Angola is being attacked after denied entry to several senior African politicians who are scheduled to attend meetings hosted by the country's major opposition parties.
Unita said it has invited politicians, including Tanzania's opposition leader Tundu Lis, Mozambique's Venancio Mondrane and former Botswana president Ian Kama, to the top of democracy.
“The actions to prevent the Angola government from entering Angola are inexplicable and unacceptable,” Lis said in X.
The BBC has requested the Angolan government for comment.
However, according to sources from the Migration and Aliens Service (SME), “the expulsion was due to irregularities in the visa procedure, preventing Mondraine and the other 13 members of his aides from entering Angola's territory.”
Mondraine, who called for national protests against what he said was last year's election, was subject to travel restrictions in his home country this week.
At least 20 leaders and representatives of various political parties across Africa have been denied entry, Lis said.
“The government of this country controls the dictatorship, pretending Angola is a democratic country,” he said.
Lis is a critic of the Tanzanian government's voice and is the head of Chadema, the main opposition party. He survived an assassination attempt in 2017 and spent several years in exile.
Kenya Sen. Edwin Shifna said he was among those who were denied entry into Angola in X by the opposition Orange Democrat Movement.
Representatives from Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Sudan were deported as having a visa or qualifying for a visa upon arrival, the platform of African Democrats (PAD), an opposition group in Africa, said in a statement.
Former Colombian President Andres Pastrana, Zanzibar's first vice president, Osman Masuud Osman, and 24 others, were detained at the airport for nine hours without explanation. According to PAD, they were released but missed the connecting flight.
The Angolan government has promised to compensate for these actions by providing planes, but that never happened, the opposition group said.
Zanzibar's main opposition, Act Wazalendo, urged the Tanzanian government to immediately summon the Ambassador of Angola to the United States to provide a formal explanation of why the party's vice president was denied entry into the country.
Mozambican political analyst Thomas Viera Mario told the BBC that the move was “strange” as Angola President Joa Lurenco positioned himself as a kind of mediator of the continent.
Lourenco is currently chairman of the African Union (AU) and is holding peace talks over the Doctor of Congo conflict next week.
Mario added that, aside from these numbers, he showed full empt and “almost respect” for the AU's pan-African spirit.
All deported leaders were part of the delegation where UNITA was invited to attend the 59th anniversary ceremony in Benguera.
Unita MP Nelito Da Costa Ekwiki has denounced their decision not to allow entry to the country.
The Angolan government has long been accused of shutting down opposition to maintain its grip of power.
Additional Reports by Jorge Nusimba of Luanda
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