Africa-Press – Angola. The Democratic Bloc (BD) called this Monday, 04, for the creation of an independent commission of inquiry, with the participation of civil society, the Bar Association and the United Nations, to determine criminal and administrative responsibilities, following the deaths that occurred during the taxi drivers’ strike.
At a press conference, BD president Filomeno Viera Lopes said he has documented information that more than 40 people were murdered in cold blood by defense and security forces during the clashes.
“There are hundreds of injured people, many with irreversible physical injuries and without medical care,” said the BD president, who said there was a deafening silence from the Attorney General’s Office, the defender of legality, “which should have already acted, in the face of several reports of public crimes perpetrated in the name of the Angolan State.”
“There is silence from those who should protect the less fortunate and be held accountable,” he added, highlighting that, after more than 40 years, hunger, poverty, and exclusion are the causes that the Executive refuses to admit, out of shame and incompetence.
In his opinion, the tension will remain if, in this context of lack of credibility in institutions, conditions are not created to improve the political environment in the country.
He recalled that in 1992 the Front for Democracy (FPD), the precursor force of the Democratic Bloc (BD), within the Angola Democratic Coalition, presented a consistent plan to transform military tension into political tension with concrete measures to avoid conflict.
“We spoke with the MPLA Political Bureau and the UNITA leadership. The then President of the Republic (JoseĢ Eduardo dos Santos) refused to engage in dialogue with us. The MPLA sidestepped the proposals, many of which were included in the 1994 agreement but were ineffective, to end the war that had begun,” he recalled.
“The ruling party cannot make the same mistakes and drag the country into a new disastrous conflict,” appealed Filomeno Viera Lopes, who launched a challenge for a pact of dignity and citizenship, “for a new model of State, one that respects life, governs with justice and builds peace based on truth.
“The international community must know how to overcome, in this difficult time for the Angolan people, the realm of self-interest, and must have the courage to raise its voice on the level of universal values, guiding its conduct by human rights, as the UN has already signaled. Only in this way will we avoid the traditional misunderstandings that occur in these situations between the national and foreign populations,” he concluded, emphasizing that Angola does not need any more shots.
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