese occupation, and those memories were not good ones. Angola is gone period, because Portugal would look bad supporting UNITA, and supporting the MPLA is gonna get them heat from the EU and the US. Mozambique could have a bit of a different result if Portugal tries to help the lives of the Mozambicans after independence. The only way that could happen is if the problems in South African and Rhodesia force another front in Mozambique, which I can believe because 300,000 white Mozambicans largely fled to South Africa after 1975. Perhaps have Mozambique's whites stay in power for a while longer with a UDI government, like Ian Smith's Rhodesia?
 
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