Tag: president José Eduardo dos Santos

From a CIA Conspiracy Theory to the Murdering of Activists

The trial regarding the 2012 killing of Angolan political activists Alves Kamulingue and Isaías Cassule, which resumed on November 18, continues today. The central question still concerns who, in the chain of command of the state and the ruling MPLA, ordered their deaths? What is known is that the two had been involved in organizing a demonstration on 27 May 2012, which was intended to involve former members of the Presidential Guard and demobilized soldiers. After negotiations with and pressure from the Presidential Intelligence Bureau, the former presidential guards pulled out of the protests. A further question is why the alleged killers of both men are being charged in a single case, although each death involved a different group of suspects. A total of seven suspects have been detained. In the Kamulingue case, two National Intelligence and State Security (SINSE) officials have been charged: António Gamboa Vieira Lopes and Paulo […]

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The Schoolboy Who Shook the Regime

At age 15, Nito Alves had a simple but generous idea: to share critical information about everyday events in Angola with neighbors and passers-by. Inspired by the Arab Spring in 2011, Nito Alves created a newspaper mural that he displayed outside his home in Viana, Luanda. Each week he chose articles from weekly papers and pasted them to a wooden board. This attracted dozens of readers who, each day, would stop at his doorstep to catch up with events. Nito Alves is proud to be the namesake of the man who, in 1977, led a faction within the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) for regime change. Although controversial and brutally crushed by the security forces, such a movement continues to inspire opponents of the Angolan regime.  Young Nito Alves’ mother says she simply liked those names and was unaware of their significance when she named her […]

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