Category: Articles

Abuse of Power in Angola (Part II): Beware the Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

In Part One, Maka Angola reported how Helena João Teka was driven off her family’s land by armed police, losing her home and her two children in an illegal forced eviction connected to the Angolan President’s right-hand man, Chief of Staff Edeltrudes da Costa, who owns a large country estate just across the road. Helena is the official guardian to her brother Garcia João Camangumba’s six children. With the onset of mental illness, he gave Helena power of attorney, which had the effect of transferring his title to the land, to his sister. After the first two demolitions, she and her wards had taken refuge at the home of a friendly neighbor who allowed them to live rent-free on land close to their parcel but they were warned this was only a temporary help and they couldn’t stay much longer. Desperation drove Helena to erect a makeshift dwelling on the […]

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Abuse of Power in Angola (Part I): How the MPLA Elite Clears Land for Their Own Use

Earlier this month graphic pictures emerged from Angola of the killing of 14-year-old Rufino António, shot in the head at close range by a soldier enforcing demolitions in the poor neighbourhood of Walale, south of the capital, Luanda. This is not an isolated incident. The Angolan authorities have commonly resorted to sudden mass demolitions of entire neighbourhoods to clear the land for redevelopment, with little or no regard for residents’ legal rights, or even their lives. Sometimes there are legal grounds for these actions, such as slum clearance within the ambit of the Luanda Development Plan – a scheme praised by international urban planners unfamiliar with the reality of how it is being executed. All too often, however, the mass demolitions are ordered by unscrupulous and greedy members of the ruling elite who see the chance to grab choice portions of land for their own ends. Bound by blood to […]

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All the President’s Dogs

A protest in the Angolan capital, Luanda on Saturday August 20, was broken up by security forces who set dogs onto the 30 or so demonstrators calling for the resignation of President José Eduardo dos Santos. António Francisco Diogo, 25, had a chunk ripped out of the back of his thigh by a bulldog unleashed by the military. President Dos Santos had just been reelected as leader of the ruling MPLA (Peoples’ Movement for the Liberation of Angola) with 99.6% of his party’s vote. His re-election means he will be the sole MPLA candidate for next year’s presidential election. The MPLA has ruled Angola for 40 years, since wresting independence from its colonial master Portugal in 1975. Widely derided as a tyrant, President Dos Santos, who has ruled the country for 37 of those years, is unable to tolerate any call for him to step down, however small or insignificant. […]

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China Chokes Angola Credit

Is China beginning to lose patience with the Angolan regime? Maka Angola has learned that the China Development Bank (CDB) has declined to make any further funds available to the Angolan state oil company Sonangol, under a US $15 billion line of credit granted in December 2015, citing Angola’s “lack of contractual compliance” and attempts to “use the money for indeterminate ends”. Sources at the Angolan Finance Ministry have revealed that US $5 billion of December’s loan was intended to cover oil production costs, leaving US $5 billion for debt refinancing. In exchange Angola would increase its cargoes of crude to China. The other US $ 5 billion are for the Finance Ministry’s use. Until recently over half of the 50-60 oil shipments out of Angola each month went to the Western oil majors who operate the oil fields and platforms that allow Angola to export 1.8 million barrels per […]

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The Dos Santos Brand Turns Toxic

In Angola it is a crime to speak ill of the President. The man, who for the past 37 years has led the ruling MPLA party (the Peoples’ Movement for the Liberation of Angola) is accustomed to hearing only praise from within his party’s ranks. Yet on the eve of what was expected to be a slickly-organized party congress, aiming to re-establish José Eduardo dos Santos as the party’s sole candidate for President in next year’s elections, there has been an unprecedented public condemnation from a senior party cadre. “The popular appeal of the MPLA – the party of the President and head of state [José Eduardo dos Santos] – is at an all-time low thanks to his ‘shenanigans’. He gives the party a bad name – and when he falls, he will drag the innocent members of the MPLA down with him.” This stunning denunciation from Ambassador Ambrósio Lukoki, […]

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Angola’s Latest Ploy to Silence Critics: A Regulatory Body to Censor Social Media

Angola’s governing MPLA party (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola) is gearing up for a tough battle to retain its 40-year grip on power in the face of a rising tide of discontent, swelled by the biting economic consequences of low oil prices and poor governance. Its response is to tighten control by restricting civil liberties – and in particular freedom of information. Ahead of this month’s ruling party congress, the National Assembly has passed a set of four bills which, in effect, hand control (and censorship) of all mass media outlets, including social media and the internet, to a new MPLA-controlled supervisory body: the ‘Entidade Reguladora da Comunicação Social Angolana’ (ERCA) – the Angolan Social Communications Regulatory Body. The aim, says Maka Angola’s award-winning editor, Rafael Marques de Morais, is to “control and censor any attempt by political activists to use social media and the Internet to blow […]

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Letter to the President: Our Soldiers Need Bread

  Comrade President of the Republic of Angola, Commander-in-Chief of the Angolan Armed Forces, President of the Peoples’ Movement for the Liberation of Angola: Excellency: it is with great sadness that I must inform you of a dangerous mood of unrest in the ranks of the Angolan Armed Forces, the FAA. Your soldiers have empty bellies. Their units are so deprived of equipment and supplies that many have no boots; even their uniforms are ragged. In contrast, their most senior commanders ostentatiously flaunt their wealth. Is there any other country that has so many millionaires, even billionaires, serving in the high command? Your soldiers are not blind to the surplus of luxury enjoyed by their Generals while lower ranks are deprived of a living wage, unable even to provide bread for their families. The men can no longer stay silent about the corrupt behaviour of the men who lead them. […]

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Meddling With Angola’s Electoral Register is Unconstitutional

Why does Angola need a new Electoral Registration Law?   Particularly one which would transfer control of the electoral register from the independent National Electoral Commission to the Ministry of Territorial Administration under the tutelage of Bornito de Sousa, one of the President’s staunch supporters in the ruling MPLA (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola)? It’s a contentious move both in political and legal terms. Politically, it attributes to the party in power, the government of the day, the power to determine who can, and who can’t, vote. Legally, it violates the Angolan Constitution which explicitly attributes oversight of the electoral process to an independent body.  Article 107, Clause 1 of the Angolan Constitution states: “The electoral processes are organized by independent electoral administrative bodies whose structure, function, composition and competence are defined by law”. It is an internationally-accepted principle that the “electoral process” includes the compilation and upkeep of […]

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Police Torture in Angola – Part II: The Persecution of Matata

People living in Cacuaco municipality, on the outskirts of the Angolan capital Luanda, have good reason to fear the police who operate there.  Residents complain that officers in both the National Police and the Criminal Investigation Service arrest people at random and then try to force them to confess to crimes. Bernardo Correia Gaspar – known to family and friends as ‘Matata’, is 22 years of age.  He is currently languishing in Viana Prison, waiting to be charged for crimes of which he says he is innocent.  And it’s not the first time that he says the police have tried to frame him. He was arrested in 2013 at his Aunt Emilia’s house in Viana municipality on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a police officer, known as ‘Frank’.  According to Bernardo Gaspar, Frank had been a gang leader with criminal associates before joining the National Police. “He was […]

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Police Torture in Angola – Part I: The Death of Flávio Carizo

Flávio Agostinho Carizo was laid to rest on June 25. It was his birthday. He would have been 26 years old. Those who witnessed his final hours are prepared to testify that he was killed by police officers who were trying to torture a confession out of him. Flávio Carizo was one of a group of five young men subjected to repeated beatings and ill-treatment between June 15 and June 19 this year at a police station commonly known as the ‘Cauelele Police Station’: Police Station 39 in Kikolo neighbourhood, Cacuaco municipality, on the outskirts of the Angolan capital, Luanda. Eye-witnesses to the killing say he was tortured to death by police officers over that period: struck in the head with an AK 47 rifle butt, beaten with iron and wooden bars, stabbed in the legs and having a ligature tightened around his testicles. Their accounts are confirmed by the […]

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