Agricultural cooperatives of Angolan ex-military personnel in the commune of Calumbo, municipality of Viana, in Luanda, accused local inspection and police officers of “vandalizing”, for the sixth consecutive time, their crops and houses and are asking for help from the provincial government.
The concern of the ex-military is contained in a letter sent to the municipal administrator of Viana by the Association of Traders, Industrialists and Service Providers in Viana (ACIPSV), which oversees the cooperatives gathered in Calumbo.
According to ACIPSV, in a letter to which Lusa had access this Friday, the works of deforestation, canalization, land preparation, installation of tanks for breeding tilapia, aviaries and sheds began in March 2021.
The association said it had invested 860 million kwanzas (1.5 million euros) in the area, as a result of a bank credit, and that the invasions, allegedly commanded by the chief of the Calumbo surveillance, began in September 2022, right after the first harvest.
The ex-military said that the “invasions” and destruction of crops also had the participation of Angolan police officers, under the alleged authorization of the municipal administration of Viana to destroy, including the precarious residences of the cooperants.
What worries us, the ex-military, a lot is to know that this is the sixth time that the supervisory elements of the Calumbo commune have come to make a mess in our area of the cooperative,” they said, in a letter dated March 6, 2023.
The ACIPSV, in the document signed by its president, Francisco Gregório Manuel, also requested the intervention of the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) of Viana and the government of Luanda to stop the “illegality”, which has been dragging on for more than five months, and “severely punish” the offenders.
They haven’t stopped their actions, they continue to practice vandalism, such as the destruction of the irrigation system, the vandalizing of the water channel that supplies the project, creating disruption and heavy losses and compromising the harvest that we would have in the month of December,” he lamented.
The association also said that last February they registered a poisoning situation (with diesel fuel) in the fish breeding tank and that in the first week of March the “invaders” again “vandalized” the space, expelling the ex-military and other workers.
The members also expressed their “despair” over the consequent “attacks” on their crops and property, and lamented the “lack of response” from the legal institutions to which they appeal.
We have already appealed to the higher instances, without success up to the present date. We hope that the institutions and persons in charge of the law take a position on this situation which is getting worse every day”, they further stated.