Luanda, ANGOLA, March 20 - UNITA, the largest opposition party in Angola, considered last Thursday in Luanda that the greatness of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale lies in the political gains it produced, as it allowed the application of resolution 435/78 of the Security Council of the United Nations.,

That UN Security Council resolution culminated in Namibia's independence and the fall of apartheid in South Africa.

Speaking at a press conference, UNITA National Secretary for Former Combatants, Kamalata Numa, stressed that resolution 435/78 paved the way for peace in Angola, but disagrees with the choice of March 23 (1988) as a date to celebrate the “Liberation of Southern Africa”.

In August 2018, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional organization that Angola is part of, approved March 23 as a public holiday, to mark the beginning of peace in the region.

According to the politician, the battle in which the FAPLA (then regular army of Angola) and the Cuban military imposed themselves on the army of the former South African Apartheid regime, which invaded Angola from this south-eastern region of the country, is “a fiction”.

During the battle of Cuito Cuanaval, the superiority achieved by the ex-FAPLA on the battlefield caused the Apartheid regime, fearing a heavier defeat, to accept the signing of the New York Agreements, which gave rise to the implementation of Resolution 435/78 of the UN Security Council.

At the press conference on March 23, Kamalata Numa said that among the various battles that took place in Angola, after independence, and that aimed at the liberation of the peoples of Southern Africa, the most important one was the so-called “Lomba87”.

By the way, the general in the reserve saluted the protagonists of the battle of “Lomba87” and Cuito Cuanavale.