Joffre Justino
Biography
Joffre Justino was born in 1951 in Nampula, Mozambique, and shortly afterwards his family settled in Luanda, Angola. From an early age, he developed an anti-colonialist and pro-independence perspective and nurtured the dream of coming to Portugal, establishing contact with the MPLA, and going to the forests of Angola to fight the colonial army. However, his political activity developed in university circles in Lisbon, where he was studying economics, after spending the 1969/1970 academic year in Porto. After leaving the MPLA, he joined the Maoist organization Comité Revolucionário Marxista-Leninista (CRML), developing his activity in the associative movement, with the high school movement and in the Comités Guerra Popular (People’s War Committees) – through which he established relations with the Maoist lines of the MPLA – or even in cultural cooperatives. He was first arrested in 1971 in Porto, spending a night at the PSP police station. The second arrest followed an anti-colonial demonstration in May 1972. He was arrested again in April 1973 and taken to Caxias. He was tried on March 12, 1974, and sentenced to 18 months in prison with a suspended sentence, being released the following day. He was preparing to leave Portugal clandestinely when the 25th of April 1974 took place.
Date of Collection: 05.30.2022
Keywords: Angola; Colonialism; Anti-colonial struggle; MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola); Student movement; Portuguese Communist Party (PCP); PIDE/DGS; Prison; Far left; Maoism; Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Committee (CRML); Reorganization Movement of the Proletariat Party (MRPP); José Luís Saldanha Sanches; People’s War Committees; Cultural cooperatives; Caxias Prison; Amílcar Cabral Committees (CAC); Communist Organization of Angola (OCA); Henda Committees; May 27, 1977.
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