General Henrique Teles Carreira (June 2, 1933 – May 30, 2000), best known by the nickname Iko Carreira, served as the first

Defense Minister A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

from 1975 to 1980 during the civil war. After the death of

Agostinho Neto António Agostinho da Silva Neto (17 September 1922 – 10 September 1979) was an Angolan politician and poet. He served as the first president of Angola from 1975 to 1979, having led the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) i ...

his position in the party weakened. He later served as ambassador to

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and

military attaché A military attaché is a military expert who is attached to a diplomatic mission, often an embassy. This type of attaché post is normally filled by a high-ranking military officer, who retains a commission while serving with an embassy. Opport ...

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. He was born to civil servants in Angola. He joined the Independence Movement in 1957 and went underground in 1964, moving to

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...

and

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to receive training from military training. He was an officer in the

People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola ( pt, Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, abbr. MPLA), for some years called the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola – Labour Party (), is an Angolan left-wing, social de ...

(MPLA), Agostinho Neto's armed wing fighting against Portuguese colonial apartheid like rule. Founder and commander in chief of the Angolan Armed Forces, he defeated the FNLA in the north and UNITA in the south during the first civil war. Considered to be the regime's second in command until Neto's death, he was the first African military officer to receive a degree as a general from a Soviet military academy. General Iko Carreira's last struggle was to combat his illness, a stroke that paralysed his entire left side for the last 13 years of his life, writing two novels with one finger, on a special computer. The novels are titled: ''O Pensamento Estrategico de Agostinho Neto'' (Publicacoes Dom Quixote), and ''Memorias'' (published in Angola by Nzila). In June 2000, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''s

Victoria Brittain Victoria Brittain (born 1942) is a British journalist and author who lived and worked for many years in Africa, the US, and Asia, including 20 years at ''The Guardian'', where she eventually became associate foreign editor. In the 1980s, she wor ...

wrote in an obituary : "Like his friend and mentor, President Neto, Carreira will always remain a reference point for Angolans for the heroic period of their history."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carreira, Iko 1933 births 2000 deaths Angolan people of Portuguese descent Angolan military personnel People of the Angolan Civil War Angolan communists MPLA politicians Defence ministers of Angola Ambassadors of Angola to Algeria