Livre’s co-spokesperson, Rui Tavares, accused André Ventura of “having repeated four or five times” a phrase used by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, when he said “we were stabbed in the back”, during the Chega leader’s speech at the solemn session of the 52nd anniversary of the 25th of April, referring to the Colonial War.
“We are all pretending it was nothing, but evidently he used the famous stab phrase with which the Nazis referred to the First World War”, said Rui Tavaresat the beginning of the parade commemorating the Carnation Revolution, which filled Avenida da Liberdade on Saturday afternoon.
Guaranteeing that Livre is responsible for “everything that involves defending democracy”, Tavares referred to Ventura as “someone who just recently spoke of three Salazars”recalling that the President of the Republic, António José Seguro, “warned about the hate speech that passes through social media and sometimes through Parliament” during his speech at the solemn commemorative session.
Still according to Rui Tavares, the Government “of a very radicalized right that, on top of that, likes to try to disguise it with false moderation” decided to “devalue the 25th of April” with the decision to install the Carnation Revolution Interpretive Center in Pontinha and not in Terreiro do Paço. Something that led the leader of Livre to announce, during the formal session, the launch of the online petition Por Abril at Sítio Certoso that it is in the place where “the decisive moment” occurred, when a column of soldiers loyal to the regime refused to open fire on the soldiers commanded by the revolutionary Salgueiro Maia.
When asked by DN whether the President of the Republic, when saying that “you cannot love the 25th of April by decree”, was pointing out flaws in the way the Carnation Revolution is taught and explained to the Portuguese, Rui Tavares said that “today we have a lot of people who want to lie about the legacy of the dictatorship because ignorance about the way it was imposed allows liars and opportunists to say whatever they want and someone will swallow it.”
Referring once again, as he had done in the solemn session of the Assembly of the Republic, to the centenary, next year, of the Revolt of Remorse, in which republican politicians reacted to the fact that they “let the Republic lose”, and which caused 80 deaths in Lisbon, Livre’s co-spokesperson questioned where the plaques marking what happened are and “where the teachings about all this struggle that the Portuguese fought are in schools”.
“Not having this is what allows any lie to be sold. Saying that the dictatorship was imposed without much resistance is not true, and that it imposed order on chaos is also not true. In the first years it was military chaos on top of civil chaos. We need to teach all of this”, said Rui Tavares, adding that if this was what António José Seguro was referring to, the Head of State “is absolutely right”, as the love for the 25th of April is imposed through the love of knowledge, the country and democracy.
