Search Results for: Cunene province

Journalist Banned from Practicing in Cunene Province

On 7 January, the provincial government of Cunene informed journalist Paulo Kuza that he was to cease all professional activity in the province for an indeterminate length of time. According to Mr Kuza, the provincial director of Information, Faustino Ndasuamba, handed him the ban during a meeting they had. Last December, the journalist joined the staff of Rádio Despertar, the only radio station to openly criticize the government. The station has been transmitting on FM to the greater Luanda area since 2006, as part of the Peace Agreement between the government and the former rebel movement UNITA. Stunned by the information Rádio Despertar called the provincial director to confirm the ban. Maka Angola heard a recording of the telephone conversation between the deputy director of Rádio Despertar, Queirós Anastácio Chilúvia, and Faustino Ndasuamba. The provincial director confirmed that he had held a meeting with Mr Kuza.  In a language reminiscent […]

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Angola Drought Emergency

Humanitarian organizations are warning of an impending food emergency in southern Angola as the region faces the aftermath of the worst recorded drought in nearly half a century.  Launching an urgent eight-million-dollar appeal, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said five consecutive years of severe drought had left more than 1.5 million people at risk of famine.  It’s not known how many may have died already as a result of drought and malnutrition but thousands of starving people braved crocodile-infested rivers to cross the border into Namibia to seek help and survivors reported many dying along the way.  Namibia is repatriating drought refugees who, given the ongoing conditions, are having to regroup in resettlement camps in Angola. The Angola Red Cross has begun delivering primary assistance to the worst-affected areas in the provinces of Huila, Cunene and Namibe.  But the situation is said to be […]

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President Dos Santos Clings on to the Old Guard

President José Eduardo dos Santos recently appointed General Kundi Paihama as governor of Huambo province, the second most geostrategically important province in Angola. Paihama, 70, is an important figure in the regime’s old guard. Neither his age nor his history of incompetence and of involvement in shady business dealings stood in the way of his appointment. Paihama was thought to be approaching retirement. In an interview with Radio LAC in August he declared “my dream is to live in the fields, in the countryside, and dedicate myself to farming. This is what I will doubtless do one day when I retire from government.” Will he be tilling his fields when he is 80 or 85 years old? There is an ever more urgent need for the government to respond to the expectations of a young population that is making increasing demands in the areas of education, employment and housing. Paihama, […]

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‘Operation Thunderclap’: At Least Five Dead in Separatist Attack on Angolan Prison

An armed attack on a prison in the north-eastern Angolan province of Lunda-Sul which resulted in the deaths of at least five people, has been blamed on a misguided attempt to free a self-styled independence leader. Responsibility for the attack is said to lie with a man calling himself “Commander Thunderclap” (*see below) who says it is the opening salvo in a liberation war for the independence of the Lundas.  The diamond-rich region comprises twin provinces – North Lunda (Norte) and South Lunda (Sul), largely inhabited by descendants of the Tchokwe nation.  It is no stranger to separatism.  Local communities have long displayed discontent with Angola’s central government.  While politicians, generals and foreign interests have carved out immense fortunes over decades, the lot of local people has not improved since colonial times, leading to simmering resentment and a growing appetite for self-rule.  Zero tolerance for separatism The Angolan authorities are […]

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UNITA Says 14 Provincial Results Invalid

Angola’s largest opposition party, UNITA, has declared that 14 of the country’s 18 provinces have not yet delivered results from last week’s elections in accordance with the law. UNITA’s intervention comes a day after the National Election Commission declared that the provincial verification process had been concluded, following voting on 23 August. Yesterday, the Constitutional Court also ruled against a complaint lodged by the Coalition for the Salvation of Angola (CASA-CE), which also ran in the elections. CASA-CE, like UNITA, demanded that CNE tally the votes in each province according to the electoral law. “The provincial verification carried out in terms of [the law] happened only in the provinces of Cabinda, Uíge, Zaire e Malanje,” UNITA’s Political Commission said in a statement issued on Thursday. The statement added that the verification process conducted in two further provinces, Benguela and Moxico, could not be considered conclusive. “In the provinces of Cuanza […]

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Vote Counting in Angola Marred by Irregularities

The Angolan National Electoral Commission (CNE) announced yesterday that it has already processed the tallying of the final results of the August 23 elections in 11 of the 18 provinces, according to its spokesperson, Júlia Ferreira. These are the provinces of Bengo, Benguela, Cabinda, Cuando-Cubango, Cunene, Huíla, Kwanza-Norte, Kwanza-Sul, Luanda, Moxico and Zaire. However, the Angolan opposition parties claim that 11 of the country’s 18 provinces – Bengo, Bié, Cuando-Cubango, Cunene, Huambo, Kwanza-Sul, Luanda, Lunda-Norte, Lunda-Sul, Malanje, Moxico – have still not verified their results as the law requires. This list includes five of the provinces in which the CNE declares the counting is complete: Bengo, Cuando-Cubango, Kwanza-Sul, Luanda, and Moxico. The various provincial electoral commissions have declared that they have completed their task, but the commissioners appointed by opposition parties are refusing to approve the vote tallies from these provinces. According to the list that Maka Angola had access […]

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Angola’s Greatest Work of Fiction: The Budget

A much-lauded cartoon by Angola’s premier pictorial satirist Sérgio Piçarra recently depicted the state of the country’s economy, thanks to José Eduardo dos Santos, the country’s President for the past 37 years. In his depiction, Angola has a ‘Real Economy’, and a ‘Virtual Economy’, but there is an even third one, the ‘Fictitious Economy’. It’s a reflection of a truth: every year the Angolan state budget (Orçamento Geral de Estado) is a mixture of the actual (real), anticipated (virtual) and the ‘only on paper’ (fictitious) spending for the year ahead. Now insiders say the 2017 Budget strays even further from reality than usual. One example: Angola expects to spend more than 1.7 billion kwanzas (US $6.5 million) on maintenance of the memorial to Agostinho Neto, the country’s first post-independence president. The Soviet Union undertook the initial construction of the memorial. However, with the collapse of the USSR, the construction remained […]

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President Dos Santos Wants Dictatorial Control of the Net

Angola’s President for the past 36 years, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, has used his traditional end of year speech to announce legal measures to control social media and the internet, which he feels have been offending and humiliating him. Announcing his main projects for the New Year, the President ignored the famine currently affecting residents in the southern province of Cunene along with the many other challenges faced by the Angolan people.  Instead, he is prioritizing further ways to silence the growing criticism of his increasingly-dictatorial regime. This is equally the case with Angola’s ‘Marie Antoinette’, Isabel dos Santos, the President’s billionaire daughter.  This Christmas she had a  “Let them Eat Cake” moment, choosing to spend US $2 million on bringing the Anaconda rapper Nicki Minaj to Luanda rather visiting Cunene in her role as president of the Angolan Red Cross to assist local communities severely affected by the drought. Social […]

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Angolan Authorities Detain Youth Protesters as “Coup Plotters”

For the Angolan authorities, the very thought of an Angola without President José Eduardo dos Santos at its helm, let alone any protest against his rule, continues to be a matter of crime and punishment. President dos Santos has been in power for 36 years and wants to be celebrated as the architect of peace and guarantor of stability, though opponents say he is ruining the country. On Wednesday the attorney general of the Republic, Army General João Maria de Sousa, confirmed the detention of 15 youths for allegedly preparing acts of collective disobedience to overthrow the government, and unseat president Dos Santos. “These acts constitute crimes against the security of the state, as a crime of rebellion. As such, the competent bodies of the state must take action to avert the worst”, General João Maria de Sousa told the press. Several youths have been undergoing interrogation sessions since Monday […]

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Government Profits from Beer and Blames the Oil Prices

The crisis, which the government blames on falling oil prices, has been used to disguise a much older and deeper crisis  that already existed long before the reasons given by the government lately. The Court of Accounts provides some alarming evidence in its report to parliament on the Government’s Budget Execution Report for 2013 . According to the Court of Accounts report, reviewed by Maka Angola, in 2013 the state was paid dividends to the tune of 95.4 million Kwanzas (US$954,000) on its direct shares in a total of 37 companies. The sum is ridiculously low given the government’s multi-billion dollar investments in the private sector. Apart from the national oil company Sonangol, the state only made a profit on beer sales from its shares in three beer producers. Dos Santos’ government billed Cuca for 67.9 million Kwanzas; a further 23.5 million from N’gola and another 4 million from Eka. […]

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