Search Results for: liberdade

Lourenço’s “Flying Palace” and a Coconut Head

Following his 11-day European tour, Angolan president, João Lourenço, arrived home with a staggering flight bill. He spent several million dollars on a US $74,000 an hour luxurious “flying palace” that transported him the whole time, while preaching anti-corruption at home. The distinguished Ghanaian economist and activist, George Ayittey, has a name for this kind of a leader: a coconut head. For Ayittey, a coconut head is a leader, who, rather than run his country ruins it through folly and depraved indifference to the suffering of ordinary people. Many Angolans saw the social media images of the world’s only private US $350 million Boeing Dreamliner 787 VVIP ostentatiousness. Owned by the Chinese  HNA Group, this plane is the world’s largest luxury business charter. Few wanted to match it with the plane that took President Lourenço to state visits in France and Belgium, as well as a private visit to Spain. […]

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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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The Unfair Trial and the Unjust Minister

In the face of what is turning out to be the trial that is defining the true nature of the Angolan state, the Minister of Justice, Rui Mangueira, and his colleagues went on a spirited international public relations offensive. His main argument was that by citing the country’s recurring human rights abuses, ill-intentioned people were defaming Angola’s good name abroad. In Angola, the trial of young activists accused of preparing a rebellion and an attempt on the president’s life has been going on for the last three weeks.  Someone in the Angolan government seems bent on permanently staining its good name. The accused have been treated so poorly that they are suggesting they may go on a collective hunger strike if their trial is drawn out. Of the 17 accused, only nine have been heard so far in the 15 daily sessions. The activists have certainly not turned out to […]

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Luanda Bans Demonstration to Free Political Prisoners

The Luanda Provincial Government has prohibited a protest by mothers, sisters and wives of 15 Angolan political prisoners to demand the release of their relatives. They had hoped to demonstrate on 28 August, the president’s birthday. They delivered a letter on Wednesday to the Luanda provincial governor, Graciano Domingos, informing him of their intention to hold a demonstration and vigil. The negative response from vice-governor Jovelina Imperial came in less than 24 hours, citing a clause in the law on demonstrations and meetings that states “parades and processions may not take place before 7 pm on a weekday”. The demonstration was scheduled for 3 pm on a Friday. The governor’s office added that holding a demonstration that defied a legal prohibition would be punishable as the crime of “disobedience” in term of the Penal Code. Reacting to the letter, Isabel Correira, the mother of political prisoner Osvaldo Caholo and one […]

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The Real Danger: Letter to President José Eduardo dos Santos

Mr President José Eduardo dos Santos: Since we are unlikely to meet, I have decided to attempt a conversation with you by this medium. I hope you respond to me. It is time to talk. Although I am sharply critical of how you govern, and of the suffering this causes the majority of the Angolan people, I admire you for staying in power so stoically; and, I understand very well your anxiety when faced with the prospect of losing power. Father António Vieira wrote: “Pulvis es, tu in pulverem reverteris”. Dust you are, and to dust you shall return. You are dust. That is the present. To dust you shall return. That is the future. That is the future that you are trying to avoid at any cost, and which results in the anxiety that I mentioned. For a while during my childhood, you cultivated a fear of yourself. In […]

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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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SINSE and Public Prosecutor Protect a Pedophile in Cuango

A complaint of pedophilia has been lodged with the Office of the Attorney General against the secretary of diamond-rich Cuango municipality, in the province of Lunda-Norte. The father of the victim – a girl of 13 at the time – is accusing the local public prosecutor of protecting the secretary, and the local head of the State Intelligence and Security Service (SINSE) of attempting to suppress the case. The background to the case In September of 2013, the municipal administration organized a food and drinks fair [politically known as cultural marathons throughout the country] in the town of Cuango. During the fair, one of those responsible for organizing the event, the secretary of the Cuango municipality, Cândido Daniel Sampaio,37, offered to buy ice cream for two cousins who were part of his prayer group in the Church of the Seventh Day Adventists. The ice cream vendor was a certain distance away, and Sampaio suggested that they drive there, accompanied by one of his colleagues. On the way, they took a detour and parked at the water treatment plant, […]

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Witchcraft, Police, the MPLA and the murder of a traditional headman.

On May 14, the Provincial Court of Moxico, in Eastern Angola, delivered a landmark verdict against vigilante justice, based on accusations of witchcraft, which is prevalent in that region. Judge Pereira da Silva sentenced both the head of the ruling party, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) for the municipality of Cangamba, Alberto Tchinongue Catolo, and a local traditional authority (Soba) Cangamba, António Kanguia Candimbo, to six years in prison, for ordering the lynching of Soba Augusto Chimbidi. The judge also convicted the municipal commander of the National Police in Cangamba, Manuel N’doje Ijita Cawina to two months in prison for his part in the witchcraft séance plot, which served to justify the mob assassination of Augusto Chimbidi. In his ruling, the judge concluded that the police commander did not take part in ordering the killing, but that he had prevented his police officers from stopping the […]

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HRW: Leis de Difamação Silenciam Jornalistas

A organização internacional de direitos humanos Human Rights Watch (HRW) urge a Procuradoria-Geral da República de Angola a arquivar imediatamente todas as acusações recentes de difamação contra o jornalista investigativo Rafael Marques de Morais, alegando que estas põem em causa o direito à liberdade de expressão. Em comunicado emitido hoje, 12 de Agosto, a HRW indica ainda que o governo angolano deve rever as leis de difamação do país, que são o fundamento da acusação contra o jornalista. Segundo Leslie Lefkow, diretora-adjunta de África da HRW, “Angola tem achado as suas leis de difamação muito útil para reprimir relatos sobre corrupção e violações de direitos humanos. Angola devia estar a investigar estes relatos de graves violações de direitos humanos ao invés de tentar silenciar os portadores de más notícias”. As várias acções judiciais contra o jornalista estão relacionadas com o conteúdo do seu livro Diamantes de Sangue: Corrupção e Tortura […]

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Pro-Dos Santos Militias Attack Activists at Home

A group of about 15 people attached to Angolan pro-government militias, armed with pistols, machetes and iron rods, have attacked the group of young people who have been co-ordinating demonstrations against President José Eduardo dos Santos since March 2011. President Dos Santos’ 32 year rule is tied for the longest in Africa. Shortly after 10pm on Tuesday night the attackers burst into the home of rap artist Casimiro Carbono in Luanda’s Nelito Soares neighbourhood, where ten youths had gathered. With pistols in their hands, the attackers violently beat Gaspar Luamba, Américo Vaz, Mbanza Hamza, Tukayano Rosalino, Alexandre Dias dos Santos, Jang Nómada, Massilon Chindombe, Mabiala Kianda, and Jeremias Manuel Augusto “Explosivo Mental”. Their host, Casimiro Carbono, avoided the attacks as he had gone outside a few moments earlier to take a telephone call. Afonso Mayanda, known as “Mbanza Hamza”, 26, said the attackers carried out the attacks in a quick […]

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