Rui Mingas, co-author of Angola's national anthem, who was Minister of Sports and former ambassador to Portugal, died this Thursday, in Lisbon, victim of a prolonged illness.
"Even if he had not been one of the authors of Angola's national anthem, Rui Mingas would have been part of Angola's modern mythology in the last years of the empire and in the first decades of independence", considers Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in a note of condolence published on the website official website of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic on the Internet.
The Portuguese head of state adds that Rui Mingas "seems to have been everywhere where Angola asserted itself as a young nation", noting that he was "a Benfica athlete in the 1950s and 60s" and then, successively, "a political activist, singer and composer, Angolan ambassador to Portugal, minister, deputy and businessman".
According to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Rui Mingas participated in the affirmation of Angola as a nation "in confrontation with the Portuguese regime until 1974, but not in conflict with Portugal, as the Portuguese also recognized in him a symbol of our relationship with the Angolans, which encompasses the past vicissitudes, common memories and affections, a future of partnership and mutual respect".
At the end of this message, the President of the Portuguese Republic presents "his heartfelt condolences" to Rui Mingas' family and friends.
Rui Alberto Vieira Dias Rodrigues Mingas, born on May 12, 1939, distinguished himself in athletics as a youth, in the specialties of high jump and 11 meter hurdles.
An active activist in the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), a party in power since Angola's independence in 1975, he was a deputy and Minister of Sports.
As a composer, Rui Mingas set poems by Viriato da Cruz, Agostinho, Mário António and António Jacinto to music. Of his recording work, the highlights are "Cantiga por Luciana", "Poema da farra", "Makezu", "Muadiakimi", "Birin birin", "Monagambé", "Adeus à hora da partida" and "Meninos do Huambo".
