Category: Articles

The MPLA’s election plan

The action plan for the electoral campaign of the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which formally starts on July 31, contains strategies that need to be made plain for all to see, in the interests of peace, political stability, and the distinction between party and state. For the first phase of the campaign, MPLA defines the need to pay special attention “critical areas to ensure order and tranquillity among voters”. To this end, MPLA envisages to “instruct activists, sympathizers and friends of the MPLA and other voters not to take part in any actions that may suggest electoral impropriety, and to refrain from practising any kind of violence against other political parties or their activists.” It also underscores the need to “denounce political parties, civil society organizations and citizens who incite voters to violence, disturbance or electoral fraud.” The communications and security committee of MPLA’s electoral […]

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Angolan Vice-President Vicente’s Illegal Business Role

Angolan Vice-President Manuel Vicente is facing a criminal complaint over business dealings that are allegedly contrary to Angolan laws that govern the private affairs of the highest government officials. The case, brought by journalist and human rights defender Rafael Marques de Morais, refers in particular to Vicente’s role in China Sonangol International Holding, a majority Chinese-owned private company. Marques presented the complaint to the Angolan Attorney General on Thursday, August 8. The complaint calls on the authorities to initiate impeachment proceedings against Vicente. It cites Article 138 of the Angolan Constitution, which states that positions of Ministers of State, Ministers, Secretaries of State and Deputy Ministers are incompatible with “any administrative functions, management or any corporate position in companies and other purposes of an economic nature.” The complainant told Maka Angola that Manuel Vicente’s involvement with Chinese interests at a time when he was already vice-president-elect would cause him to […]

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General Zé Maria’s Partisan Plot to Destabilize the Army

For the last few months the head of Angola’s Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISM), General António “Zé” Maria, has created a secret discussion group aimed at fostering a climate of instability within the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA), in such a way as to justify purges. This strategy is known as the “purification of the FAA”. The scheme also aims to divert attention away from the ever-deteriorating socio-economic situation of most Angolan citizens and the government’s inability to deal with it. It also serves as a distraction from the uncertainty over when and how President dos Santos will relinquish power. Maka Angola has learnt from insiders that the other main participants in the discussion group are the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Patriotic Education, General Egídio de Sousa Santos “”Disciplina””, and Lieutenant-General João António Santana “Lungo” of the Security Studies Office within the Intelligence Bureau of the Presidency. […]

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Angola: The Dos Santos family’s private property

President José Eduardo dos Santos has been transferring state resources to the private ownership of his family so openly that there is only one possible conclusion: Angola is the private property of the Dos Santos family. On 19 May 2014, Petroleum Minister José Botelho de Vasconcelos signed Executive Decree no. 159/14, which transferred 10 percent of the shares held by Sonangol P&P (the Research and Production subsidiary of the National Oil Company) in the oil exploration Bloc 4/05 to a company called Prodoil, owned by the president’s youngest sister, Marta dos Santos. The minister did this on the basis of “powers delegated by the President of the Republic …)”. As a result of the transfer, the exploration bloc’s shareholding now comprises Sonangol P&P (40%), Statoil (20%), Somoil (15%), Acrep (15%) e Prodoil (10%). The first time the president gave his sister a gift of oil exploration shares was on 27 October […]

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Angolan Police Holds Six Children Aged Seven to 13 in Jail

Six children have been in detention since Thursday at the Luanda Provincial Criminal Investigation Directorate (DPIC), accused of setting alight a Toyota Corolla car. All of those detained are boys under 13 years old. Police from the Sambizanga Division seized them without warrant at 5h00 am on  June 18 in Ngola Kiluange district. Police say they were acting on a complaint by the supposed owner of the car, who allegedly had credible evidence but who “up to now has not been able to present it to DPIC”. Family members of the detained boys say that “the owner of the car in question was in the patrol car pointing out the houses to the police”. “The same man was in the police car when they came to get my son at 5am. It was he who showed them,” said António Domingos, whose seven-year-old son Costa Domingos was the youngest of those […]

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Witchcraft, Police, the MPLA and the murder of a traditional headman.

On May 14, the Provincial Court of Moxico, in Eastern Angola, delivered a landmark verdict against vigilante justice, based on accusations of witchcraft, which is prevalent in that region. Judge Pereira da Silva sentenced both the head of the ruling party, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) for the municipality of Cangamba, Alberto Tchinongue Catolo, and a local traditional authority (Soba) Cangamba, António Kanguia Candimbo, to six years in prison, for ordering the lynching of Soba Augusto Chimbidi. The judge also convicted the municipal commander of the National Police in Cangamba, Manuel N’doje Ijita Cawina to two months in prison for his part in the witchcraft séance plot, which served to justify the mob assassination of Augusto Chimbidi. In his ruling, the judge concluded that the police commander did not take part in ordering the killing, but that he had prevented his police officers from stopping the […]

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Isabel dos Santos’ Campaign, her Father, George Soros and Me

Isabel dos Santos Portuguese communication consultants, led by Luís Paixão Martins, have for several months been trying to wage a campaign against the author of this article. They have presented no evidence to disprove what I have revealed about the president’s daughter business dealings, particularly acts of corruption by her father. Attempted defamation   Instead, so desperate are they to find a way of attacking me, the author of Maka Angola,  that they have tried to find impropriety in his former links to the NY-based Open Society Institute (OSI), funded by the billionaire philanthropist George Soros. The same ruse has already been attempted without success by the Angolan regime’s own propaganda machine. Nevertheless, the deviousness with which the Portuguese public relations consultant took up this theme is in itself revealing, though more for the crass propaganda campaign than by its content. At the same time, the scheme offers an opportunity […]

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Why Islam is Illegal in Angola

The ban on religious services for Muslims and members of dozens of smaller religious groups in Angola caused an international uproar at the end of November. The international media came to see Angola as the first country in the world to ban Islam. A total of 194 religious denominations, including the Islamic Community of Angola, plus various sects and religious associations that had applied to be granted legal standing, had their requests deferred by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. A statement issues by the ministry on 28 October said that for these denominations to continue religious activities would constitute the crime of disobedience on the part of all participants. Since the Law on the Practice and Freedom of Conscience, of Faith and Religion came into force in 2004, the Angolan government has not granted recognition to any church or religious sect. The Angolan state requires that in order […]

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Religion and the State in Angola

The fact that Angola does not recognise Islam as a faith that is practised in the country might give the impression that the Angolan state is particularly Islamophobic. The Angolan media has not hesitated to promote stereotypes that associate Islam with illegal immigration, terrorism and practices that “threaten” the national culture. Often these views are expressed by leading opinion makers in politics, the churches and other institutions. In fact, ever since Angolan independence, the relationship between state power and religion has been marked by political intolerance, ambivalence and co-optation, sometimes in turn and sometimes simultaneously. Right after independence, the official doctrine of atheist Marxist-Leninism served to justify the persecution of religious faiths. In his study of the political stances taken by Angolan Protestants after independence, Benedict Schubert describes the MPLA’s strategy to control churches in the single-party era: “In its totalitarian project, the Angolan government had to find a way […]

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Measures In Favor and Against Mosques in Angola

As an illustration of Maka Angola’s investigation into the treatment of Islam in Angola, here is a chronological list of measures taken by the government regarding Islamic practice in the provinces of Luanda, Lunda Norte, Zaire, Bié and Malanje. The last of these mechanisms were decreed on January 29, 2014 by the Luanda Provincial Court. With reference to Case no. 005713-C, the court ordered the temporary closure of the Nurr Al Islamia Mosque in the Mártires de Kifangondo area of Luanda, because of a dispute between two Imams: Diakité A’dama, a Malian, and Alhaji Fode, a Gambian. Created in 1995, the mosque is the second largest in Angola, large enough to accommodate over 1,500 worshippers. In his ruling, the judge emphasised that the Islamic Community of Angola (CISA) had a request for recognition under consideration by the Religious Affairs Department of the Ministry of Justice. This statement is incorrect. CISA […]

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