Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho

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Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho.

Otelo Nuno Romão Saraiva de Carvalho, GCL (pronounced [ɔˈtɛlu sɐˈɾaivɐ dɨ kɐɾˈvaʎu]) (August 31, 1936 - ), formerly a military officer, was the chief strategist of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal.

1 Biography
2 Quotes
3 Presidential Elections of 27 June 1976
4 Presidential Elections of 7 December 1980
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho was born in Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, Mozambique, of some Goan ancestry. Named by his theater-minded parents after Shakespeare's Othello, he had his secondary education at a state school in Maputo. His father was a civil servant and his mother a railway clerk. He entered the Military Academy in Lisbon at the age of nineteen.

Carvalho spent many years in the colonial wars in Africa. He served in Angola from 1961 to 1963 as a second lieutenant, and as a captain from 1965 to 1967. He was posted to Guinea-Bissau in 1970 as a captain, under General António de Spínola, in charge of civilian affairs and propaganda ('Hearts and Minds').

He joined the underground Movement of Armed Forces (Movimento das Forças Armadas - MFA), which carried out a coup d'état on April 25, 1974 in which he played a directing role. Carvalho was part of National Salvation Junta that governed the country after the Carnation Revolution, as the upheaval came to be called.

In July 1974 Carvalho was made a Brigadier and placed in command of the special military Command for the Continent COPCON, which was set up to secure order in the country and to promote the revolutionary process. In 1975, infighting in the MFA intensified with Carvalho representing the left-wing of the movement. A right-wing putsch attempt, led by Spinola, was thwarted by the timely intervention of COPCON in March 1975. He became part of the Council of the Revolution which was created On March 14, 1975. In May 1975, he was temporarily promoted to General and, together with Costa Gomes and Vasco Gonçalves, formed the Directório (Directorate).

On November 25, 1975 the Portuguese Communist Party and its armed branch allegedly tried to seize control of the country. Otelo is said to have orchestrated this coup. Some of the military under Otelo's orders took control of three Air Force bases. The right-wing of the army used this as pretext to launch a counter-revolution, which brought António Ramalho Eanes to power. It is also implied that the coup did not work because Carvalho did not support the military. This is the reason for why the Communists still today hate Carvalho. They believe that Portugal did not became a communist nation because of this.^{[citation needed]}

In 1976 and 1980 Carvalho unsuccessfully stood as a candidate for president against Eanes. In 1982 he was recalled to the army, since it was shown that his discharge had been politically motivated. In 1984 he was arrested and accused of contact with or membership of the terrorist group Popular Forces 25 April (FP-25 Abril) (Portuguese:Forças Populares 25 de Abril), which claimed a number of robberies and murders in Portugal in the following years. His trial was controversial and his allies assumed it to be motivated by revenge. In 1989, he was amnestied and a resumption of the procedure was struck down because of a legal imbroglio. Since then, he has been a small-businessmen trading arms and other military material with a number of African countries.

[edit] Quotes

Carvalho once said: "We should have gathered some thousands fascists in Campo Pequeno (a bull's fight arena), and eliminate them. That would end the counter-revolution."^{[citation needed]}

Carvalho is still an icon for activists of the left in Portugal, and is hated by many people who consider him a terrorist who tried to seize the country to become Europe's Fidel Castro.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Presidential Elections of 27 June 1976

Portuguese Presidential Election, 1976 - First Round (June 27)
Candidate	Party	Votes	%
António Ramalho Eanes	Independent	2,967,137	60.8%
Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho	Independent	792,760	16.2%
Pinheiro de Azevedo	Independent	692,147	14.2%
Octávio Pato	PCP	365,586	07.5%
Invalid Ballots		43,242	00.9%
Blank Ballots		20,253	00.4%
Total:		4,881,125	-

Registered voters: 6,467,480
Turnout: 75.47%

(Source: Portuguese Electoral Commission)

[edit] Presidential Elections of 7 December 1980

Portuguese Presidential Election, 1980 - First Round (December 7)
Candidate	Party	Vote	Percent
Ramalho Eanes	Independent	3,262,520	55.9%
Soares Carneiro	PSD	2,325,481	39.8%
Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho	Left-Wing Independent	85,896	1.5%
Carlos Galvão de Melo	Right-Wing Independent	48,468	0.8%
António Pires Veloso	Independent	45,132	0.8%
Aires Rodrigues	POUS	12,745	0.2%
Carlos Brito	PCP (left the race)	0	0.0%
Invalid Ballots		44,014	0.8%
Blank Ballots		16,076	0.3%
	Total:	5,840,332	-

Registered Voters: 6,920,869
Turnout: 84.39%