Search Results for: Presidential Guard Unit

Angola Elections 2022: Tense Times as UNITA Rejects Election Results

After an uneasy night in several Angolan cities, the funeral ceremonies for former President José Eduardo dos Santos began on Saturday in the presence of foreign heads of state. A military guard of honour accompanied the flag-draped coffin, as the cortege proceeded from the Dos Santos mansion in the upper-class neighbourhood of Miramar, and along the sweep of the bay to the Square of the Republic, led by a group of women chorusing “Angola weeps for Zedu”. The outgoing MPLA President, João Lourenço did not attend but is expected to be at the formal funeral ceremony on Sunday when his predecessor’s remains will be placed inside a mausoleum within metres of the rocket-shaped monument to Angola’s first President Agostinho Neto. Lourenço who expected to be re-elected comfortably after the August 24 poll, is apparently now facing a divided party and nation, many of whom accuse the MPLA of resorting to […]

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Lifelong Immunity from Prosecution for the President

It is right and proper that anyone who has served as head of state or government should be accorded due honors upon exiting the job. The peaceful transition of power is a cornerstone of democracy and those who have reached the pinnacle and who willingly step aside when their time is up, are rightfully guaranteed some special treatment for the rest of their days. It’s a mark of respect for their service. With the prospect of a voluntary exit for José Eduardo dos Santos, who has held power in Angola for an astonishing 37 years, few would be so churlish as to deny the man who likes to call himself “the Architect of Peace” the consolations of orderly retirement. What is customary around the world? No doubt his name will emblazon important civic works. Perhaps he is granted an annual pension and a security detail for life. Perhaps the state […]

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Presidential Guard who Shot Dead Opposition Activist Acquitted

The Luanda Provincial Court yesterday acquitted the soldier from the Presidential Guard Unit who shot dead an opposition activist in November 2013.  After the judge pronounced the acquittal, there were protests outside the courtroom prompting the intervention of the police. The prosecution had charged the soldier Desidério Barros of murder, which would have been punishable by up to 20 years in prison.  The soldier had fired two shots that killed Manuel Hilberto Ganga, leader of the youth wing of CASA-CE [Electoral Coalition for the Salvation of Angola]. According to the Angolan police, the youth leader, then aged 32, was found violating the security perimeter of the presidency, to put up anti-regime posters, which the court found to be offensive to president José Eduardo dos Santos. The court concluded that the soldier, aged 30, had acted properly, taking into account the security perimeter wall around the president’s palace, and that the victim, after being […]

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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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Presidential Guards’ Trial to Resume

The trial of 15 soldiers of the Angola’s Presidential Guard will resume in the Luanda Regional Military Tribunal on Friday, September 28. The members of the Central Protection and Security Unit (DCPS) in the Military Bureau of the Angolan Presidency are accused of the crime of making “demands in a group”, for claiming fair wages and better working conditions. During the September 21 hearing, the judge heard three witnesses to try to establish whether the accused had made group demands in an unruly or riotous manner, as they are accused of doing. The witnesses confirmed only that the soldiers had delivered a petition without any provocative or aggressive behaviour. At an earlier session on September 18, the military judge suspended the session in order to assess whether the law in terms of which the men were accused was in line with the Angolan Constitution. The Law on Military Crimes of […]

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Presidential Guards at the Service of Private Business

The trial of 15 Angolan presidential guards, accused in connection with a petition in which they demanded better salaries and working conditions, has drawn attention to a web of corrupt practices in which military officers set up private business with state funds as their capital, and using soldiers as their labourers. The guards on trial are members of the Central Protection and Security Unit (DCPS), a unit that was set up in 2004 under the auspices of the Military Bureau of the Angolan Presidency. Its supposed function was to protect infrastructure rehabilitation projects throughout Angola, as part of the National Reconstruction Office (GRN) that was attached to the Military Bureau under the leadership of General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias “Kopelipa”. The DCPS was meant to protect the Chinese companies and workers who were involved in the projects. These projects have been worth more than US$10 billion, financed by the Chinese […]

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Guards on Trial After Being Jailed in ‘Cash Machine’

Fifteen soldiers from the Central Protection and Security Unit (DCPS) in the Military Bureau of the Angolan Presidency (Casa Militar) appeared in the Luanda Regional Military Court on Tuesday, accused of making a collective demand for better salaries and better living and working conditions. The charges follow an incident on 7 September last year, when 224 soldiers from the unit in question signed a petition addressed to the commander of the Presidential Guard Unit (UGP), Lieutenant General Alfredo Tyaunda, complaining of poor working conditions and salaries. The soldiers sent copies of the petition to the Military Judicial Police, the Military Prosecutor and the Chief of Staff of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA). Besides demanding decent salaries, the soldiers claimed proper salary slips, and for their salaries to be paid directly into a bank. A group of five soldiers who spoke to Maka Angola, on behalf of the others, revealed that […]

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Angolan Presidential Guards on Trial for ‘Insubordination’

Fourteen soldiers for the Central Protection and Security Unit (DCPS) in the Military Bureau of the Angolan Presidency are to stand trial in the Luanda Regional Military Court starting September 18, charged with the crime of “making collective demands” (exigência em grupo). On September 7 last year, 224 soldiers from the unit in question signed a petition addressed to the commander of the Presidential Guard Unit (UGP), Lieutenant General Alfredo Tyaunda, complaining of poor working conditions and salaries. The soldiers sent copies of the petition to the Military Judicial Police, the Military Prosecutor and the Chief of Staff of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA). The soldiers expressed dissatisfaction with the unequal salaries accorded to the different military units associated with the Presidency. They reminded General Tyaunda that they were not beggars but graduates of the fourth UGP training course in 2005, which the general himself had described as “the best […]

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The Fake Assassination Attempt against Angola’s Vice-President

Why does the president of the Republic, João Lourenço, allow his government to be tarnished with fabricated accusations regarding the supposed attempted murder of his vice-president in the first months of his term? Why would the president allow the National Police and the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) to use a machete as an official torture tool? Why does the president allow the judicial system, especially SIC, to be so inhumane, specializing in forging absurd evidence and incarcerating innocents? Why does João Lourenço allow the involvement of staff members of the Security House of the Presidency in an act of torture to go unpunished? Let us turn to the facts. Five citizens, detained more than a month ago, are accused of the attempted murder of vice-president Bornito de Sousa. The accusation was concocted from a banal discussion about parking the car which the five were in. They were barbarously tortured, filmed […]

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Angolan Muslims Denounce Human Rights Violations

Aisha Lopes, the fashion designer, and her husband Angelica Bernardo da Costa (also known as Mujahid Kenyata) are Angolan nationals who converted to Islam in 1996.   Aisha, a diabetic, was nursing her 26-day-old infant delivered via high-risk Caesarean surgery when security forces raided the family’s apartment at 5 am on December 2 nd , 2016.  More than 20 armed officers from the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) and the security branch burst in and detained her and her baby, along with her 39-year-old husband. Aisha says they ransacked the apartment, seizing computers, phones, more than 200 books, the couple’s bank cards and all the personal documents belonging to the couple.   “They even took my medical reports. They did not leave a single sheet of paper. “ “We are poor and the agents mocked us, saying that the head of the terrorists in Angola had almost nothing of worth in […]

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