I will be presenting an overview of my DPhil research, as well as some of the preliminary findings I have gathered so far across my fieldwork, particularly from Luanda, Maputo and Lisbon. My research looks at the various narratives and strategies used by the main liberation movements of the Territories under Portuguese Domination in establishing a diplomatic offensive against the imperial order within the UN. The focus of this research is on the MPLA (Angola), FRELIMO (Mozambique), PAIGC (Guinea-Bissau) and CLSTP (São Tomé e Príncipe), who formed the CONCP in 1961. The CONCP was an unprecedented diplomatic front: it was the first formal alliance of different colonies under the same colonial power, making this an unexplored expression of Pan-African unity.
The main question I try to answer is in what ways the CONCP movements (both through the shared CONCP structure as well as individually) enacted this revolutionary diplomacy, particularly within the UN system. Within this study, these movements’ aims, coordination, strategies, expectations and reactions become fundamental pieces to explain their persistent engagement with the UN across this period.