Page 25 - Demo

23INTRODU%u00c7%u00c3O | INTRODUCTIONtion), Sousa e Almeida began in this manner the economic cycle of cocoa and coffee, which was to dominate the entire economy of the last phase of the colonial period. The population was increased with labor force contracted in other Portuguese colonies such as Angola, Cabo Verde and Mozambique in often outrageous conditions that led to numerous uprisings, always repressed by the colonial policy instruments. At the beginning of World War I, Sao Tome was one of the main world producers of cocoa.In the early fifties of the last century, the Portuguese colonial authorities tried again to strengthen the operating mechanisms in monocultures through the use of labor forced, repressed and enslaved, methods amongst which the massacre of Batep%u00e1 of February 3, 1953, is mostly remembered, having Governor Carlos Gorgulho been directly responsible for it. From the sixties, the beginning of the armed struggle for independence in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau encouraged the independence movement in Sao Tome, first through the establishment of Sao Tome and Principe Liberation Committee, later on transformed into Liberation Movement of Sao Tome and Principe (MLSTP), that signed in Algiers the selfdetermination agreement with the Portuguese authorities after the 25th April 1974 Revolution. This event paved the way for independence, celebrated on July 12, 1975.Manuel Pinto da Costa was the first Head of State, a position he was reconducted to after the presidential elections of 2011, succeeding Miguel Trovoada and Fradique de Menezes.23INTRODU%u00c7%u00c3O | INTRODUCTION