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We evoke, today, the beginning of a conflict in which the Portuguese Armed Forces were involved, during almost 14 years, in Africa. We are doing so facing the monument ”To those who Died in the Overseas War”, in a moving tribute to those that, between 1961 and 1974, were called to fight on behalf of Portugal and were ready to give their lives for the Fatherland.

It was a great effort for the Nation. Years of successive call-ups, involving almost one million youngsters from all over the Country that, in an exemplary manner, performed their mission in African lands.

Searching the wall surrounding the monument, we find the names of the nearly nine thousand Portuguese killed in campaigns during that war, still very much in the minds of many of us. We can see there the names of family members or friends. And recall, as well, those that, throughout nearly nine centuries, gave their lives for Portugal to be today a free and independent country.

Apart from the memorial, it is our duty to recognize all those who, due to their actions in the defence of Portugal, suffered in body and soul the price of their sacrifice. They are deserving of our deepest respect.

We especially salute, for the much we owe them, the ethnic African soldiers who so pluckily fought on our side. All of them combatants for Portugal!

We are not honouring here, today, an era, a regime or a war. We are very simply paying a tribute of the Fatherland to those who can be counted amongst her more outstanding servers.

It is anyway totally fair to distinguish the military intervention that allowed a Country with the size and the resources of Portugal to control three distinct, vast and outlying theatres of operations. The way that the war strategy was conceived and the fighting carried out is internationally recognized thus demonstrating the Country’s efforts and dignifying the memory of its combatants.

The links and bonds resulting from the continued and concerted action between the Land, Sea and Air forces, in the African operations, are an important legacy for our current times, and should be an inspiration for a more than ever effective joint employment.

We are all aware of the prime importance of support and aerial evacuation for land operations or, as was the case with Guinea Bissau, of the joint actions of the Army with the Navy and its commandos.

Combatants,

It is important to recognize that Portuguese soldiers, in Africa, were exceptional soldiers. Distance and nostalgia were a challenge to overcome, and the lack of resources a reason for initiative and adaptability. Youth and its fears were seasoned by camaraderie and by patriotism, as ingredients for a dignified, and many times heroic, conduct.

It is from this remembrance of a camaraderie strengthened in difficult wartime periods that result the annual gatherings, in several locations in Portugal, of the former combatants, and the memories of those left behind in Africa.

These are events that have a size and significance without precedent in all of our country.

It is the recall of a period that left an indelible mark on a generation that inherited, from those days, an acute conscience of the consequences of war and of the clear recognition of life’s priorities.

It was the capacity for suffering and the example of courage given by the women of Portugal, from whom so many sacrifices were demanded, for the absence or loss of their own, and that sustained all in their loneliness and silence, so often forgotten.

It was the enormous sacrifice overcome by those who, heading back from Africa, had to remake their lives, starting anew, appealing to the spirit of enterprise and to the capability for fighting that had always been their main characteristic. It was a complete network of support and fondness created in the heart of the families and of the Country, which eased their integration in the labour and social fabric, overcoming the many difficulties created by the unstable living environment at the time.

The war in Africa materialized, as I pointed out in the Day of the Combatant, in 2010, “the violent end of a national cycle, but which left us, in the bloodied pathways it treaded, a military honour capable of opening the way to a brotherly and fruitful cooperation” with those fraternal countries.

We have, today, the opportunity to consolidate that cooperation in an area where values, culture, language, family links and interests are shared. The challenge, which is now common to all, is to fight for a better future, for development and peace.

To the younger generations it is important to transmit the testimony of those who faced adversity shoulder to shoulder with those to whom they entrusted their lives and for whom they would also give theirs, the testimony of those that know the relevance of values such as solidarity, professionalism, merit and honour, family and Country.

A Country that will be better defended if it can count upon the added value of your experience and of your active participation, as an example and source of motivation for the younger people who, having grown up in a more comfortable and peaceful environment, face the future in an uncertain World, where crises and conflicts are a constant occurrence.

Combatants,

Your generation also created the conditions for Portugal to become a democratic Country, freer, with greater solidarity and more open to the World. It is necessary that the youngsters of these days are driven towards missions and essential causes for the future of the Country, with the same courage, the same detachment and the same determination with which the youngsters of 50 years ago assumed their participation in the Overseas war.

As Portuguese, there cannot be a better cause than to dedicate all our effort and initiative at the service of the Nation and of the combat that must continue to be won to promote a fairer, more secure and more prosperous future for us all. Together we will continue to assert Portugal.

My best thanks for your presence, on behalf of the Portuguese and of all those we recall here today. It was for them, for you and for Portugal that we came here.

Long live Portugal.