Category: Articles

The Attempted Coup in Angola

The second-in-command of the Angolan National Police, Chief-Commissioner Paulo de Almeida, recently surprised many Angolans when he claimed there had been a coup attempt against President José Eduardo dos Santos. Interviewed by the Angolan Catholic broadcaster Rádio Ecclésia shortly before Christmas, Chief-Commissioner Almeida said the demonstration that took place on November 23, in protest at the deaths of political activists Cassule and Kamulingue, had ulterior motives. “We have proof that [the demonstration] was in order to seize power. We have proof that it was an attack on power,” he said. “This was not a demonstration.” He said that the demonstration had been repressed in order to prevent a seizure of power, and insisted that the various attempted demonstrations that have taken place in Angola since 2011 have not been peaceful. From his point of view, the idea of a peaceful demonstration is simply an excuse for grabbing power. I enjoyed […]

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The European Commission’s Problem with the Truth on Angola

Recently, on November 19, the president of the European Commission, Mr. José Manuel Barroso, instructed the EU High Representative and vice-president of the Commission, Baroness Catherine Ashton, to respond on his behalf to queries on the detention of Angolan activist Nito Alves, a minor, and the charges brought against him. Mr. Barroso is a very well known and controversial figure in Angola, for his promotion of the first peace agreement in the country, in 1991, signed between President José Eduardo dos Santos, and his nemesis, the late rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. At the time, Mr. Barroso was the Portuguese minister of Foreign Affairs. He has since cultivated a close friendship with President Dos Santos, and has been favouring him in the international arena. President Dos Santos has been enlisting more senior Portuguese politicians to help him shield the corrupt deeds and human rights abuses of his government. In exchange, he […]

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The Absent President and Angola’s Future

In the last few months, health concerns have prompted President José Eduardo dos Santos to make several trips to Spain for medical treatment. According to sources who spoke to Maka Angola on condition of anonymity, the President was evacuated to Barcelona on November 9 after falling in the Presidential Palace. Maka Angola has established that the President suffered a prostatic renal crisis, which required him to spend at least 30 days under observation. This is why he missed the Independence Day celebrations on November 11 for the first time ever. A medical expert explained to Maka Angola that a prostatic renal crisis is a condition in which the urine flow is obstructed by an enlarged prostate and production of urine ceases, necessitating dialysis in the case of kidney failure. “In the case of kidney failure, a very serious and often fatal situation, patients need regular dialysis. The failure of one […]

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Kopelipa Kamanguista no Zimbabué

Documentos confidenciais dos serviços secretos zimbabueanos (CIO), recentemente divulgados, revelam o envolvimento central de entidades chinesas, do general Kopelipa e da Sonangol no tráfico de diamantes no Zimbabué. Trata-se de tráfico de diamantes porque a sua comercialização não passa por canais formais de venda, mas através de esquemas obscuros, incentivados pelas autoridades zimbabuenas. A investigação, levada a cabo pela jornalista sul-africana Khadija Shariffe, detalha sobretudo o apoio que os chineses, em parceria com o chefe da Casa de Segurança do Presidente da República de Angola, general Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias “Kopelipa”, prestaram ao presidente Robert Mugabe, de 89 anos, para a sua vitória eleitoral, em Julho passado. Financiamentos secretos, em troca de diamantes, e a concepção e gestão de mecanismos de fraude eleitoral constituíram os principais eixos de apoio da coligação sino-angolana. Maka Angola publica o extrato da investigação referente à participação do general Kopelipa na operação, assim como da […]

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Isabel dos Santos Pockets Forbes

U.S.-based business publisher Forbes has formed a partnership with a company controlled by Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the Angolan President, to publish a new magazine edition for Portuguese-speaking African countries. Forbes Portuguese Africa will be a joint venture with ZAP, a company in which Ms. Dos Santos has a 70 percent shareholding. Last August, Forbes published information revealing that the President’s daughter had acquired almost her entire Angolan fortune through corrupt means. The announcement comes almost a year after Forbes included Ms. Dos Santos on its list of Africa’s wealthiest people. It assessed her wealth at U.S. $3 billion, making her the richest woman on the African continent. The inclusion of Ms. Dos Santos on the list attracted criticism that Forbes was glorifying a woman who owed her fortune to the political influence of her father, President José Eduardo dos Santos. In response to that criticism, in August, Forbes […]

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The President and the General Kangamba

For the first time in history, an Angolan general has been targeted with an international arrest warrant. General Bento dos Santos “Kangamba”, a member of the presidential family and a leading figure of the ruling MPLA party, is wanted in Brazil on suspicion of leading a gang involved in the trafficking of women for prostitution, conspiracy and forced confinement. Kangamba’s case is unprecedented, and the level of protection that he enjoys from the President beggars belief. Kangamba himself joked that he does not have magical powers. He made this joke to explain how he manages to deal with millions of dollars at a time, despite having no visible successful businesses. The secret of his success is the presidential favour that he enjoys. The warrant for Kangamba’s arrest has been met with deafening silence on the part of the Angolan presidency and the attorney general. The case damages the image of […]

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Angola’s Scrapyard Arms Deals

Angola recently became the biggest African customer for arms purchases from Russia, with contracts valued at one billion dollars. Nevertheless, while weapons are being stock-piled, the Angolan Armed Forces experience a lack of basic resources at the majority of army bases.   According to the Russian newspaper Vedomosti http://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/17540901/oruzhie-dlya-starogo-druga, the contracts include the supply of 18 Sukhoi-30 fighter planes, as well as Mi-17 transport helicopters, light arms, munitions, tanks, pieces of artillery and the construction of an arms factory in Angola. “The Su-30 fighters will be form the backbone of the Angolan Air Force’s fighting power,” the newspaper said. But the aircraft mentioned in the contract were manufactured in the 1990’s, and delivered to the Indian Air Force while it was awaiting the manufacture of the more advanced Su-30MKI. The planes were returned to Russia in 2007, and since then they have been stored at a maintenance facility in Belarus. […]

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Nito Alves: His Courage is our Salvation

By José Eduardo Agualusa   I have a 16-year-old son. When I read the news of the imprisonment of young Nito Alves, aged 17, I couldn’t stop thinking that this could have been my son. Some of my best friends were 16 or 17 when they were captured shortly after independence because of their links to small far-leftist groups. A regime that locks up teenagers for the crime of thinking, which is what this case is about, is a regime doomed to fail. A serious government, concerned with the development of the country, encourages young people to think. Young people capable of thinking for themselves, that is, of thinking differently, even to the extent of thinking against the dominant paradigms, must be encouraged and rewarded. A democratic society moves forward faster than a society in which the very source of new ideas is gagged by dictatorship. I cannot agree, and […]

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Smoke and Mirrors in the General State Accounts

The Angolan National Assembly will approve in the coming days the General State Accounts for 2011, despite the fact that no expenditure reports have yet been delivered on more than more than 70 per cent of what was budgeted for the year. The 2011 General State Budget included expenditures in the order of 4.1 trillion kwanzas (US$ 43.9 billion). According to the Law on the General State Budget (2010), “the General State Accounts bring together the accounts of all organs [of state and government] that are included in the General State Budget.” According to records that Maka Angola has had access to, not all sovereign bodies and ministries have presented their accounting reports, as it is required by law. The Presidency and the Supreme Court are the State bodies whose expenditure reports do not appear in the General State Accounts. Ironically, the Office of the Vice-President of the Republic, who […]

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Angolan Kleptocracy Discussed at the European Parliament

Kleptocracy in Angola and the management of its natural resources were discussed today, October 3, at the European Parliament in Brussels. The director of Maka Angola, Rafael Marques de Morais, delivered the talk. The full text of the presentation is available here. The presentation was delivered at the conference “Raw Materials: A Raw Deal for Developing Countries?”, an initiative of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament. In the same panel, the executive secretary general of the European External Action of the European Commission, Pierre Vimont, presented the common perspective of the European Union. The Portuguese Member of the European Parliament, Ana Gomes, moderated the debate.

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