[ad_1]
Seventeen years after the death of the leader of the Angolan rebel movement, UNITA, Jonas Savimbi, in a government shootout and his fast burial, the controversial leader will receive a public burial Saturday, a major gesture of the current government in Luanda for the unit.
The funeral will be "an important moment in the building of national reconciliation," said Alcides Sakala Simoes, of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).
Funeral arrangements follow discussions between UNITA, the government and the Savimbi family. The former rebel leader will be buried next to his father in the village of Lopitanga, in central Angola.
The thaw in relations between the government and the Savimbi family took place after the resignation of President José Eduardo dos Santos, Savimbi's arch-enemy, in 2017, and the appointment of Joao Lourenço as president.
"We have been waiting for 17 years," said Isaias Samakuva, leader of UNITA, the current Angolan opposition party.
After the independence of Angola in 1975, a civil war saw Savimbi's UNITA, backed by the United States, fight the People's Liberation Movement of Angola (MPLA) Marxist-Leninist.
The MPLA was supported by the Soviet Union and its allies, mainly Cuba, which provided thousands of fighters.
In 2002, MPLA units joined Savimbi in the province of Moxico, in east-central Angola. He fought back, but died under a shower of bullets, adding his name to the list of at least half a million people killed during the 27-year civil war.
A ceasefire was called shortly after his death.
Savimbi's body was hastily buried in the main cemetery of the capital of Luena province, his grave marked with an iron cross and the name of "Savimbi Jonas" engraved in a nearby tree.
His followers did not think he was really dead, even if there was photographic evidence proving it. Savimbi was recently searched and DNA tests confirmed that it was acting well on him.
While the funeral is hailed as a reconciliation, it is not without difficulties this week that Savimbi's remains were not handed over to the family on Tuesday as planned.
The government claimed that UNITA representatives and the Savimbi family did not show up in Luena, but they were waiting 400 kilometers to Kuito, where they claimed that the handover was to take place.
UNITA said the government was "trying to humiliate" it, while the party was using the situation for political ends.
Source link
