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Even if the radicals and moderates do manage to triumph over the Communists, Portugal's future will remain precarious. Were Saraiva de Carvalho to emerge as a strongman, Portugal might well escape an East European-type dictatorship only to end up with a perhaps unorthodox but still dictatorial system. Then, too, nobody could discount the possibility that if the drift toward anarchy continues, the old right wing, powerless since the April 1974 revolution, might stage a coup. Indeed, the anti-Communist activities led by the armed forces' moderates provided an umbrella for all kinds of non-Communist groups, including former backers of the overthrown Caetano regime.
Little Bloodshed. Still, there was reason to hope that the forces favoring political pluralism would yet gain the upper hand. Both the mass passions against the Communists and the armed forces' abhorrence of the old right-wing dictatorship seem to favor a victory for moderation. There was also cause for encouragement in the fact that there has been little bloodshed despite the chaos and tension of the past several weeks. So far, the various political factions have devoted themselves to writing manifestoes—not trying to impose their wills by force of arms.
Upheavals in the remnants of its 500-year-old colonial empire complicated Portugal's crisis last week. In oil-rich Angola, Lisbon resumed complete control, thus ending the Portuguese-African transitional government that had been appointed to run the country in January. The reason for Lisbon's action was the bloody civil war among Angola's three independence parties. Portugal still intends to grant independence to Angola on Nov. 11. But the murderous infighting among the black Angolan factions could compel Lisbon to hang on to its troublesome African colony far longer than it would like.
Main Danger. Trouble also broke out in another colonial quarter—the tiny island of Timor (pop. 650,000), situated in the midst of the Indonesian archipelago. Last week one of the island's fledgling independence parties, using ancient Mausers, Sten guns and Timorese cutlasses, staged a bizarre coup, seizing the police headquarters and the radio station and demanding independence from Portugal.
The instigator of the coup was the Timor Democratic Union (U.D.T.) which had always advocated a gradual approach to independence and a continuing association with Portugal. One possible explanation for the U.D.T.'s action was that it had joined forces with another independence party, Fretelin, to crush a third party that advocates eventual union with Indonesia.
Portuguese authorities on Macao, the country's other remaining Pacific possession, declared that Lisbon's troops would not "open fire against the people of Timor no matter what the outcome of the current crisis." Similarly, Indonesia announced a policy of noninterference. The main danger seemed to be that the three independence parties would begin to bicker among themselves, à la Angola.