Search Results for: Blood Diamonds: Torture and Corruption in Angola

Angola’s Rafael Marques named 70th IPI Press Freedom Hero

Journalist Rafael Marques de Morais, who has braved decades of harassment and prosecution to expose corruption and human rights abuses in his native Angola, has been named the International Press Institute (IPI)’s 70th World Press Freedom Hero. IPI’s World Press Freedom Hero award honours journalists who have made significant contributions to the promotion of press freedom, particularly in the face of great personal risk. Together with the annual Free Media Pioneer award, it will be presented during a special ceremony on June 22 in Abuja, Nigeria during IPI’s annual World Congress and General Assembly. For the past four years, both awards have been given in partnership with Copenhagen-based International Media Support. Marques began his career as a reporter for the state-owned newspaper Jornal de Angola in 1992, before being fired over his willingness to deviate from the line set by Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled the former […]

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Machete Torture: More Human Rights Abuses in Diamond-Rich Region

“I am Angolan!”, the informal diamond digger keeps screaming in pain and in vain, while the guard repeatedly beats him on the palm of his hands with a machete. His citizen’s rights are ignored. As the guard becomes more violent, the victim screams for his mother repeatedly, but his humanity is ignored as well. “Shit! Pardon does not exist”, the guard who is commanding the beatings of up to ten miners, laughs louder. He is known as Bonifácio. Video evidence has emerged of vicious and sadistic beatings recently meted out to informal miners known as ‘garimpeiros’ by private security guards. The assaults took place just weeks ago in the diamond-rich area of north-eastern Angola. The video, which contains harrowing scenes, was filmed on April 21, 2016 in the Dambi area of Cafunfo in the northeastern province of Lunda-Norte.  In unsparing detail, it shows the guards using machetes to intimidate, beat […]

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Activist Lodges a Criminal Complaint against Land-Grabbing Governor

The activist Rafael Marques lodged today a criminal complaint in court against the Governor of Kwanza Sul Province, General Eusébio  de Brito Teixeira, for seizing land and then giving it to a company owned by himself. According to the submission delivered to the Office of the Attorney General, and to which Lusa had access, General Eusébio de Brito Teixeira even wrote a petition to the governor of Kwanza Sul Province – that is, to himself – to request the legal rights to land for the construction of a condominium. The letter is dated May 4, 2014; a month later, on June 6, the local Sumbe municipal administrator, where the lands in questions are based, sent the governor of Kwanza Sul province, with a copy to General Eusébio Brito Teixeira, a statement saying local entities were in favor of the proposal, and that the governor should immediately grant legal rights that he […]

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Youth Activists Charged with Rebellion and Coup Plotting

The Angolan activist Rafael Marques told Lusa (Portuguese News Agency) this week that the charge of “rebellion” against the youths who have been detained in Luanda is a sign of desperation on the part of the Angolan authorities. “The charges did not surprise me because anything can be expected from a regime is so unpredictable and erratic,” said Mr Marques, who met the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Linda Thomas-Greenfield this week in Washington. “This charge shows that the authorities are increasingly desperate”, he said. The Angolan public prosecutor’s office charged 17 youth activists with preparing to rebel and to overthrow the president of the republic by attending workshops on barricading the streets and civil disobedience. According to the charges, which Lusa had access to, “the accused were planning to overthrow the legitimate bodies of sovereignty, create what they called a National Salvation Government and to write […]

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Generals demand $1.2 million damages and jail for Rafael Marques

The head of the Intelligence Bureau at the Presidency, General  Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias “Kopelipa,” six other Angolan generals and the mining company Sociedade Mineira do Cuango (SMC) are jointly demanding damages of US$1.2 million from Rafael Marques de Morais, the journalist whom they have accused of defamation. Marques de Morais went to the Luanda Provincial Court on Tuesday morning to sign the formal acknowledgement of the charges against him. The trial date will be set in the coming weeks. The generals’ complaint of criminal libel is solely based on the public prosecutor’s decision to set aside a complaint that Marques de Morais brought against the same group of generals in 2011 on the grounds of alleged crimes against humanity committed in the diamond-producing Lunda Norte province. In addition to Kopelipa, the generals who brought the complaint are Carlos Alberto Hendrick Vaal da Silva, Adriano Makevela Mackenzie, João Baptista de […]

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Blood Diamonds: Pre-Trial Investigation Deadline Expired

The defense lawyer acting for Angolan journalist Rafael Marques de Morais has called for the setting aside of the eleven criminal charges laid against him by seven Angolan generals in January. The charges of slander and defamation were brought in reaction to the book Blood Diamonds: Torture and Corruption in Angola, 15 months after its publication, in Portugal. According to lawyer Luís Nascimento, “Angolan law limits the period of preparatory instruction to two months when there are no suspects being held in custody, and this period cannot be extended.” Mr. Nascimento invoked the constitutional principle that prevents double jeopardy. “A citizen may not be tried more than once on the same facts,” he said. In 2012 the generals and the managers of the Sociedade Mineira do Cuango, the diamond mining company in which the generals are shareholders, brought charges in Portugal against the author and his publisher, Tinta-da-China, for calumny, […]

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Generals Chase Journalist Over Blood Diamonds Investigation

Journalist and human rights defender Rafael Marques de Morais was interrogated today in connection with 11 criminal complaints arising from his book Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola. The complaints were lodged on March 14 by seven generals whom the book names as responsible for crimes against humanity that occurred in the Lunda diamond mining region in north-eastern Angola. The complainants are led by the Minister of State and head of the Intelligence Bureau in the Presidency, Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias “Kopelipa”. The other complainants are Adriano Makevela Mackenzie, António Emílio Faceira, Armando da Cruz Neto (an MPLA parliamentarian), Carlos Alberto Hendrick Vaal da Silva (Inspector General of the General Staff of Angolan Armed Forces), João Baptista de Matos, and Luís Pereira Faceira. The private security company Teleservice, owned by the same generals, laid a collective complaint, in addition to the complaint brought by the civilian shareholder José Carlos […]

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Rafael Marques Placed Under Investigation in Angola

Angolan journalist Rafael Marques de Morais was interrogated and charged of defamation by on Wednesday by the Department for Combating Organised Crime of the National Criminal Investigation Directorate  (DNIC). It was only during questioning that Mr. Marques de Morais was formally notified that he was under investigation, and was offered the services of a public defender, which he refused. The journalist had not made arrangements to be accompanied by a lawyer as he did not know the content of the DNIC notification, which was only conveyed to him over the phone. In January, three shareholders and managers of the company ITM-Mining accused Mr. Marques de Morais of having defamed them in his book “Blood Diamonds: Torture and Corruption in Angola” (“Diamantes de Sangue: Tortura e Corrupção em Angola”), published in September 2011 in Portugal. The three men – Mozambican Hermínio Teixeira, Briton Andrew Paul Machin, and Angolan Jorge Gonçalves – […]

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Corruption in Angola, Money-Laundering in Portugal and the Impact on Human Rights

Rather than addressing corruption in Africa in general, this brief paper focuses on a particular case study, Angola. The rationale for this analysis lies in the paradoxical combination of the following factors: for the past decade, the country has had the fastest growing economy in the world; it is the third-largest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa; it ranks among the most corrupt regimes worldwide and has some of the lowest levels of human development. In recent years, the national oil company Sonangol and Politically Exposed Persons (PEP’s) have invested billions of euros in the European Union, particularly in Portugal. On February 14, the National Assembly passed Angola’s 2013 state budget – the largest ever, to the tune of US $69 billion. This unprecedented budget and the country’s steady economic growth have the potential to transform the lives of Angolans. It is estimated that two-thirds of the 19 million Angolans still live […]

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Blood Diamonds: Letter to President Dos Santos

Human rights defender Rafael Marques de Morais sent a letter to president Dos Santos, in his capacity as the highest magistrate in the country, on February 15, urging him to take action on human rights abuses. In the letter, the author denounced the failure of the Attorney General’s office in investigating cases of assassination and torture in the diamond-rich provinces of Lundas, in northeastern Angola. The Office of the Attorney General is, by law, a branch of the Presidency. Last November, the attorney general’s office notified Rafael Marques de Morais that it had shelved the criminal complaint he had lodged a year earlier against nine generals, after a preliminary hearing. As body of evidence, Rafael Marques de Morais filed his book Blood Diamonds: Torture and Corruption in Angola, published in Portugal in 2011. The book detailed cases involving the murder of more than 100 people, and more than 500 tortured. […]

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