In a statement released on Friday, Mudei believes that the protests and riots, which coincided with the three-day taxi drivers' strike, were fueled by "cumulative outrage over hunger, abandonment, and the lack of prospects."
According to Mudei, the 33 percent increase in the price of diesel, implemented "abruptly and without any consultation or social mitigation program," had an "immediate and devastating effect on the rising cost of living."
The movement laments that the "legitimate" protest degenerated "into riots and looting" and that the state's response was "using the only argument it knows: repression and confrontation."
For Mudei, the authorities' response was "disproportionate," resulting in a "tragic official toll" with "30 deaths, including young people and one child," "277 injured, some in serious condition," and "1500 people detained, many still without access to legal defense."
"Among the dead is a woman who was shot in the back, in an act of police brutality that symbolizes absolute disregard for human life," it denounces.
"The official narrative has reduced the complexity of the crisis to mere 'acts of vandalism,' ignoring the structural causes of the uprising," reads the Mudei statement, which also criticizes the mobilization of the army, which "represents a dangerous militarization of the response to a social problem."
The movement asserts that "recent events demonstrate a profound divorce between the State and the people. A State that governs by imposition, that represses dissent, and that refuses to engage in dialogue."
Mudei also spoke out about "the silence of the occupant of the office of President of the Republic (...) deeply revealing and unacceptable."
João Lourenço addressed the nation on Friday, after three days of unrest in Angola and criticism of his silence, labeling the vandalism as "acts of sabotage" and alluding to the orchestration of criminal actions.
For Mudei, the lack of any words of consolation or accountability "reveals the indifference, the complete lack of empathy, and the distance that exists between you and those your position requires you to represent."
"What we witnessed was not disorder; it was the echo of accumulated injustices," the civic movement argues, pointing to a "clear equation: Fuel price hike + repression + hunger = social explosion."
Mudei advocates for the "immediate criminal accountability of the agents and command lines involved in the deaths and injuries," as well as the opening of a "serious, inclusive public dialogue" on the social impacts of the fuel price hike.
The demands also include "an end to the criminalization of poverty," "unconditional respect for the right to popular protest," and the implementation of "real, redistributive policies aimed at social justice, built with transparency, inclusion, and a commitment to the common good."
