Category: Articles

Land Rush End in Summary Trials

A rumour that the municipal administration of Cacuaco, Luanda, was to distribute land in the farming area known as Kilometre 30, resulted in almost 100 detentions and summary convictions by the Cacuaco municipal court on Monday, August 13. Maka Angola has confirmed that more than 40 people, 22 of them women, were sentenced individually to a suspended prison sentence of three months, converted to a 49,000 kwanza fine (US $490). The news that plots of land were to be allocated prompted multitudes of people to the area. But for no apparent reason, members of the National Police at the scene started arresting people at random. Roque Augusto, one of those present, explained that his family went to the site and claimed a plot in the zone that was supposedly being distributed. According to him, his family didn’t even occupy the plot. “Last Saturday, a large team from the National Police […]

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Low Batteries for Manuel Vicente in Malanje

By Ezequiel Fragoso   The campaign speech in Malanje August 11 by the MPLA’s vice-presidential candidate, Manuel Vicente, bore little relation to reality and found little favour with local MPLA activists. For several days, Angolan National Radio’s provincial outlet announced that more than 100,000 MPLA activists and friends of the party had been mobilised to attend Manuel Vicente’s rally on Saturday, at the former party’s fair in the Catepa neighbourhood of Malanje city. To accommodate the large crowd, the Malanje municipal administration demolished, last week, ten classrooms attached to the Feira Primary School. The provincial director of Education, Gabriel Alexandre Boaventura, told the press that the demolition was part of a previous project that “is in line with our plans since the beginning of the year”. The pupils are currently having a break from school because of the electoral period. Boaventura promised that another school, Patrice Lumumba, would be renovated […]

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The Presidency’s Assault on the Sick

By Alfredo Muvuma   On August 6, a young man, whose name Maka Angola withholds for safety reasons, burdened his family with a US$ 25,000 bill. The amount was to be paid to the Multiperfil Clinic in Luanda for three days of in-patient malaria treatment. The clinic was formally established in 2002 by the Council of Ministers, by Decree 33/02, for “the rendering of public services.” The same decree also assigned to the clinic the category of public institution, directly accountable to the government and the Presidency of the Republic. Through Resolution 09/02, president José Eduardo dos Santos granted his own office the power to directly oversee the clinic. More recently, in 2010, president Dos Santos certified Multiperfil Clinic as a body of the Military Bureau of the Presidency (Casa Militar), on the same level as the Presidential Security Unit (USP) and the Presidential Guard Unit (UGP). This powerful institution, […]

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Scuffles and Arrests During Electoral Campaign in Benguela

By António Capalandanda,   The National Police, arrested Calisto Kavoli, the municipal secretary of UNITA for the province of Benguela, during a dispute which took place last Friday, between militants from his party and MPLA supporters, over the placement of election posters in Benguela. At around 2 PM, a group of over 20 members of Revolutionary Youth of Angola (JURA), the youth branch of UNITA, approached the Rotunda da Cruz Vermelha [Red Cross Roundabout], in the city of Benguela, and began tearing up MPLA pamphlets there. According to a report printed in the officious Jornal de Angola, the first secretary of the MPLA in Benguela, Armando da Cruz Neto, “deplored the attitude of UNITA leaders and militants.” In a public event which took place on August 4, the MPLA leader and governor of Benguela said, referring to the occurrence: “I cannot believe that after 10 years of peace, there are […]

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General Paihama: the Regime’s Firebrand

By Nelson Sul d’Angola   As a member of the MPLA’s Political Bureau, General Kundi Paihama, presided over an electoral rally held in the Ombaka National Stadium in the province of Benguela on August 4. Since the first multi-party elections were held in 1992, it has always been General Paihama’s role to coordinate the MPLA’s election campaign in Benguela, due particularly to his inflammatory rhetoric. General Paihama, who is the minister for Former Combatants and War Veterans, incited an audience of over 30,000 people. He employed the type of language used in the civil war, and that of a constructive MPLA in contrast to a destructive UNITA. In his speech, the general made reference to the incident which took place last Friday, and which culminated in acts of physical violence by UNITA militants against the MPLA provincial delegate for Education, in a dispute over the placement of campaign banners and posters. […]

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Police Clamps Down War Veterans’ Protest

By Lázaro Pinduca,   On Friday morning, a powerful, combined unit composed of Rapid Response Police (PIR), regular police officers and members of the Intelligence and Security Services (SINSE), used violence to disperse a gathering of war veterans who were preparing to hold a protest march in the city of Lubango, Huíla province. During the event, the police arrested 14 protestors and a journalist who was covering the attempted peaceful protest. All of the detainees were released after some 10 hours in custody at the Lubango Police Municipal Command. The police and security forces, estimated at more than 150 officers in number, took up positions at the meeting point at around 5am. The forces initially advised the veterans, who began to converge on the location at around 6am, to leave the place of their own accord. Just before 8am, when their numbers had swelled to over 250, the intrepid veterans, […]

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Executive Jets for Manuel Vicente’s Wine

Carlos Duarte: The vice-presidential candidate, Manuel Vicente has expensive taste in fine wines and cognacs. From time to time, Manuel Vicente sends an executive jet to France and Portugal (the luxurious Falcon-900 or the sophisticated Falcon X-7) for the exclusive transportation of wine and cognac for his personal consumption. The flights are operated by VipAir, a company part owned by Sonangol, and no passengers are allowed to travel on those flights. Some recent examples highlight how the current minister of State for Economic Coordination and probable successor to José Eduardo dos Santos at the presidency of the republic and the MPLA, is completely indifferent to the living conditions of the majority of Angolan citizens, who don’t even have access to clean drinking water. In Paris, the crew of the Falcon-900, on a mission to collect wine and cognac for Manuel Vicente, was not allowed to transport a second VipAir crew […]

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Water for Everyone, Cisterns for the Elite

The MPLA’s program for government for the 5-year period of 2012-2017 outlines extraordinary progress in the provision of socio-economic infrastructure throughout the country. Statistics presented in the election manifesto are on a scale comparable only to industrialized nations with high levels of human development. After the World War II, the European countries and Japan benefitted from the Marshall Plan. They relied on the synergy of their people and of the international community for the process of reconstruction and the launch of their development programs. In Angola, the MPLA’s program unveils only the endeavor of one party and one leader. However, this totalitarian endeavor by the MPLA, in power for the past 37 years, cannot prevent citizens from undertaking a critical analysis of the government and its success stories. After all, the MPLA proclaims that it has done everything to improve the quality of life of the people. This article analyzes, […]

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Phantom General in Huíla

By Lázaro Pinduca War veterans, in the Huila province, have come out publicly to demand answers on the promotion of local businessman, Luís da Fonseca Nunes, to the rank of lieutenant general and as the beneficiary of a monthly pension from the Social Security Fund of the Angolan Armed Forces (CSS/FAA). Nunes is one of the most prominent businessmen in Angola. Notwithstanding, the former soldiers expressed concern that he should be awarded a lifelong monthly pension from the social fund, as a lieutenant general, without having ever served in the military. According to the president of the Independent Forum of Demobilized Angolan War Veterans (FIDEGA), Lieutenant-colonel Manuel Nunes, “we can confirm that the businessman is a general”. The official explains that, in 2009, “we suggested to the then prime minister, general Paulo Kassoma, that a legal protocol for complaints be established, in order to tackle the problem of phantom officers, […]

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Political Violence in Benguela

By Nelson Sul D’Angola   Political intolerance forced seven families associated with UNITA to flee from Capupa commune on the night of Sunday, July 22. The families, totaling 31 people in all, arrived in the municipal town of Cubal, in Benguela province, around midday on Monday. According to Paulo Kananga, a member of UNITA who had to abandon his home at short notice with his wife and three children, “the [ruling] MPLA secretary in Cambulo village, Deolindo Dumbo, came to my house armed with a spear and arrows, while Felipe César from the local MPLA committee came with a machete in his hand to chase us out of the village”. “They came to the house with death threats, and told my family that the arrows were meant for us if we stayed in the area,” Kananga told Maka Angola. The MPLA members also visited the other influential local UNITA members, […]

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