LISBON – The controversial hero of the Portuguese revolution, Othello Saraiva de Carvalho, died at the age of 84 in a hospital in Lisbon. He was the main actor of the “carnation revolution”, the one that deposed the dictator on April 25, 1974 Marcelo Caetano ending more than four decades of dictatorship.
Born in Maputo, Mozambique, Saraiva de Carvalho entered the army in 1955, from which he left as a second lieutenant. He was promoted to captain after serving in the Portuguese colonial war in Angola, first between 1961 and ’63 and then between ’65 and ’67. Between 1970 and 1973 he was sent to fight in Guinea-Bissau. Returning to Portugal and promoted to the rank of major, he was one of the supporters of the Armed Forces Movement, born with anti-colonial goals and full of socialist ideas.
He led the coup that led to the “Carnation Revolution” and promoted the constitution of the National Salvation Junta, which ended the long authoritarian regime founded by António de Oliveira Salazar. In July 1974 he was promoted to general and placed at the helm of the Comando Operational do Continente, a special military body charged with ensuring order in the country. He was then called to be a member of the Revolutionary Council, created in March 1975.
Fidel Castro received him in Havana with great welcome; François Mitterrand, Willy Brandt and many other European political leaders did not hide their curiosity and sympathy for the military.
He had been nicknamed “the Portuguese Che guevara” in the press. Accused of supporting the failed coup d’etat of 25 November 1975, promoted by radical elements of the armed forces, he was dismissed from his posts, returning to the rank of major. After the counter-revolution led by conservative sections of the army, which led to power António Ramalho Eanes, lost the elections for president in 1976 and 1980.
Placed in the army reserve in 1979, he was reinstated in 1982 and promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Accused of contacts with the terrorist formation Forze Popolari April 25, he was arrested in 1984; tried and sentenced in 1987 to 15 years in prison, was bailed out in 1989 and amnestied in 1996.
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