Women of the resistance
Clarisse Guerra
At around 14:30 on 25 April 1974 she read, on Rádio Clube Português, the MFA communiqué announcing the objectives taken and the siege of Marcelo Caetano in the Carmo Barracks — a communiqué “now read by a woman”.
In the early hours of 25 April 1974, Rádio Clube Português became the voice of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA): at 04:26, Joaquim Furtado read the first communiqué there.2 At around 14:30, the station broadcast another, read by Clarisse Guerra. It reported the objectives already taken and the siege of Marcelo Caetano and members of the government in the Carmo Barracks.13
While the communiqué was on the radio, Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, from the Command Post, was pressing Salgueiro Maia to force Caetano’s surrender. The Commemorative Commission for the 50th Anniversary of 25 April stresses that this communiqué was “now read by a woman”.2
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Marcelo Caetano
1906–1980
The last head of government of the Estado Novo, he took refuge in the Carmo Barracks in the early hours of 25 April 1974 and, besieged, handed power over to General Spínola. The next day he was taken to Madeira.
Joaquim Furtado
b. 1948
The announcer on duty at Rádio Clube Português in the early hours of 25 April 1974, he volunteered to read the MFA’s first communiqué, which went on the air at 04:26.
Notes on the sources2
- Who Clarisse Guerra was: her dates of birth and death, her career and whether she was an announcer at Rádio Clube Português.
- What exactly the communiqué said: the siege of the Carmo Barracks (25 April Association, Commemorative Commission) or the ultimatum for Marcelo Caetano’s surrender (Jofre Alves’s chronology).
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Sources
- 1Movimentações do dia 25 de Abril. Associação 25 de Abril — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 2Operação Viragem Histórica. Comissão Comemorativa 50 Anos 25 de Abril — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 3Cronologia do 25 de Abril, por Jofre Alves (blogue Abril de Novo, 2010), na Biblioteca Digital do CD25A. Centro de Documentação 25 de Abril – Universidade de Coimbra — consulted on 2 October 2026