Macau’s last Portuguese governor, Vasco Rocha Vieira, died yesterday at the Armed Forces Hospital in Lisbon, aged 85, Portuguese media reported last night.
The reports quoted the Portuguese Army.
Rocha Vieira, an engineer by profession, held a raft of senior military posts before he was appointed by Portuguese president Mário Soares governor of Macau in April 1991. He remained at the helm of Macau’s Portuguese administration until midnight on December 19, 1999, when Portugal returned its temporary administration to China. His final military rank was lieutenant-general. After 1999, Rocha Vieira lived as a retiree in Portugal.
According to local Portuguese sources, Rocha Vieira died of the consequences of severe head injuries sustained in a fall in his home’s bathroom. Local broadcaster TDM reported last night that the accident happened some three months ago.
Macau’s post-1974 governors were appointed by Portugal’s president to whom they were answerable. The governors were Portugal’s top representative in Macau. Portugal unilaterally relinquished its claim of sovereignty over Macau shortly after the anti-colonial Carnation Revolution in April 1974. The People’s Republic of China (PRC), which never recognised foreign sovereignty over Chinese soil, refrained from exercising its sovereignty over Macau until the 1999 transfer of administration.
Locally, Rocha Vieira oversaw Macau’s return from Portuguese to Chinese administration in the 1990s. Compared with the conflict-ridden situation in British-ruled Hong Kong in the run-up to its 1997 return to Chinese rule, Macau’s return from Portuguese to Chinese administration was relatively smooth and its transfer ceremony on December 19-20, 1999, was quite dignified, observers said at that time.
Undated file photo of Macau’s last Portuguese governor, Vasco Rocha Vieira, who died in Portugal yesterday. – Photo courtesy of TDM
