Tag: Forças Armadas Angolanas

Another War Veteran Detained After Protests

José Fernandes de Barros, 48, a member of the former Popular Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) Sergeants’ and Soldiers’ Claims Committee, was detained on the morning of June 25 by the Military Police. According to Barros, who has been able to speak to Maka Angola, the members of his committee were called to the Military Police Unity in Grafanil, Viana, to receive a single payment of 55,000 kwanzas (US $550) each. “We had the papers for us to receive the 55,000 kwanzas. When I handed mine over, they told me that I had already been paid. One of the officers went away to study my case, but it turned out to be a trick,” Barros said. “The officer told me ‘we have been looking for you for a long time because you organised the demonstration’ and they took me away to be interrogated,” he said. Barros explained […]

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The Presidency’s Military Bureau and the Kidnappings

It is now two weeks since Alves Kamulingue, 30, was abducted while walking around downtown Luanda at midday on May 27. Kamulingue was on his way to a demonstration that had been scheduled to bring together former members of the Presidential Guard Unit (UGP) and war veterans to demand the payment of their pensions. On May 29, his friend Isaías Cassule, 34, one of the organisers of the protest, was also seized at dusk in the Cazenga district of Luanda. Kamulingue’s wife, Isa Rodrigues, has received anonymous phone calls that have claimed the missing men are in a police unit somewhere on the outskirts of Luanda. These rumours have started to circulate, including among journalists, contradicting other rumours that have spread on the internet claiming that the men have been executed. The calls come from unknown numbers and are then switched off so that the families cannot call back and […]

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