Category: Human rights

Gunfire Used to Disperse Former Soldiers’ Protest

Hundreds of former soldiers staged a protest that caused panic in Luanda on the morning of 20 June. The war veterans were demanding payment of their pensions, some of which were 20 years in arrears. A large contingent of Rapid Intervention Police and Military Police used teargas and batons to disperse a group that had gathered at the Largo de Maianga traffic intersection with the intention of marching to the Presidential Palace. Some of the protesters threw stones at the police. Some 50 war-widows also joined the protest, demanding the pensions that are owed to them. Another group marched towards the American Embassy before being stopped near the Alto das Cruzes cemetery, again by police using teargas and batons. The authorities also used mounted brigades, canine squadrons and water canons, among other anti-riot measures As a preventive measure, the presidential guard reinforced the security apparatus around the Presidential Palace and […]

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Attacks Against Activists Increase

Activist Adolfo Campos André, aged 32, survived an attack yesterday, June 15, when he was on his way home at about 11P.M. Two Toyota Landcruisers blocked his car, a Chevrolet Spark, in Petrangol Road in Luanda. Adolfo André, who is currently unemployed, told Maka Angola that four unknown individuals, armed with AK47s, got out of the vehicles and surrounding him, pointing their guns at him. “I got out of the car with my hands in the air,” he said. According to his statement, two of the individuals struck him on the face with the ends of their guns at the same time, leaving him with injuries next to his right eye. “I fell to the ground bleeding, and one of the men got ready to shoot at me but the other told him not to. They left straight away and I shouted for help,” Adolfo André said. A family member […]

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A Routine of Kidnappings

Five unidentified individuals abducted youth protest organizer Gaspar Luamba on June 14, in Luanda. For six hours and a half, they interrogated and harassed him. At around 10 A.M., as the activist finished a class on political sociology, at the Angolan Institute for International Politics (ISA), two classmates informed him that two individuals would like to speak to him downstairs. According to his narrative, when he went down, from the first floor, he saw no such individuals in the yard, and walked out of the premises. Mr. Luamba, aged 25, is a first-year student of international relations and political sciences at ISA. In the street, some hundred meters from the institute, two men approached him, and politely asked him to get into a car without any resistance to avoid alerting the passersby. As he hesitated, a pickup truck Mitsubishi L200 sped to cut his retreat, two men pulled out, one […]

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The Presidency’s Military Bureau and the Kidnappings

It is now two weeks since Alves Kamulingue, 30, was abducted while walking around downtown Luanda at midday on May 27. Kamulingue was on his way to a demonstration that had been scheduled to bring together former members of the Presidential Guard Unit (UGP) and war veterans to demand the payment of their pensions. On May 29, his friend Isaías Cassule, 34, one of the organisers of the protest, was also seized at dusk in the Cazenga district of Luanda. Kamulingue’s wife, Isa Rodrigues, has received anonymous phone calls that have claimed the missing men are in a police unit somewhere on the outskirts of Luanda. These rumours have started to circulate, including among journalists, contradicting other rumours that have spread on the internet claiming that the men have been executed. The calls come from unknown numbers and are then switched off so that the families cannot call back and […]

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A Day in Court to Remember

Today I had a memorable court experience. I went to witness the trial of a fellow journalist, Ramiro Aleixo, and found myself stealing away moments of his day in court. The judge and the public prosecutor spent a brief but distracting time expressing their displeasure with an article I wrote on the first day of the proceedings, on May 11. Ramiro Aleixo stands vaguely accused of defaming and slandering the “military justice” for two articles he wrote nearly five years ago on the trial and conviction of the former director of the Angolan Intelligence Service (Serviços de Inteligência Externa), General Fernando Garcia Miala. The former spymaster had initially been under investigation for an attempted coup, but was later charged and convicted for disobedience. For calling the trial a farce, the journalist was put on the dock. Upon realizing my presence in the courtroom, judge Alfredo Lourenço Martins had quite a […]

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Forced Evictions in Samba in the Dead of Night

A group of more than 150 officers of the Luanda Provincial Government’s Auxiliary Police, supported by heavily armed members of the National Police, demolished more than 80 makeshift houses on the seashore in the Mabunda area of Samba municipality, in Luanda. Some of the demolished dwellings were storehouses for fish and fishing equipment. At about 3.00 am on the night of May 24, the police knocked on the doors of the shacks to get the residents out, then immediately used wheel loaders to destroy the structures and everything inside them, and loaded the debris onto trucks. Luciano Macala, a fisherman, lost eight freezers that he used to store fish, as well as fishing equipment and other items that were in his storehouse. His case is typical. On 10 April 2012, he had paid 25,520 kwanzas (US $250) in taxes, plus 8,510 kwanzas (US $85) to the Luanda Port Captaincy for […]

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Pro-Dos Santos Militias Attack Activists at Home

A group of about 15 people attached to Angolan pro-government militias, armed with pistols, machetes and iron rods, have attacked the group of young people who have been co-ordinating demonstrations against President José Eduardo dos Santos since March 2011. President Dos Santos’ 32 year rule is tied for the longest in Africa. Shortly after 10pm on Tuesday night the attackers burst into the home of rap artist Casimiro Carbono in Luanda’s Nelito Soares neighbourhood, where ten youths had gathered. With pistols in their hands, the attackers violently beat Gaspar Luamba, Américo Vaz, Mbanza Hamza, Tukayano Rosalino, Alexandre Dias dos Santos, Jang Nómada, Massilon Chindombe, Mabiala Kianda, and Jeremias Manuel Augusto “Explosivo Mental”. Their host, Casimiro Carbono, avoided the attacks as he had gone outside a few moments earlier to take a telephone call. Afonso Mayanda, known as “Mbanza Hamza”, 26, said the attackers carried out the attacks in a quick […]

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Court Ignores Media Law

The trial of journalist Ramiro Aleixo began yesterday at the Luanda Provincial Court. Aleixo stands accused of the crimes of defamation, slander and injury against the military justice system, namely its Supreme Court and office of the military attorney. In September 2007, the defendant wrote two articles in the now defunct weekly newspaper Kesongo, about the trial and conviction of the former director of the Angolan Intelligence Services, general Fernando Garcia Miala, exposing the judicial process as a farce. Initially, it was publicly revealed that there was an investigation of general Miala for an attempted coup. To the journalist’s surprise, and to the surprise of the Angolan public at large, the general ended up in court accused of insubordination, for refusing to attend a public ceremony in which he was to be demoted from the rank of three-star general to lieutenant-general. He was convicted to four years in jail, while […]

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Journalist Ramiro Aleixo on Trial

Angolan journalist Ramiro Aleixo’s trial is scheduled to start on May 11, 2012, at the Luanda Provincial Court. At issue is an editorial Mr. Aleixo wrote in the newspaper Kesongo, in 2007, about General Miala’s case. Mr. Aleixo, formerly the director and owner of the weekly Kesongo, told Maka Angola that he only found out about the notification to be present in court through a notice published in Jornal de Angola. The journalist has not received any formal notification from the authorities. In September 2007, Mr. Aleixo published an editorial denouncing the mock trial of the former Director of the Exterior Information Services, General Fernando Garcia Miala, and three of his staff members. The defendants were convicted for the crime of insubordination and sentenced to jail. In the editorial, Mr. Aleixo voiced his outrage at what he considered to be a manipulation of the judicial system, conducted by the Angolan […]

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Generals Accused of Crimes Against Humanity

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF THE REPUBLIC OF ANGOLA RUA 17 DE SETEMBRO, CIDADE ALTA LUANDA MOST HONORABLE ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF THE REPUBLIC GENERAL JOÃO MARIA MOREIRA DE SOUSA Rafael Marques de Morais, [personal details redacted], pursuant to the terms of article 73 of the Constitution, hereby lodges a CRIMINAL COMPLAINT Against: 1. THE PARTNERS OF THE COMPANY  SOCIEDADE LUMANHE – EXTRACÇÃO MINEIRA, IMPORTAÇÃO E EXPORTAÇÃO, LIMITADA, (cf. DR, Series III, nº 33, 2004), Rua Comandante Dangereux, n.º 130, Luanda: A)    GENERAL HÉLDER MANUEL VIEIRA DIAS JÚNIOR “Kopelipa”, Minister of State and Head of the Military Bureau of the Presidency of the Republic; B)    GENERAL CARLOS ALBERTO HENDRICK VAAL DA SILVA, Inspector-General of the General Staff of the FAA [Angolan Armed Forces]; C)    GENERAL ARMANDO DA CRUZ NETO, Governor of Benguela and former Chief of the General Staff of the FAA; D)    GENERAL ADRIANO MAKEVELA MACKENZIE, Head of the Directorate for […]

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