Category: Politics

On July 30, the Angolan authorities played a game of cat and mouse regarding the whereabouts of nine activists who were detained on Wednesday during a demonstration in support of 15 political prisoners. When approached by Maka Angola, the Luanda provincial police commander, Commissioner-Chief António Sita, started by saying “we haven’t detained anyone. [The activists] were being collected and directed to [the activist] David Salei’s home [in Viana municipality]. Adão Bunga “MC Life”, Adolfo Campos, Agostinho Epalanga, Kika Delegado, Laurinda Gouveia, Manuel José Afonso “Feridão”, Mário Faustino, Raúl Mandela and Valdemiro Piedade were held incommunicado since they were “collected” by the National Police at Largo da Independência (Independence Square). Commander Sita declared that the activists “want to create a political fact. They are playing a dirty game. They have switched off their mobile phones and are hiding at Kilometre 30 [in Viana] at Paposseco’s house.” He added that in order […]

Mr President José Eduardo dos Santos: Since we are unlikely to meet, I have decided to attempt a conversation with you by this medium. I hope you respond to me. It is time to talk. Although I am sharply critical of how you govern, and of the suffering this causes the majority of the Angolan people, I admire you for staying in power so stoically; and, I understand very well your anxiety when faced with the prospect of losing power. Father António Vieira wrote: “Pulvis es, tu in pulverem reverteris”. Dust you are, and to dust you shall return. You are dust. That is the present. To dust you shall return. That is the future. That is the future that you are trying to avoid at any cost, and which results in the anxiety that I mentioned. For a while during my childhood, you cultivated a fear of yourself. In […]

Captain Zenóbio Lázaro Muhondo Zumba, 34 years old, became the first collateral victim of searches being carried out by the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) and by Intelligence Services on computers, writings and other documentation seized from the 15 people arrested for allegedly plotting a coup. On June 30 past, the captain arrived at the headquarters of the Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISM), where he is an analyst at the Information and Analysis department attached to the General Staff of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA). He thought it was just another normal day at work. According to information given by his wife, Suzana Zumba, members of the Military Police showed Captain Zumba a photograph of Lieutenant Osvaldo Caholo, who had been arrested at home on June 24. “Zenóbio said that he knew him, since they had both been classmates in the International Relations’ degree program in UTANGA [Technical University of […]

A Maka Angola reader has raised a pertinent question concerning the detention on 21 June of 13 activists who were busy discussing methods of peaceful protest against what they consider to be a dictatorship. Two more activists were detained in the following days, and all fifteen were accused of plotting a coup d’etat. Most of these activists are known for their ill-fated attempts to organize anti-government demonstrations, which have been brutally suppressed. But how is it possible, the reader asks, that people who cannot manage even the most basic protest without being violently clamped down and detained, could have the means to organize a coup d’etat? Tired, perhaps, of being the punching bag for the authorities and of being accused by a part of civil society of being disorganized, the young people decided to form a study group. They armed themselves with books on peaceful forms of protest in order […]

Civil society in a democratic state is generally defined as the space filled by   non-governmental organisations and institutions that represent citizens’ interest and the public will and which are independent from the state. Hegel, the philosopher of the modern state, considered that civil society, with all its differences, made the nation state more efficient. If Angola is consolidating its democracy under the 2010 Constitution, Presidential Decree 74/15 of 23 March 2015, which regulates non-governmental organisations (NGOs), raises a matter of grave concern. This decree echoes the legal technique used by the Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin, who in 2012 introduced legislation obliging foreign NGOs to register with the Foreign Ministry as “foreign agents”. This effectively turned all NGO staff into hypothetical “spies”. The Angolan presidential decree includes a series of provisions that make it practically impossible for NGOs to work in an independent and impartial manner as the representatives of civil […]