Angola’s Lawless Lawmen
In Angola there is a well-known Portuguese saying that sums up the disconnect between appearance and reality: “para o Inglês ver” (literally “for the Englishman to see”). How apt. For it appears that the entire state apparatus under President José Eduardo dos Santos’s rule – constitutional guarantees, democratic principles and the rule of law –exist only for appearances’ sake. The latest example of blatant disregard of the law involves none other than Angola’s most senior lawman, the Attorney General of the Republic, General João Maria Moreira de Sousa. Maka Angola has documentary evidence that in 2011 three-star General Moreira de Sousa bought from the state a three-hectare parcel of ‘rural land’ with a prime sea view in Tango, in the municipality of Porto-Amboim in the province of Kwanza-Sul. Given its ‘rural’ designation, the land cost a mere 600,000 kwanzas (US $3,600). Thus, the Attorney General personally executed the transaction in […]
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