José Van-Dúnem

José Jacinto da Silva Vieira Dias Van-Dúnem, also known as Zé Van-Dúnem Filósofo (29 August 1939 – 8 July 1977) was an Angolan militant, politician, and anticolonial activist.

He was the political commissioner of the general staff of the People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA), a member of the Central Committee of the MPLA, and political commissioner of the Eastern Front (III Região Político-Militar). Van-Dúnem was also one of the leaders of the Nitista faction. Captured in the process of the repression of an attempted coup d'état of the Angolan state, he was killed along with his wife Sita Valles. José Jacinto Van-Dúnem came from a family connected to the founding members of the modern Angolan nationalist movement,

Van-Dúnem received his primary school education at a school in Sumbe as his family resided in locations based on his fathers’ public employment. He moved to Luanda and went to live with his uncle organizing a cell network with the MPLA in Luanda. He served in Huambo and in Cuíto with a specialty in cavalry shooting. Van-Dúnem was freed, and he became, along with Nito Alves and Daniel Chipenda, the most influential figures in the MPLA for their participation and leadership in the fight for independence. the Operational Command of Luanda (COL), and partially stabilize the situation in the capital, In his post, he was the third in command of the military hierarchy of the party, after Armed Forces head Iko Carreira and head of general staff João Luís Xietu. On 11 November 1975, Angola's independence was declared, with the MPLA as the ruling party. A long civil war began afterwards between the new Angolan state and various rival groups. Van-Dúnem actively participated in the battles of 1975 and 1976. Van-Dúnem became even more ideologically aligned with the Soviet model and advocated for a more orthodox form of communism. purportedly exemplified by now Minister of Defense Iko Carreira, as well as MPLA vice-president and president of the Revolutionary Council Lúcio Lara. He later implicated Agostinho Neto himself and his government more broadly as targets of his criticisms.

In 1976, Van-Dúnem married Sita Valles, another activist in the MPLA that had overseen the youth movement and peoples' movement of the party in Luanda. He was one of the leaders of the 1977 Angolan coup attempt. Captured during the retaliation by the state against the coup attempt, both Van-Dúnem and his wife, Sita Valles, were murdered.