Month: September 2012

Presidential Guards’ Trial to Resume

The trial of 15 soldiers of the Angola’s Presidential Guard will resume in the Luanda Regional Military Tribunal on Friday, September 28. The members of the Central Protection and Security Unit (DCPS) in the Military Bureau of the Angolan Presidency are accused of the crime of making “demands in a group”, for claiming fair wages and better working conditions. During the September 21 hearing, the judge heard three witnesses to try to establish whether the accused had made group demands in an unruly or riotous manner, as they are accused of doing. The witnesses confirmed only that the soldiers had delivered a petition without any provocative or aggressive behaviour. At an earlier session on September 18, the military judge suspended the session in order to assess whether the law in terms of which the men were accused was in line with the Angolan Constitution. The Law on Military Crimes of […]

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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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Guards on Trial After Being Jailed in ‘Cash Machine’

Fifteen soldiers from the Central Protection and Security Unit (DCPS) in the Military Bureau of the Angolan Presidency (Casa Militar) appeared in the Luanda Regional Military Court on Tuesday, accused of making a collective demand for better salaries and better living and working conditions. The charges follow an incident on 7 September last year, when 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). Besides demanding decent salaries, the soldiers claimed proper salary slips, and for their salaries to be paid directly into a bank. A group of five soldiers who spoke to Maka Angola, on behalf of the others, revealed that […]

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The Presiding Judge’s Quixotic Dealings

Later this week, Angola’s Constitutional Court will rule on a challenge brought by opposition parties against the National Electoral Commission, claiming widespread malpractice in the conduct of the national elections held on August 31. As background to the forthcoming judgement, Maka Angola here recalls how the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, Rui Ferreira, has conducted his own business affairs. The deal in question involved the purchase of a building that houses an upmarket Luanda nightclub, Dom Quixote. In 2007, Ferreira purchased the building on behalf of his business partner António Lisboa Santos, with an agreement that Santos would acquire the building from Ferreira after paying off the debt over a period of four years. Ferreira is now claiming that Santos pays him around $5 million, almost ten times the building’s purchasing price. Of this sum, US$2.2 million comprises interest charged at 75 percent on the purchase price of the […]

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Diamond Digger Shot Dead in Cafunfo

Nelson Miguel Muatxicungo, a diamond digger, was shot dead on Friday evening by guards working for the private security company Bicuar in the Lunda Norte province, Angola. Muatxicungo worked in the informal sector of the diamond industry in the Tchimango area of Cafunfo, part of Cuango municipality. He died after being shot in the chest around 8pm. Bicuar was hired six months ago by the mining company Sociedade Mineira do Cuango, which controls the diamond sector in that region. The largest private security company in the country, Teleservice, previously provided security services there. The informal diggers, known in Angola as garimpeiros, often have no choice but to bribe the guards in order to be allowed to continue digging. “On Monday [September 10] we paid US$150 to four Bicuar guards at the Tchimango post in order to be able to dig diamonds together with them,” explained Monteiro Joaquim, 51, who organised […]

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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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Newborn Dies of Neglect at Luanda Hospital

Groaning with the pains of labor, Florinda Domingos writhed on the ground in the parking lot at the Augusto N’gangula Maternity and Pediatric Hospital in Luanda on the night of September 9. Bystanders called for the medical team to come and attend to the woman in labor, who had been ordered out of the hospital waiting room by guards acting on the orders of the hospital staff. Her family members and other patients’ relatives also called frantically on the hospital personnel, who were ignoring calls for help. Ms. Domingos’s sister-in-law, Flora Rosita, told Maka Angola that Florinda “was thrown out of the waiting room by the guards because the doctors said she was only permitted to enter the waiting room at midnight.” Cândida Nimila, another sister-in-law, explained that the hospital staff had ordered that Ms. Domingos receive attention only at midnight. Seven months pregnant, she had gone into labor prematurely. […]

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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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