Category: Society

Crisis in Angola Could Free Social Conscience and Lead to Change

A few days ago a lawyer was complaining over dinner about the lack of official information on the economic crisis in Angola. She felt the government, or rather the president, ought to keep society informed about how the crisis is to be managed and dealt with. The conversation reminded us how Angolans need to reflect on current realities and become more aware of the disarray in which our society finds itself at the moment. For the first time in the history of independent Angola, all the political parties are ideologically feeble and incapable of imposing their vision of Angola onto society. But this means that also for the first time, Angolans have the opportunity to exercise citizenship rather than party-political activism. The middle level For the first time in many years, the economic crisis is starting to affect an important sector of the population. This is the middle level – […]

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Meeting in Solidarity with 15 Political Prisoners in Angola

Radio Despertar and human rights defender Rafael Marques are organising a meeting in Luanda in solidarity with political prisoners and victims of political intolerance, on 12 September 2015. Supporters across Angola and throughout the world will be able to follow the event on social media. The meeting will take place from 10 am until 1 pm, at the at the Sovsmo conference centre next to Radio Despertar’s premises in Viana. The meeting welcomes people from all sectors of civil society, activists, religious groupings, political parties, artists and all citizens committed to freedom, human rights, justice and the spiritual well being of the Angolan people. The meeting aims to build public solidarity with the 15 political prisoners who have been arbitrarily accused of preparing a coup against President José Eduardo dos Santos. This solidarity will also extend to the activist José Mavungo in Cabinda, who is on trial accused of attempting […]

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Relatives of Political Prisoners Decide to go Ahead with Protest

The mothers, wives and sisters of 15 Angolan political prisoners decided to appeal against the decision of the governor of Luanda, Graciano Domingos, who banned the march organised to take place on 28 August. The women vowed to take to the streets anyway. “We are not going to sit and wait for our sons [to be released]. We really are going to march. It is our right”, stated Adália Chivonde, the mother of prisoner Manuel Nito Alves, and one of the petitioners. “The police can beat us and send in the dogs against us mothers. During the march on 8 August, the police broke one of my toes, this time they can break one of my legs, but the march will go ahead”, she vowed. In the new petition, which was lodged with the governor’s office today, the organisers of the march gave notice of the decision to “hold a […]

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Protesters in Quibaxe Demand the Resignation of Police Commander

Yesterday afternoon, hundreds of people joined the funeral procession to bid farewell to Estêvão Venâncio, 24 years old, shot dead by a police officer while on his motorbike, in Dembos, the Northern province of Bengo. The funeral was also turned into a peaceful protest against police violence. On July 20, Estêvão Venâncio, 24 years old, was going home from school on his motorbike when he was intercepted by National police officers in Quibaxe, the main village of the municipality of Dembos. According to information given by his cousin, Neves Luciano Ganga, “we don’t know exactly what happened. An officer shot Estêvão at point blank range, hitting him between the heart and lung. Estêvão died instantly.” Neves Luciano Ganga also added that “the same bullet hit the pillion passenger, a young student who was getting a lift and was sitting behind Estêvão.” According to his statement, corroborated by other sources, the […]

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I Believe in the Power of Solidarity

With an award comes a greater responsibility. It is therefore my privilege to accept this journalism award [from Index on Censorship], and dedicate it to my fellow Ethiopian colleagues Eskinder Nega, Reeyot Alemo, and the Zone 9 bloggers. They are in jail, currently serving some of the harshest sentences in Africa, for the crime of exercising their right to freedom of expression. For over a year, the Ethiopian government has denied adequate health care to Reeyot Alemu, who is in desperate need. Ethiopia is the seat of the African Union, and its regime is one of the worst offenders for upholding the freedoms of the press and of expression. When a regime in Africa succeeds in trampling their citizens’ rights with impunity, and enjoys such good international standing and legitimacy as Ethiopia, it becomes a textbook case for other authoritarian regimes. I believe in the power of solidarity. I have […]

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Crashing Oil Prices, Propaganda and the Angolan Recipe for Disaster

Throughout the Angolan capital, Luanda, strategically located billboards announce a country being happily stewarded through development by the government. “Building a prosperous Angola based on solidarity”, is the boastful slogan across all ads celebrating the government’s achievements in all spheres of life. One such billboard celebrates “more electricity, more development”, in spite of the regular power outages. Such a massive propaganda exercise outside the electoral period has a precedent only in the early 1970s, when the Portuguese colonial authorities desperately tried to sell the idea that their rule was making people very happy, and independence could ruin all such great achievements. Nonetheless, this propaganda is in full swing at a time when the steady drop in the oil price on international markets could be good news for the Angolan people and a bad omen for their rulers. As a major countermeasure, last December the presidency decreed a 20 percent rise […]

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SINSE and Public Prosecutor Protect a Pedophile in Cuango

A complaint of pedophilia has been lodged with the Office of the Attorney General against the secretary of diamond-rich Cuango municipality, in the province of Lunda-Norte. The father of the victim – a girl of 13 at the time – is accusing the local public prosecutor of protecting the secretary, and the local head of the State Intelligence and Security Service (SINSE) of attempting to suppress the case. The background to the case In September of 2013, the municipal administration organized a food and drinks fair [politically known as cultural marathons throughout the country] in the town of Cuango. During the fair, one of those responsible for organizing the event, the secretary of the Cuango municipality, Cândido Daniel Sampaio,37, offered to buy ice cream for two cousins who were part of his prayer group in the Church of the Seventh Day Adventists. The ice cream vendor was a certain distance away, and Sampaio suggested that they drive there, accompanied by one of his colleagues. On the way, they took a detour and parked at the water treatment plant, […]

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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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Water for Chevron and a Lesson for the Government

A U.S oil multinational, Chevron, recently kick-started a new venture in Luanda’s most affluent residential area, Talatona:  a water well for the consumption of its employees. The first well for the rich, privileged and expats, in a luxury gated community, is about to pump water to the 100 houses of Condomínio Monte Belo (Beautiful Heights), where most of Chevron’s expat employees live.  Since the August 31 elections, the Angolan capital, Luanda, a sprawling urban chaos with more than five million people, has been plagued by severe water and electricity shortages. Monte Belo is one of the extravagantly expensive gated communities that have mushroomed south of Luanda and it is worth over US $250 million. Chevron commissioned the real estate project to the Brazilian construction multinational Odebrecht, in a joint-venture with a local private company Sakus Empreendimentos e Participações, set up by Sonangol oil executives. Sakus is currently fronted by Mirco […]

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