THE NATIONAL UNION FOR THE TOTAL INDEPENDENCE OF ANGOLA

UNITA

SECRETARIAT FOR INFORMATION

The people of Angola heard with amazement but without any surprise, the Communique issued on 8th February by the Minister for Social Communications, Mr. Pedro Hendrick Vaal Neto, on the behalf of the oligarchic regime in Luanda.

They had been informed, from whatever ill-founded sources, that presumably foreign journalists are gathered somewhere in an African country, ready to be brought in to visit the Angolan territory under the jurisdiction of UNITA.

If it was not for the respect we have and wish to deepen with our people in Angola, this expression of hysteria and obvious panic from the regime in Luanda, would not have deserved the minimum of our attention.

It is not long ago that two journalists of DN-Diario de Noticias - a Portuguese Newspaper - were expelled from Angola. Today the same Minister of that regime is sending infatile, unacceptable, intimidating and thickly unfounded uproars.

We wish to assert that, if UNITA wishes to bring foreign journalists in Angolan territory under its control, no one can stop it. In addition the journalists would get required and appropriate protection to enable them to carry out their work.

The profession of journalism requires of the men and women truly involved in it, to be curious, investigators and sometimes wilful. Threats aimed at them would only act as stimulus.

The democratisation of a given regime is measured by the degree of the freedom of the press and social communications, amongst other aspects. In Luanda there is no democracy or freedom of expression.

If the MPLA Government in Luanda is about to achieve the military victories which have already been widely claimed and forecast, why does it fear the journalists?

We in UNITA are very determined. So, against the winds and tides we will know how to lend our trust to the journalists, so that freely they will tell our side of the story.

Bailundo, 10th February, 1999

The Secretariat for Information