Search Results for: Kamulingue

Luanda Book Club: The Frontliners

All charged with conspiracy to plot a rebellion and criminal association. All sentenced to four years and six months in prison. All transferred to Viana Penitentiary on April 14. Name: Fernando António Tomás, aka “Nicola Radical” Age: 37 years old Birthplace: Lunda-Norte province Occupation: Self-employed power-generator technician Known as “Nicola Radical”, Fernando Tomás is the oldest of the group and one of those who regularly turned out for the street protests against the government.  He had been detained five times for participating in demonstrations and was subjected to beatings and ill-treatment by police officers. Fernando Tomas is a technician, married and has two children aged 7 and 3. His wife, Sara João Manuel, was astounded when police came to her home looking for “subversive material” after his arrest at the book club.  All they found was her husband’s collection of local newspapers.  She told reporters: “He [Nicola] doesn’t even have […]

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Rememberance of the Activist Shot Dead by the Presidential Guard

Your Excellency, the president of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, By 23 November 2015, my brother Ganga will have been dead for two years. Your presidential security unit killed my brother. The National Police issued a statement the next day, in defense of my brother’s killer that read as follows: “The Police General Command would like also to inform that in the early hours of the [November] 23 [2013] , around 01.30, here was a violation of the presidential security cordon, at Rua do Povo, by eight elements of  CASA-CE, who were  unlawfully posting subversive propaganda against the state and it’s leaders, the same having been promptly neutralized by a patrol unit from the presidential palace guards, resulting in their detention. “Meantime, during the transfer of this group to the Presidential Security Unit, to be presented to the officer in charge, who would have forwarded them to the National Police, one of the group, […]

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Solidarity Meeting With Political Prisoners Gathers a Thousand People

More than a thousand people took part in a meeting to express their solidarity with detained Angolan political prisoners.  Human rights defender Rafael Marques, and Radio Despertar organized the event on 12 September. The event was broadcast live by the radio station and live streamed through various social networks for nearly four hours. Deolinda Luisa, mother of the 26-years old political prisoner Benedito Jeremias,  in tears and with a cracking voice, said she had not been able to take food to her son for three days because she had no money.  The mother, currently living in Moxico province, is in Luanda to support her son who has been detained since 20 June.  He has been accused of plotting to overthrow the state as part of the so-called 15+1 prisoners. The mother of 19-year old political prisoner Nito Alves, Adalia Chivonde, told the gathering that her son was showing signs of […]

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Sharks or Crocodiles: How to Get Rid of an Activist in Angola

Since June 20, much has been said and written about the detained Angolan book club activists, accused of attempting to bring about a coup d’état.  State officials, including Attorney-General Joao Maria de Sousa and Interior Minister Angelo Tavares, have emphasised In their statements to the media that they will zealously uphold the law, make arrests or take any and all other appropriate action against those who conspire to overthrow President Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s government. But their treatment of another activist, 28 year-old Mario Faustino, detained since May 27, exposes the shambolic nature of the Angolan Justice system. In an exclusive interview for Maka Angola, from his prison cell in the National Police provincial headquarters in Luanda, Mr Faustino alleges that when he was detained, he was subjected to torture at a military installation, carried out in person by a Brigadier in the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA).  According to the […]

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President José Eduardo dos Santos’ Regime is Afraid of Books

A Maka Angola reader has raised a pertinent question concerning the detention on 21 June of 13 activists who were busy discussing methods of peaceful protest against what they consider to be a dictatorship. Two more activists were detained in the following days, and all fifteen were accused of plotting a coup d’etat. Most of these activists are known for their ill-fated attempts to organize anti-government demonstrations, which have been brutally suppressed. But how is it possible, the reader asks, that people who cannot manage even the most basic protest without being violently clamped down and detained, could have the means to organize a coup d’etat? Tired, perhaps, of being the punching bag for the authorities and of being accused by a part of civil society of being disorganized, the young people decided to form a study group. They armed themselves with books on peaceful forms of protest in order […]

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Angolan Authorities Detain Youth Protesters as “Coup Plotters”

For the Angolan authorities, the very thought of an Angola without President José Eduardo dos Santos at its helm, let alone any protest against his rule, continues to be a matter of crime and punishment. President dos Santos has been in power for 36 years and wants to be celebrated as the architect of peace and guarantor of stability, though opponents say he is ruining the country. On Wednesday the attorney general of the Republic, Army General João Maria de Sousa, confirmed the detention of 15 youths for allegedly preparing acts of collective disobedience to overthrow the government, and unseat president Dos Santos. “These acts constitute crimes against the security of the state, as a crime of rebellion. As such, the competent bodies of the state must take action to avert the worst”, General João Maria de Sousa told the press. Several youths have been undergoing interrogation sessions since Monday […]

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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 Logic of Democracy in Angola

I am reading this and I can’t believe it. So I read it again: “When people, including some politicians, say that there is a dictatorial regime in Angola, this is not true”, says Paulo de Carvalho, professor of the Faculty of Social Science of the Agostinho Neto University, in Luanda. He made this statement at a conference organised by the Centre for African Studies of the Institute of Political and Social Science in Lisbon (ISCSP), under the theme “Democracy and citizens’ rights in Angola”. In order to substantiate his belief, Paulo de Carvalho referred to an event which had taken place a while back in the Mário Soares Foundation in Lisbon, where the journalist and human rights activist had criticised the Angolan regime, and the scholar had replied to him thus: “If there was a dictatorial regime in Angola, you, my friend, Rafael Marques, would not be here speaking on […]

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The Attempted Coup in Angola

The second-in-command of the Angolan National Police, Chief-Commissioner Paulo de Almeida, recently surprised many Angolans when he claimed there had been a coup attempt against President José Eduardo dos Santos. Interviewed by the Angolan Catholic broadcaster Rádio Ecclésia shortly before Christmas, Chief-Commissioner Almeida said the demonstration that took place on November 23, in protest at the deaths of political activists Cassule and Kamulingue, had ulterior motives. “We have proof that [the demonstration] was in order to seize power. We have proof that it was an attack on power,” he said. “This was not a demonstration.” He said that the demonstration had been repressed in order to prevent a seizure of power, and insisted that the various attempted demonstrations that have taken place in Angola since 2011 have not been peaceful. From his point of view, the idea of a peaceful demonstration is simply an excuse for grabbing power. I enjoyed […]

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The European Commission’s Problem with the Truth on Angola

Recently, on November 19, the president of the European Commission, Mr. José Manuel Barroso, instructed the EU High Representative and vice-president of the Commission, Baroness Catherine Ashton, to respond on his behalf to queries on the detention of Angolan activist Nito Alves, a minor, and the charges brought against him. Mr. Barroso is a very well known and controversial figure in Angola, for his promotion of the first peace agreement in the country, in 1991, signed between President José Eduardo dos Santos, and his nemesis, the late rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. At the time, Mr. Barroso was the Portuguese minister of Foreign Affairs. He has since cultivated a close friendship with President Dos Santos, and has been favouring him in the international arena. President Dos Santos has been enlisting more senior Portuguese politicians to help him shield the corrupt deeds and human rights abuses of his government. In exchange, he […]

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