In the condolence note, the executive secretariat of the Standing Committee of the Political Commission of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) regrets the death of Miguel N'Zau Puna, due to illness, on 17 July, in Luanda.
"Miguel N'Zau Puna was a nationalist who dedicated his life to actively participating in the struggle for independence and the conquest of democracy, alongside the late founding president Dr. Jonas Malheiro Savimbi, for 26 years", the note says.
The second political force "highlights the gesture made by this patriot who, even without a link to UNITA since 1992, traveled to Lopitanga, in June 2019, to pay the last tribute to Dr. Jonas Savimbi, at the time of his funeral", it is underlined in the document.
"In this hour of pain and mourning, the Executive Secretariat of the Standing Committee of the UNITA Political Commission, on behalf of its members, sympathizers and friends, addresses its condolences to the bereaved family," the note reads.
In turn, the parliamentary group of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) mourned the death of its deputy since 2008.
The president of the MPLA parliamentary group, Virgílio de Fontes Pereira, in a note quoted by Jornal de Angola, praised the figure of Puna, as a prominent nationalist who, from an early age, embraced the cause of freedom for the Angolan people.
"The nationalist Miguel N'Zau Puna has been a MPLA deputy since 2008, and currently had his mandate suspended for health reasons", the MPLA parliamentary group notes, stressing that "it was with great regret and consternation that the MPLA parliamentary group received the sad news".
Miguel Maria N'Zau Puna was born in 1932, in the province of Cabinda, and was a member of the Union of the Populations of Angola (UPA), of UNITA, where he was secretary-general, having left this party in 1992 and founded the Tendency of Democratic Reflection (TRD).
In his life, he also passed through diplomacy, as Angola's ambassador to Canada.
Three years after his death, he released an autobiography entitled "Mal me querem - A história de Angola na voz de quem a fez, um testemunho sem meias palavras", a 250-page book that addresses the long excursions while still a former UNITA militant, experienced from the locality of Jamba, in the province of Cuando Cubango, to Luanda, passing through Zambia, Tunisia and China.
