November 2015

After Dos Santos: More of the Same?

30 de November de 2015 Moiani Matondo

In Angola’s only open and free election in 1992, the question on the minds of most voters was: Should I vote for the “Killers” or the “Thieves?” The former rebel movement UNITA of today bears no resemblance to the killers of old, but the ruling MPLA has taken stealing to a new and unprecedented level. Once MPLA leaders got a green light and carte blanches from their boss that they could steal with impunity, they plundered the national treasury without fear of punishment. President José Eduardo dos Santos made a famous speech in 2009 in which he said that he would have “zero tolerance for corruption!” The fact that no senior MPLA leader has been prosecuted suggests that either dos Santos’ campaign was successful in shutting down crime altogether or he has an acute case of myopia and is not able to see anything below his nose. The fact that […]

Another Day in Court

27 de November de 2015 Rafael Marques de Morais

Across the street, a police camera van monitors the movements outside the courthouse. The trial of the 17 activists charged with plotting a rebellion and attempting to assassinate the president by discussing literature on nonviolence, has attracted many other activists who want to express their support for the defendants. There is also another element of sophistication in this trial. The Military Intelligence and Security Service of the Angolan Armed Forces has deployed 80 officers to the trial. Half of them pose as either unknown relatives of the defendants or law students to fill the courtroom and, thus, enable the police to keep the unwanted activists, diplomats, observers and public away, with the excuse of the courtroom lacking space. The other half is deployed in the vicinity. Each defendant has the right to have two relatives in the courtroom, to whom the police issue credentials. No credentials no entry. That is […]

Presidential Guard who Shot Dead Opposition Activist Acquitted

27 de November de 2015 LUSA

The Luanda Provincial Court yesterday acquitted the soldier from the Presidential Guard Unit who shot dead an opposition activist in November 2013. After the judge pronounced the acquittal, there were protests outside the courtroom prompting the intervention of the police. The prosecution had charged the soldier Desidério Barros of murder, which would have been punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The soldier had fired two shots that killed Manuel Hilberto Ganga, leader of the youth wing of CASA-CE [Electoral Coalition for the Salvation of Angola]. According to the Angolan police, the youth leader, then aged 32, was found violating the security perimeter of the presidency, to put up anti-regime posters, which the court found to be offensive to president José Eduardo dos Santos. The court concluded that the soldier, aged 30, had acted properly, taking into account the security perimeter wall around the president’s palace, and that the victim, after being […]

Rapper MCK Forbidden to Leave Angola

24 de November de 2015 Rafael Marques de Morais

The Angolan immigration services have barred the well-known rapper MCK, from leaving Luanda’s International Airport, to perform at a Rap Festival in Brazil on November 26. MCK told Maka Angola that the immigration officials told him that they had “superior orders” to prevent him from leaving the country. According to the rapper, he asked the immigration authorities “whether this order was based on some legal procedures, whether there was a problem with his passport or visa.” ” They only told me that these were ‘superior orders’ and that the instructions were that they should return my passport only after the TAAG [Angolan airliner] flight for Rio de Janeiro had left,” said MCK. Once the plane had taken off, the immigration officials returned the passports and the boarding passes of MCK and his back up singer, Toy Fox. Maka Angola tried repeatedly to speak to the immigration services authorities but none […]

Rememberance of the Activist Shot Dead by the Presidential Guard

24 de November de 2015 Arlete Ganga

Your Excellency, the president of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, By 23 November 2015, my brother Ganga will have been dead for two years. Your presidential security unit killed my brother. The National Police issued a statement the next day, in defense of my brother’s killer that read as follows: “The Police General Command would like also to inform that in the early hours of the [November] 23 [2013] , around 01.30, here was a violation of the presidential security cordon, at Rua do Povo, by eight elements of CASA-CE, who were unlawfully posting subversive propaganda against the state and it’s leaders, the same having been promptly neutralized by a patrol unit from the presidential palace guards, resulting in their detention. “Meantime, during the transfer of this group to the Presidential Security Unit, to be presented to the officer in charge, who would have forwarded them to the National Police, one of the group, […]

The Attorney General’s Office and Business Blackmailing

23 de November de 2015 Lídia Capepe Amões, businesswoman

I am writing this letter from a hospital bed as a citizen who has been persecuted for years by the Attorney General’s Office which you lead. In 2013, some women who had had children with my father Valentim Amões — the late businessman and member of the [ruling] MPLA Central Committee – as well as one of my paternal uncles, made public statements against me, and filed several lawsuits against me as the firstborn and court-appointed administrator of the estate in a dispute over the inheritance my father had left. The lawsuits against me served as an excuse for the Attorney General’s Office, without any valid reasons, to hastily make me formerly a suspect, and to subject me to the following restrictions: (i.) [required to declare identity ] and residence; (ii) denied freedom to change address (without authorization) or to leave Luanda or the country; (iii) Required to report to […]

The Comedians’ Justice

22 de November de 2015 Rafael Marques de Morais

Over two days (Thursday and Friday), the clerk of the court read out some 90 pages of the 187-page manuscript of the “Tools to Destroy a Dictatorship and Avoiding a New Dictatorship – Political Philosophy for the Liberation of Angola,” written by political prisoner Domingos da Cruz, during his trial in which he and 16 other youth activists are charged with plotting a rebellion to overthrow the government and attempting to assassinate the president. The manuscript, which served as a manual for the youths’ debates on peaceful means of protest, is being used as the primary evidence of the youths’ intentions to seize power through violent means. Last June, the police arrested 15 of them. The attorney general, army general João Maria de Sousa, and President dos Santos, publicly accused the youth of plotting a coup. Two young female activists were later charged with the same crimes, but remain free while […]

Writing on Prison Uniforms is as Bad as Plotting a Coup

20 de November de 2015 LUSA

The Office of the Attorney General intends to charge the 17 activists currently on trial in Luanda with criminal (damage) rebellion for having written slogans on their prison uniforms. Defense lawyer David Mendes confirmed the information to Lusa. He is part of the team of four defending the 15 detainees, since June, charged with plotting a rebellion and to assassinate President Dos Santos, while discussing literature on nonviolence. At the beginning of the trial on Monday, the only day the press had access to the court, several of the accused turned up with various phrases, defying president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, written on their uniforms. “Five of them have been charged with having written on their prison uniforms. The Prosecutor General’s office maintains that the uniforms are government property. They will soon come up with the charge sheets,” said David Mendes with the information that the court has given out on […]

The Prosecutor’s Wig and the Trial of the Fictional Rebellion

19 de November de 2015 Rafael Marques de Morais

No novelist could ever make this up. We have a trial. Inside, a number of the available seats are filled with supposed relatives of the accused that the very accused have never seen before. There are a large number of law students present who when asked about the law do not say anything and do not want to be photographed. There are also a large number of security personnel — some trying very hard to stay awake. One of the prosecutors, who refuses to provide her name, turns up wearing dark glasses and a wig which covers half of her face. The defense protests that they are not able to see her properly. She insists that she has the right to wear the wig in the style she likes. Outside, the police harass several members of the public protesting in favour of the accused. Diplomats are also harassed to move […]

The Regime’s Diplomatic and Propaganda Offensive Abroad

17 de November de 2015 Maka Angola

In the last several weeks, the Angolan government has engaged in an international propaganda campaign to counter what it has called a coordinated effort to smear its alleged good reputation. Indeed, the newly-appointed Ambassador-at-large, Luvualu de Carvalho, has been in Portugal pointing accusatory fingers at supposed ill-meaning interest groups that were misrepresenting the country’s political leaders. The issue gaining the most exposure currently — and the one causing Luanda the biggest headache — is the prolonged detention of the young political prisoners. One of them, Luaty Beirão, recently concluded a 36-day hunger strike to protest his unjust treatment. Ambassador Luvualu argued that matters were being blown out of proportion, that the state had a solid case against him and the so-called Angola 15, and that there would be a free, fair, and openly transparent trial. Supporters of the Angola’s 15 insist that, firstly, their prolonged detention contravenes Angolan Law. Secondly, […]

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