Alcora Exercise

Formation	14 October 1970
Founder	Portugal  South Africa
Dissolved	25 April 1974
Type	Military alliance
Purpose	Internal and external defense
Headquarters	Pretoria
Region served	Southern Africa
Membership	Portugal  Rhodesia  South Africa
Official language	Afrikaans,English,Portuguese
Director-General, PAPO	Major-General Clifton
Main organ	Alcora Top Level Commission (ATLC)

Alcora Exercise (Afrikaans:Alcora Oefening,Portuguese:Exercício Alcora) or simplyAlcora^[1] was a secretmilitary alliance ofPortugal,Rhodesia andSouth Africa, formally in force between 1970 and 1974. The code name "Alcora" being an acronym for "AliançaContra asRebeliões emAfrica" (Portuguese expression meaning: "Alliance against the rebellions in Africa").^[2]

The official goal of Alcora Exercise was to investigate the processes and means by which a coordinated tripartite effort between the three countries could face the mutual threat to their territories inSouthern Africa. The immediate goal was to face the African revolutionary movements that fought guerrilla wars against the Portuguese authorities in Angola and Mozambique, to limit the spread of the action of these movements in Rhodesia andSouth West Africa and to prepare the defense of the Portuguese, Rhodesian and South African territories against an expected conventional military aggression from the hostile governments of the African neighbor countries.^[3]

Alcora was the formalization of informal agreements on military cooperation between the local Portuguese, Rhodesian and South African military commands that had been in place since the mid-1960s. Alcora was kept secret and referred to as an 'exercise' (not an alliance or treaty), mainly due to the pressure of thePortuguese government, that feared the external and internal political issues that would be raised if it appeared to be associated with the minority rule in Rhodesia and theapartheid government of South Africa, in contradiction to the official Portuguese doctrine of the existence of racial equality in Angola and Mozambique.^[4]

Under Alcora, Portugal, Rhodesia and South Africa cooperated in theAngolan War of Independence, theMozambican War of Independence, theRhodesian Bush War and theSouth African Border War.^[5]

The Alcora alliance collapsed due to the PortugueseCarnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 and the subsequent independence of Angola and Mozambique that followed.^[6][7]

• 1970s in Rhodesia
• Counter-revolution
• Military alliances involving Portugal
• Military alliances involving South Africa
• Portugal–Rhodesia relations
• Portugal–South Africa relations
• Portuguese Colonial War
• Rhodesian Bush War
• Rhodesia–South Africa military relations
• Secret treaties
• South African Border War
• Trilateral relations

• CS1 Portuguese-language sources (pt)
• All articles with dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from April 2021
• Articles with permanently dead external links
• Articles containing Afrikaans-language text
• Articles containing Portuguese-language text
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata