The DNA tests performed on the remains that the Angolan government believed may have belonged to those of the protagonists of the alleged coup attempt on May 27, 1977, showed that none of the samples match the cadavers indicated.
“Unfortunately, there is no coincidence with the DNA of the families in question,” confirmed Duarte Nuno Vieira, former president of the National Institute of Legal Medicineprofessor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra and one of the world’s leading forensic experts, who led the team that carried out this assessment at the request of some family members.
The former justice minister of Angola, Francisco Queiroz, president of the Commission for Reconciliation in Memory of the Victims of Political Conflicts (CIVICOP), had indicated in 2021 that the remains found in a mass grave may belong to some of the protagonists of the May 27, tortured and shot by the government of then President Agostinho Neto.
Queiroz said at the time: “indicators point to people associated with May 27namely Nito Alves (the leader), Pedro Fortunato, Bakalov, Monstro Imortal, Sita Valles, José Van-Dunem, David Zé, Urbano de Castro, Domingos Barros “Sabata” and Artur Nunes as well as Júlio and Ilídio Ramalhete, two twin employees of the ex-DISA (Political Police)”.
It should be remembered that José Van Dunem was the brother of the former Portuguese Minister of Justice, Francisca Van Dunem, and Sita Valles, his wife. They left their son João, who was raised by Francisca Van Dunem, an orphan.
“We already had a few suspect something was wrongsaid Duarte Nuno Vieira. “First the DNA results came out very quickly, which made me think bones younger than 40 years old bodies as it should. Later, the features of the skeletons also suggested they were more recent. We are sure that the bodies are not what was expected. This is a scientific certainty”, he underlined.
This forensic team also included the deputy national director of the PJ, Carlos Farinha, in charge of the Police Scientific Laboratory where some tests were carried out, and the forensic anthropologists Eugénia Cunha and Inês Santos.
Letter to Angola: “propaganda machine”
This process began in 2021, when the President of Angola, João Lourenço, apologized on behalf of the state for the summary executions following the alleged coup d’état of May 27, 1977.
The relatives of the victims of May 27, who had hoped to finally bury their parents or siblings in a dignified manner, have now learned that everything may have been nothing more than a farce, or a staging with reasons for electoral propaganda. ..
The M27 association, who brings together the children of some of these victims, wrote a “Letter to Angola”, to which DN had access, in which the orphans show their rebellion against the “exercise of cruelty” to which this trial and especially its now known outcome, subjugated and left them they suffer.
Read the full letter HERE
“We are all suffering from an incurable pain, a mix of loss, absence and uncertainty about the circumstances in which our parents lost their lives. (…) They were taken away from us abruptly, when they thought they were building a dignified and prosperous country for all of us, their children and the children of all other parents,” they recalled.
They appreciate the initiative of the president of Angola, a year and a half ago. “we sawa light at the end of this long tunnel and that light has brought hope to many of us. President João Lourenço, for the first time in independent Angola’s history, acknowledged the state’s excesses in the events that followed May 27, promising justice and dignity for the dead, peace and reconciliation among the living. It has publicly admitted the death of citizens at the hands of the state, has committed to issue the corresponding death certificates, identify the remains and hand them over to the families, for the performance of the funeral rites,” they underline .
Yet they remember that “it was created a whole propaganda machine that could anything but guarantee rigorous work and a serious result. Footage was shown on television of a Brazilian technician with a device that would be used to locate bodies; depictions of equipment similar to backhoe loaders, which would be in place to remove human remains; the point has been reached to publicly announce the possible location of corpses of people whose names have been published on television, while human skeletons on display, rekindling feelings of deep emotion and suffering in families”.
“Exercise in Cruelty”
“We heard the names of our parents and the parents of our companions pronounced, also orphaned in the aftermath of those massacres. There were the remains, which would close a chapter in history. On the eve of the presidential election, bodies were delivered in public ceremonies that were widely televised. Funeral ceremonies were held. The country saw. The whole country saw and experienced this moment as a time of truth and reconciliation,” continues the “Letter to Angola”.
However, it is written: “Some of us have requested DNA testing to confirm the identity of the bodies. And it was with astonishment and pain that the tests were carried out and it was concluded that none of the samples matched that of the corpses of our country…!”.
“Objectively, what we saw was a exercise in cruelty, in which feelings of loss, pain and heartache were needlessly revived, with aims that have nothing noblethey claim.
“The truth,” they point out, “we all know—is that many of those responsible and participants in the repression are still alive and identified. And the question we legitimately ask ourselves is to know why, with full transparency, these people are not called upon to declare under oath the places where the bodies whose lives were taken or ordered were buried or thrown. 45 years is enough time to face the truth and for the country to face its traumas. The truth enlightens and reconciles”.
“Truth, Justice, Reparation”
This “truth” is also the desire for Joaquim Carvalho, of the May 27 Survivors Association. “We demand transparency, truth, justice and reparation from the government. It must also be held responsible for creating this farce, defrauding the President of the Republic and disqualifying his request for forgiveness from the victims,” he said against DN.
The DN attempted to contact former Justice Minister Francisco Queiroz for comment, but has so far received no response.
On May 27, 1977an alleged coup attempt, in an operation purportedly led by Nito Alves – at the time former interior minister from independence (November 11, 1975) until October 1976 – was violently suppressed by Agostinho Neto’s regime.
Six days earlier, on May 21, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MLPA, in power) had expelled Nito Alves from the party. at the same time control of the national radio station, a move that came to be known as “fractionism”.
Forces loyal to Agostinho Neto, with the support of Cuban soldiers, managed to bring order and arrest the rebels, followed later by what became known as the “purge”, with the elimination of the factions, which killed about 30,000 peoplefor the most part without any connection to Nito Alves, as Amnesty International points out in several reports on the subject.
In April 2019, the Angolan President ordered the creation of a commission (the CIVICOP) to prepare a global plan to honor the victims of the political conflicts that took place in Angola between November 11, 1975 and April 4, 2002 (late 2002) . civil war).
Source: DN
