Angola Women’s Day: In Honour of Deolinda de Almeida Rodrigues

Angola Women’s Day: In Honour of Deolinda de Almeida Rodrigues

On the declaration of independence on 11 November 1975, the newly installed government of the People’s Republic of Angola declared 2 March 1976 as Angola Women’s Day. In line with International Women’s Day on 8 March, this became a day in which the women of Angola would remember their martyred dead and rededicate themselves to the cause of the Angolan revolution. The women pledged to eradicate all vestiges of colonialism and to build a free and independent Angola where exploitation of every kind would be eradicated.

2 March is celebrated as a day when Deolinda de Almeida Rodrigues and five of her female comrades were captured in 1967 and later abused and killed in 1968 by the enemy in the then Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo). In 1986, a monument was erected to honour Rodrigues and the five other female members of the Esquadrão Kamy in Heroines’ Square in Luanda.

Deolinda Rodrigues Francisco de Almeida, whose nom de guerre was “Langidila”, was a Pan-African, Angolan revolutionary internationalist, guerrilla fighter, a writer and poet. She was a member of the MPLA, the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (or the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola) and, in addition to seeing combat, worked for the organisation as a translator, educator, and radio host.

Deolinda was born into a Methodist family, in Catete, Angola, on 10 February 1939. Her parents, Mariana Pedro Neto and Adão Francisco de Almeida, were schoolteachers, while her father was also a Methodist minister. Deolinda had four siblings, including Angolan politician Roberto Francisco de Almeida. In 1954, the family moved to the capital Luanda whey they and lived with their aunt Maria da Silva, in the same house as her son, the poet Agostinho Neto, who went on to become the first president of Angola.

She attended elementary school at the Escola da Missão Evangélica (the Evangelical Mission School) and high school at the Liceu Salvador Correia (the Salvador Correia High School), where she studied Germanic languages. After completing her schooling in 1956, she began working as a teenager for the MPLA, as both a translator and organizer. By 1958, Deolinda had joined the United Methodist Youth, writing poetry for the Methodist periodical “O Estandarte” (“The Banner”). As she continued with her writings, during the late 1950s, however, she began to question the patriarchal nature of the government and the church.

Her work with the MPLA led Deolinda into conflict with the Portuguese authorities, particularly the International and State Defence Police (PIDE). By 1959, PIDE had placed a warrant out for her arrest, leading her to fled to Brazil, where she began attending the Chácara Flora Methodist Institute in Sao Paulo on scholarship, studying sociology and exchanging letters with American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Besides being able to speak and write both Kimbundu and Portuguese, Deolinda also spoke English, French and German fluently. During this time, she corresponded with Martin Luther King in English, discussing with him various strategies for advancing the Angolan revolutionary movement, including the use of symbolic leadership figures to represent it.

Fearing that her arrest warrant would lead to her deportation from Brazil following a proposed Brazilian-Portuguese extradition treaty, in 1960 Deolinda moved to the United States, where she went to study at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Because of her commitments to the MPLA, in 1962 she returned to Africa, spending some time in Conakry, Guinea, without finishing her studies. Late in 1962, she departed for Léopoldville, in Congo-Léopoldville, where many Angolan refugees under the MPLA had established political and military committees. During her stay in Léopoldville, she founded the OMA (Organização de Mulheres Angolanas), the women’s division of the MPLA.

Deolinda also served on the board of the “Voluntary Corps for the Assistance of Angolan Refugees”, also known as CVAAR (Corpo Voluntário Angolano de Assistência aos Refugiados), which offered medical and social services for Angolan refugees in Congo-Léopoldville. She became the sole woman on the MPLA’s central committee in the 1960s.

The MPLA was opposed by the “National Liberation Front of Angola” (FNLA – Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola), during the 1960s and 1970s, with both factions seeking to gain control over the Angolan liberation movement. The two organisations were involved in skirmishes in northern Angola and the outskirts of Luanda. The government of Mobutu Sese Seko in Congo-Léopoldville, which was sympathetic to the FNLA expelled the MPLA, in October 1963, forcing them to relocate in November to neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville. Deolinda also moved with the MPLA to Congo-Brazzaville, and continued her work with CVAAR.

During her stay in Congo-Brazzaville, Deolinda taught and organised literacy classes for Angolan refugees and also traveled abroad to advocate for the acceptance of Angolan international students in Bulgaria, Austria and the Soviet Union. In addition, Deolinda hosted an MPLA radio programme entitled “A Voz de Angola Combatente” (“A Voice for Fighting Angola”) wherein she voiced her admiration for Marxism-Leninism, stating in a 1965 that:

“Marxism–Leninism is rich enough in ideological resources and experience to find appropriate ways to overcome these difficulties, to overcome obstacles. The question is whether you are determined to do it. And I believe that we must fight for that, we must fight for unity … Because imperialism exists and is dangerous and aggressive. The underdeveloped world exists and is there, fighting in Angola, Vietnam, Latin America … Marx and Engels fought tirelessly for this unity throughout their lives.”

When Deolinda relocated to the Angolan exclave of Cabinda in 1966, she joined the Esquadrão Kamy, which was a unit consisting of several hundred men and five women that were trained by Cuban internationalists in the art and science of guerilla warfare. Deolinda was later on transferred to Dolisie, in Congo-Brazzaville, where she received specialised military training from Rafael Mórecen Limonta, a Cuban commander who later became a Brigadier General and a veteran of the Angolan War.

In January 1967, after completing their training, the Esquadrão Kamy set out for Angola to reinforce the People’s Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA – Forças Armadas Populares de Libertação de Angola), wherein she was injured just after they arrived. The squadron struggled to navigate for several days, leading to the death by starvation of several squadron members. Following an attempt to cross the flooded Ambriz River, 25 more guerrillas were killed.

These tragic experiences led Deolinda and a small group of five female combatants to split off and return to Congo-Brazzaville. However, on 2 March 1967, on their way back they were ambushed by the FNLA and captured near Songololo, a town in the Kongo Central Province in Congo-Léopoldville. They were held in a prison in Kinkuzu for several months and were executed in prison sometime in 1968.

Deolinda is regarded as a “heroine” of the Angolan revolution and is viewed alongside Agostinho Neto and Augusto Ngangula as “encapsulating… the standard of behavior and civic conduct” desired by the MPLA, which has governed Angola since 1975. She is regarded as a prominent figure in the Angolan history of the Liberation Struggle, although she is relatively unknown both locally in Angola and globally.

Sources:
Wikipedia.
Sechaba Correspondent, “Angolan Heroes Honoured”, Sechaba, Vol. 10, Third Quarter 1976.
Edward George, “The Cuban intervention in Angola, 1965-1991: From Che Guevara to Cuito Cuanavale – A Detailed Study of Cuban Internationalism and the Angolan War”, PhD in the Faculty of Arts, University of Bristol, October 2001.

Castro Khwela
Good evening fellow Compatriots!