Within the scope of the 50th anniversary of April 25, three former members of the Popular Forces of April 25 (FP-25) agreed to speak to Lusa on the condition of maintaining their anonymity, as they now have established lives, with children and jobs, and are fully integrated into Portuguese society.

Responsible for 13 deaths and dozens of attacks and bank robberies over seven years, the FP-25 carried out their first action on April 20, 1980, with the explosion of firecrackers throughout the country and the dissemination of a "Manifesto to the Working People" that served as a declaration of the organization's intentions.

In that document, the organization considered that November 25, 1975, "carried out by the forces of the bourgeoisie, supported by imperialism, managed to stop the advance of the workers and their conquests" and it was necessary to "prevent the rapid march towards the restoration of the power of the 'old masters'".

"Thus, militants who fought against the dictatorship, imperialism and colonialism with weapons in hand, integrated into various organizations, understood that this was the moment to respond with revolutionary violence to the violence that daily befalls those who work, with the strength that comes from the reason and justice of their struggle", was stated in that manifesto.

To Lusa, one of the former members of the FP-25 emphasizes that the organization's objective was to "go beyond the military coup" of April 25, 1974 and, with the opening created by the revolution, "establish a regime of popular power, in which people were elected directly from the bases, not by representation, nor by the airtime they had, for the organs of power".

"We were defeated. We had to recognize that we did not achieve what we wanted, and a consensus was reached to pacify and not continue the activity", admits a former operative, sentenced to 15 years in prison in the Monsanto trial.

Despite using different formulations to recognize the defeat of the project - "it clearly failed", "we did not advance much", "our objectives were in no way achieved" - the three former members also unanimously refuse any regret for having participated in the FP-25, asking that their action be contextualized in the historical period.

At the time, just five years after the PREC, there was a fading of forces and figures of the extreme left that, years before, had been central in Portuguese political life, such as Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, who only obtained 1.46% in the 1980 presidential elections and who would later allegedly become a member of the FP-25, which he always denied.

On the contrary, representative democracy was beginning to consolidate, as were center-right and right-wing parties, such as the PPD/PSD and the CDS-PP, which formed their first government precisely in 1980, led by the then prime minister Francisco Sá Carneiro.

"Today, it is difficult to understand what happened at that time, because the times were turbulent and there was not the pacification that is said to have existed today. There were many struggles and there was no social peace, there was an attempt to advance the forces of the right that we tried to stop", contextualizes one of the former members of the FP-25, who compares the situation with that of figures such as the former prime minister and president of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, who, after April 25, was a leader of the MRPP.

Another, who was tried as a leader of the FP-25, considers that the organization's actions, despite "all the mistakes, were fully justified", because they encouraged the political power to undertake reforms such as the end of the slums, giving more rights to workers in factories or ensuring that the EEC funds were effectively invested in companies and not in private interests.

"We marked a little bit the history of this country and, moreover, at that time and in those conditions, we did what had to be done", he emphasizes, stressing that the FP-25 was not composed of "upstarts and revolutionaries who only wanted to walk around with weapons in their hands", but by "extremely simple" people who fought "for a project, a principle and had a goal".

As for the use of violence as a method of political action, one of the few women who belonged to the FP-25 tells Lusa that, at her current age, she understands those who consider that it was not justified, but emphasizes that "it is all an evolution".

"The FP-25 was a dream of trying to change this country that was falling to a side that was not very good. We were very young and full of determination and, when we are young, we have a life force and a will to do what we think and believe is correct. Then, things change with age", she says.

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