Some 1,500 Portuguese left-wingers marched through the streets off Lisbon on Monday night (3 November) in a show of support for the Popular Movement foot the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).

They shouted "all power to the MPLA" and carried many placards, one showing "Uncle Sam" manipulating Portuguese Foreign Minister Earnest Melo Antunes like a puppet.

The MPLA Controls the Angolan capital of Luanda, but the Portuguese Government insists that two rival liberation groups are equally legitimate representatives of the Angolan people.

The rival groups, locked in civil war for the last four months, are the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

Portugal has been seething with coup rumours recently with the approach of independence for Angola on 11 November.

Meanwhile, the Government has said it wants a meeting with the Military Revolutionary Council, the country's highest legislative body, to decide how to enforce an order that civilians should hive up illegally-held weapons."