José Eduardo dos Santos

Supersonic Nepotism: Illegalities at the Speed of Light

5 de June de 2016 Rui Verde

Angola’s President, José Eduardo dos Santos, has just appointed his daughter Isabel dos Santos as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the state oil giant, Sonangol. He had already appointed her half-brother, José Filomeno dos Santos, back in 2012 as Chairman of the Board of the Angolan Sovereign Wealth Fund. This means that the country’s sovereign fund and the state’s main source of income are now both in the hands of children of the President. In plain English, this is the very dictionary definition of nepotism: ‘the practice among those with power or influence of favouring relatives or friends, especially by giving them top jobs’. No doubt there will be many analyses and critiques of Angola’s particular brand of nepotism but from the strictly legal point of view there is one indisputable conclusion to be drawn: President dos Santos’s actions are unconstitutional and illegal. Unconstitutional and illegal The Angolan […]

Corruption

The Emperor Has no Clothes and the Naked Hunger Strike

17 de May de 2016 Rafael Marques de Morais

The only two females in the Luanda Book Club case, Rosa Conde (29) and Laurinda Gouveia (26), have been on hunger strike since May 8 in protest at their continued detention in Viana prison, pending their appeal against a verdict and prison sentence which have been widely condemned as unfair and part of a political show-trial. They are also protesting against the attacks they suffered on the same day at the hands of dozens of other inmates. “When we were attacked, one of the prison guards who watched the beatings said [to their colleagues] ‘Let them kill themselves’. We are running terrible risks here. We are not safe,” stated Rosa Conde who is serving a sentence of two years and three months. The two young women had also been refusing to wear prison clothing until Rosa Conde collapsed on Wednesday. She suffers from pneumonia, and was admitted to the prison […]

Youth Protesters Charged with Rebellion on Trial Today

16 de November de 2015 Maka Angola

Seventeen young Angolan activists were charged in court with rebellion against the state on Monday, a case rights groups said showed increasing intolerance of dissent. The young campaigners were detained in June after organising a reading of U.S. academic Gene Sharp’s 1993 book: “From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation”. The book’s blurb describes it as: “a blueprint for nonviolent resistance to repressive regimes”. Charges against them read out in court included acts of rebellion, planning mass action of civil disobedience in the capital Luanda and producing fake passports. Their defence lawyer told the hearing his clients were not guilty of any crime because debate and freedom of speech were protected under the constitution. Human rights groups have accused Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and his government of using the legal system to crack down on critics after several activists were jailed or detained this year on […]

Crisis, What Crisis in Angola?

21 de March de 2015 Rafael Marques de Morais

As Angola’s economic crisis deepens, the country’s president has given priority to the construction of a war memorial at an estimated cost of US $72 million, and a further US $73 million going to a phantom category of “non-specific religious affairs and services”. These projects fall under the Office of Special Works of the Presidency of the Republic. Both expenditures are part of the revised 2015 budget, passed by the National Assembly on March 20, which was slashed by 25 percent (over US $17 billion) – including cuts in the salaries of civil servants. Despite the reduction of the budget due to the fall in oil prices, the president’s set of priorities are baffling. Oil accounts for approximately 95 percent of Angola’s total exports, and its economy is mono-dependent on this commodity. For instance, the largest state-funded religious project, the construction of the Sanctuary of Muxima for the Catholic Church, […]

Corruption

Crashing Oil Prices, Propaganda and the Angolan Recipe for Disaster

28 de January de 2015 Rafael Marques de Morais

Throughout the Angolan capital, Luanda, strategically located billboards announce a country being happily stewarded through development by the government. “Building a prosperous Angola based on solidarity”, is the boastful slogan across all ads celebrating the government’s achievements in all spheres of life. One such billboard celebrates “more electricity, more development”, in spite of the regular power outages. Such a massive propaganda exercise outside the electoral period has a precedent only in the early 1970s, when the Portuguese colonial authorities desperately tried to sell the idea that their rule was making people very happy, and independence could ruin all such great achievements. Nonetheless, this propaganda is in full swing at a time when the steady drop in the oil price on international markets could be good news for the Angolan people and a bad omen for their rulers. As a major countermeasure, last December the presidency decreed a 20 percent rise […]

Trial of Rafael Marques de Morais to begin on December 15

8 de December de 2014 Maka Angola

Rafael Marques de Morais is to go on trial before Judge Adriano Cerveira Baptista in the Luanda Provincial Court on December 15. Marques de Morais is charged with criminal libel for having exposed human rights abuses in the diamond-producing province of Lunda Norte in north-eastern Angola. The case has been brought by seven generals, led by the Minister of State and head of presidential security General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior “Kopelipa”, as well as the generals’ fellow board members in two diamond companies, Sociedade Mineira do Cuango (SMC) and ITM-Mining. The other six generals are Carlos Alberto Hendrick Vaal da Silva (inspector general at the Angolan Armed Forces headquarters), Armando da Cruz Neto (MPLA member of parliament), Adriano Makevela Mackenzie, João Baptista de Matos, Luís Pereira Faceira and António Emílio Faceira. The case concerns the book Diamantes de Sangue: Tortura e Corrupção em Angola (Blood Diamonds: Torture and Corruption […]

Human rights

Trial of Rafael Marques de Morais to begin on December 15

8 de December de 2014 Maka Angola

Articles

How Police Commanders Brutally Assaulted Laurinda Gouveia

2 de December de 2014 Rafael Marques de Morais

One National Police officer grabbed Laurinda Gouveia’s mobile phone, and another punched her in the face. They dragged her a few meters, by the hair, to a National Police vehicle. Laurinda committed the crime of treason by attempting to take part in a demonstration demanding the resignation of president José Eduardo dos Santos. What followed is her personal ordeal. Last Sunday, November 23, at around 4pm, Laurinda, a 2nd year student of Philosophy at the Catholic University, and part-time street vendor of barbecued meat, went to Independence Square in Luanda, in the company of three other activists. While her companions were trying to get to the Agostinho Neto monument, Laurinda was taking pictures from a distance. “The National Police patrol car took me to the 1st of May School [Commercial Institute of Luanda], beside the Square. Six police commanders and plain clothes SINSE (State Security and Intelligence Service) officials surrounded […]

Human rights

General Awards Himself More Than 300 Square Kilometers of Land

21 de November de 2014 Rafael Marques de Morais

The governor of the southern province of Kwanza-Sul, General Eusébio de Brito Teixeira, 61 years old, has recently authorized on his own and for himself land for agricultural use and the construction of condominiums. Through a glaring scheme of self-dealing, the governor and his family have already grabbed over 30,000 hectares (over 300 square kilometers) of land in Kwanza-Sul. A high-ranking figure in military strategy, within the inner circle of presidential power, parallel to the FAA – Angolan Armed Forces, General Eusébio de Brito Teixeira also occupies the post of representative of the Intelligence Bureau of the President of the Republic for Southern Angola. “We will adhere to the MPLA’s program for government, which is to increase growth and improve distribution [of wealth]”, quoted the governor on his inauguration by president José Eduardo dos Santos, on September 29, 2012. Adhering to the MPLA’s program, throughout the year of 2013, the […]

Corruption

The MPLA: Speeding Angola up or holding it back?

3 de April de 2014 Rafael Marques de Morais

The MPLA Political Bureau has welcomed the governments program to speed up the diversification of the national economy, beyond its current domination by the petroleum industry. The Politburos statement on 31 March made a special recommendation: that the government should train the personnel necessary to put the plan into practice. However, there is a contradiction here that needs to be analyzed. Lets start with the idea of speeding up. As long ago as 12 February 2009, President José Eduardo dos Santos said it is necessary to speed up economic diversification by making and promoting investments in other areas of production. Four years later, the idea of speeding up economic diversification was incorporated into the National Development Plan for 2013-2017, of which implementation began last year. If it is indeed a process of acceleration, it has been a very slow one. As its priorities for economic diversification, the plan aims to […]

Opinion

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