Adalberto Costa Júnior said that the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) decided to decline its participation in the Commission for Reconciliation in Memory of the Victims of Political Conflicts (CIVICOP), because the body remains "hostage to the spurious interests of the regime".
This situation, he said, has been observed by the party "in several events and situations that have occurred recently, thus not serving the purposes for which it was created: those of national reconciliation and the pacification of spirits in Angola".
Speaking at a press conference in Luanda, the UNITA leader substantiated his position by claiming that, "in recent days, the Angolan people have once again witnessed an incessant search operation and desecration of graves in territories that were under the administration of UNITA at the time of the civil war, outside the frameworks and rules that should govern the functioning of CIVICOP".
Adalberto Júnior was alluding to the reports shown by Public Television of Angola (TPA), which showed images of Jamba, former UNITA territory during the period of the armed conflict, where CIVICOP technicians were excavating in search of the remains of victims, allegedly of Jonas Savimbi, leader founder of the party, buried there.
CIVICOP, coordinated by the Minister of Justice and Human Rights and made up of members of the Government, civil society, churches and political parties with seats in parliament, was created in 2019 by President João Lourenço, and is in charge of the general tribute plan to the victims of the political conflicts that occurred in Angola between November 11, 1975 and April 4, 2002.
In 2021, the President apologized to the families, on behalf of the Angolan State. In its actions, CIVICOP has delivered the remains of victims, linked to the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) or UNITA, to their respective families.
This Thursday, Adalberto Costa Júnior said that CIVICOP was created as an instrument to definitively consolidate the reconciliation and pacification of spirits in Angola, regretting, however, that the "MPLA has ignored these principles".
"The objective of the regime, which is visible to the naked eye, has been to clean and whiten the bloodstains of its own history", he pointed out.
In contrast, he praised the role of the former Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Francisco Queirós, then coordinator of the body, at a time when, he stressed, "CIVICOP's mission seemed to be moving along normally".
"Since then, CIVICOP has effectively been a body involved in permanent traps and scams. The credibility of CIVICOP and the Angolan Government is completely called into question, when those who carried out the verification of the bones to the end, concluded that they did not belong to their loved ones", pointed out Adalberto Costa Júnior, referring to complaints of alleged incompatibility of bone samples from the victims with their respective families.
He also criticized the action of the director of the State Intelligence and Security Service, who "has been delivering bones and turning a blind eye to the mass graves of the 27th of May in Luanda and throughout the country and leading poisoning campaigns in conjunction with the partisan press".
CIVICOP "is today a structure at the mercy of propaganda fermented in the regime's hate laboratories. A transmission belt of small politics distilled by the MPLA and having as actors individuals who have turned their backs on ethics, professional deontology and the patriotic spirit", he stressed.
For Adalberto Costa Júnior, the responsibility for the "distortion" of CIVICOP "is attributable to the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, as holder of executive power", as the coordinator of the body, the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, "is a mere assistant to the holder of executive power".
"Furthermore, the total silence on the matter, to which the President of the Republic referred, allows us to affirm, without error, that the person in charge of the acts of propaganda that have been shown on the TPA is the President of the Republic", concluded the leader from UNITA.
