Talk:Azores Liberation Front

US involvement and Raby source

This article extensively quoted from a David Raby, but no proper sourcing was provided. Perhaps that discussion can be reincluded if properly sourced. The passage follows:

David Raby, an English academic, contended that some Americans, contradicting their position of neutrality, had supported the group, should they take control in the archipelago. In an international colloquia titled Portugal e o Atlântico: 60 anos dos Acordos dos Açores (English: Portugal and the Atlantic: 60 Years of Azores Accords) held in Lisbon, the author presented many of his arguments. Due to Soviet threats during the Cold War, the American administration was not completely hostile to the idea of supporting separatist groups in order to secure their public interests. American neutrality was discussed by Thiers Ávila da Cunha in an interview with former members of the FLA and the Autodeterminação do Povo dos Açores (MAPA), who stated:

"The Americans did not support or fail to support. The only promise that existed, was to the Base at Lajes: it was that no one was to touch them and that they would remain totally on the margins of the events that occurred on the island, above all on Terceira".

In the same interview, Thiers da Cunha affirmed that the United States was the seventh nation on a list of concrete supporters of the group, but believed that their position would change substantially, as a consequence of their success in gaining independence for the archipelago. But, although the US was neutral, as David Raby explained, some Americans were positioning themselves to secure the favors of an independent Azorean government. Raby referred to a meeting in September 1975:

"There was a meeting on the 5th of September 1975 in the Hôtel Raphaël in Paris, between José de Almeida (with other representatives of the FLA), agents of the French OAS and Americans associated with Senator Thurmond and some members of organized crime. The French and Americans offered money, arms and mercenaries to support a separatist coup d'etat, in exchange for an agreement that would permit the establishment of casinos on the islands, under extremely favorable terms for themselves."

As Raby would continue, in the spring of 1975 an American offensive in accord with an alliance of reactionary forces in Portuguese society would counter and neutralize the MFA regime. But, the failure of these revolutionaries would end Azorean independence movements, while the Americans would become more interested in saving all of Portugal from "the Red Menace", rather than just a small portion of its territory.

"The decisive element for separatism was not even the desire of the oligarchial classes in Azorean society, it was the strategic interests of Washington. If there never existed North American bases, it is not likely that rural Azoreans would consider the independence option, which would only bring about further isolation and poverty. A real alternative was pseudo-independence, which would pass into the Azores's annexation by the United States. In 1975, that option was publicly discussed in Washington, where several conservative senators, Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms for example, defended the idea of direct or indirect intervention in favor of the FLA".

Zekelayla (talk) 19:50, 2 September 2019 (UTC)