Category: Politics

Presidential Guards at the Service of Private Business

The trial of 15 Angolan presidential guards, accused in connection with a petition in which they demanded better salaries and working conditions, has drawn attention to a web of corrupt practices in which military officers set up private business with state funds as their capital, and using soldiers as their labourers. The guards on trial are members of the Central Protection and Security Unit (DCPS), a unit that was set up in 2004 under the auspices of the Military Bureau of the Angolan Presidency. Its supposed function was to protect infrastructure rehabilitation projects throughout Angola, as part of the National Reconstruction Office (GRN) that was attached to the Military Bureau under the leadership of General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias “Kopelipa”. The DCPS was meant to protect the Chinese companies and workers who were involved in the projects. These projects have been worth more than US$10 billion, financed by the Chinese […]

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Angolan Presidential Guards on Trial for ‘Insubordination’

Fourteen soldiers for the Central Protection and Security Unit (DCPS) in the Military Bureau of the Angolan Presidency are to stand trial in the Luanda Regional Military Court starting September 18, charged with the crime of “making collective demands” (exigência em grupo). On September 7 last year, 224 soldiers from the unit in question signed a petition addressed to the commander of the Presidential Guard Unit (UGP), Lieutenant General Alfredo Tyaunda, complaining of poor working conditions and salaries. The soldiers sent copies of the petition to the Military Judicial Police, the Military Prosecutor and the Chief of Staff of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA). The soldiers expressed dissatisfaction with the unequal salaries accorded to the different military units associated with the Presidency. They reminded General Tyaunda that they were not beggars but graduates of the fourth UGP training course in 2005, which the general himself had described as “the best […]

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Electoral Fraud Allegations and Detentions in Bié

By António Capalandanda: UNITA is accusing the Provincial Electoral Commssion (CPE) in Bié of falsifying the consolidated results lists from polling stations and is contesting the provisional electoral results that give the MPLA a victory in the province, with 69.79 percent of votes. According to the provisional results, UNITA has 36.2 percent of the votes and CASA-CE has 0.98 percent. The UNITA spokesman in Bié, Kanjomba Leite, told Maka Angola that five false results statements had been found at polling station 029 (Helena de Almeida neighbourhood), polling station 11 (Boa Vista neighbourhood) and in one of the polling stations in Kunje in the Kuito municipality. In a letter to the Bié CPE, UNITA’s provincial secretary Elioty Ekolelo said that the statements of results from polling stations in Liwema, Njimba Silili, Ekovongo, Kamundongo and Tchikala, in the Kuito municipality, where UNITA has strong support, were not handed to the Municipal Electoral Commission. […]

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CASA-CE Candidate Detained

Dimacha da Conceição André, a CASA-CE parliamentary candidate in Friday’s election in Angola, has been under detention since Thursday, August 30, after being arrested at a demonstration outside the National Electoral Commission (CNE) headquarters in Maianga, Luanda. She was one of eight demonstrators detained by police, along with six passersby. Of the 14 detainees, 13 were still in custody on Saturday night. About 20 demonstrators marched on Thursday afternoon to demand that the party’s electoral observers receive accreditation. Just over 100 metres from the CNE building, police officers fired live ammunition to disperse the demonstrators and then began beating them with batons. The demonstrators tied their hands together with yellow ribbons, the party colour. “In order to avoid them accusing us of acts of violence, to make it impossible for us to be accused of throwing stones at the authorities, we tied up our hands and marched like that,” explained […]

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Violence and Arson in Bié

By Edú Wañgo: Bié province has been experiencing an escalation in violence during the election campaign. On August 21, traditional community leader (soba) Arão Massanga Simão was beaten and struck on the head with a machete. He had allowed a UNITA flag to be hoisted in the village of Muyumba, which falls under his jurisdiction. Located in Sachenomuna commune, in the municipality of Cuemba, the village has more than 6,000 inhabitants, half of whom are on the electoral register. “At around 2pm, four National Police officers, armed with PKMs, came to my house looking for me. I did nothing. One of them hit me on the head with the butt of his rifle”, said headman Simão. On the journey from his house to the police station, a fifteen-minute walk, the community leader explained that he was hit repeatedly with batons by the police officers, and was also struck on the […]

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Strike at Angolan National Radio

Angolan National Radio staffers are set to go on strike on Friday, August 24, after the expiration of a deadline for negotiations between the management and the workers. On May 24 this year, the local branch of the Angolan Journalists’ Union met with RNA employees, who collectively demanded a salary increase of around 300 percent, amongst other claims. The coordinator of the union committee, Luísa Rangel, highlighted the desperate situation of many RNA professionals. She recalled how her colleague, the reporter Luís Tara, had committed suicide a year ago. “He went and stabbed himself in front of the chairman of the board’s office, to draw attention to his unbearable situation as a result of the humiliating treatment by the management.” He was treated in hospital for the stab wounds, but then hung himself a few days later. Ms. Rangel noted how Mr. Tara “with more than 20 years of experience […]

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Kangamba: the MPLA Convicted Candidate

The kick-start of the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), and president José Eduardo dos Santos campaign trail, on June 23, in the 11 de Novembro stadium, elicited the shadow and the real power of another dos Santos. Few people noticed it. On the stage erected outside the stadium, where several famous Angolan singers performed, and where the president was scheduled to address the crowds, another name was displayed on two huge posters on both sides of the stage: that of the controversial 47 year old political showman Bento Kangamba, whose real name is Bento dos Santos. The event was yet another masterful coup in the personal campaign of the self-proclaimed “businessman for youth” and president of Kabuscorp F.C. Bento Kangamba who is running for member of Parliament in the up-coming elections scheduled for August 31. The said candidate is the secretary of the MPLA’s provincial committee […]

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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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