Search Results for: General

The Hunter, Hunted: An Angolan General’s Hunting Lodge

Angolans call the remote southeastern province of Kuando Kubango “the end of the world” (in Portuguese: “o fim do mundo”).  Bordering Zambia, Botswana and Namibia, it’s more than a thousand kilometres inland from their country’s capital and a byword for the poverty and destruction wrought by more than 30 years of civil war. As its ruined roads, bridges and infrastructure remind us to this day, Kuando Kubango was a heavily-mined battleground; the heartland of the US-backed rebel UNITA movement, headquartered in Jamba.   With the end of the civil war in 2002, the national government did set aside funds for rebuilding.  The so-called ‘Peace Dividend’ has allowed individuals to amass huge fortunes from Angola’s reconstruction but all these years later Kuando Kubango remains largely unreconstructed, in part because of the diversion of public funds into the pockets of corrupt officials during the Administration of former President José Eduardo dos Santos. […]

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Angola’s Attorney General “Sorry for Mistake” in Accusing Army Chief

Recently, the office of the Attorney General publicly named the Chief of Staff of the Angolan Armed Forces, General Geraldo Sachipengo Nunda, a formal suspect for criminal association.  More specifically, General Nunda was implicated in a US $50 billion scam led by a Thai businessman.  However, the Attorney General later apologized for the “mistake”.  The bungle has deeply troubled the Army and the judiciary, and has cast a shadow on President Lourenço’s anti-corruption drive.   When General Hélder Fernando Pitta Grós was appointed to the office of Attorney General of the Republic by Angola’s new President, João Lourenço, in December 2017, public opinion was divided. On the one hand, there was disappointment that yet again a military figure would occupy what should be a civilian position. On the other, there was optimism that, after ten years under the jackboot of the truculent and controversial Dos Santos-appointee, General João Maria de Sousa, the country’s […]

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Nobody Wants to Kiss the General

Reports of bizarre behavior by the Angolan President’s loyal henchman, General José António Maria, aged 74, have become so frequent that people are openly questioning whether the elderly security head honcho is succumbing to senility. Already past the official retirement age, the man better known as General “Zé Maria” remains the head of the Military Intelligence and Security Service (Serviço de Inteligência e Segurança Militar, SISM) despite the concerns for his mental health. Once again his unprofessional behavior towards female employees is causing a stir in Luanda. The General is a notorious womanizer, who propositions almost every woman he encounters. When it comes to sexual harassment in the workplace, he appears to ignore both Angolan laws and the passage of time. Have none of his senior colleagues thought to whisper in his ear that this is the 21st Century and ‘droit de seigneur’ is past its sell-by date? The latest […]

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General Zé Maria’s Spring Clean

Although at 74 he is well over retirement age (65) and was expected to be forcibly retired this month, General António José Maria – the Angolan President’s most faithful servant for nearly 40 years – is being allowed to remain at the head of the Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISM) until the elections at which President José Eduardo dos Santos will step down. His subordinates, who were expecting him to have left already, are increasingly unable to contain their frustration at his unorthodox leadership style, frequently marked by personal quirks which they say are unbecoming in a senior officer. General Zé Maria’s latest ‘wheeze’ was to demand that all civilian employees engaged in courses of study must produce their certificates and course marks for inspection by February 27 so he may personally evaluate their grades. Some 50 civilian employees are affected and any employee with failing grades is expected […]

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How Much Longer, Attorney General?

How much longer, João Maria, how much longer do we have to put up with you? The Attorney General of the Republic of Angola parades through the streets of Luanda with not an ounce of shame at the conflict of interest arising from holding public office while profiting from business dealings that have come his way only because of his position. What legal and moral conflicts? He is not just a shareholder in different companies, he has also served as a manager and legal consultant (e.g. in Prestcom) in spite of the constitutional prohibition on second jobs for office-holders. Additionally, General João Maria de Sousa has neglected the fundamental and basic premise of his job: to prosecute breaches of the law. He fails to investigate legal transgressions by members of the government, turns a blind eye to incontrovertible evidence of corruption, and sits on his hands when presented with egregious […]

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Just Call Him “General Toyota”

Maka Angola has learned that some 300 motor vehicles imported into Angola in 2008 for the use of officers serving in the Military Intelligence and Security Service, have instead been retained in a parking lot at the Morro Bento quarters in Luanda. Sources within Military Intelligence told Maka Angola that the vehicles, which include Toyota Land Cruiser, Hilux and Yaris models, were imported at a total cost of US $7  million to the public purse.  But they have yet to be distributed to their intended recipients, in spite of repeated complaints to the office of the President of the Republic. The sources allege that the head of the Military Intelligence and Security Service, General Zé Maria, has kept the vehicles as a private fleet: “Several of the vehicles have been diverted quite openly to the General’s family and friends.  It’s a blatant abuse of power, and it is jeopardizing vital […]

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General Zé Maria Warns: The Devil Has Infiltrated Angola

The mental health of the head of the Military Intelligence and Security Services (SISM), General José António Maria, also known as “Zé Maria”, was called into question this week at a gathering of nearly one hundred of his subordinates, among them several generals. During a four-hour meeting held on Tuesday in commemoration of the Catholic holiday of the Pentecost, he repeatedly spoke about the presence of the Devil in Angola. On two large screens placed in the Officers’ Mess hall, General Zé Maria showed numerous images of Angolan investigative journalist Rafael Marques de Morais, with the heading “The Devil Paid By the CIA”. In his homily about the “devil”, the general argued that the journalist was Angola’s greatest enemy and must be treated as such. To demonstrate the “real” power of the enemy, he drew on various examples, accusing some of his senior officers, for instance, of erecting tall buildings […]

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General Zé Maria: The Puppet Master

One of the most powerful men in Angola is a septuagenarian soldier accustomed to operating in the shadows. A career military man whose name is feared across the nation. Yet outside Angola his role and legendary status is little known, and even less understood. General António José Maria “Zé Maria” is an interesting character, to say the least. During the ‘War of National Liberation’ (against Portuguese colonial rule) he served in the colonial army. Yet since Independence he has been a key figure behind the scenes, prodigiously rooting out palace intrigues and imaginary coups d’état and purging suspected malcontents. His actions are purposefully directed to reinforcing and consolidating the position of the person who occupies the highest office in the land. As President, José Eduardo dos Santos (familiarly known as Zedú) is the titular Commander-in- Chief. But it’s the man who has his ear, the man who has been his […]

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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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The Attorney General’s Office and Business Blackmailing

I am writing this letter from a hospital bed as a citizen who has been persecuted for years by the Attorney General’s Office which you lead. In 2013, some women who had had children with my father Valentim Amões — the late businessman and member of the [ruling] MPLA Central Committee – as well as one of my paternal uncles, made public statements against me, and filed several lawsuits against me as the firstborn and court-appointed administrator of the estate in a dispute over the inheritance my father had left. The lawsuits against me served as an excuse for the Attorney General’s Office, without any valid reasons, to hastily  make me formerly a  suspect, and to subject me to the following restrictions: (i.) [required to declare identity ] and residence; (ii) denied freedom  to change address (without authorization) or to leave Luanda or the country; (iii) Required to report to […]

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