Agostinho Neto, President
Today, Embassy of Angola in Rwanda is celebrating Angolan Heroes Day, and the topic is: Life and Work of Dr Antonio Agostinho Neto, especially his achievements. Read the follow presentation below and appreciate a real African leader:
LIFE AND WORK OF DR. ANTÓNIO AGOSTINHO NETO
António Agostinho Neto was born on 17th September, 1922 in Kaxicane, parish of São José, Icolo e Bengo.
Icolo e Bengo is a municipality in Luanda province, based in the city (Village) of Catete. It has an area of 3,819 km2, a population of 126,935 inhabitants, which is 33.23 inhabitants per km2.
António Agostinho Neto is the son of Agostinho Neto, a catechist of the American Methodist Mission in Luanda (later became a pastor and teacher in Dembos) and Maria da Silva Neto, teacher.
The American Methodist Mission is a church of English origin from the Christian spiritual revival movement that took place in 18th century in England in 1739 led by the Reverend John Wesley (1703-1791) and his brother Charles Wesley (1707-1788), considered one of the greatest exponents of Protestant sacred music, both ministers of the Anglican Church.
Dembos is a municipality in the province of Bengo, the centre of the municipality Quibaxe, which is located 180 km north of the city of Caxito. In 2014 it had 28,202 inhabitants.
His parents moved to Luanda and on 10th June 1934, he received the Primary School Certificate. He started his secondary education in 1937 at Liceu Salvador Correia, concluding it in 1944.
Liceu Salvador Correia, was founded on 22nd February 1919 (101 years old) which since 2008 has been called Escola Mutu-ya-Kevela and is now known as Magistério Mutu-ya-Kevela (MMK), with a capacity for 6,000 students. A large part of the country’s intellectual elite has passed through this school.
After finishing high school, Dr. António Agostinho Neto was hired by the administrative services of Portuguese West Africa to serve as a health service official, at this time broadening his view of the colonial problem.
Portuguese West Africa refers to Angola during the colonial historical period, when it was a territory under Portuguese rule in southeast Africa. In the same context, it is occasionally referred to as Colonial Angola, Portuguese Angola (officially a West African state).
However, full control over the whole territory of Angola was not achieved until the beginning of the 20th century, when agreements with other European powers during the dispute for Africa fixed the internal borders of the colony. On 11th June, 1951, the status of the Colony of Angola was elevated to the Overseas Province of Angola and finally in 1972, the State of Angola. In 1975, Portuguese Angola became the Popular Republic of Angola, already an independent territory of West/Central Africa.
In 1948, Dr. António Agostinho Neto wins a scholarship from the American Methodists, leaves Angola and embarks to Portugal to attend the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Coimbra. In Coimbra he becomes one of the founders of the Casa dos Estudantes do Império (CEI) (House of Students of the Empire) section. Later, he moved to the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Lisbon, continuing his activity within the CEI.
Casa dos Estudantes do Império (CEI) was founded in 1944 by Vieira Machado, Minister of the Portuguese Colonies, from the Salazar regime. It was a state institution that operated in a similar way to a student republic, maintained to house the various students from the Portuguese colonies who were going to study in the metropolis (Portugal).
Casa dos Estudantes do Império (CEI) was created to strengthen the “imperial mentality and the feeling of Portugal among the students of the colonies”, also responding to a need to bring together students from the Portuguese colonies who did not have higher education institutions or to help those who needed to supplement academic credits in Portugal.
In the CEI, Dr. António Agostinho Neto founds the Revista Movimento, in collaboration with Lúcio Lara and Orlando de Albuquerque, and the group “Vamos Descobrir Angola (Let´s Discover Angola)”, which gave rise to the “Movimento dos Jovens Intelectuais de Angola (The Youth Intellectual Movement of Angola)”.
The Casa dos Estudantes do Império (CEI) was closed by PIDE on 6th September 1965.
In 1948, António Agostinho Neto was arrested by the International and State Defence Police (PIDE) in Lisbon when he was collecting signatures for the World Peace Conference and was imprisoned for three months.
Upon his release, Agostinho Neto, in partnership with Amílcar Cabral, Mário Pinto de Andrade, Marcelino dos Santos and Francisco José Tenreiro, founded the Centre for African Studies, an institution that was to be closed by PIDE in 1951).
Also in 1951, Agostinho Neto was elected representative of the Youth of the Portuguese Colonies (JCP) to the Movement of Democratic Unity – Youth (MUD-J), a group strongly linked to the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). The activities of the JCP earned him a new arrest by PIDE, in Lisbon, in 1951.
In 1955, Agostinho Neto was again arrested for his political activities in the JCP and MUD-J and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
This last arrest of Agostinho Neto mobilised many intellectuals in his support, who made an international petition for his release, among them Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986 – she was a French writer, existentialist philosopher, memorialist and feminist, considered one of the greatest representatives of existentialism in France), François Charles Mauriac (1885-1970 – French writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952, in recognition of the profound spiritual and artistic impregnation with which novels penetrated the drama of human life), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980 – French philosopher and writer, one of the greatest existentialists in France with the famous work – “The Being and the Nothing”); and Cuban poet Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista, (1902-1989 – Cuban poet and communist militant).
He was still imprisoned when, on 10th December, 1956, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was founded from the merger of mainly nationalist groups Partido da Party of the United Struggle of Africans of Angola and Angolan Communist Party, besides other smaller groups.
Released in July 1957, Agostinho Neto dedicated himself to completing his studies, graduating in Medicine from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon on 27th October 1958.
In 1959, Agostinho Neto joined the Anticolonial Movement (MAC).
He was part of the generation of African students who would play a decisive role in the independence of their countries in what became known as the Portuguese Colonial War.
On 22nd December 1959, together with his family, Agostinho Neto went to Luanda, where he opened a medical practice, started to organise the political activities of the MPLA and assumed the leadership of the movement in the same year.
On 8th June 1960, Agostinho Neto was arrested in Luanda by the International and State Defence Police (PIDE), the political police of the Salazar regime then in force in Portugal, generating large demonstrations of solidarity before his medical office. Police operations are carried out against his supporters and the village where he was born, Kaxicane, Municipality of Icolo and Bengo, is invaded by police forces.
Dr. António Agostinho Neto is taken to the Algarve jail in Portugal and soon afterwards deported to the archipelago of Cape Verde, staying in Ponta do Sol prison, Island of Santo Antão; finally he is transferred to Campo do Tarrafal, where he stays until October 1962. It is in prison that he writes some of his main poems.
Barely released, he is again arrested and transferred to Aljube prisons, in Lisbon, Portugal. The strong international repercussion due to his imprisonment leads several periodicals and intellectuals to campaign against Portugal, opening the Portuguese Colonial War, which had begun in Angola on February 4, 1961. Thus, Agostinho Neto is released from prison in March 1963.
Upon his release, Agostinho Neto stays in Lisbon, where he establishes residence, until June 1963, when he flees Portugal with his family, settling in Kinshasa, Republic of Zaire, former Belgian Congo, now Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the MPLA had its headquarters in exile, resuming the functions of effective president of the MPLA during the National Conference of the Movement (Due to the arrest, he was honorary president since 1961). In the same year, Agostinho Neto moved the MPLA’s headquarters to Brazzaville, as a consequence of his expulsion from Zaire.
In 1968, he transfers his family to Dar-Es-Salam/United Republic of Tanzania, where he remains until 4 February 1975, when he is received in Luanda.
In fulfilment of the Alvor Accords, in Portugal, the “transitional government” is constituted, which includes the MPLA, Portugal, FNLA and UNITA.
In March 1975, FNLA declares war to the MPLA and conflicts begin. Agostinho Neto leads the MPLA until the proclamation of the independence of Angola, being these conflicts the prelude of the war in Angola.
It was on 11th November, 1975 that Angola is declared independent and Dr. António Agostinho Neto is proclaimed the first President of the Popular Republic of Angola, Commander-in-Chief of FAPLA and President of MPLA. He also assumes the function of dean of the University of Angola, now Agostinho Neto University, and president of the Angolan Writers Union, a position he held until his death on 10th September, 1979.
On 17th September, Angola celebrates the Day of the National Hero, celebrating the day that Dr. António Agostinho Neto was born.
Literary Work
Poetry
•1957 – Four Poems of Agostinho Neto, Póvoa do Varzim
•1961 – Poems, Lisbon, House of the Students of the Empire
•1974 – Sagrada Esperança, Lisbon, Sá da Costa (includes poems from the first two books)
•1982 – The Impossible Resignation, Luanda, INALD
•2016 – Complete poetic work, Lisbon, Dr. Agostinho Neto Foundation
Politics
•1974 – Who is the enemy… what is our objective?
•1976 – To destroy the old to build the new
•1980 – Still my dream
•The path to the bush
•Suction
•Fire and rhythm
In 1970 he was awarded the Lotus Prize by the 4th Conference of African-Asian Writers.
In 1975-1976 he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.
LONG LIVE THE DAY OF THE NATIONAL HERO. LET US FOLLOW YOUR EXAMPLE. (End)