Menongue

Angola’s San Community under Threat from Burning Forests

22 de October de 2019 Rafael Marques de Morais

In many parts of Angola the end of the cooler, dry season known as ‘cacimbo’ is traditionally the right time for burning brush. Fire clears the land ready for planting ahead of the rainy season, produces the charcoal on which many families still depend for their cooking fuel, and sends wildlife into the path of hunters. But unregulated and uncontrolled, this practise is one of the major factors leading to widespread deforestation in the most remote southeastern corner of Angola, where hundreds of kilometres of virgin forest are on fire, threatening the very existence of the San people. The San, dubbed “Bushmen” by the European colonizers of the region, are the descendants of some of the most ancient peoples on Earth. Their forefathers have roamed the southern African forests for tens of thousands of years. To this day the San communities follow their ancestors’ tradition of living in harmony with […]

The Hunter, Hunted: An Angolan General’s Hunting Lodge

5 de February de 2019 Rafael Marques de Morais

Angolans call the remote southeastern province of Kuando Kubango “the end of the world” (in Portuguese: “o fim do mundo”). Bordering Zambia, Botswana and Namibia, it’s more than a thousand kilometres inland from their country’s capital and a byword for the poverty and destruction wrought by more than 30 years of civil war. As its ruined roads, bridges and infrastructure remind us to this day, Kuando Kubango was a heavily-mined battleground; the heartland of the US-backed rebel UNITA movement, headquartered in Jamba. With the end of the civil war in 2002, the national government did set aside funds for rebuilding. The so-called ‘Peace Dividend’ has allowed individuals to amass huge fortunes from Angola’s reconstruction but all these years later Kuando Kubango remains largely unreconstructed, in part because of the diversion of public funds into the pockets of corrupt officials during the Administration of former President José Eduardo dos Santos. […]

Corruption

War Veterans Protest in Menongue

2 de April de 2012 Maka Angola

Four thousand Angolan war veterans took to the streets of the city of the south-eastern city of Menongue, Kuando-Kubango province, on Saturday, March 31, in protest at delays in the payment of their pensions. The demonstrators eventually received the money owed to them, but only after two were injured in a confrontation with police and firemen. According to Maka Angola’s sources in the city, the veterans of the former liberation army and government defense forces, FAPLA (People’s Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola), marched down Rua 1º de Maio to the local branch of the Banco de Poupança e Crédito in order to demand their pension arrears. The marchers gave no prior notice to the local authorities. The authorities summoned the police who failed to stop the demonstration, and in turn called on the fire brigade to use water to disperse the protesters as they attempted to break into […]

Politics