Africa-Press – Angola. In hiding, we became aware of what we saw and experienced of injustices based on racial discrimination and a society in which non-white people did not enjoy life and coexistence. At that time, Africans who were separated from social life formed their associations and lived with each other. the others and thus the unification and proliferation of ideas and feelings emerged within an unequal society and so the Africans created several associations, Associação dos Naturais de Angola (Anangola), Liga Nacional Africana and Associação dos Naturais do Sul de Angola.
Independently of these associations, other groups with a political nature emerged, MIA, MINA and others, which gave rise to the MPLA.
Cells were disseminated throughout the national territory of different groups, on the initiative of Ilídio Machado, Viriato Cruz, André Franco de Sousa, Eduardo Correia Mendes, Higino Aires, Maninho Gomes, Matias Migueis, Mário António de Oliveira and others, forming a broad movement for the liberation of Angola which was called MPLA, and on December 10, 1956 a manifesto was written that brought together a series of groups that were born with the idea of liberating the country.
As a large part of the components of these groups were already monitored by the Portuguese colonial authorities, Ilídio Machado, first president, suggested that the leadership of the newly created movement should be transferred outside the country, so that the Portuguese authorities would not stifle the newly created movement. born movement. Thus, Ilídio Machado would no longer be the president, who would be handed over to Mário Pinto de Andrade, who was already taking refuge in Paris, to continue the life and dissemination of the movement.
Mário de Andrade and the other comrades abroad requested the support and collaboration of the Portuguese Communist Party, to prepare for Dr. Agostinho Neto’s escape, which took place leaving Portugal, on a trawler to Morocco where Mário de Andrade was already waiting to give him hand over the direction of the movement, and later head to Leopoldville where they met a large number of Angolans, who together confirmed the leadership of Agostinho Neto at the head of the movement.
In Lobito, as we grew up, we realized the racial separation in social coexistence between people “of color” and Europeans, there were clubs and associations such as Lusitano Sport Clube, Lobito Sport Clube, Rádio Clube do Lobito and Ferroviário of New Lisbon.
During his stay in the province of Benguela, I had the opportunity to deal with nationalist personalities, such as Viriato Clemente da Cruz and Amílcar Cabral. Posted in Luanda, I joined African social associations such as ANANGOLA and the African National League and consequently the MPLA, I witnessed some arrests of nationalists which coincided with the end of Agostinho Neto’s Medicine course, who decided to return to Angola to help reactivate the fight. He arrives in Luanda and sets up his office in one of the most populous neighborhoods of Luanda, to practice his profession and develop political activities with other comrades, which is how he is arrested together with Father Joaquim Pinto de Andrade, Manuel Pedro Pacavira and others.
Agostinho Neto and Joaquim Pinto de Andrade were exiled from the country; Neto to Cape Verde and Joaquim Pinto de Andrade to São Tomé and Príncipe and then transferred to Portugal.
After the opening of the MPLA delegation in Leopoldville for a short time, many comrades who left the country went there to join the liberation movements, some went through the UPA to reach the MPLA and others arrived directly at the MPLA, the UPA is the movement that was already rooted in Leopoldville and with strong roots in the North of Angola. I had the opportunity to correspond with Lúcio Lara and Aníbal de Melo, this correspondence was carried by a Portuguese friend who had a brother in Leopoldville and who traveled there frequently and who became my courier and that was how I received permanent direct guidance of the Steering Committee, in Leopoldville and then Brazzaville where they went, because they were expelled, and as we needed conditions to carry out actions more actions, which were the slogans,
Within the actions, comrade Aristófanes do Couto Cabral and I, to replicate the statements made by the Portuguese delegate to the UN decolonization committee, in which he stated that Angola had no Angolans who wanted independence and those who did so were individuals without representation who found themselves Abroad, we prepared a manifesto, which was the decal of the MPLA statute with the acronym MIPLA-Movimento Interno Interno Popular de Libertação Nacional and we delivered it to an ILO delegate (who had come to Angola for a large meeting), a document that was delivered and widely publicized at the UN decolonization session, opposing the Portuguese delegate’s statements.
This is how I and my comrades in the cells developed clandestine activities and took over the leadership of associations that already existed and were authorized by the Portuguese Government, such as Anangola, the African League and the Naturais do Sul de Angola.
The first arrest in 1963
I was arrested by PIDE for the first time in June 1963, I served my sentence in the São Paulo prison and in the central prison of Cacuaco. I was tried and convicted by the military court, for the crime of subversion, separation from the mother country and the struggle for the liberation of Angola, with a sentence of 5 and a half years and 3 years of security measures. I am arrested again a year after being released, for sending information to Brazzaville about the calamitous state of the MPLA politically and militarily in the North of Angola, in the First Region, I am exiled to Foz do Cunene, being isolated from the centers of population coexistence, I am released 2 weeks after the 25th of April. Posted in Luanda, I meet with some comrades who were released from the concentration camps at the same time, to ask the party leadership in Brazzaville how to continue the fight in an organized and disciplined manner. As the MPLA had not yet laid down its arms as had happened with the other liberation movements (FNLA and UNITA), the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) did not allow us to propagandize the MPLA, without the MPLA laying down its arms.
Thus, we received information to disseminate propaganda with the acronym CAPA. From the meeting we took the decision to send a comrade to Brazzaville to receive instructions from the movement’s leadership on how to continue the dissemination of superior guidelines in a disciplined and organized manner, and that is how comrade José Van-Dúnem was appointed to go to Brazzaville and when he returned he refused to meet with us to convey the instructions he had received and the objective that led him to Brazzaville, we had to meet again. We regretted what happened and sent comrade Manuel Pacavira to report to Brazzaville what had happened and bring the necessary guidance.
The Angolan military integrated into the Portuguese armed forces marched from RI 20 to Fortaleza, headquarters of the MFA, to demand, among other things, the mixed composition of the patrols in the musseques to prevent the deaths that were happening, and this is how Pedro Benge dies , whose funeral leaves the African League for the New Cemetery on the Catete road and we made this a political act of the MPLA. With this event and the evolution of others, I head to Brazzaville at the head of a delegation to integrate the comrades from the interior for the (failed) congress, under the aegis of the OAU, the unification of the 3 factions of the MPLA.
After the Lusaka congress failed, Agostinho Neto instructed the army general staff (FAPLA) to prepare the conditions for holding the inter-regional conference on the right bank of the Londonge River on the border with Zambia, where the inter-regional conference was held and the Central Committee and the Political Bureau are elected, and subsequent guidelines for representation in negotiations with the Portuguese.
However, with the 25th of April new political formations began to emerge. The armed forces movement did not authorize us to appear with the acronym CAPA, saying that it was the MPLA in camouflage, that the MPLA should hurry to come to the political scene together with the other 2 movements that took up arms for the liberation of Angola, to discuss with the Portuguese Government and this is how Aristides Van-Dúnem and Manuel Pedro Pacavira join Brazzaville to prepare the Liamês agreements.
I, together with Admiral Leonel Cardoso who was at the head of the Portuguese Government in Angola, went to Luso and from Luso to Liamês where negotiations took place for the truce better known as Cease Fire (Agostinho Neto always called truces and not cease fire, because if the Portuguese did not comply with these agreements, we MPLA would continue to fight with weapons in hand). General Silvino Silvério Marques, who had already been appointed years ago in the middle of the colonial era as governor general of Angola, is appointed, this time as commissioner, to a meeting at the premises of the African League between some emerging movements that appeared at the time and the MDA led by Dr. Maria do Carmo Medina, a meeting in which the MPLA was not represented and Dr. Medina demanded that the meeting could only begin with my presence,
The MPLA headquarters in Vila Alice
I receive instructions from the Brazzaville Political Bureau to set up the MPLA headquarters and that’s how I go to Vila Alice, I find a building that had been a mother’s boarding school that was empty, the guard advised me that the owner was the company Figueiredo and Brother based in Lobito. I go to Benguela, go to the company that exports colonial products and find Valente as manager, who had been my schoolmate to whom I proposed the rental, a rental that was completed, the first rent of 20,000 escudos was paid by my wife When I arrived in Luanda, I explained to comrades Zé Van-Dúnem and Juca Valentim the steps taken to establish the MPLA headquarters. They disapproved of the idea of installing the MPLA headquarters in the neighborhood that belonged to the Portuguese elite, arguing that since the MPLA is a mass movement it should have its headquarters in one of the musseques in Luanda. Given this opinion, I took another walk around the city and surrounding areas and found the installations known as Dona Amália) in the Rangel musseque, I negotiated with the owner of the property, to go and install the DOM Regional (mass organization).
Meanwhile, the Luanda City Council and its council continued to work as if nothing had happened to change the country and the comrades who made up the pro-MPLA MDA (Angolan Democratic Movement), the architect Troufa Real, Kinjinje and I, mobilized. part of the population and members of UNTA (União dos Trabalhadores de Angola), filled the square in front of the city hall, now a parking lot, with MPLA flags with revolutionary slogans. Kinjinje and I went up to the first floor, to the session room, we entered and headed over, clapping our hands to attract the attention of everyone present, and we declared loudly and clearly that the function of the colonial management of the city council had ended and the MPLA took charge from that moment on. They stood up and councilor Vieira da Costa, who was Angolan,
I received a new telegram to go to Luso, where I would meet a delegation from the Political Bureau that traveled overland there, made up of comrades Kapango and Lukoki, to arrange details about the arrival in Luanda of a delegation from the movement’s leadership and cadres led by Lúcio Lara and advised to take comrade Mendes de Carvalho with me. After the apotheotic arrival of the delegation at Luanda airport and its installation, a rally was held in the Citadel in the following days, the leaders close to the colonial authorities and society presented themselves and we began the reorganization of the movement to the entire nation and so Lara and I inaugurated the movement’s provincial delegations in Angola, with the exception of Uíge, which was me and Maria Mambo, and in Namibe, it was Lara and Pacavira.
We started preparations for the reception of Agostinho Neto, a demand made by the armed forces movement, as Jonas Savimbi and Holden Roberto were in Luanda. Upon arrival in Luanda on February 4, 1975, Agostinho Neto temporarily lived in the Saneamento neighborhood while we were negotiating a house in Futungo de Belas.
The MPLA headquarters in Vila Alice no. 100, today Rua da Liberdade, where the Luanda Provincial Committee is located, was already too small to accommodate all the services and that is how Rita and I, following instructions from President Neto, were looking for larger facilities to accommodate all services in a single building, and we went to engineer Manuel Resende, Minister of Construction, to give me an indication of where we could find a building where we could accommodate all MPLA services. We were advised by the minister that there was a building near the Geology and Mining services that had just been painted and Rita and I went there and went up to the 2nd floor and saw that they were the ideal facilities for our movement, and To this day, it is the headquarters of the MPLA.
In the preparation of the Alvor negotiation meeting, it was necessary for the MPLA to appear indivisible and to agree with the two movements FNLA and UNITA, so as not to diverge the negotiating points at the table with the Portuguese, and as until then no agreement had been reached with the internal factions of the MPLA. The MPLA set out to reach agreements with the other movements.
President Kenyata offered to hold a meeting in Nakuru, Kenya, to agree on the points to be discussed with the Portuguese. For the Nakuru meeting, President Neto agrees with Jonas Savimbi inviting Holden Roberto to go to Nakuru. For UNITA it was José Ndele and Wilson Santos, for MPLA, it was Ludi and I, we went to Kinshasa to the FNLA headquarters and transmitted the invitations and he accepted and so we headed to Nakuru for the first settlement.
As I find it serious and timely, I have the pleasure of highlighting the record of Dr. Fernando de Oliveira, at the time director of the cabinet of the Minister of Information Dr. Rui Monteiro.
Starting with the birth certificate of the new country – its founding Constitution -, it is necessary to remember that, following the Alvor Agreement, a “Fundamental Law” had been drawn up, as well as an “Electoral Law”, which were published in the “Bulletin Official”, in June 1975.
Promulgated by the High Commissioner, in his consensual agreement on the responsibility of the three Movements that made up the Transitional Government, jurists appointed by them were involved, notably Dr. Maria do Carmo Medina and Dr. Antero de Abreu, for the MPLA , Dr. Onofre dos Santos, for FNLA, and Drs. Fernandes Vieira and Fernando Fonseca Santos, for UNITA. But, quickly, this projected legal edifice would become a dead letter and hopelessly outdated. The internal conflict escalated dramatically in the capital (starting with what was called the “battle of Luanda” on July 9) and throughout the country.
The main forces of the FNLA and UNITA leave Luanda in mid-July; on July 30th, the then High Commissioner General Silva Cardoso resigned and was replaced by Admiral Leonel Cardoso; on August 12th, the Ministers of the Transitional Government of FNLA and UNITA leave Luanda and their positions and, finally, on August 22nd, Decree-Law no 458/A-75 is published by the High Commissioner, which proceeds to the partial suspension of the Alvor Agreement, “the validity of the Agreement being temporarily suspended with regard to the government bodies of Angola”. However, neither this legal suspension on the part of the administering colonial power, nor the stance and behavior of the three Movements and of the entire Angolan People, has the definitively acquired fact that Independence would survive November 11th of this year ever been questioned.
All of this took place quickly, in the midst of the whirlwind of battles and vicissitudes of the armed conflict that had meanwhile become generalized (the invasion and occupation of the north by troops from Zaire and the Portuguese ELP and the invasion of the southern part of the country, occupation and progression of the army South African); the attempts at a bilateral solution between the Movements (meeting between Lopo do Nascimento and José Ndele, in Lisbon, on August 25); several African diplomatic interventions, from the visit to Angola by an OAU delegation, on 20 October, to the OAU Summit, held in extremis in Kampala, on 2/4 November. Meanwhile, the sister colonies gained independence: Mozambique, on June 25th, Cape Verde on July 5th. S. Tomé and Príncipe, on the 12th of July.
In Angola, alongside the successive battles and occupations on the ground, there was a gigantic human exodus from the air bridge”, in which, between the 17th of July and the 31st of October, around three hundred thousand people left the country (officially, 235,315 for Portugal). , 30,000 for South Africa and 17,000 for Brazil). With this dimension, the human landscape changed radically, in a very short space of time.
The preparation and organization of the proclamation of Independence
In the uncertainty of the reality that changed every moment, requiring almost “navigation by sight”, the MPLA side worked on preparing those fundamental instruments, namely, the Constitution and the Nationality Law, the solemn text of the Proclamation of Independence and the creation of symbols of the new State. This task was the work of a very small group of leaders and activists and took place, mainly, in a spatial framework centered in Cidade Alta, in the Government Palace, where the Ministry of Information operated. and the Ministry of Justice, and the adjacent Bairro do Saneamento, behind the Palace, where the Ministers lived, namely Manuel Rui Monteiro, Carlos Rocha Dilowla, Saydi Mingas and Augusto Lopes Teixeira (some Ministers from UNITA and FNLA had already abandoned the their neighboring houses, leaving Luanda).
The “homework” was done, literally, at Manuel Rui’s house, where, late into the night, jurists such as Dr. Antonieta Coelho, Dr. Aníbal Espírito Santo and Dr. Orlando Rodrigues, directors such as Lúcio Lara, Lopo do Nascimento, Saydi Mingas and Henrique Santos Onambwe. Very close by, alone in his house, Dilowla drafted what would become the economic part of the Constitution, in consultation with Saydi Mingas.
In recent days, Dr. Óscar Monteiro, a Mozambican jurist who, his personal friend and colleague from Coimbra, also made his wise contribution, was staying at Manuel Rui’s residence. On the other hand, the Nationality Law, which, in essence, reflected what was agreed in Alvor and, even before, in Mombasa – the consecration of the ius soli -, was being prepared in the office of Dr. Diógenes Boavida, already then Minister of Justice, with the main collaboration of Dr. Antero de Abreu and Dr. Maria do Carmo Medina.
In those long and tense nights, and also in the same place, work was being done to create the symbols of the future Republic: the anthem “Angola Avante”, in which Manuel Rui’s beautiful lyrics were joined, stanza by stanza, to the harmony of the chords of the Rui Mingas; the flag and insignia, with the initial ideas and patterns of Henrique Santos “Onambwe” and the careful design of Marcos Almeida “Kito”, under the supervision of Helder Neto.
As is evident, all these projects were then taken for approval by the MPLA leadership, namely President Agostinho Neto, who was most often in the so-called “Estado Maior”, in Morro da Luz, in Samba. it was normally Dr. Manuel Rui Monteiro. Its material execution was carried out in the General Directorate of Information of the Ministry of Information, on the ground floor of the Palace, then headed by Luís de Almeida, who would later and for decades be the Dean of Angolan Ambassadors.
It was in his office that the text of the “Proclamation of Independence” was also finalized, the initial matrix of which was written by Carlos Rocha Dilowla, benefiting from the contributions of Lopo do Nascimento, José Eduardo dos Santos and also, in the final “literary” version of the Manuel Rui and myself. Approved, by acclamation, by the MPLA Central Committee on the 10th of November, the Constitutional Law of the People’s Republic of Angola and the Nationality Law, on the same day they had to be printed in the National Press, whose typographers were naturally working on placed, so that, on the following day, no 1 of the new “Diário da República” would be published. Which actually happened (although with so many crows that, on the 12th, an extensive corrigendum was published in no 2… ).
That same emergency marked the material creation of the flag and insignia and the first rehearsal of singing the Anthem, by a choir improvised by Carlos Lamartine, at the then Official Broadcaster of Angola, first with Rui Mingas, Catila Mingas and Manuel Rui himself and later with a group of young people hurriedly found for this purpose.
At noon on the 10th, High Commissioner Leonel Cardoso, in an event held in the main hall of the Palace, to which he had summoned the press, solemnly declared that Portugal was withdrawing from Angola and “handing over sovereignty to the Angolan People”. solution, somewhat fictional, that in Lisbon the Portuguese Government, largely divided over the situation in Angola, found to refuse to formally recognize the new State and the new government established in the capital. Once this unilateral proclamation of a diffusely unaddressed independence was made, the High Commissioner and his staff left the Palace, went to the Fortress, where they lowered the “last Portuguese flag on Angolan soil” and then left for the naval base on the Island of Luanda, where they boarded the “last caravels”, the ships ” Niassa” and “Uíge”, two frigates and a corvette.
Due to circumstances that I have no interest in revealing now (I had been tasked with delivering the Portuguese flag raised at the Belas base to Portuguese Navy Lieutenant Soares Rodrigues), I had the opportunity to witness the retraction of the last Portuguese military device on land, along the Island, and I remember the unique scene I saw: when I entered the base, there were still Portuguese marines at the weapons gate; When I left, just half an hour later, everyone had boarded, the gun door was wide open and the children and people of the Island were entering, with indescribable expressions of joy. It is known that, afterwards, in a statement that was more symbolic than real, the Portuguese ships remained in Angolan territorial waters (which at the time had a legal length of 20 miles…) until zero o’clock on the 11th.
At around sixteen o’clock, Hermínio Escórcio, with a small military detachment that he had picked up from Vila Alice, had gone there to fill that void, later assuring, with his proverbial optimism, that “all the conditions were created” and that ” everything was in the conversation” …At around six in the afternoon, Manuel Rui went to the Television and there made an appeal for serenity for the night to come. And this calming intervention was very necessary: the noises and rumors of the battles in Kifangondo, in “Morro da Cal”, reached the city and many people had in their ears what, even that same afternoon, was threatening on the radio. Holden Roberto: ” We will be in Luanda until midnight. See you soon, Luanda!”
All attention, and the entire human gathering, converged on Largo 1o de Maio (today, Largo da Independência) where the historic event would take place. Meanwhile, 400 television sets had been installed by the Ministry of Information in Neighborhood Committees and other public places throughout the city, mainly in the musseques, so that everyone could watch the event live.
Before arriving at Largo (more precisely at the small nearby platform located on the right side of Estrada de Catete), the three vehicles carrying President Neto and his family wandered around, lost and in circles until they found the entrance to the tribune, as it was the concentration and confusion prevailing in the place. But, finally, to the sound of the paraphernalia of festive shots fired into the air and chants and slogans broadcast over the loudspeakers, “at zero o’clock on the 11th of November”, as established in the Alvor Agreement, by the voice of Agostinho Neto, “in the name of the Angolan People, the Central Committee of the Popular Movement of Angola (MPLA), solemnly proclaims, before Africa and the world, the Independence of Angola”.
The flag of the new Republic was then raised on the mast in front of the tribune by the pioneer Dinis Kanhanga and the Commander of 4 de Fevereiro, Imperial Santana and, for the first time in public, the “Angola Forward” was sung. In those final months, Carlos Lamartine was singing “Dipanda Wondó Tula Kia” – independence is coming… – and thanked Agostinho Neto.
Now, “with dry eyes”, Neto was certainly crying internally with joy at seeing his prophecy in the poem “Içar da Bandeira”, which he had written in August 1960 in the Aljube prison, in Lisbon, come true. Old Xica, from Waldemar Bastos, could well say “I can die, I can die, I’ve seen independent Angola!” the Liberty.
What followed that night was not initially planned: the trip to the Palace. At the last minute, it was understood that the seizure of power also implied the seizure of the symbols of power and, in this case, the ultimate symbol of colonial power was precisely the Government Palace, from where the colony had been run for centuries. Therefore, at the end of the ceremony, President Neto’s entourage and a huge crowd headed towards the Palace.
There, a champagne toast was made, impeccably served by those who were previously the “Servants of the Governor” and President Neto and his entourage went to the main balcony and waved to the crowd that had arrived there. Neto did not speak at the time, only Manuel Rui he improvised, in his proverbial poetic verve, as he had done before when the Transitional Government took office: “The time is definitely buried when, from the balconies of the colonial palaces, built with the forced labor of our People, the golden smiles and gestures of wealth sought to disguise hunger, usurpation and genocide. The mask of colonialism is gone.”
The following day, at noon, in the main hall of the then Luanda City Council, today the headquarters of the Provincial Government, Lúcio Lara formally inaugurated Agostinho Neto, as President of the People’s Republic of Angola. Representatives from 28 countries attended the event, 17 of which immediately expressed their willingness to recognize the new State.
The international “battle of recognition” then began, with recognition from States around the world growing day by day. The colonial power, which on November 10 had “handed over sovereignty to the Angolan People”, when it finally recognized the People’s Republic of Angola, a few months later, on February 22, 1975, was the 88th State to do so.
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