Former combatants in Kwanza-Sul province said they will hold a vigil on Friday in front of the provincial directorates building where the provincial office for former combatants and veterans of the motherland operates, followed next week by a demonstration.
Domingos Portugal who heads the group of former combatants who will march said there are attempts to “discourage and intimidate” the veterans and said that in the “coming days” will denounce those responsible for these acts of intimidation
Recalling that Angola exists thanks to the veterans Portugal asked: “What have they done, what crime have they committed in this homeland? When they try to tell the truth or try to demonstrate, they are intimidated, why? Why?”.
The veteran warned that they will “denounce these intimidating people, whoever they are, even if they are leaders of the MPLA, of the provincial government, we will denounce their names”, defending afterwards that “when there is some increase in the defense, in the organs of the Ministry of the Interior, there should be a consideration that they should also increase this class”.
Arão Bartolomeu, a former FAPLA soldier, said that the authorities “treat us like we are crazy, we are not crazy, they put frustrations in our heads.
“I lost my youth in the FAPLA, Popular Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola, I am from Moxico, I ended up here in Kwanza-Sul, I am physically diminished and now, why don’t they solve our problem? The pension for the former combatants never went up, always with our 20 thousand, I am from the 4th group. Third group also 21 thousand, until today we are going to die with this pension crap”, he questioned.