Portugal to mark 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution

Portugal on Wednesday (25 April) will mark the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, a military coup that put an end to Europe’s longest-lived dictatorship and 13 years of colonial wars in Africa.

The 1974 revolt by a group of idealist young military captains quickly turned into a popular uprising when the troops were joined by jubilant crowds.

Meeting little resistance from loyalist forces they took less than 24 hours to topple the dictatorship that had ruled Portugal with an iron fist since 1926 under Antonio de Oliveira Salazar and from 1968 under Marcelo Caetano.

The peaceful uprising was nicknamed the “Carnation Revolution” after the flowers protesters placed in the military’s guns and tanks in a rare example of a military coup staged to install democracy.

Peaceful revolution

In the early morning of 25 April 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 their thousands with the rebel soldiers.

A young cavalry captain, Jose Salgueiro Maia, was sent to accept the surrender of Prime Minister Caetano 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 take 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.

Independence for African colonies

The following day, the former general chief of staff of the armed forces and figurehead of the rebel movement General Antonio Spinola announced the formation of a government of national salvation, in a declaration on behalf of the rebels.

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 were crippling what was left of the economy.

After the failure of nationalisations and agrarian reform, economic recovery was slow, awaiting the 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 is a source of pride in Portugal, where the anniversary is a national holiday called “Freedom Day”.

Other colour revolutions followed: 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).

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