Foreword
I will try to remember and tell about facts that started to
happen more than 42 years ago. As nature abhors a vacuum, so does memory, and
it fills such voids with reconstructions of its other parts of. That's why I
can't be sure that all I will say had happen exactly as I'm telling it. But
I'll try my best.
I
- In the way to the promised land
Like
all the other male young people that were around twenties of age in the
Portugal of 1972, I was afraid of the army conscription and of the very real
possibility of being sent to the jungles of one of the colonies to fight a
guerrilla war.
Apart
the fear, some of us felt a deep antipathy against the political situation in
the country - a more than forty years old dictatorship, with all the usual
accessories: political police, censorship, etc... (more details about this
background can be found here ).
Mainly
in the urban áreas, - and I am a Lisbon born and bred - the main topic in the
chats was the drawing of strategies to try to escape this situation. In the
"cafés" where we met, a credo appears that we all began to accept
(and it must be said that there were not too many alternatives):
Swedish
people are not very keen about our dictatorship, they support the guerrilla
movements in the colonies; so, all one has to do is to try to reach Sweden and
tell them: "I don't want to fight this unfair war. I'm an anti
colonialist". They will welcome and give you all the support you need.
And
I also believed it.
At
the beginning of 72 I already knew that in October I should present myself at
the Infantry Regiment nr. 16 in the town
of Leiria
to "begin the accomplishment of my military duties" - as the official
language said it - that would normally take four years of your life, unless it
ended in the meantime.
When
spring arrived, we were a group of around seven decided to fly and try to reach
Sweden.
But,
as we started to face the difficulties the desertions also started. The main difficulty was that, unless one was
wealthy and had the right connections, to get a passport was almost impossible
to males above eighteen, which meant the need to cross Europe bottom-up
smuggling at least four borders.
At
the end of September only two remained: me and João.
(When
we returned from Sweden he went also to the army, but to barracks different of
mine. I had notice that he had been sent to Mozambique when I was sent to Timor
but after that we lose all contact.)
None
of us had a passport, of course, and we could barely summed to 8.000 escudos
-just enough to bought the train tickets and a couple of sandwiches and
coffees.
João
knew people in the region of the city of Guarda
who knew some smugglers. This region is close to the border (with Spain, the
only Portugal has) and smuggling goods was a traditional activity of some
groups. It was a risky activity because the border line was patrolled in both
sides by police corps (Guarda Fiscal, the Portuguese; Guardia Civil the
Spanish) that didn't faltered in shooting anyone who didn't freeze when they
said so. Beginning in the sixties, they add the smuggling of people -emigrants-
to that of goods.
I
worked at the "Room-Service"
of a big Hotel and my boss was a French lady from Strasbourg. I trusted
her and let she knew my intent of try to escape the army and go to Sweden. She
offered to help and wrote to an aunt, who was still living in Strasbourg, asking her to put us in
Germany, crossing the border in her car at the rush time to reduce the chances
of any control.
We
delayed the departure as far as we could because it was a tough decision. It
wasn't to choose between something good and something bad, but rather between
something bad - to stay and join the army - and something equally bad -to leave
friends and family and fly without papers and with scarce means to a complete unknown
place.
But,
as October approached we had to decide and, at its beginning, I join João in
Guarda City. Clandestinely we made contacts, discuss possibilities and prices
and dealt with one guy that would put us in Ciudad
Rodrigo, already in Spain, and give us clues to cross the border to France.
This
took us some two or three days and at the end of one afternoon we were taken by
one guy - different from the one with
whom we dealt; it really worked according to the rules of clandestine networks
- to a walk that finished in a house in the middle of nowhere. We hadn't any
luggage and have been told not to leave the house or even open the door
whichever the reason and that during the night someone would pick us up. The
house was just four walls, a roof and a door and the intense smell showed that it was used for
sheltering flocks of sheep and goats in winter.
About
4 am we heard the prearranged whistle and followed a new guy, walking about two
hours. We stopped by a road and waited another hour until a car with a Spanish
registration number arrived, took us, without the guide, and left us in the
railway station in the outskirts of Ciudad Rodrigo.
It
was already day. We bought tickets to Irun
where we arrived late that night.
The
clue we got to cross the border to France was to go to a certain square in
Irun, where there was a taxi station, ask for "Señor" something and
tell him we were friends of another Spanish name. The "Señor" reply
was a figure that we translated in "pesetas" and gave him (I guess
around ten times the normal fare). We entered the car and, according to his instructions,
took places as normal passengers, one in front aside the driver, the other in
the rear. He beckoned hellos to the cops in both the Spanish and the French
sides when we crossed the border, and some ten minutes later left us in front
of Hendaye
railway station.
We
took a train in the morning to Paris, where we arrived at the end of the day
and there another one to Strasbourg
that we reached early next morning.
At
8 am we rang the bell at the house of my boss's aunt, who acted according to
her niece instructions and left us at the Kehl - the German city in front of
Strasbourg - railway station.
In
our minds, the more difficult part was accomplished. We had cross Spain and
France and were already in Germany. All that remained to be done was the Danish
border, but that couldn't be too difficult. Maybe Danish people were not so concerned as the Swedish one
about the Portuguese colonial politics, but weren't them all
Scandinavians, generous-hearted and humanitarian people!? We bought tickets
directly to Stockholm.
Some
hours later, at the German-Denmark border, we blatantly told the Danish
immigration officer that we were Portuguese guys, hadn't passports and wanted to reach Sweden
to get support not to be obliged to fight an unfair war. We have been kindly
invited to leave the train and handled to their German counter-part.
Only
many years later, when I worked in the area of immigration and had to be in
touch with its legal niceties, did I fully understood what had started to
happen there.
We
never uttered the word "asylum" because we had never heard about any
1956's Geneva Convention or its 1964's New York additional protocol. And we
couldn't realize that the German cops have been so kind only because they
wanted to get rid of us and sent us somewhere, in order to avoid a lengthy
legal process, of uncertain outcome, and lots of red tape work.
But,
for what we were concerned about at the time, they have been really nice. After
we had told them how we have arrived there, they suggested the option Travemünde-Trelleborg
to reach Sweden, help us to refund the train tickets in the part not used and,
certainly, made a call to their colleagues in Travemünde explaining the
situation, because we hadn't any problem entering the boat there.
We
began to fear that we were wrong when we thought that we had already done the
more difficult part. We had done the easiest one, and the hardest one was to
come. But things seemed to rearrange. We went to Travemünde, bought the boat
tickets and used the remaining money to eat a decent meal, because next morning
we would reach the promised land.
And,
next morning, at Trelleborg, we left the boat and, more confident than ever -
we were in Sweden! - told the
immigration officer that we were Portuguese guys and bla, bla, bla...
II
- Back home
We
stayed barely two days in Sweden. Arrived one day around 7am - the schedule the
boat from Travemünde still follows - had been interviewed during this day,
spent the night and next day in the jail of the local police station and when I
was preparing to sleep the second night in the jail, I was called up and put in
a car - where I met João - that left us in the boat the minute before its
leaving.
Next
morning we were in Travemünde again and have been received by German Police's
people that, of course, already knew who we were and why we were there.
Very
kind again, the German cops. We must have said that we intended to return home,
asking for that purpose the help of a Portuguese consulate to get us papers and
means. "Excellent idea", they must have said, and we traveled with
one of them to Hamburg in the compartment of a train that, I presume, was
reserved for the use of the Police. He left us at the Hamburg
"Hauptbahnhof", after explaining
how to reach the Portuguese consulate, that wasn't far.
We
were defeated: our dreams about Sweden destroyed, not one single coin in the
pockets, no travel documents. Being so, looking for help in the consulate was
the wisest decision. But, how to explain to the people there that someone who
should have been at Leiria barracks since the beginning of October, was in
Hamburg at the 17th?
That’s
why we didn’t go to the consulate and decided to give us another chance, trying
to survive some time in Hamburg hoping that, in the meantime, we could find a
solution.
We
held it two days, eating what we were able to steal in the supermarkets, trying
to avoid the night’s cold by walking till the subway opened, when we took a
train in the longest line and traveled
end to end enjoying the warm and trying to have some sleep.
We
have done it with no tickets, of course.
So, the controllers that eventually discovered this make us alighted the next
station and, because it wasn’t only lack of tickets but lack of
tickets-cum-documents, handled us to the Police to whom we told our story that
they checked and confirmed we were already their regular costumers.
What could they else do for us? What did we
prefer: to be arrested, tried and expelled, or went to the Portuguese consulate,
tell them any story we wanted, ask to be sent home and left them, at last,
alone? – If not verbalized exactly this way, this was what they meant.
We
threw in the towel. They took us in a car that stopped just in front of the
consulate’s door, where they saw us enter and I presume they stayed there for a
while to be sure we don’t return back.
In
the consulate, the memories I can gather is that we had talk to someone older
than us but not too old, to whom we told a story about girlfriends that we were
looking for but had not been able to found and, in the meantime, had lost our
luggage and that was why we were without money and documents. I am not very
sure about the content of this chat,
but I am sure that the guy who was listening to us wasn’t believing a single
word and knew exactly, by our age and look, what problem we really had. But he
has been kind enough to accept our bullshit and hadn’t add any problems to the
ones we already had.
That
is the idea I kept in mind during these 42 years and I have seen it confirmed a
few weeks ago when I retrieved the content of the file in the archives of the
Portuguese Foreign Affairs Ministry.
This
is the front and the rear of the form filled in the consulate about my
repatriation as indigent.
The
instruction (5) - in the back of the form: second page- reads: “The accounts concerning the repatriation of
indigents already called for their military service must be sent directly for
refund purposes with all necessary details to the Staff Director of the Army
Ministry”
In
the “Military Situation” item -7th line of the front of the form: first page -
our interlocutor puts: “unknown”. So, our situation has been dealt as a normal
repatriation and not as the repatriation of someone that was flying the army.
In fact, I can’t say that I have had any special problems when I return. Thank
you, whoever you are!
We
have been given a passport - with the word "Repatriated" in red
capitals in the front page and reading on the third that it was valid during
five days and only to the return of the holder to Portugal through Belgium,
France and Spain, a train ticket to Lisbon, via Paris and 42 DM to the meals during
the trip.
III- The Army
All
my fears about what could happen in my return revealed to be not very sound. In
the Portuguese border the guy who checked our passports only asked “and what
about the army?” We answered that that was the reason why we were returning: to
verify if everything was ok concerning our duties to the nation. He replies:
“do it, boys, do it; don’t get yourselves any problems”.
I
went to the Lisbon Recruitment Office where I have been asked why I haven’t
follow the instructions given in the notices displayed in the Town Hall and presented
myself , the beginning of the month, in the barracks showed in such notices.
The ingresses were made quarterly; having lost the last of 72, I should present
myself in Leiria next January to get the first of 73. It wasn’t even a rebuke
and nothing more have been said about my “delay”. Only around August 1974, being already in Timor,
have I been called to present myself to the Area Commander in Bobonaro
Headquartes. There I have been told that, according to a message from Lisbon,
the file concerning the fact that I haven’t present myself in due time to
fulfill my military duties and had left the country, attempting to desert, have
been close due to an amnesty law passed in the aftermath of the 25 April coup.
A file that nobody told me a single word about.
This
time I was punctually at Leiria. Two weeks later I was sent to another barracks
– Santarém
- where I spent the next nine months being drilled in all the disciplines of
the art of anti-guerrilla war to eventually be sent to the farthest colony -
East-Timor - in October. We (around 200) embarked the 9th. November
in Lisbon and arrived in Dili
the 1st. January 1974 after stopping half a day in Luanda
and Beira and one day in Lourenço
Marques (now Maputo): 50 days sailing, 21 of them crossing the Indian
Ocean.
Timor
wasn’t a dangerous place, from a military point of view, at the time. Only a
very poor and deeply backward one, although against a scenario of outstanding
natural beauty. Tar roads length wasn’t more than 5 kms – the main streets in
the capital: Dili. The idea of distances wasn’t even achieved through
kilometers, but, instead, by the use of units such as days walking, days riding
a horse, or days in a truck- And they were different depending of the season:
wet or dry. Tough times, yes, but, apart from the last months, only because of
the isolation, the climate, the malaria…
I
have been sent to the mountainous region of the border with the half Indonesian
part of the Island, where I stayed in different places - Atabae,
Balibó,
Tilomar
and Bobonaro
- till May 1975.
In
the meantime Portugal went through dramatic changes. The 25 th. April 1974
a military coup overthrew the regime and one of the main consequences has been
the recognition of the right to the colonies to become independent states.
In
Timor, due to the poor development conditions, the independence would be
delayed for five years in order to allow the creation of a minimum of basic
infrastructures –physical and political ones. I have been called to the main
Headquarters in Dili to join the team that would build the necessary conditions
for the exercise of the democracy by the Timorese people. But I haven’t work
there for long. The situation deteriorates with the antagonism of the three
main local political forces. UDT wanted that Timor remains a Portuguese colony
with the idea of independence putted in the long term, FRETILIN was for
immediate independence and APODETI for the integration in Indonesia. At the end
of August, after two weeks of fierce combats, the small Portuguese military
contingent that remained – around 250, from the Governor and Military Commander
to the last private - lose control of the situation. A small part of this
contingent stayed in the island of Ataúro, in sight of Dili, and the rest,
where I was, went to Darwin, in north Australia, and from there to Portugal.
In
October 1975, three years after my frustrated Swedish adventure, I resume my
condition of civilian and understood the saying “it’s easier to militarize a
civilian than to civilize a military man”
IV
- A Cop's Career
Life
in Portugal at the end of 1975 wasn't easy either. As it always happens in
revolutions and theirs near aftermaths, unrest was the rule.
I
resume my job at the Hotel, that wasn't a glamorous place anymore but, instead,
and like the majority of all other hotels in the country, a place where
returnees from the colonies, that were just becoming former, dwelt. I looked at
this job as an interim occupation that would allow me to look in to something more
suitable to my aspirations. The problem was that I didn't know what could I
aspire, being 24 years old, with barely nine of school and no particular
skills.
One
day, when lunching, I complained to a colleague about this, saying that I had
to find something different to do. He replied that he had seen somewhere in a
newspaper an ad calling for new recruits to the criminal investigation police (Polícia Judiciária - PJ) and this could
be an idea. My reply was a categorical refusal: nor only wasn´t I keen on dealt
again with matters concerning guns, violence and uniforms, after three years in
the army, neither could I said that I liked cops; on the contrary!
This
colleague worked at the hotel’s office but his working days were mainly spent
in errands all around Lisbon. Some days later he putted in front of me the form
to answer the PJ calling, already filled in my name, and said: “just sign at
the bottom; I’ll take care of the rest.”
I
still hadn’t found anything else; there were few chances that I could be
called, and in case I was I could always said no. It wasn’t a big risk. I
signed.
A
few months later I received a letter asking to present myself at the PJ’s Head
Office in order to undergo the first of a set of examinations. At this time I
already knew that PJ, differently from the other three police corps – Polícia de Segurança Pública :PSP, Guarda Nacional Republicana: GNR and Guarda Fiscal:GF; DGS, the “political police”, had been dismantled
after the 25th April coup - was solely a criminal investigation
police working with the Public Prosecutor and... its members wore plain
clothes.
I
learned later that the process in which I was involved was one of the first
recruitments after the revolution, made with strict criteria of selection and
with the intention to give a sound instruction to the recruits in order to
“build” the new democratic era cop. There were around 2.000 candidates
(unemployment rates were in two big digits) for 45 vacancies.
After
the cultural knowledge examination, I had been successively called to be
examined psychologically, physically and medically and the selection process
ended with an interview.
The
theoretical part of the training started in October in a full time regime and
lasted six months. In May 1977 we started the one year in job training and in
June 1978 around 40 of us became “3d class agents”.
I
spent the first 3 or 4 years in a team of the 6th Section, one of
the two sections that dealt with the violent crimes against property. And there
were a lot at the time and rather violent.
The
next 3 or 4 years I have been in the “Identification Department” working with
fingerprints – at a pre-AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) era.
In the meantime I resume studying and achieved a degree in Law at Lisbon
University in 1985.
My
last placement was in Homicide where I stayed till I swapped the PJ for SEF (Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras – Immigration
and Border Service) in 1990.
This
swap happened at a time when Portugal was restructuring this area of internal
security to fulfil its obligations with the then EEC (European Economic
Community) and the looming Schengen Agreements. Before 25th April
1974 borders and migration were dealt by DGS. With its extinction, GF took charge
of this area. But these new obligations led to the extinction of the GF and its
replacement by a new body: SEF.
Working
here gave me the occasion to dive deeply in the illegal immigration's world,
both from a legal point of view, when working in the answers, at national and
European levels, to its increasing pressure, but also from the close contact
with the dirty work of nets trafficking people that we investigated there.
And
this is, until now, the biggest irony of my life: having been an illegal immigrant
(and emigrant) and a frustrate (and ignorant of the status) asylum seeker,
twenty years later I was acting at an high level in the “other side”.
One of the first cases we investigated in SEF
concerned two poor young Chinese guys caught at Terceira Airport, in Azores, trying to board a flight to the States with forged
passports. The investigation established that their families, in Jiãngxï
Province, gathered part of the money needed to pay the trip – the rest would be
paid with work once in the States. They have been smuggled to Macao and given
forged passports with which they travelled to Equatorial Guinea, where they
stayed some weeks with local support. From there they embark to somewhere in
South America, via Frankfurt. Here, in the international area, someone exchange
their tickets and put them in a flight to Bilbao from where they were taken by car to Madrid. Here they stayed for two
weeks in an apartment –an ”hub” where others were also waiting the following of
their trips- before being putted in a train to Lisbon where a Chinese resident
- professor of Chinese at Lisbon University and translator of the main
Portuguese classical writers, like Camöens, to mandarin Chinese- waited them
and putted them in the domestic flight Lisbon-Terceira and gave them the
tickets to embark there to USA.
This, and many other details, was, at the time, the
deeper any Police in Europe has been able to go in the world of Chinese triads
acting as people traffickers. Anyone having worked in this kind of
investigation knows how hard it is to get information from the victims, that
fear for what can happen to their families staying in China. In this case we
have been able to gain their confidence and, in exchange, we gave them all the
official and unofficial support we could.
Mutatis
mutandis, I couldn’t help thinking of myself and João 20 years before, and,
even though no one in the investigation team knew (and knows) about my past, I
felt that, even through translators, a special understanding had been
established between me and these Chinese fellows.
I
left SEF at the end of 1995 but kept working as civil servant. At the beginning
of 2001, approaching 50 of age and near 30 at the service of Portuguese State,
I decided it was enough and retired.
V - The After Cop’s
Life
I
return to Timor at the end of 2001, as migration issues adviser at UNTAET
(United Nations Transitional Administration of East Timor), that was ultimately
preparing East Timor independence after 25 years of Indonesian annexation.
I
left after independence (May 2002- although I returned later working in
projects from Portuguese Aid) and, as I hadn’t the opportunity to have done
“Inter Rail” when I was young, I started to travel: all the Australia and then
back home (Portugal) by land during several months.
Apart
small interventions in Aid Programs or as expert in different institutions, I
keep travelling a lot. In one of these travels I had the idea to retrieve the
file concerning my stay in Sweden. I have done it in July this year (2014)
having done the last leg in exactly the same way I have done it 42 years ago:
by boat from Travemunde to Trolleborg.
Here,
at the Police Station, Anders Mohlin was asked help by his young colleague
that, understandably, wasn’t understanding what my story was about: an asylum
seeker from forty-two years ago!?.
He
gave me all the details needed to found the file at the Archives in Lund where
I get it with the also kind help of Jan-Eric Bruun
Me
and Anders kept in touch and I wrote this abridge account of my life to meet
his curiosity and also to try to give some order to my memories.
José A. M. Lopes
