"If the people want independence, we are willing to accept that." So said Portugal's Socialist Foreign Minister, Mario Soares, in an interview last week with TIME'S Martha de la Cal. Seated in an ornate salon of the 18th century Palacio das Necessidades (Palace of the Necessities), Soares discussed some problems that Portugal's military government faces in extricating itself from the country's African territories. Among his points:
ON HIS GOALS OF GOVERNMENT. "We want an orderly and peaceful succession. We do not want to leave Africa to civil war and chaos."
ON A CEASEFIRE. "The first step in the dialogue should be to arrange a ceasefire. It seems immoral to us that we should be negotiating in the atmosphere of cordiality and frankness that has characterized our meetings while there are Africans and Portuguese dying in the continuing warfare. This is something we have achieved up to now in Guinea but not, unfortunately, in Mozambique. Both PAIGC and Frelimo [the Guinean and Mozambican liberation movements] have made certain conditions of a political nature. They consider a cease-fire a political step, and therefore they want us first to come to an agreement."
ON THE FINAL SETTLEMENT. "We insist on consulting the population. We wish to hold a referendum and apply the principle of self-determination. The liberation movements say that self-determination is a fact after ten to 13 years of fighting." To an extent, Soares agrees with them. "Without that [popular] support, it would have been impossible to fight the war." But he does not accept all of their arguments. "I'm a democrat and a realist. There is no political organization anywhere that absolutely represents a population." In any referendum, he says, "we are prepared to accept control and inspection by an international organization like the United Nations."
ON THE FUTURE OF WHITES IN THE TERRITORIES. "I see no reason for alarm on the part of the [white] population of Mozambique about the possibility of a massive return to Europe in a moment of panic. I know that the Frelimo people, who are responsible men fully aware of the part they are playing, have undertaken to safeguard the legitimate rights of the white population. They think that in the future they will need the technical and economic cooperation of this population."
ON THE DANGER THAT WHITES WOULD SET UP RHODESIAN-STYLE GOVERNMENTS IN THE TERRITORIES. "It is a danger. It has receded for the moment, but it cannot be ignored. There is a population there that acquired its rights with difficulty, and sometimes abused these rights, who find it difficult to resign themselves to a new historical situation. This has occurred all over Africa. We are not an exception."