# Casimiro Monteiro

Casimiro Emérito Rosa Teles Jordão Monteiro (28 December 1920 – 25 January 1993), also known as Agente Monteiro, was a Portuguese covert operations military intelligence officer and law enforcement officer during the Estado Novo regime. He carried out state-sanctioned bombings and assassinations in Portugal, Mozambique and Goa. His actions were mostly focused against members of independence movements that existed in the Portuguese colonial empire.
As a PIDE agent, Monteiro tortured Indians in Goa (e.g. Mohan Ranade, an Indian independence activist) who were demanding the union of Portuguese India territories with the recently-independent India. Monteiro is believed to have carried out the high-profile assassinations of Humberto Delgado and Eduardo Mondlane.
Following the Carnation Revolution in 1974, Monteiro lost his job and his immunity from prosecution. He received political asylum in South Africa and lived there in poverty as well as obscurity till his death.

## Early life

Monteiro was born in Portuguese Goa to a Portuguese father and his dalit Goan Catholic wife, an aguadeira (water supplier) from the city of Ponda. He lived in Portugal for some time 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 and had a son; although he abandoned his family after the Carnation Revolution when he lost the protection of the Portuguese government and was forced to flee Portugal to avoid prosecution and extradition to India.

## 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 during interrogations took place at Valpoi Police Station and, eventually, Monteiro became infamous and feared throughout Portuguese India; by the closing years of Portuguese rule in India there were even several local theatre songs of the feared 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.
In 1965, he assassinated General Humberto Delgado in Spain. General Delgado was the Opposition Leader against the Salazar government. 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 founding leader of FRELIMO.

## Later life

He returned to Portugal, but after the 1974 Carnation Revolution, which overthrew the Estado Novo, 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.

## Citations

* 1 2 3 4 5 Varela Gomes, P.; Castro, Paul (2016). Harmalkar, Sanjay; Dessa, Pundalik Raut (eds.). "My name is Casimiro Monteiro". Govapuri. 10 (4). Translated by Paul Castro. Goa, India: Institute Menezes Braganza: 61–65.
* ↑ Simões, Ana Maria (24 April 2021). Ramires, Mário; Rainho, Vítor; Cabrita Saraiva, José; Reis, Marta F.; Saraiva, José António; de Melo, Afonso; Cabrita, Felícia; Peres Pinto, Sónia; Andrade, Joana; Ramires, Laura (eds.). "Angoche, o maior mistério da guerra colonial". Nascer do SOL (in Portuguese). Porto Salvo, Oeiras, Portugal: Editor Newsplex, S.A./Impressão Sogapal Distribuição VASP. Archived from the original on 8 May 2021. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
* 1 2 3 4 Monteiro, Lisa (5 June 2017). Bose, Jadeep; Jain, Vineet; Sivaukumar, V. (eds.). "When Portugal made one last effort to recapture Goa from India". The Times of India. Gurgaon, Haryana, India: Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (The Times Group). ISSN 0971-8257. OCLC 23379369. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
* 1 2 3 Cabral e Sá, Mário (28 January 2012). Revankar, Pramod; Sinha, Arun (eds.). "The case of the CM's bungalow". The Navhind Times. Goa, India: Navhind Papers & Publications (Dempo Group/Dempo Industries Pvt. Ltd.). Archived from the original on 18 February 2013. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
* ↑ Sardesai, Sanjeev V. (29 June 2019). Revankar, Pramod; Sinha, Arun (eds.). "The lost gem of Goan freedom -Mohan Ranade". The Navhind Times. Goa, India: Navhind Papers & Publications (Dempo Group/Dempo Industries Pvt. Ltd.). Retrieved 7 September 2021.
* 1 2 Delgado Rosa, Frederico (3 May 2008). de Andradem, Domingos; Tecedeiro, Helen; Sequeira, Pedro; Ferro, Carlos; Cassiano, Artur; Rocha, Elsa; Nogueira, Carlos; Molinos, Manuel; Leite, Marcelo (eds.). "A terceira morte do Gen. Delgado". Diário de Notícias (in Portuguese). Lisbon, Portugal: Global Media Group (Global Noticias, Media Group, S.A.). Retrieved 29 August 2021.
* 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Noronha, Frederick (29 May 2008). Ranganathan, Sukumar; Bharia, Shobhana (eds.). "Tracking Goa's dreaded agent via cyberspace". Hindustan Times. Delhi, India: HT Media. ISSN 0972-0243. OCLC 231696742. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
* ↑ Fernandes, Eddie (23 July 2014). "Goan Voice Newsletter: Wednesday 23 Jul. 2014". Goan Voice Newsletter (Mailing list). London, United Kingdom of Great Britain: Goan Voice UK. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
* ↑ Fernandes, Eddie (26 January 2019). "Goan Voice Newsletter: Saturday 26 Jan. 2019". Goan Voice Newsletter (Mailing list). London, United Kingdom of Great Britain: Goan Voice UK. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
* 1 2 Madgaonkar, Vinay (1 April 2019). Dhangar, Dhanraj Totaram; Lawange, Swati V. (eds.). "Goan freedom struggle and 'Hom-kand' started by Jeevanmukt Maharaj" (PDF). Research Journey. 183 (A). Nashik, India: Swatidhan Publications: 1–8. ISSN 2348-7143.
* 1 2 Sinha, Aditya; Mustafa, Seema, eds. (23 July 2014). "Goa blasts: Lens on 2 Portuguese (50 Years Ago In Deccan Chronicle)". Books section. The Asian Age. Vol. 21, no. 157. New Delhi, India: Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited. p. 15. Retrieved 29 August 2021 – via PressDisplay (PressReader).
* ↑ Editorial staff (19 December 2011). Bose, Jadeep; Jain, Vineet; Sivaukumar, V. (eds.). "Records show colonizers were not done with Goa". The Times of India. Gurgaon, Haryana, India: Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (The Times Group). ISSN 0971-8257. OCLC 23379369. Archived from the original on 12 January 2012. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
* ↑ Barrado Timón, Mercedes (27 March 2015). Escolar, Ignacio; Sánchez, Jual Luis; Fraguas, Toño; Sevilla, Jaime; Barandela, Marta; Checa, Juan (eds.). ""La democracia portuguesa ha dado todos los honores a Humberto Delgado"". elDiario.es (in Spanish). Madrid, Spain: Diario de Prensa Digital S.L. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
* 1 2 Rosa Casaco, António. Pinto Balsemão, Francisco; Balsemão, Francisco Maria; Balsemão, Francisco Pedro; de Saldanha, Paulo; Reis, Paulo Miguel; Conde, Nuno Miguel; Vaz Tomé, Cristina; Costa, Ricardo; Vieira Pereira, João (eds.). ""Como matámos Humberto Delgado"". Expresso (in Portuguese). Paço de Arcos, Lisbon metropolitan area, Portugal: IMPRESA PUBLISHING S.A.
* ↑ Otanduy, Luis (25 June 2018). Estefanía, Joaquín; Mónica Ceberio; Polanco Moreno, Ignacio; Cebrián Echarri, Juan Luis (eds.). "Los asesinos de Humberto Delgado en libertad". El País (in Spanish). Madrid, Spain: Ediciones El País, S.L. (Promotora de Informaciones, S.A. (PRISA)). ISSN 1576-3757. Archived from the original on 14 August 2014. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
* ↑ Menezes, Vivke (3 September 2018). Bose, Jadeep; Jain, Vineet; Sivaukumar, V. (eds.). "Memories of Salazar flooding back again". The Times of India. Gurgaon, Haryana, India: Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (The Times Group). ISSN 0971-8257. OCLC 23379369. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 7 September 2021.