July 2016

Police Torture in Angola – Part II: The Persecution of Matata

27 de July de 2016 Rafael Marques de Morais

People living in Cacuaco municipality, on the outskirts of the Angolan capital Luanda, have good reason to fear the police who operate there. Residents complain that officers in both the National Police and the Criminal Investigation Service arrest people at random and then try to force them to confess to crimes. Bernardo Correia Gaspar – known to family and friends as ‘Matata’, is 22 years of age. He is currently languishing in Viana Prison, waiting to be charged for crimes of which he says he is innocent. And it’s not the first time that he says the police have tried to frame him. He was arrested in 2013 at his Aunt Emilia’s house in Viana municipality on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a police officer, known as ‘Frank’. According to Bernardo Gaspar, Frank had been a gang leader with criminal associates before joining the National Police. “He was […]

Police Torture in Angola – Part I: The Death of Flávio Carizo

26 de July de 2016 Rafael Marques de Morais

Flávio Agostinho Carizo was laid to rest on June 25. It was his birthday. He would have been 26 years old. Those who witnessed his final hours are prepared to testify that he was killed by police officers who were trying to torture a confession out of him. Flávio Carizo was one of a group of five young men subjected to repeated beatings and ill-treatment between June 15 and June 19 this year at a police station commonly known as the ‘Cauelele Police Station’: Police Station 39 in Kikolo neighbourhood, Cacuaco municipality, on the outskirts of the Angolan capital, Luanda. Eye-witnesses to the killing say he was tortured to death by police officers over that period: struck in the head with an AK 47 rifle butt, beaten with iron and wooden bars, stabbed in the legs and having a ligature tightened around his testicles. Their accounts are confirmed by the […]

Sonangol’s Billion Dollar Headache

21 de July de 2016 Rafael Marques de Morais

The task facing Angola’s state oil company, Sonangol, as it adjusts to lower revenues during the slump in oil prices, is complicated by a stratospheric debt burden which gives little room for manoeuvre. And yet the new administration is unexpectedly making repayment of one private debt a top priority. In spite of multiple pressing issues (including the root-and-branch restructuring of Sonangol) repayment of this particular debt has been fast-tracked by Sonangol’s new CEO, the President’s daughter Isabel dos Santos. A source close to the Sonangol board has told Maka Angola it’s the reason why Sonangol has been seeking a loan of US $800 million from a bank based in Egypt, offering as surety its shares in the Millenium BCP division of Portugal’s largest private bank, the Commercial Bank of Portugal (BCP). The urgent repayment? A one billion US dollar debt owed to Trafigura. This is the joint venture between the […]

40 Years On The Boys are Back

8 de July de 2016 Rafael Marques de Morais

Shrugging off the legal challenges to her appointment as President of the Board of Director of Sonangol, the President’s daughter, Isabel dos Santos, has lost no time in showing how she means to restructure the state oil company. Her first task has been to recruit 120 Portuguese staff to senior positions. The new recruits will join a further 50 consultants – also mostly Portuguese nationals – currently working as consultants and advisers to Isabel on behalf of the Boston Consulting Group and the Portuguese law firm Vieira de Almeida, who in effect are jointly running the Angolan state firm at this point. The arrival of the Portuguese contingent to take over at the Angolan state oil company raises some interesting points: firstly, the total absence of any national or international recruitment campaign and the lack of any attempt at dialogue between the managers and workers at Sonangol points to the same lack […]

Sonangol’s Debt Woes

6 de July de 2016 Rafael Marques de Morais

Angola’s state oil giant, Sonangol, is running out of time to prove it has a credible plan to repay US $13 billion in loans it obtained from a syndicate of European banks. The loans’ agreements came with a contractual obligation to produce annual balance sheets showing a healthy ratio of debt to capital and it appears Sonangol has been unable to honour this. Last month the London-based Standard Chartered Bank set a 45 day deadline for Sonangol to explain its failure to comply with the debt ratio obligation stipulated as part of the loan agreement, and to provide documentary evidence that is has the capacity to honour the terms of the loan. Sources close to the Board of Directors of Sonangol have indicated to Maka Angola that the company may not be in a position to make the repayments on time. It is alleged that Sonangol’s long-term auditor EY raised objections to some […]

Economy

Mothers Denied Justice Due to Traditional Beliefs

5 de July de 2016 Maka Angola

A petition for clemency by mothers of two of Angola’s prisoners of conscience has gone unheard by the judge notorious for presiding over the show trial of the 17 Luanda Book Club activists. The mothers are pleading for the release of their sons, 19 year-old Nito Alves and 27 year-old Francisco Mapanza, who remain in jail in spite of a Supreme Court ‘habeas corpus’ ruling that forced the release of fellow activists convicted last March over an alleged conspiracy to incite political rebellion.. Nito Alves is one of the 17 Luanda Book Club activist, sentenced to four and a half years in prsion, who are appealing their conviction on the conspiracy charge. He has not been freed because he is serving an additional six-month sentence for contempt over his remark in court that the show trial was a sham. Francisco Mapanza, who was attending the trial, became the unwitting 18th victim in the case, when he echoed Nito Alves’s comment. Judge Januário […]

Human rights