He was an officer in the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Agostinho Neto's armed wing fighting against Portuguese colonial apartheid like rule.

Founder and commander in chief of the Angolan Armed Forces, he defeated the FNLA in the north and UNITA in the south during the first phase of the civil war.

[3] Carreira's last struggle was to combat his illness, a stroke that paralysed his entire left side for the last 13 years of his life, writing two novels with one finger, on a special computer.

The novels are titled: O Pensamento Estrategico de Agostinho Neto (Publicacoes Dom Quixote), and Memorias (published in Angola by Nzila).

[3] In June 2000, The Guardian's Victoria Brittain wrote in an obituary : "Like his friend and mentor, President Neto, Carreira will always remain a reference point for Angolans for the heroic period of their history."