A Brazilian cooperation with Angola has become the latest tool to help resolve a long-standing demand from family members of victims of the African country’s civil war. The application developed in Mato Grosso do Sul of a Canadian technology has already been used to map nine possible locations with bones from the period.
The discovery began in the classroom of geographer Ary Rezende Filho, a professor at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS) in the chair of pedology, a science that studies the soil. In the course, he always does a field trip to show the use of a device, the EM 38-MK, which identifies ground modifications. Rezende adopted the machine in his study of saline lagoons in the Pantanal and took the methodology to his students.
One of them, in the class of 2016, was Civil Police expert Cícero dos Santos. At the time, the corporation was looking for the bodies of victims of a serial killer named Nando, who confessed to killing 15 people. The criminal’s reports were not enough, and Cicero hypothesized that the machine shown in the geography course could identify a change in the ground that would lead to a corpse. The idea worked, and it was possible to find the missing victims.
The case became the subject of his final course work, supervised by Rezende, and gained space in the media from Mato Grosso do Sul at the time. The news caught the attention of the Angolan Hamilton Bonga, a member of the Reconciliation Commission in Memory of Victims of Political Conflicts (Civicop), which was looking for solutions to locate the bones of those killed in the civil war.
As had happened in Mato Grosso do Sul, excavations by his team in places indicated by reports had ended up being frustrated. He thought that Santos and Rezende’s strategy could help and, last November, after facing technical difficulties with the machinery, he took the Brazilian professor to Angola.
The geographer spent 30 days in the African country mapping terrain indicated as possible bone sites. Thus, nine probable graves were arrived at — it is still not possible to know if there are in fact the bodies of the victims or how many there are. That’s because the device doesn’t work like an x-ray, which shows what’s under the ground. It is necessary to analyze what the machinery points out, which is added to the evaluation of a specialist.
“The professional will look at the environmental variables and try to understand what causes the change in soil coverage [do solo]”, explains Rezende. A non-homogeneous stretch, according to him, should be studied to determine whether the transformation is linked to human interference or to a natural change in the soil — then whether or not to proceed with excavation.
In the nine potential sites with ditches from the civil war identified by Rezende, at least one skeleton has already been confirmed, according to Bonga.
The search results from a promise made last year by the Angolan president, João Lourenço, on the eve of the 27th of May. The date is remarkable in the country because, in 1977, an attempted coup led by Nito Alves — who until days earlier was part of the ruling party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) — ended in a bloody massacre that lasted for months. .
“The 27th of May is filled with a set of political, military and, to a certain extent, social and economic backgrounds”, explains Gilson Lázaro, associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Agostinho Neto University, in Angola.
He cites racial differences and political intrigue that contributed to popular dissatisfaction, boiling the broth of a conflict between different anti-colonial movements in which the country had been immersed since before independence in 1975.
The MPLA disputed command with the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA). A post-independence deal between the three that would form a transitional government and constitution, culminating in elections, erupted into war, with the MPLA dominating the capital and forcing opponents into the interior.
Between periods of greater or lesser intensity, the conflict between these groups continued, also under the influence of the USA (linked to Unita) and the Soviet Union (which supported the MPLA) during the Cold War. At the end of the 1990s, with the dissolution of the USSR, the ruling party abandoned the Marxist-Leninist doctrine, and a system of multi-party democracy came on the scene.
Opponents agreed to participate in the formulation and, in 1992, ran in the first elections since independence, but Unita resumed the war after the result was favorable to the MPLA. “From 1994 [com o fim do apartheid na África do Sul], the external factors no longer existed”, explains Fabrício da Silva, professor of political science at Unirio. “The conflict was due to internal issues, the dispute over oil, resources and mining.”
The end of the clashes would only be sealed in 2002, when the assassination of Unita leader and founder Jonas Savimbi would lead to a peace agreement. The MPLA continues to lead Angola to this day. Estimates point to the toll of 500,000 soldiers and civilians killed in three decades of what is considered the longest and deadliest African civil war. The government’s acknowledgment of its mistakes, in turn, would take almost 20 years.
According to Lázaro, time has increased social pressure from people who saw their parents killed in the conflict, so that the truth could be found out, the perpetrators held accountable and the bones handed over. Thus, on May 26, 2021, Lourenço apologized on behalf of the government and promised: “This public apology is not just words, it reflects our sincere regret and desire to put an end to the anguish that families carry with them. for lack of information about the fate given to their loved ones”.
The Angolan professor considers that the president wants to raise political capital, “by writing himself as the one who publicly apologized for the 27th of May, insofar as this party and this government have [no conflito]”.
For Bonga, from Civicop, himself a relative of a victim of the conflict, the importance of the work speaks louder. “All countries have a dark side to their history, and few have the courage to clean up that side. Fortunately, we did.”
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