Month: January 2016

Land-Grabbing as a Path to Riches and Status in Angola

Angolan investigative journalist and human rights defender Rafael Marques de Morais has submitted a complaint to the Office of the Attorney General about the behaviour of notorious Kwanza-Sul Governor, General Eusébio de Brito Teixeira, for illegal land-grabbing. The complaint refers to yet more illegal appropriation of rural land, after having already grabbed more than 300 square kilometers to raise cattle and farming.  The Governor is suspected of three criminal offences:  the unlawful transfer of land from the State to an individual; unlawfully re-designating land for real estate development as rural land;  and  assigning  reduced value to these lands below their real commercial value (thus defrauding the State). Documentary evidence submitted with the complaint shows that on May 22nd, 2014, in his role as Governor of Kwanza Sul province,  the General made it known he had granted land surface rights to Ebrite Filhos Ltd., a company he formed with his children […]

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Nigeria and Angola Take Two Extreme Approaches to Corruption

In response to the growing public demand and to end the proliferation of protests against corruption in Angola, in 2009, President José Eduardo dos Santos announced his new policy of “zero tolerance” of corruption. More than 2200 days have passed since his announcement and not one major corrupt figure has been arrested. From his actions, it is clear that he prefers to arrest and punish those who speak out against uncontrolled corruption rather than those who are actually guilty of corruption. Angola and Nigeria are the two largest producers of oil on the African continent; both countries, by all accounts, are the most corrupt in Africa. Both Angola and Nigeria are suffering because of the dramatic drop in the price of oil. The different ways both countries are trying to overcome their difficulties, and solve the problem of the shortage of money, presents a fascinating contrast. Angola’s strategy is to […]

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General Eusébio counts on Friends in High Places to Protect Him

A recent report by Maka Angola detailing land appropriation by the Governor of Kwanza Sul Province, General Eusébio de Brito Teixeira, revealed how blatantly Angolan officials act in contravention of the most elementary rules of administrative procedure. It turns out that this was not an isolated act. Maka Angola has uncovered a second instance of illegal transfer of rural land by the same Governor – this time to a person who might be expected to offer the General  an “insurance policy” against punitive action. On January 26th, 2015, the Governor issued another land concession document to Soklinker Commercial Partners Ltd., granting surface land rights over 7,632 hectares of rural land for the purposes of construction. Soklinker is 75% owned by Sindika Dokolo, the husband of ‘First Daughter’ Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman. The remaining 25% is nominally held by Soklinker’s manager Luís Carlos Amorim da Luz Tavira, whose sister Catarina Tavira was […]

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Luanda Central Jail’s Torture Chamber: The Re-Education Room

“They took me to the Police Station in the Nova Vida (New Life) Project where some policemen punched and kicked me,” says 28 year-old Benjamin Filipe, as he recalls the events of August 20th, 2012. The young man was working as a mechanic in a private workshop and lived in Fubu District at the back end of the Nova Vida Project, south of the Angolan capital, Luanda.  That day “the police went to my home, saying I possessed a weapon and had committed a crime”, he explains. “They kicked me in the head so much that my ears bled”, he says.  “And then after what they called this “softening up”, one of the policemen took some pliers and pulled out three fingernails: from the index finger, middle finger and little finger of my right hand”. Such ill-treatment merits the definition of torture.  And it was only after this that the […]

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The Fate of Portugal’s BPI Bank Lies with Africa’s Richest Woman

One of Portugal’s largest and most venerable banks, the BPI Bank could be brought to its knees, not through bankruptcy or similar problems, but because its operations in Angola would be hamstrung if they lose their link to the Banco de Fomento de Angola (BFA). In the first six months of 2015, BFA operations made up 70% of BPI profits.  That shows the extent of the BPI’s dependency on this single financial institution in its Angolan operation.  And BPI’s partner in the BFA is none other than Unitel. Step forward Isabel dos Santos, billionaire daughter of Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.  In other circumstances, it might be quite deliciously ironic to see a post-colonial African entrepreneur  – and a female to boot – take down a bank connected to the old boys’ club of Portugal’s well-heeled aristocracy (Santos Silva and Ulrich). In reality, it is much more complicated. Isabel dos Santos’s […]

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Activist Lodges a Criminal Complaint against Land-Grabbing Governor

The activist Rafael Marques lodged today a criminal complaint in court against the Governor of Kwanza Sul Province, General Eusébio  de Brito Teixeira, for seizing land and then giving it to a company owned by himself. According to the submission delivered to the Office of the Attorney General, and to which Lusa had access, General Eusébio de Brito Teixeira even wrote a petition to the governor of Kwanza Sul Province – that is, to himself – to request the legal rights to land for the construction of a condominium. The letter is dated May 4, 2014; a month later, on June 6, the local Sumbe municipal administrator, where the lands in questions are based, sent the governor of Kwanza Sul province, with a copy to General Eusébio Brito Teixeira, a statement saying local entities were in favor of the proposal, and that the governor should immediately grant legal rights that he […]

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Angola’s Human Rights Crisis: the Abuse of Preventative Detention

Last October, I wrote an article for the Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso on the ineffectiveness of the presidential pardon system, in which I argued that inhumane treatment is an integral element of Angola’s overloaded Justice system. At that time, the Angolan President, José Eduardo dos Santos, had decreed pardons to prisoners who had served half of their sentences (provided those sentences did not exceed a maximum of 12 years).  Government news releases hailed the move with the headline:  “Thousands of prisoners are set free thanks to the presidential pardon”. Yet while convicted felons benefited, the presidential pardons had no effect on detainees held for years without trial in what Angola calls “preventative detention”. I quoted several cases:  that of João Domingos da Rocha, a 26 year-old who had spent seven years in preventative detention on suspicion of the theft of second hand clothes; of Justino Longia, also detained for five […]

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The War on Social Media and the Trial of Activists

Following the president’s outline of his war on social media, Judge Januário Domingos is making history by being the first to hear a case of a political joke on Facebook that has displeased the regime. Yesterday, the judge of the Luanda Provincial Court questioned a Catholic priest, Father Jacinto Pio Wakussanga, for being part of an imaginary government, generated in a playful Facebook discussion, as the head of the National Electoral Commission. In court, the priest told the judge that he had heard through social media about this imaginary government and thought it was just a joke. Last May, a lawyer Albano Pedro set up an open online forum on his Facebook page to entice discussants to come up with names for what would be an ideal government of national salvation. The leader of the millennial religious sect “The Light of the Day”, José Julino Kalupeteka, who has been in […]

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New Law Enables Indefinite Detention of Dissenters

Angola’s government, which has faced mounting international criticism over the lengthy detention of dissidents, has rushed through a new law entitled the “Law on Precautionary Measures in Criminal Proceedings”. This sudden development legitimized the release under house arrest, in mid-December, of the 15 activists detained last June during a book club reading, and who are currently standing trial for rebellion but had been held in preventative custody for months. That seemed a positive development, but does the new law really represent an advance in Angolan criminal legislation?  Does it introduce more humane treatment of prisoners in line with the rights set out in the Angolan Constitution? Observers note some positives in that the law is undoubtedly an improvement on its predecessor, the rigid 1929 Portuguese Penal Code.  Efforts in 1992 to update the 1929 penal code took place in a climate of war and resulted in a patchwork quilt that […]

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Don’t Look, Don’t Point! The Savagery of an Encounter with the Police

Malungo Sapalalo says with immense pride, his voice cracking, that he is from Huila, a province in Southern Angola that has long been a magnet for tourists and campers, an area many describe as heavenly within national standards. The search for work drew him to the country’s capital, Luanda, where he has encountered hell: arbitrary detention and torture at the hands of police officers.  It could have been worse.  He witnessed officers beating a fellow detainee to death. This is Malungo Sapalalo’s story. On November 5 last year, around midday, Sapalalo was busy at his second job as a loader near the ” Onze de Novembro” football stadium (named for Angolan Independence Day, November 11).  He was loading construction blocks for delivery to building sites. While resting between loads, he and four other workers got into a conversation about vehicles, comparing the relative speeds of a Toyota Hilux versus a […]

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