Today, we bring you a speech by Vasco Lourenço, one of the April captains who set forth the revolution in Portugal that ended a brutal 50-year dictatorship and brought democracy to Portugal. We invite you to read this wonderful dissertation by Vasco Lourenço in December of 2023.

Honorable President of the Republic, Excellency
Minister of National Defense
Representatives of the Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces
Commissioner for the Commemorations of the 50th Anniversary of April 25th
Presidents of the Óbidos Municipal Council and Assembly and other mayors of this beautiful medieval and historic town
Other mayors
Ladies and gentlemen of the military, civil, and police authorities
Ladies and Gentlemen

Dear Comrades of April

While thanking you all for your presence, allow me to thank the town of Óbidos, in the person of its representatives, for your willingness to welcome us here again with your usual hospitality.

It was 50 years ago that around 180 army officers, representing 429 comrades from their units, gathered here on these premises.
I’d like to remind you that although there have already been some contacts with comrades from the Navy, none of them have attended this meeting yet.
As for the Air Force, which has almost always been represented by paratroopers from the outset, they already showed their propensity for misunderstanding by proposing General Kaúlza de Arriaga as a possible leader of the Movement. Unfortunately, they never got it right again regarding consolidating April 25. And if they were saved at the last minute, participating with a force on April 25, the truth is that they never stopped being on the wrong side of the barrier, as we saw on September 28, 1974, March 11, 1975, and November 25, 1975.

As coordinator of the Movement, I asked the Captains of the 5th Infantry Regiment (the ERRE AI FAIVE, as we called it), located nearby in Caldas da Rainha, to find a place for us to meet under the guise of a planning get-together.

Luís da Piedade Faria asked his militia corporal Octávio Pinto to find a place for around 200 officers to have a get-together, which is where we were then and where we are celebrating this historic date today, 50 years later.
Piedade Faria has already left us, as have other comrades who came here and have also left, and that’s why I’m remembering them all now, asking for a moment of reflection in their memory and homage, to which I’ll add the other comrades from the Captains’ Movement and the Armed Forces Movement, who will be with them somewhere.

Thank you!

Fortunately, my dear friend Octávio Pinto is here with us. I salute and thank him for his attitude and his availability. Also, remember that this earned him reprisals because the military authorities did not have the courage to punish the officers who had gathered here – in an attitude of defiance of Power, with the argument of discussing how to recover the prestige of the Armed Forces – invested against the Corporal Miliciano, compulsorily transferring him to the Azores.
Far was I from imagining that, less than three months later, I would suffer the same reprisal and meet Octávio Pinto at the same destination, albeit on different islands…

But let’s go back to December 1, 1973.

About three months after the birth of the Movement, an internal rupture had already been overcome, which had driven away those who had gone to Alcáçovas thinking only of decrees and corporate interests (fortunately the only one during the entire period of the conspiracy); the proposal of a “blank check” to the government from the dictatorship’s last electoral farce, on October 28, 1973, had also been left behind.
We now had to rethink the Movement, structure it, and define the way forward.
That’s what we came here to do.

It’s worth remembering that this meeting in Óbidos, held exactly 50 years ago, was preceded by another important meeting in S. Pedro do Estoril, on November 24, six days earlier, where the agenda we’re discussing was approved.
That meeting would prove to be fundamental, mainly because of the intervention made by Lieutenant Colonel Luís Ataíde Banazol, who, from his post – the military, in general, are very sensitive to this – cried out that the government had to fall, and only the military could bring it down. He added that we would look very bad in photographs and history if we didn’t do our patriotic duty.
The renewal of his proposal, repeated here with equal force and vigor, did not achieve the enormous success it did in S. Pedro do Estoril. Certainly, because there were around forty officers there, the number had more than quadrupled here.
Despite everything, it was so important that it almost led to the hypothesis of “an immediate coup d’état” winning the majority of votes. The hypothesis of “continuing the struggle for demands, with the aim of restoring the prestige of the Armed Forces in the eyes of the nation” won out. But if we added to the votes of those who voted in favor of this solution, those who added that “if rapid results are not achieved, the solution will have to be the use of force”, it would be clear that we were heading inexorably towards military action. As moderator of the meeting, this is what I pointed out at the time to the prompt protest of those who didn’t think so.

I still feel moved when I recall this and other episodes in our journey to liberate the country!

I’d also like to remind you of the decision that was made here to extend our membership to the other two branches of the Armed Forces, the Navy, and the Air Force. This, as we know, would be done in a different way, without total and perfect integration into the Movement, even after, on March 5 in Cascais, it was renamed the Armed Forces Movement (MFA), annulling the name with which we baptized it here – the Armed Forces Officers’ Movement (MOFA) – and whose name never took hold.

It was also here that the Coordinating Committee was chosen, which would function until April 25.

It was also here that the future leaders to be invited were chosen, Generals Costa Gomes and Spínola, who would be ratified at the aforementioned meeting on March 5 in Cascais.

We left Óbidos with the firm conviction that, despite everything else, it was still necessary to fly the flag to recover the prestige of the Armed Forces. That’s why, here and now, I can’t resist comparing our conviction with the situation today: the prestige of the Armed Forces, although quite reasonable among the Portuguese population, doesn’t deserve much attention from the State, despite the countless declarations of praise made by members of political power, in which everything seems to reek of hypocrisy. That’s why I don’t believe, either myself or my military comrades, that those in political power consider the prestige of the Armed Forces to be important and have the respect for them that they claim. If they didn’t, if they respected their own and our Armed Forces, despite some recent progress, they would be much more careful with them and wouldn’t have been leading them to near destruction for so long.
We are not living in the situation of 1973, we live in a democracy, the military has already demonstrated that it defends the values of April, and there is no danger of a new use of force against Power. However, we must proclaim loud and clear: political power has a duty to respect and protect its Armed Forces as the basic institution of a democratic state.

When we met here 50 years ago, what would become the greatest danger to the Movement until April 25 was already underway: at the proposal of the paratroopers, the first contact was made that day with Colonel Frade Júnior, who would try to drag us into a radical coup to strengthen the dictatorship, with the promise of increasing the prestige of the Armed Forces. This attempt was immediately rejected when we realized that for them, the increase in prestige was the same and boiled down to an increase in salaries. For this reason, the two members of the Movement assigned to this liaison, whom I salute once again today, were not here: Captain Rodrigo Sousa e Castro and Lieutenant José Manuel Freire Nogueira, then officers of the CIAAC in Cascais.
The next two weeks would be decisive in the fight against this coup attempt to strengthen the dictatorship.
Presenting himself as a representative of Kaúlza de Arriaga and three other generals, Frade Júnior said he had paratroopers and 200 ex-combatants from the Setúbal area ready to help us in the military action.
I personally led the denunciation and the subsequent aborting of this attempt. First to Costa Gomes and Spínola, who were presented in the plan as targets to be eliminated, then, seeing the somewhat reckless disinterest of these two Generals through the public denunciation made by Carlos Fabião at the Institute of Higher Military Studies in Pedrouços.
I cannot fail to point out the cowardice of Kaúlza de Arriaga, who always denied this attempt, until the day when, in the last book he wrote, he assumed it, but with a claim that “it was not an attempted coup d’état, because it was carried out by Generals”!

What’s the point of commenting?

I would point out that this conspiracy was not limited to the ultras, of whom Américo Tomaz, Kaúlza de Arriaga, and Jorge Jardim were leading figures, but also to other influential sectors of Portugal. The liberation war of the Movements in the colonies was opposed by the attempt at white and racist regional independence. Just think of Alcora, which had already been agreed with apartheid South Africa and Ian Smith’s Rhodesia.
An understandable situation for a regime that followed the dictator’s precept of “proudly alone,” but highly painful for the Portuguese, who felt humiliated when confronted by democratic countries, particularly European ones.

Having won this struggle, we could continue moving towards the “initial day whole and clean,” as Sofia de Melo Breyner Andersen wrote.
It was in these conditions that generous young people, with no motives of power or gaining personal advantages or benefits but sufficiently experienced in war and its consequences, already aware of the value of peace and the importance and necessity of negotiating and complying with negotiated agreements, with good faith and respect for the dignity of the different protagonists, were able, in an intense and rapid move, to assume that they wanted peace, freedom, democracy, inclusion in the international community, respect for the dignity of all. This could only be a future reality if the regime was overthrown, as it was incapable of renewal and of finding ways to meet the aspirations of the Portuguese in these difficult times.
This feeling was strengthened when we saw the intensification of the popular struggles of many Portuguese for rights that had been denied them. A conviction was settling increasingly strongly in the consciousness of all of us: the Portuguese people wanted an end to the dictatorship; they wanted and were fighting for freedom and peace. Our duty was to serve the people and not to support some elite that had been oppressing them for over 47 years. Therefore, as Luis Ataíde Banazol had said, clearly stating what many of us felt and had even been proclaiming, our duty was to end the dictatorship, liberate freedom, make peace, build democracy, and end international isolation.
It was a feeling that quickly took hold, convincing us that we were meeting the wishes of the Portuguese people.
That’s why we felt so happy and fulfilled with the popular reaction of immediate support for what we were doing on April 25, 1974.
Considering the content of the speeches made at the meeting 50 years ago and the results obtained in the votes, this feeling would come to take hold, with dizzying speed, in most of the Movement’s officers.
And if there were still doubts during the following days, the fact is that three months later, at the March 5 meeting in Cascais, the option of military action to overthrow the regime was consensual and approved without resistance.

Recalling this and other meetings also allows us to highlight our stance as conspirators: we always used democratic processes internally, to which we added respect for everyone’s dignity, debating our ideas frankly and openly, with loyalty and transparency, which allowed us to overcome differences and even disagreements between us, at the same time as the government was desperately trying to buy us off with personal favors.
It was this natural choice to follow the path of dignity, courage, and responsibility, taking all the inherent risks, that helped us move decisively towards the day of liberation and enabled us to overcome all the internal and external obstacles we had to face on that day and in the days to come.
It was this path that later allowed us – with April 25, 1975, April 2, 1976, and October 20, 1982 – to return home, fulfilled and satisfied, but essentially honored to have accomplished everything we had set out to do and committed to when we presented the MFA Program to the Portuguese.

The situation we are experiencing today forces me to draw a parallel with those times.
Today, in a world that seems to have gone mad, with totalitarian forces coming to power through elections, imitating Hitler of such bad memory, demented figures appear to deceive the people and get their votes, as has just happened in Argentina.
Portugal is also in a very complicated situation. Everything points to a new type of dangerous anti-democratic action where, instead of the force of arms, the judiciary and the media are used to carry it out. Where is the true, non-manipulative information? Can we still talk about true freedom of the press and true freedom of expression when manipulation takes hold in our country?
As a result, it has been dissolved despite an absolute majority in the Assembly of the Republic. We have an electoral struggle ahead of us, where the forces inimical to April will do everything they can to ensure that its next 50th anniversary is not celebrated based on its values of Freedom, Peace, Democracy, Social Justice, and Solidarity.

While it is true that April began to be attacked on the very day and within its protagonists, many achievements were made in a joint struggle by most Portuguese people and the MFA. The Constitution of the Republic, the creation of the National Health Service, and the increase in education for all Portuguese people are all examples of the enormous achievements of April 25.

Over the years, April has suffered many attacks – unfortunately, no political force can claim to be innocent of its behavior over the last 50 years!
The attacks on its values, its characteristics – where does the Republican ethic stop? The use of so-called fake news had made us “hit rock bottom” and almost beaten us in the difficult times when it was declared that we wanted to go “beyond the Troika.” We managed to resist and get back on our feet. We can’t fall apart now when they go so far as to forget or pretend to forget that we have a memory, try to distort history and mystify events, inventing heroes of the fight for freedom and democracy.
Many were defeated in their aims at the time, trying to present themselves as winners, as responsible for the values of April, namely Freedom and Democracy. To those, whether 80 or more, we say that we keep our memory fresh, don’t forget, and won’t allow any misrepresentation of history!

We commemorate April 25, 1974, where we were the main protagonists, which is a great honor. We will never abdicate our commitment to that action and its values!
We were also the main protagonists in fulfilling its promises, respecting everything that we assured the Portuguese on the 25th, saying what we were coming for through our program, the MFA Program.

Commemorating April cannot be limited to celebrating the date. It must extend to celebrating its values and achievements.
Celebrating April means fighting for the continuation and deepening of Freedom, Peace, Democracy, Social Justice, Equality, Solidarity, and the Welfare State.
Celebrating April means respecting its history, the struggle for its consummation, and not allowing anyone to fabricate a past to suit their current interests.
Along the lines that some people want to invent, one day, it won’t be the MFA that overthrows a long dictatorship. Still, democracy will have come, slowly, through an evolution in continuity!
The fact is that, whether or not anyone wants to think otherwise, there was no popular uprising as some claimed, nor was there an evolution in continuity as others advocated!
The MFA, the Captains of April, led the recovery of Freedom and paved the way for Peace, the Social Revolution, the construction of Democracy, and the possibility of building a more just, equal, and supportive society.
Because we agree that every date counts in history, we will not allow the commemoration of April 25 not to evoke all the dates on which its enemies tried to conspire it, were defeated, and could not prevent it from being consummated with the approval of the Constitution of the Republic. In other words, we will commemorate the 50th anniversary of all the MFA’s victories over those who wanted to destroy April 25.

May we achieve what we achieved 50 years ago in these commemorations: victory over the forces that wanted to strengthen the dictatorship.

Today, the fight is to strengthen democracy based on the values of April, where public services serve citizens, where the agents and leaders of power serve the community and don’t take advantage of it to serve themselves!
A democracy where the mission of these agents of power is to manage the “public thing”, in defence of Social Justice, Freedom and Equality, not allowing the system to go bankrupt, paving the way for the commodification of social rights, which will inevitably lead us to inequality and injustice.
Today, we can regret the fact that the timeless values and principles that guided us 50 years ago and allowed us to reach a successful conclusion are not fully present in Portuguese society.

Democracy has its own nature, virtues, and defects, which gives it a special characteristic: the existence of several powers and the fact that in the House of Democracy, there are diverse and different sensitivities, making it more difficult to manage and less operative than a dictatorship. Despite all this, we still strongly prefer an imperfect democracy, with all its flaws, to a “good” dictatorship.
That’s why we must cherish democracy, respecting its idiosyncrasies, where a good relationship between its various bodies, namely the Organs of Sovereignty, is essential.
Democracy only wins if its citizens believe in it!

Each Sovereign Body must assume its responsibilities and competencies while respecting the responsibilities and competencies of all the others. This is what seems to have happened, despite all the noise generated by the media, including all the other instruments such as social networks.
We hope that, in the future, the Bodies of Sovereignty will not run over each other. This is essential if April is to continue.

Now, despite all the mistakes made by the forces that claim to be from April, whether in or out of power, it is these forces – which admittedly need an internal overhaul to serve all citizens and not just their “tribe” – that give us the guarantee that the values of April will continue to be defended.
For this reason, not wanting to get into partisan positions but assuming our position of non-neutrality between April and non-April, here we express the hope that the forces that assume April will remain in power through their majority in the Assembly of the Republic.
But because we take this stance here, rest assured that we will always be on the front line, demanding that the forces that claim to be from April do not limit themselves to declarations, however vigorous they may be. If they claim to be forces of April, they will have to practice this by defending and practicing their values!
That will be our demand, coming from the past, on the way to the future.

With a big hug to everyone, April, always!

Long live the Captains’ Movement!
Long live the MFA!
Long live Óbidos!
Long live April 25th!
Long live Portugal!

December 1st, 2023

Vasco Lourenço