However, the Portuguese authorities were unable to defeat the guerrillas as a whole during the Portuguese Colonial War, particularly in Portuguese Guinea, and suffered heavy casualties in the 13 years of conflict. Throughout the war Portugal faced increasing dissent, arms embargoes and other punitive sanctions from most of the international community. The war was becoming even more unpopular in Portuguese society due to its length and costs, the worsening of diplomatic relations with other United Nations members, and the role it played as a factor in the perpetuation of the "Estado Novo" regime. It was this escalation that would lead directly to the mutiny of members of the FAP in the Carnation Revolution of April 1974 – an event that would lead to the independence of all of the former Portuguese colonies in Africa. On April 25, 1974, the Portuguese Government of the " Estado Novo" regime under Marcelo Caetano, the corporatist and authoritarian regime established by António de Oliveira Salazar that had ruled Portugal since the 1930s, was overthrown in the Carnation Revolution, a military uprising in Lisbon. In May of that year, the "Junta de Salvação Nacional" (the new revolutionary government of Portugal) proclaimed a truce with the pro-independence African guerrillas in an effort to promote peace talks and independence. The military-led coup returned democracy to Portugal, ending the unpopular Colonial War where hundreds of thousands of Portuguese soldiers had been conscripted into military service, and replacing the authoritarian "Estado Novo" (New State) regime and its secret police which repressed elemental civil liberties and political freedoms. It started as a professional class protest of Portuguese Armed Forces captains against the 1973 decree law "Dec. Lei n.o 353/73".