Category: Opinion

Lúcio Lara: The First and Last Stalwart of the MPLA

When I was told my dear friend Lúcio Lara passed away my immediate response was to have a catharsis – to recall with Lúcio a few highlights from our past. I finished in less than half an hour (the fastest I think that I have ever written anything) and posted it on Facebook. Within minutes of posting it I felt frustrated that there are so many things that I didn’t include. A few days latter I was contacted by Maka Angola [or Rafael Marques…you choose]. They asked if I had more to say about Lúcio. What follows is a result of that conversation:   One person whom I was anxious to meet after Angolan independence, on November 11, 1975, was Lúcio Lara who was the MPLA and President Neto’s perennial number two for decades.  He was always described as the most radical “Marxist,” if not “Communist,” in the MPLA government.  […]

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Low Oil Prices Undo Angola

The crash in the price of oil has hit Angola hard.  Hospitals across the country are low on resources, including medicines.  There are food shortages in the North, drought in the South.  From Cabinda to Namibe, empty shelves in the stores attest to the government’s lack of response. If people are facing such serious difficulties in their day-to-day lives (in the so-called ‘micro’ economy) matters are no better on the macroeconomic scale where double-digit inflation is taking its toll. According to the National Institute of Statistics, inflation in the capital Luanda was running at 1.4% between September and October 2015.  Additionally, in the first months of 2016, the Kwanza has been devalued by 26%. The reason for all this is the low price of oil.  According to the United Nations Development Program, Angola has the least diversified economy in the world after Iraq.  Any fall in the price of a barrel […]

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Alas Poor Dos Santos, We Knew Him…

President José Eduardo dos Santos, growing old sucks, doesn’t it?  You lose your looks, your health and eventually your life.  And what will you leave behind?  A skull and bones in the dirt?  What will your legacy be?  Did you once dream that generations would revere you as Father of the Angolan nation?  (Pause for teeth kiss) Tsk… that ship sailed a long time ago.  No, the ‘Father of the Nation’ accolade is reserved for Agostinho Neto.  Perhaps he was fortunate not to have lived to see what Angola became. As you must be all too aware, the clock is ticking.  Quite soon now, the Angolan people will be lining up in their thousands, millions even, to pay homage at (or not on) your grave.  Sim, senhor. You are a mortal too. Even your friends and colleagues will hasten to betray you in the end: all those erstwhile brave and idealistic […]

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Stoney Angolan Hearts

Manuel Baptista Chivonde Nito Alves, 19, has just started serving a six month sentence for contempt of court at Viana prison outside the Angolan capital, Luanda. Nito Alves, as he is commonly known, was under house arrest, having earlier spent fifty one days in prison after being charged, along with fifteen other activists, of plotting acts against the Angolan government.  It was during the trial for this original charge that Nito Alves cried out, saying, “I do not fear for my life; this trial is a farce.” The young activist felt the court was trying to humiliate his father, who was being interrogated at the time. The authorities took him away, tried him summarily, and slapped a six month sentence on him. Sadly, some have come to accept this lack of compassion on the part of the Angolan authorities as being normal. Nito Alves and I have much in common: we were both born […]

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Welcome to Angola, Nicki Minaj

Dear Nicki, I welcome you to Angola. I am a journalist and human rights defender who has been at the forefront of exposing the dictatorial ills of the regime, whose first daughter and princess of state-looting, Isabel dos Santos, is your host. Moments ago I received a message on my cell phone, from an UNITEL operator  offering me a ticket to your concert tomorrow with the purchase of a 900 kwanzas (US $4.50) phone credit. That is for your concert “for the people” in the Coqueiros Stadium, with a capacity of 20,000 people.  UNITEL is the company jointly owned by Isabel dos Santos and the Angolan state, which is paying your fees. In spite of all the advertising campaigns undertaken by UNITEL to promote your concert “for the people”, sales have been in a slump. At 900 kwanzas per ticket, the concert is basically free, yet people are still not […]

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After Dos Santos: More of the Same?

  In Angola’s only open and free election in 1992, the question on the minds of most voters was: Should I vote for the “Killers” or the “Thieves?” The former rebel movement UNITA of today bears no resemblance to the killers of old, but the ruling MPLA has taken stealing to a new and unprecedented level. Once MPLA leaders got a green light and carte blanches from their boss that they could steal with impunity, they plundered the national treasury without fear of punishment. President José Eduardo dos Santos made a famous speech in 2009 in which he said that he would have “zero tolerance for corruption!” The fact that no senior MPLA leader has been prosecuted suggests that either dos Santos’ campaign was successful in shutting down crime altogether or he has an acute case of myopia and is not able to see anything below his nose. The fact that […]

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Rememberance of the Activist Shot Dead by the Presidential Guard

Your Excellency, the president of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, By 23 November 2015, my brother Ganga will have been dead for two years. Your presidential security unit killed my brother. The National Police issued a statement the next day, in defense of my brother’s killer that read as follows: “The Police General Command would like also to inform that in the early hours of the [November] 23 [2013] , around 01.30, here was a violation of the presidential security cordon, at Rua do Povo, by eight elements of  CASA-CE, who were  unlawfully posting subversive propaganda against the state and it’s leaders, the same having been promptly neutralized by a patrol unit from the presidential palace guards, resulting in their detention. “Meantime, during the transfer of this group to the Presidential Security Unit, to be presented to the officer in charge, who would have forwarded them to the National Police, one of the group, […]

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How Sonangol is Fabricating its Profits

For many years Sonangol was the main support of the Angolan system – especially the ruling regime, prompting many authors to refer to it as “a state within the state”, the repository of real power. Recently, there have been reports questioning the financial soundness of Sonangol; other reports have referred to a possible presidential commission meant to come up with proposal for internal changes within the company. In October 2015, the Angolan Ministry of Finance reported that income from oil exports had fallen by 44 percent in September of the same year. The figures presented by Sonangol need, therefore, to be taken seriously.  The present work resulted from an analysis of the Sonangol 2013 financial report. These raise many questions and call for a far-reaching restructuring of the company. The key question is whether the results are reliable and sustainable. In 2013, Sonangol’s results were not based on its activities, […]

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Lawyer Faces Up to 5 Years in Jail for Inviting Congolese Journalists

Human rights lawyer Arão Bula Tempo has been  formally charged with the crimes of attempted “collaboration with foreigners to constrain the Angolan state” and rebellion. He faces a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment for the first indictment, and 12 years for rebellion. The court informed Tempo, and other defendant Manuel Biongo of the charges on October 22. Arão Tempo, who is the chair of the Angolan Bar Association in Cabinda, was given a  conditional release in May after two months in jail. He had been arrested and jailed on March 14 at the border town of Massabi, along with his client Manuel Biongo,  a businessman who has  also been  charged with attempted collaboration with foreigners. The public prosecutor António Nito accused them of inviting foreign journalists from the Republic of Congo to cover a protest against human rights violations and poor governance in the exclave. The protest was  going […]

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Feeding Hungry People with More Weapons

In his recent address to the nation, President Dos Santos conveyed the idea that the Angolan Armed Forces and the National Police must produce their own food and uniforms to tackle the current economic crisis. He made no mention of a more practical solution. One obvious way to solve this problem is to purchase less military equipment. In the end it comes down to a question of priorities and values.  For many years Angola (in peacetime) has spent more money on military equipment than any other country in sub-Saharan Africa. Also, one has to question why Angola needs to maintain an army of 100,000 soldiers and not, for example, 50,000 or 25,000? Under no imminent military threat near or far, the President has prioritized spending on military equipment over feeding and clothing his soldiers and police.  In some African countries this has been a recipe for a coup! It is important […]

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