In a statement, to which Lusa had access this Wednesday, the "AKWA MANA" regrets the statements, which it considers "fallacious", of officials of the Ministry of Interior and the police, "distilled with hatred, anger and rancor against the people of the east.
According to this civic association, many citizens were "unscrupulously brutally beaten, killed by police forces highly equipped with all the warlike means, as if they were in the middle of a war."
"What touched the sensitivity of the people of the east, and not only, was to have the defense and security forces pour out feelings of anger and hatred towards eastern Angola," the statement reads.
The police claim that about 300 people linked to the Movement of the Portuguese Protectorate Lunda Tchokwe (MPPLT), which for years has defended the autonomy of that region rich in mineral resources, tried on the night of January 30 to invade a police station, and in defense, the police forces fatally shot six people.
The police version is contradicted by the leaders of the MPPLT, political parties in opposition and local civil society, which speak of more than a dozen deaths.
AKWA MANA said in a statement that it is "deeply disturbed and dissatisfied" with the "worsening situation" in the eastern region of the country, particularly in the mining town of Cafunfo, whose claim "resulted in a massacre".
Meeting on Tuesday in Luanda, the association said it notes with "great concern" the "degradation of living conditions" of the people in the east of the country, noting that "there is no foreseeable change in the near future.
The association members speak of a "general atrophy" in the activity of all the other sectors of the Angolan real economy, "except mining", and "a marginalization in the regional preferences of private and public business investment".
AKWA MANA" also condemns the position of those who "ignore the barbarity" and the media that "try to hide the truth of the facts", saying that it was "rejected" an audience with the President, João Lourenço.
The audience, the statement said, aimed to address the situation of health, hunger, unemployment, housing, movement of people and goods, drinking water, energy, sanitation and other problems.
For the civic association of eastern Angola, Cafunfo's "barbaric act" "proves once again that, from a formal perspective, the east is undoubtedly an integral part of Angola, but from a material perspective it is not true.
"We express our deep concern that there are acts of witch-hunting in Cafunfo, a situation that aggravates the issue in terms of human rights and fundamental freedoms," he points out, "demanding" impartial inquiry into the "inauspicious event."
