In a voice message sent to journalists, Tchizé dos Santos addressed the current President of the Republic directly and asked: "What are you to my father? Is he the oldest son? invite to my own father's funeral?"
With several criticisms of the head of state, Tchizé dos Santos especially censures the disclosure of his father's death, saying: "I still didn't know that my father had died and you had already published the death of my father, who gave you the mandate to divulge without my knowing it yet? Who gave you the mandate to say who should or should not go to the funeral?", questioned the second oldest daughter, after Isabel dos Santos.
At stake is a dispute over where the funeral of the former president should be held, while the children want the ceremonies to take place in Barcelona, the Government is preparing the funeral rites, and has already created a commission made up of 11 ministers and the governor of Luanda to organize the ceremony.
"Who do you think you are? Do you rule over the body of José Eduardo dos Santos? Does the corpse belong to you, Mr. João Lourenço?", asked Tchizé, in the voice message to which Lusa had access, which concluded: "I no longer call him Mr President, because for me it is no longer one".
Tchizé dos Santos' statement comes after Lusa reported, citing his lawyer in Spain, that the children will block the transfer of José Eduardo dos Santos' body to Angola, arguing that this was not the father's wish, and comes shortly after the President of Angola confirmed his intention to organize a funeral in the country, with the presence of all.
"Tchizé and his brothers want the father's wishes to be respected, which is not to be buried in Angola, but in Spain, because he does not want the current President of the Republic to use his burial for political purposes," Carmen Varela told Lusa. , adding that, in addition, a funeral in Angola would make it impossible for several close family members to say goodbye, as some of the children "cannot enter Angola and do not even have an Angolan passport".
The lawyer representing one of the daughters of José Eduardo dos Santos, who died after two weeks in a clinic in Barcelona, confirmed that an injunction was filed in the court so that the body is not transferred to Angola and revealed that "the Teknon clinic told us that the body will not leave the clinic until there is either a court order or an agreement between all the children."
Leaving an emergency meeting of the MPLA, João Lourenço said: "If we take into account the current circumstances, we don't see why the family that is outside cannot [can] accompany their loved one, we are counting on the presence of everyone without exception of anyone".
Tchizé dos Santos, who has lived outside Angola for several years, lost her mandate as a deputy for the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in 2019 and says her life is at risk in her country, while her older sister, Isabel dos Santos, also residing abroad, he faces several lawsuits and says he is a victim of persecution.
Asked about the accusations of the former president's eldest daughters, João Lourenço said that the focus at the moment is the organization of funerals and that it is the executive's obligation to hold a state funeral.
"No authority in the country has the competence to prevent an Angolan citizen who is living abroad from returning to his own country, no matter what the circumstances", stressed the chief executive.
The head of state also left an appeal: "So that we face this moment with the greatest possible serenity and that the people follow, through the media, the program of the funeral until we manage to carry out the state funeral to which they are entitled and which is our obligation as an executive to organize".
