Search Results for “Luaty Beirão”

Rapper and Activist Luaty Beirão Released

13 de July de 2012 Rafael Marques de Morais

The Angolan activist rapper Luaty Beirão was released from custody by the Portuguese police on the evening of June 12. The day before, the rapper travelled to Lisbon, in a flight from Luanda, and was swiftly arrested at the airport upon collecting his luggage, which contained cocaine. Luaty was released without charges. While the investigations continue, the rapper, who has dual citizenship, including the Portuguese, must report to the police, if he is to be absent from the country for more than five days. According to his producer and friend, Pedro Coquenão, customs officials found a packet of cocaine inside the tyre of his bicycle, which he had checked-in from Angola, wrapped in plastic, in order to exchange it in Lisbon, where he had previously bought it. Pedro Coquenão explained that when the rapper collected the bicycle wheel from the luggage carousel, he noticed a bulge in the tyre and […]

Human rights

Money for Nothing

26 de November de 2019 Rafael Marques de Morais

Over the past 20 years Angola has been bilked of billions of US dollars earmarked for public projects that delivered little or no actual benefit to the country. And an investigation by Maka Angola into a long-promised revamp of the country’s railway system, suggests the government is still being conned into handing over millions of dollars on schemes that fail to materialize. OFF THE RAILS For two decades under former President dos Santos, Angola repeatedly awarded multi-million-dollar contracts for complex projects to ‘johnny-come-lately’ companies with no track record. Invariably these were shell companies set up by Dos Santos cronies that never had the wherewithal to deliver on their promises. It was a scam by which the state kleptocrats diverted public funds into their own bank accounts. Under reformist President João Lourenço, things are supposed to have changed. But have they? A two-part investigation by Maka Angola into a billion-dollar deal […]

Corruption

The Tertulia and the Luanda Book Club

14 de April de 2016 D. Quaresma dos Santos

Some countries, Portugal and Brazil amongst them, have a vibrant cafe society where philosophical and political views can be expressed, debated and dissected without fear or favour. All-comers are welcome to interject or just listen and learn. These are the political salons of the streets, where lecturers, students, journalists, politicians, workers and passers-by can drop by and join in. In Portuguese these encounters are called “tertulias”. It’s been one of life’s great pleasures to take part in these public “tertulias”, whether over coffee and pastries in Lisbon, or caipirinhas in Rio de Janeiro. So why not in Luanda, that other major Lusophone city where political scandal is the order of the day? Linked by their shared colonial history and language, Portugal, Brazil and Angola have all experienced periods of political turbulence but today all three boast modern democratic constitutions guaranteeing freedom of expression and of association. Unfortunately, in Angola the […]

Portuguese Vested Interests Trump Human Rights in Angola

12 de April de 2016 Mário Crespo

The three Portuguese political parties who formed an unholy alliance to vote down a parliamentary motion which would have censured Angola over the imprisonment of 17 dissidents in the ‘Luanda Book Club’ trial, have attempted to justify their action. The Christian Democrat leader of the CDS (Centro Democrático e Social-Partido Popular), Paulo Portas, has invoked what he says is official party policy requiring them “to remain silent regarding active judicial processes (…) whether in Portugal or abroad”. Similarly, a statement from the centrist PSD (Partido Social Democrata) says it was upholding “the principle of respect for judicial decisions”. Conveniently they choose to ignore solid evidence that judicial process in Angola routinely fails to respect its own constitutional and legal dictates, acting instead in defence of the powerful. Apparently, the CDS and PSD party policy permits silence, complicity or shameless opportunism as convenient. Meanwhile on the far left, the communist PCP […]

Nuno Dala: A Spirit Unbowed

9 de April de 2016 Rafael Marques de Morais

Nuno Álvaro Dala, one of the imprisoned Angolan dissidents, has been on hunger strike for the past 31 days. So far that’s one day for each of his 31 years of age and almost as many as the number of years that José Eduardo dos Santos has ruled over Angola (37, come September). In another five days, Nuno Dala will overtake his fellow prisoner Luaty Beirão’s record hunger strike of last year. Nuno Dala’s courage is admirable. He is not refusing food because he wishes to be set free. In some respects he is already free. He still has free will – and however brutal or stupid the regime’s behaviour towards him, by his self-denial he shows he is undefeated. Nuno Dala stopped eating because those who serve José Eduardo dos Santos’s mindlessly brutal regime have denied him the means to provide for his ten-month-old baby daughter, his wife Raquel […]

General Zé Maria: The Puppet Master

4 de April de 2016 Rafael Marques de Morais

One of the most powerful men in Angola is a septuagenarian soldier accustomed to operating in the shadows. A career military man whose name is feared across the nation. Yet outside Angola his role and legendary status is little known, and even less understood. General António José Maria “Zé Maria” is an interesting character, to say the least. During the ‘War of National Liberation’ (against Portuguese colonial rule) he served in the colonial army. Yet since Independence he has been a key figure behind the scenes, prodigiously rooting out palace intrigues and imaginary coups d’état and purging suspected malcontents. His actions are purposefully directed to reinforcing and consolidating the position of the person who occupies the highest office in the land. As President, José Eduardo dos Santos (familiarly known as Zedú) is the titular Commander-in- Chief. But it’s the man who has his ear, the man who has been his […]

Portugal Supports Impunity in Angola

1 de April de 2016 Mário Crespo

An unholy alliance of three political parties in the Portuguese parliament resulted on March 31 in their voting down the Left Block’s motion to repudiate the verdicts and sentences handed down against Domingos da Cruz, Luaty Beirão, Nito Alves and a further 14 young Angolans, condemned for peacefully manifesting their disagreement with the looting of their homeland by the dictatorial oligarchy led by José Eduardo dos Santos. The PSD (Social Democratic Party) led by Passos Coelho, the CDS (Social Democratic Centre Peoples Party) led by Paulo Portas and the PCP (Portuguese Communist Party) led by Jerónimo de Sousa, have shown themselves to be accomplices of the public servants bought and paid for by the Dos Santos regime for their work in perpetuating the disgusting banality of evil which has become the daily experience of millions of Angolans. Portas, Passos and the Communists are today partners in this repellent neo-colonial expedition […]

The Truly Guilty Will Not Rest Easy

30 de March de 2016 D. Quaresma dos Santos

It’s not easy to find sleep when your thoughts are filled with the plight of 17 colleagues. By daring to explore ways of expressing dissent – in what is supposed to be a democracy – they are persecuted, beaten, deprived of their liberty, subjected to a kangaroo court, convicted on the most spurious evidence by puppet judges, and then sentenced to long prison terms in unsanitary conditions where they will be denied their most basic human rights, including medical attention. Will Judge Januário Domingos sleep easy tonight? Will Prosecutor Isabel Fançony Nicolau? Do they know or care that their reputations will now forever be sullied by the infamy of their roles in a tawdry show trial? Isabel was apparently so embarrassed by having to play the part of prosecuting attorney that she adopted a disguise (a face-obscuring wig, glasses and exaggerated cosmetics) during the trial. This dastardly duo has previous […]

Luanda Book Club Dissidents Convicted

29 de March de 2016 D. Quaresma dos Santos

As they predicted from the moment of their arrest, the political dissidents who dared to think about a transition from dictatorship to democracy in Angola, have been found guilty at their show trial of a “conspiracy to rebel” against the 36-year government of President José Eduardo dos Santos. All 17 defendants caught or suspected of reading Gene Sharp’s book advocating nonviolent means of resisting dictatorship in June last year, have been found guilty of the crimes of “preparation for rebellion” and “criminal association”, and handed prison sentences ranging from two to eight years. Charges of preparing a coup against the President were dropped. The development has been widely condemned by human rights organizations around the world. In New York, the Human Rights Foundation issued a statement strongly condemning the convictions and sentences and called on the Angolan government “to vacate the convictions and release the activists immediately.” Journalist Domingos da […]

No-Shows Force Adjournments at the Show Trial of the Luanda Book Club

7 de February de 2016 Maka Angola

Late last year, after a torrid few weeks under the gaze of the world’s media, the trial of dissidents charged with rebellion against Angola’s MPLA government was abruptly adjourned in time for Christmas. This was seen as less a gesture of seasonal goodwill, more an attempt to shake off some increasingly uncomfortable scrutiny by the outside world. The initial 15 defendants, known as the “Luanda Book Club”, are a group of youthful dissidents and activists who were arrested for having gathered to read and discuss Gene Sharp’s ‘From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation”. The book is described as a blueprint for nonviolent resistance to repressive regimes. For the heinous act of reading about resistance, they were charged with conspiracy to overthrow the state. Two other human rights activists were later added to the charge sheet, though not held in detention. After months in preventative custody, Rapper Luaty Beirão and his […]

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