Movimento das Forças Armadas

The Movimento the forcas Armadas (MFA, Portuguese Armed Forces Movement ) emerged in the early 1970s in Portugal, first as the Movimento dos Capitães (movement of captains ), an association of 200 to 300 junior officers of the colonial war in Africa " overseas provinces " Angola, Mozambique, Guinea- Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe against the liberation movements were tired.

Among the protagonists, which eventually were planning the overthrow of the 47 -year-old dictatorship in late 1973, Francisco da Costa Gomes were Vasco Lourenço, Vasco Gonçalves, Ernesto Melo Antunes and as a " strategic mind " Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho. Main demands of the MFA were the immediate termination of the " dirty war " that hit innocent civilians again, withdrawal from Africa, free elections and the abolition of the secret police PIDE / DGS. After a failed attempt in March 1974 finally took place (which became known as the " Carnation Revolution " ), in which, among other things, the Captain Salgueiro Maia played an important role in the early hours of April 25 coup. Within a few hours all Lisbon was occupied by troops loyal to MFA. Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano had to hand over power to General António de Spinola. The MFA has organized one of the few coups in history that took place not against but for democracy.

As a result of April 25, 1974, the MFA mobilized the army and announced the three big " D": democratization, decolonization and development (Portuguese desenvolvimento ). Soldiers and students, including many from Germany and France, moved to the countryside to distribute unused goods and teach the largely illiterate population to read and write. One year after the Carnation Revolution was Portugal as a country that befände on the road to "socialism with a human face ". This " third way" inspired many of the Western European left, who distrusted the Soviet system. The Communists ruled with which NATO could no longer participate in the Nuclear Planning Group Portuguese military. However, neither the ultra-left revolutionaries nor the pro-Moscow communists won the polls (April 25, 1975: Constituent Assembly, April 25, 1976: Parliamentary elections ), but the social democratic socialists of Mário Soares, a friend of Willy Brandt. The influence of the MFA and the military in politics heard after the abolition of the Revolutionary Council in 1982 to all.

The term Movimento the forcas Armadas is used in Portugal in everyday language often used interchangeably to Capitães de Abril ( " Captains of April " ) and also to Movimento dos Capitães. The feature film cloves for the freedom of Maria de Medeiros as representing the events of the Carnation Revolution vividly, was called in the Portuguese original " Capitães de Abril ".

• Portuguese history