Angolans, Cape Verdeans want Portugal to return looted artefacts, poll shows

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By Catarina Demony

(Reuters) -A majority of respondents in Angola and Cape Verde believe Portugal should apologise for its colonial past and return artefacts and other items looted during that era, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

Pollsters from Lisbon’s Catholic University, in partnership with public broadcaster RTP and a commission commemorating the fall of Portugal’s fascist dictatorship in 1974, surveyed more than 3,000 people across Angola, Cape Verde and Portugal.

In Angola, 58% of respondents said Portugal should return artefacts such as masks, sculptures and ritual objects taken from its former colonies. Support was higher in Cape Verde at 63%.     

The survey showed 54% of the Portuguese supported the return of such items, but 58% said Portugal did not owe its former colonies an apology. In Angola, 59% thought Lisbon should apologise with 58% in Cape Verde.

Portugal’s colonial history, which spanned Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Brazil and East Timor, as well as parts of India, remains contentious.

From the 15th to the 19th century, nearly six million Africans were forcibly transported by Portuguese ships and sold into slavery, primarily to Brazil. Little is taught about it in schools.

Most respondents in all three countries – 58% in Angola, 83% in Cape Verde and 78% in Portugal – do not think monuments related to colonialism should be taken down. In Portugal, 58% of respondents said a memorial to victims of transatlantic slavery should be built.

A long-delayed memorial to slavery victims, planned for Lisbon’s riverside, has been embroiled in controversy at a time global calls for reparations and reckoning with past wrongs – including within the African Union – continue to gain momentum.

Portugal’s far-right Chega party, which became the main opposition in parliament in May, has vowed to prevent any return of artefacts and payment of reparations. 

(Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Sharon Singleton)