Fernando Vumby
Africa-Press – Angola. Sebas, that’s what we used to call him. In 1975, he was a young student at the Luanda Commercial School. A resident of the popular neighborhood, now Neves Bendinha, he entered the political struggle as a member of the MPLA (Milcar Cabral Committees) (CAC).
In December 1977, he was detained by DISA for a different political stance and became a member of the Communist Organization of Angola (OCA). At the DISA prison in São Paulo, Sebas was treated as one of the regime’s worst enemies, subjected to the most horrific torture ever inflicted by DISA on detainees.
Sebas absolutely refused to open his mouth, he was left mute and deaf. They applied all the nguellos to him, he went crazy from so much torture, from so much human evil, he ended up with a deformed face because they fractured his jaw and removed his teeth.
Sebas had stopped eating solid food because he couldn’t chew, and his words came out slurred due to difficulty articulating. He was placed in a cell (about 1m2 in size) on the so-called train from the beginning of his detention. His physical suffering was immense; his psyche was shattered, but his soul was gigantic.
In that immense suffering, whenever he crossed paths with some of his companions in the torture corridors, he would raise his clenched fist high; it was his soul that remained pure and hard as a diamond, a jewel plucked from the stars.
During his entire time in prison, he was held in a single cell, partly as punishment, and partly because he was so broken that he couldn’t be introduced to his fellow prisoners, so he was always kept away from his companions.
He then left the punishment cell for another cell, the so-called self-propelled cell, and for much longer than all the other detainees he was denied family visits or food from home.
He began his imprisonment in a cell and two years later he was still isolated and mad in a cell.
Sebas earned the rightful status of a true hero of the resistance to the dictatorship for everything he went through in prison, without opening his mouth.
For More News And Analysis About Angola Follow Africa-Press
