The session to commemorate November 25, 1975 in the Assembly of the Republic will have military honors for the Armed Forces and will take place along similar lines to the solemn session that marks the revolution of April 25, 1974 every year.
António Ramalho Eanes refuses to stigmatize the date, which he argues is a continuation of the 25th of April, the “founding day” of democracy. In the book “Ramalho Eanes, Palavra que conta”, published this month, based on an interview with RTP carried out by journalist Fátima Campos Ferreira and broadcast last May, Eanes refuses to stigmatize the operation: “I don’t understand that they stigmatize the 25th of November , because November 25th is the continuation of April 25th;
It’s time to recognize that “there was a very complicated period between April 25th and November 25th, that there were movements that tried — understandably, in my opinion — to impose their ideologies, which, obviously, the MFA did not allow, because that would be, in some way, to contradict, not respond, not respect the April promise. And therefore, we had to do the 25th of November, but, from then on, the country created unity, plural unity, obviously”, he considers.
“I understand that forgetting the 25th of November does not help democracy, because history does not erase itself. It is with history, and by returning to history, in a non-endemic or nostalgic way, that we learn to avoid future mistakes”, he argues in the same interview , now published by Porto Editora.
According to the former president, that date marks “the end point of a confrontation and the beginning of a democratic cooperation in which everyone participates, in which all ideologies are justified.”
In April of this year, on an initiative by the current President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, with secondary and higher education students, General Ramalho Eanes, who was the commander of the military operation on November 25, 1975, reserved for the 25th of April 1974 the hegemonic place.
“The 25th of April was unique, it was founding. It is what granted freedom to the Portuguese. It is what we must celebrate, celebrate and above all reflect on. But we must not forget the natural disturbance that followed, in which there was a battle of ideologies, of models of society, in which there was a PREC that created an unsustainable situation, a situation of fear and a situation that brought us close to a civil war”, he declared, at the time.
Eanes said that there was “a military offensive”, in his opinion “organized lightly by the extreme left, but in which the PCP could not have failed to intervene”, in which he and other military personnel were forced to act.
“We had this action, finally, and I repeat that it could have led to a civil war and that the 25th of November was indispensable. I repeat: it was indispensable, so that the military’s promises of honor to the population could be fulfilled”, he defended.
According to Eanes, the outcome of the 25th of November was due to “the military who remained faithful to the promise of honor they had made to the population, which was to give them back their freedom, but freedom without conditions” and who “resolved, in the face of an insurrection armed to respond — well, and an armed insurrection, naturally, can only be responded to with weapons”.
Also last April, but in an interview with SIC’s Jornal da Noite, Ramalho Eanes was asked whether “it makes sense or doesn’t make sense, to celebrate, to celebrate” the two dates, the 25th of April and the 25th of November, responding that “it makes entirely felt” but noting that the founding date of democracy is April 25, 1974.
“There is a founding date of democracy: the 25th of April”, he stated.
Years earlier, on November 24, 2015, in Manila, Philippines, where he was to receive the 2015 International Peace Prize from the Gusi Peace Prize International foundation, Eanes had argued that November 25 was a “divisive moment” and that fractured moments “are not celebrated, they are remembered”.
“The 25th of November was a shattering moment and I understand that we should not celebrate, the shattering moments are not celebrated, they are remembered and remembered only to reflect on them. In the case of the 25th of November, we should reflect on why we Portuguese, with centuries and centuries of history, with a national unity made of a profound distinctive culture, why did we reach that situation, why did we reach the brink of civil war”, said Ramalho Eanes at the time, in statements to Macau public radio and television in Manila.
It was November 25th that presented the country with its operational commander. The then lieutenant colonel Ramalho Eanes appeared on RTP with dark glasses, a sharp face and sideburns, with his deep voice and slow diction, speaking alongside Jaime Neves, in front of the President of the Republic, General Costa Gomes, the Prime Minister, Pinheiro de Azevedo, and Vasco Lourenço.
All operations, Eanes said at the time, “were conducted with the concern of avoiding casualties on either side”.
“This concern was great and was determined by the fact that on one side and on the other side there were Portuguese”, declares Eanes, concluding that the units involved managed to “return, to the Portuguese people, now, in an open and free manner, the ideals that made the revolution of the 25th of April”.
He is the first President of the Republic elected in a democracy, serving two terms (1976-1986).
Source: expresso.pt
