Casimiro Monteiro

Casimiro Emérito Rosa Teles Jordão Monteiro (Goa, 28 December 1920 - Richards Bay, 25 January 1993),[1][2] also known as Agente Monteiro, was a notorious figure in Portuguese Goa. As a PIDE agent, Monteiro carried out the high-profile assassinations of Humberto Delgado, opposition leader to Salazar's Portuguese dictatorship, and Eduardo Mondlane, leader of FRELIMO.

Early life

Monteiro was born in Portuguese Goa to a white Portuguese father and a native Goan mother, an aguadeira from the city of Ponda.[3] He lived in Portugal for sometime before joining General Franco's army in the Spanish Civil War.

After the war, Monteiro moved to the United Kingdom, where he worked for a butcher whose daughter he married.[3]

Goa-Portuguese Colonial Era

In the 1950s, Monteiro joined the Portuguese Colonial Police in Goa, where he interrogated Goan liberation movement activists. Much of the brutal torture/ interrogations took place at Valpoi Police Station. There were several local theatro songs of the dreaded Agent Monteiro.

PIDE agent

After Goa's annexation by the Indian Army in 1961, Monteiro was recruited by the Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (PIDE), the dreaded Portuguese Secret Service. Initially, he participated in a campaign to organise an anti-Indian resistance among Goans code named Plan Gralha. PIDE agents used the Emissona Nacional, radio station which continued to broadcast after 1961, to broadcast stories of Goan non-cooperation with Indian authorities. Plans were made to sabotage port facilities at Mormugao and Bombay. In 1962, a bomb was planted at Vasco Municipal School in March 1962, and another at a different location in October. Casimiro was implicated in bomb blasts on June 20, 1964. The Portuguese government, in an official statement to the UN, later claimed that the attacks were acts of revolt against Indian rule.[4]

In 1965, he assassinated General Humberto Delgado in Spain. General Delgado was the Opposition Leader against the Salazar Dictatorship. Monteiro, who had shot Delgado and strangled his secretary, was found guilty by the Spanish courts and was sentenced to 19 years in absentia.

In the late 1960s, Monteiro went to Portuguese Mozambique (as a PIDE agent) to fight FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique), a movement fighting for independence against the internationally recognized Portuguese Government. Most of the Frelimo fighters were based in Tanzania. Monteiro crossed into Tanzania, and using a parcel bomb assassinated Eduardo Mondlane, the founder Leader of FRELIMO.

Later life

He returned to Portugal, but after the 1974 Carnation Revolution, which overthrew the Portuguese dictatorship, Monteiro took refuge in the South African Embassy. He later moved to South Africa, where he spent the remainder of his life under the alias 'José Fernandez'. Almost blind and destitute (helped by the South African police) he died in 1993, at Richards Bay, South Africa.

References
  1. O Assassino do General Humberto Delgado
  2. geni.com
  3. "The Case of the CM's Bungalow | iGoa". Navhindtimes.in. 2012-01-28. Archived from the original on 2013-02-18. Retrieved 2012-07-06.
  4. Times News Network. "Records Show Colonizers Were Not Done With Goa". Times of India.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.