António Fwaminy da Costa Fernandes | |
Office1: | Ambassador of Angola to Egypt[1] |
Term Start1: | 1 June 2011 |
Term End1: | 2019 |
Office2: | Ambassador of Angola to India |
Term Start2: | 2005 |
Term End2: | 2011 |
Office3: | Ambassador of Angola to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland |
Term Start3: | 1994 |
Term End3: | 2005 |
Party: | UNITA (until 1992) |
Birth Date: | 26 April 1942 |
Birth Place: | Cabinda, Angola |
Education: | University of Fribourg |
Awards: | Order of the Hero of the National Independence |
António Fwaminy da Costa Fernandes aka Tony da Costa Fernandes (Cabinda, 26 April 1942) is an Angolan politician. He served as UNITA's representative to the United Kingdom.[2] Along with Jonas Savimbi, he was co-founder of UNITA. He has been Angola's ambassador to Egypt, the United Kingdom, and India, and non-resident ambassador to Thailand.[3]
Costa Fernandes studied with Savimbi, the future leader of UNITA, in Switzerland. In November 1963 they went to Portugal, planning an uprising against Portuguese colonial authorities in Angola.
Later, when UNITA allied with the People's Republic of China, Costa Fernandes recruited the first refugees in Zambia to go to China for military training. He went along with fourteen other men.[2]
He served as the Foreign Minister of UNITA.
In the 1990s Fernandes and UNITA Interior Minister General Miguel N'Zau Puna allegedly uncovered the fact that UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi ordered the assassinations of both Wilson dos Santos, UNITA's representative to Portugal, and Tito Chingunji, one of Costa Fernandes' predecessors. Dos Santos and Chingunji's deaths and the defections of Fernandes and Puna weakened the U.S.-UNITA relationship and seriously harmed Savimbi's international reputation.[4] Costa Fernandes left UNITA in 1992.[5]