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Portugal celebrates Day of Liberty
Posted 4/20/2012 Updated 4/20/2012
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Commentary by Eduardo Lima
65th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
4/20/2012 - LAJES FIELD, Portugal -- The Portuguese people will commemorate one of their most meaningful holidays, the Day of Liberty, Wednesday.
This date commemorates the April 25, 1974, military coup that put an end to 47 years of right-wing dictatorship in the country as a group of Portuguese military officers overthrew the oppressor regime of Dr. Marcelo Caetano who had replaced Dr. Antonio Salazar in 1968.
The coup was known as the "Revolution of the Carnations" because the people placed carnations in the soldiers gun barrels and also because the revolution was marked by the absence of bloodshed or major violence. Only a small incident stained the coup when members of the secret police, General Security Directorate or International and State Defense Police, opened fire against civilian demonstrators causing a few casualties.
During the right-wing dictatorship period, the majority of the Portuguese people and military officials were discontent with the regime's political and economical situation at the time. Dissension grew worse with years of what some thought was a senseless war in the African colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea. Many people believed there were no possible solutions - political or military - at sight.
Consequently, a group of young captains planned the coup with the objective of restoring democracy, ending the overseas war and allowing the people of those Portuguese African provinces the right to become independent and carry out their own destiny.
In the early morning hours of April 25, 1974, a previously banned protest song, titled "Grandola, Vila Morena" was aired on a Portuguese radio station, giving the secret signal to the rebellious military to move toward the country's capital, Lisbon, and oust the government.
By the end of the day, the military, calling themselves the Armed Forces Movement, had defeated the forces loyal to the old regime and offered the country a much- anticipated democracy.
As news of the coup spread, large crowds gathered in Lisbon and other cities around the country, and applauded the military members who put an end to a decrepit regime giving hope for a brighter future.
The restoration of democracy, which had been taken in 1926 when the military dictatorship was instituted, opened the road to the independence of the former Portuguese colonies and also allowed the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira to become autonomous regions and have their own governments, although respecting the national sovereignty.
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