29 March 2008
Luanda — The Head of State, José Eduardo dos Santos Fridaty praised the victory of the Cuito Cuanavale battle "because if its without doubt, a fundamental element for peace and national reconciliation in Angola".
Speaking to ANGOP in Luanda, in light of the 20th anniversary of the battle, marked on March 23, the Head of State refers that with the Cuito Cuanavale victory and the measures seized later the main foreign factors that still supported the war in the country were eliminated and a favourable route was opened for its internal resolution.
"It was in this new context that the Bicesse Accord on Peace in Angola as negotiated and signed, whose application, due to known reasons, was only definitively completed after being complete, with a Protocol in Lusaka and a Memorandum of Agreement in Luena, in April 2002", stresses the document.
Eduardo dos Santos said that Southern Africa became a different political, social and economic reality, its countries emancipated themselves, the respective peoples became owners of their destinies and today they are actors of their own history, thanks to the result of the Cuito Cuanavale battle.
"Remembering this, is remembering peace, it is rejecting the war and violence as means to solve problems", he assured.
The President refers that the battle was a decisive turning point in a war backdating to various years, in which the young Angolan State had to suffer pressures and threats and direct aggressions of the military forces that they funded, supported and armed.
This is a historic deed, he added, that should be preserved and divulged because of its military, political and diplomatic meaning and, above all, because of the peace and freedom perspective that created for the population of the Southern African region.
Referring to the history of the battle, considered as the biggest battle of regular forces after the second World War, the Head of State reminds that at this stage South Africa was governed by a racist white minority that controlled the political, military, economic, financial and media power, through a policy of racial segregation dubbed "Apartheid" that was also defeated during this aforementioned battle that freed various countries and peoples.
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