LISBON, April 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Portugal marks Thursday the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, a military coup that put an end to Europe’s longest-running dictatorship and 13 years of colonial wars in Africa.
The 1974 revolt by a group of young military captains quickly turned into a popular uprising when the troops were joined by jubilant crowds.
Meeting little resistance from loyalist forces, they toppled in fewer than 24 hours the dictatorship that had ruled Portugal with an iron fist since 1926 under Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, and then from 1968 under Marcelo Caetano.
The peaceful uprising became known as the Carnation Revolution after the flowers protesters placed in the military’s guns and tanks, a rare example of a military coup staged to install democracy.
In the early morning of April 25, 1974, the rebel Armed Forces Movement broadcast a radio message calling on people to remain indoors and keep calm — a revolution to end the 42-year military dictatorship was underway.
But the population, sick of the parlous economic state and disastrous colonial wars, took to the streets, massing on corners and mixing in the thousands with the rebel soldiers.
A young cavalry captain, Jose Salgueiro Maia, was sent to accept Caetano’s surrender as prime minister at his refuge in Lisbon’s main police barracks.
In Lisbon’s Carmo Square, the growing crowd sang the national anthem before setting off to seize the headquarters of the feared political police, the PIDE.
PIDE agents fired on the crowd, killing four, the only people to die in the revolution.
The next day General Antonio Spinola, the former chief of staff of the armed forces and figurehead of the rebel movement, announced the formation of a government of “national salvation”.
In the declaration, he proposed handing over power to the civilian population with free elections and a policy of “three Ds”: democratisation, decolonisation and development.
The revolution led to Portugal’s first free elections under universal suffrage exactly one year later.
Portugal, whose explorers had begun Europe’s colonisation of Africa in the 15th century, gave independence to Guinea Bissau in 1974 and then Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe in 1975.
Independence put an end to 13 years of colonial warfare in Africa that had cost at least 8,000 lives, wounded more than 20,000 and was costing Portugal over half of its state budget.
Student and worker strikes meanwhile were crippling what was left of the economy.
Economic recovery after the overthrow was slow, with a failure of nationalisations of major companies and agricultural reforms, while many awaited a return of the major industrial families sacked during the revolution.
Portugal’s entry into what was to become the European Union, in 1986, finally gave some real stimulus and brought the country firmly back into the European democratic community.
The revolution remains a source of pride in Portugal, where the anniversary is a national “Freedom Day” holiday.
Other colourful revolutions followed in Europe: the Velvet Revolution in the former Czechoslovakia in 1989, Georgia’s Rose Revolution (2003), the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (2004) and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan (2005). — NNN-AGENCIES
