 In April 1974, the left-wing Movimento das Forças Armadas (Armed Forces Movement, MFA) within the Portuguese military mounted a coup d'état against the right-wing authoritarian Estado Novo government in Lisbon (the so-called "Carnation Revolution"), and announced its intention rapidly to withdraw from Portugal's colonial possessions (including Angola, Mozambique and Guinea, where pro-independence guerrilla movements had been fighting since the 1960s).Unlike the African colonies, East Timor did not experience a war of national liberation.Indigenous political parties rapidly sprang up in Timor