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 for the supply and maintenance of locomotives for the National Institute of Angolan Railways suggests the authorities may need to take a much closer look at what, if anything, they got for their money.

In part one, we focus on one of three contracts from May 2015, all signed on the same day on behalf of the Angolan government by the then Secretary of State for Transport, Mário Domingues, and the legal proprietor of AEnergia S.A., Ricardo Filomeno Duarte Leitão Machado, a Portuguese national who owned a 99.9% majority share of the company.

One of these contracts, worth 500 million US dollars, was for the rebuilding, modernization and adaptation of the railway maintenance yards in the cities of Luanda, Lobito, Huambo and Lubango. 

In 2013, the Ministry of Transport had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with General Electric to get Angola’s railway system up to date and working again. 

Two years later, AEnergy presented itself as GE’s business partner to draw up and sign three contracts to turn the plans in the Memorandum into reality.  The very next day, AEnergy submitted its invoice for an advance of US $75 million against future works and, surprisingly, the invoice was paid straight away – before any of the required checks and balances had been effected.

The contract contained a stipulation (in Clause 20) that it would only take effect once it had been reviewed and signed off by the Tribunal de Contas (the national audit office) and the Angolan President.  Neither had done so.

AEnergy’s owner, Ricardo Machado, says: “We were advised by the Ministry of Transport that it had submitted the paperwork to the national audit office in good time, in compliance with the legal requirements it was obliged to observe.”

Mr Machado say that the US $75 million received by AEnergy was an advance against expenses: “Bearing in mind the requirements of the entities that were financing the work, the government agreed to make an immediate first payment so as not to delay the process of manufacturing the priority equipment needed for both the new and updated locomotives.”

He says the problem was that financing of the project was due to come from GE Capital (part of the General Electric group) as outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding, but the money was simply not available in 2016 and 2017.  To date, he says, there still hasn’t been funding for the contract to be complete.

But according to Mr Machado Energy “delivered the priority supplies earmarked by Mintrans (the Ministry of Transport) and the value of the services and rolling stock supplied was exactly equal to the amount disbursed.”

Unfortunately the Ministry has no record of any of this.

WHERE’S THE PROOF?

A well-informed source as the Ministry of Transport (speaking on condition of anonymity)  told Maka Angola that US $75 million could not have been authorised by the Ministry as it didn’t have that money in its budget.  Our source believes that the only possible source of the funds was the Angolan Central Bank, the Banco Nacional de Angola (BNA), whose governor at that time was José Pedro de Morais.   

Our source says: “Someone must have given orders to the BNA to pay the US $75 million.  There ought to be documentation to prove who gave the order and on what basis.  Surely if AEnergy had undertaken any contractual work, there would also be records showing how that sum was spent – but we (at the Ministry) have not received any documentary evidence. We simply have no idea what AEnergy did with the money.”

“Furthermore, AEnergy has no justification in citing equipment donated to Angola by General Electric as part of its corporate social responsibility programme as though these were materials purchased by AEnergy with the advance payment.”

“We are talking about mobile medical clinics, training simulators and drones for checking rails; none of these were purchased by AEnergy. None. In fact the Ministry had to order AEnergy logos to be removed from these items because they were donated by GE and had no connection whatsoever with AEnergy.” 

Our source has seen nothing to suggest that AEnergy has used any of the US $75 million to make any investment towards infrastructure or training: “Do the math. Then ask yourself: Were we robbed?”

Senior officials at the Ministry of Transport are said to be furious at the lack of any concrete information regarding the project, telling Maka Angola “mislaying just one million dollars would be important, let alone US $75 million, when like every other government institution we desperately need sufficient financial resources.” 

In previous years the Ministry could count on a budget of US $1.5 billion for projects – this year its budget is barely US $100 million.  Officials there say the government should conduct an exhaustive audit to recover all the missing millions – that would be a huge boost to investment in essential infrastructure.

WAS THE CONTRACT EVEN LEGIT?

Maka Angola’s legal analyst, Rui Verde, emphasises that the process of entering into a contract with AEnergy was incomplete and that the huge sum handed over to the company was not legally justifiable. 

“There is the possibility that this was a criminal act,” he says, “and the authorities should be looking into whether any fraud, peculation or money laundering took place.”

He notes that from a legal perspective it is perplexing that the contract fails to identify the equipment, or works, necessary to remodel and modernize the rail yards.  It gives AEnergy carte blanche to draw up a Plan of Work and make its own decisions about what it is going to do.   “The terminology ‘to remodel and modernize’ is ambiguous and vague and Clauses 3 to 8 in the contract seem to give the private company total discretion over how to spend US $500 million without having to account for it,” says Rui Verde.

“A properly-drawn contract would include a specific Plan of Work, spelling out what equipment is required at each stage.  This had none of the specifics required to guarantee how public money was to be used – it was the equivalent of handing AEnergy US $500 million in a brown envelope and letting them decide what to do with it.”

As Rui Verde reminds us, “this brings to mind a similar scheme already before the courts in which the accused argued they needed the US $500 million upfront as surety to secure a US $30 billion loan.  In fact, there was no loan on offer.”

Was this really another dodgy deal?  In the words of social activist Luaty Beirão, was it just another case of the “embezzlement without end” that was part and parcel of the Dos Santos Administration.  In the meantime Angola is still waiting to find out.

Multi-billion-dollar deals between the government of Angola and the US corporate giant General Electric for showpiece rail and energy infrastructure projects are under investigation after reports of scandalous “irregularities” involving an intermediary company.

As reported by Maka Angola, the projects were all part of a Memorandum of Understanding, signed by GE and the Angolan government in 2013.  Two years later, three separate contracts by which these proposals would be executed were drawn up by Aenergy (Aenergia, S.A.) acting as GE’s intermediary or “channel” partner, whose legal owner is Ricardo Leitão Machado, a Portuguese national.  

This was how the former Angolan administration did business with the world.  Under President José Eduardo dos Santos, foreign investors and businesses were required to enter into partnership with the Angolan private sector.  All too often, these were companies with nominal owners shielding the involvement of politically exposed persons whose primary goal was to divert Angolan public funds into their private bank accounts.   

The Railway Network Deal

In Part One, Maka Angola reported concerns over the first of those deals: a contract signed with Angola’s Transport Ministry for the modernisation of the Angolan railway system.  The project was supposed to be fully funded by a loan from a GE subsidiary, GE Capital, yet the Ministry of Finance coughed up (without prior approval) US $75 million US upfront to Aenergy, with little to show for it several years down the line.

Exercizing its right to reply, a lengthy statement from Aenergy (via PR firm Hill+Knowlton Strategies) says that all its actions in connection with that contract were legal and transparent and that the 20% of costs not covered under the deal with GE were due to logistics and import costs.  

Angola’s Transport Ministry has a different opinion.

The Electricity Turbine Deal

Part Two of the investigation looks in detail at another of those contracts with Aenergy from May 2015, in this instance with the Angolan Ministry of Water and Energy, by which GE would provide turbines for hydroelectric projects in Angola, also to be financed by GE Capital.

Allegedly, a version of the Aenergy contract suggests GE Capital’s U$1.1 billion would cover the cost of 8 GE turbines. In fact, GE supplied additional turbines but somehow the Ministry says it was persuaded by Aenergy’s legal owner, Ricardo Leitão Machado, that the surplus turbines had no connection with their deal.

As Angola’s increased needs for energy in the regions became clearer, by 2018 Energy Minister João Baptista Borges submitted a proposal to President João Lourenço that Angola revise its requirements to increase capacity for Lubango (in the central highland province of the same name), Dundo (in the Northeastern province of Lunda Norte) and Tômbwa (on the coast of Namibe province.  He argued they could achieve this with just four extra turbines, by reducing the turbine capacity for the Soyo I power station (in Northwestern Zaire province), thus remaining within the budget agreed with GE Capital. 

When this was put to Aenergy and GE at a meeting in December 2018, there was uproar.  Aenergy was set to sell an extra four turbines on to the Angolans, for more than US $120 million, but the GE Angola representatives were adamant that the additional turbines were already included in the deal, as confirmed in writing by GE’s regional executive director, Elisee Sezan. 

In short, GE had funded and supplied 12 turbines to Angola; Aenergy had supplied only eight of them while asking the Ministry to pay again for the extra four.

Within days the Energy Minister sent a written report to President Lourenço (dated December 18, 2018) citing a breach of trust and no confidence in Aenergy.  From that date onward, Angola began the process of extricating itself from its contractual obligations to Aenergy to deal directly with General Electric (as arguably should have been the case from the very start).  On completion of the audit of their contractual relationship, Aenergy was found to owe Angola close to US $118 million.  

President Lourenço was finally able to issue a decree authorizing the revocation of the contracts with Aenergy on the grounds of “violation of the principles of trust and good faith” in August 2019 and the following month a detailed dossier was sent to the office of the Attorney-General of the Republic, to launch a criminal investigation and request the seizure of the as yet undelivered turbines.  On December 6, 2019, the Provincial Court of Luanda ordered the seizure of equipments in possession of Aenergy, worth US $114.2 million, all of which had been acquired with public funds.

It was only to be expected that Aenergy would react and launch an appeal against the Ministry’s injunction and for now the ponderous legal process is in course.  One more mess, left by the Dos Santos kleptocracy, for which the Angolan people pay the price.

Spare a thought for the sons and daughters of crooked Presidents.  Growing up as pampered princes and princesses, educated at the finest private schools at home or abroad, groomed to head up multi-million-dollar business empires and succeed the founder of the dynasty into unimaginable power and riches, these heirs apparently believe they are untouchable.

For as long as daddy is President, his dynasty believe themselves to have total impunity from investigation and prosecution… but when his power wanes, that delusion can be cruelly shattered and like any spoiled child, in utter shock and disbelief that there may be consequences for their actions, the brat stamps their foot and bawls: “IT’S NOT FAIR!”

Step forward Isabel dos Santos, the favourite daughter of José Eduardo dos Santos, the former President of Angola, now revealed as the chief Kleptocrat of a corrupt regime that for nearly four decades treated the national treasury as if it were a private purse.

The woman who liked to style herself as a self-made business genius and Africa’s first female billionaire as profiled in Forbes magazine – was later unmasked by the same magazine:

“As best as we can trace, every major Angolan investment held by Dos Santos stems either from taking a chunk of a company that wants to do business in the country or from a stroke of the president’s pen that cut her into the action. Her story is a rare window into the same, tragic kleptocratic narrative that grips resource-rich countries around the world. For President dos Santos it’s a foolproof way to extract money from his country, while keeping a putative arm’s-length distance away”.

This is not a new revelation. For years, evidence had made its way into the public domain showing that Isabel dos Santos’s entire business empire was built on privileged access to Angolan state funds, including seed money “lent” to her by Angola’s state oil company Sonangol, which was never repaid.

To her shock and horror, Angola wants that money back – and so much more. The Angolan Attorney General had a surprise Christmas present for Isabel: he sought and was granted an injunction to freeze her assets pending a trial to secure the repayment of over a billion US dollars.

The signs that Isabel was in legal jeopardy have been there for years: report after report showing the Dos Santos family and associates embezzled billions of dollars from oil revenues which they diverted into shell companies set up in offshore tax havens with lax supervision for the sole purpose of moving large sums between these companies which were all controlled by family members, political and military allies of the-then President.

To the surprise of absolutely no-one, Isabel has begun a PR campaign in the media to complain that she is the victim of a politically motivated, secret and unfair process to destroy her business empire.

Surely only the hardest of hearts could fail to be moved? Or not.

Year after year, insiders have leaked nuggets of information to the investigative journalist and civil rights activist behind Maka Angola, Rafael Marques de Morais, who fearlessly brought these allegations to the attention of the authorities and the public.  It was Rafael Marques who constantly faced politically motivated harassment, arrest, ill treatment, imprisonment and threats against his life.

As the saying goes, “there is no honour among thieves”. In every criminal endeavour, at some point, there is a falling-out. Did someone fall out of favour? Receive too small a cut of the action? Dissatisfied co-conspirators tend to voice their grievances and in spite of all the best efforts of expert consultants, lawyers and financiers, bits and pieces of the true picture start to emerge and eventually come to the attention of investigators.

For Maka Angola it was a civic duty to alert the appropriate authorities. For as long as Dos Santos was in power almost everyone in a position to take action was complicit. That is no longer the case. His successor as President, João Lourenço, is slowly but surely making good on his vow to tackle corruption and recover as much of the money looted from the country as he possibly can, in spite of the complicity of so many linked to the previous Administration.

Before he could be persuaded to step down, Dos Santos negotiated for himself immunity from prosecution. That may yet be tested.  One by one, those who engaged in the criminal enterprises he encouraged are falling. And they include those family members used as a front for the diversion of public money into private business interests, including his favourite children.

Isabel’s dire warnings that destroying her companies will cause economic chaos and harm thousands of employees are just empty threats. The injunction has frozen only her personal assets, meaning she cannot access the funds in her personal accounts or sell stocks and shares.

The web of deceit that hitherto protected her is unravelling. To add to her ‘Christmas present’ from the Angolan Attorney-General, and in spite of her PR efforts, just one day into the New Year the Bank of Portugal announced it is looking into her extensive holdings in Portugal and re-examining her suitability as a shareholder in Portuguese banks.

Isabel has homes in Lisbon and also in London (e.g. one GBP 13 million pound mansion in an exclusive gated community in Kensington is ostensibly owned by one of her offshore shell companies, Wilkson Properties Ltd.).  There are indications that the UK’s National Crime Agency is looking into the source of the funds used to buy this and other properties and has the power to seize properties acquired by ‘unexplained wealth’.

The authorities in London have previously helped uncover the financial crimes of one of the Dos Santos children, unmasking the attempt by Isabel’s half-brother, José Filomeno dos Santos (and his Angolan-Swiss associate Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais) to transfer 500 million US dollars out of Angola to Switzerland via London.  

Isabel has already given notice that she intends to use some of her ‘billion-dollar’ fortune to mount a legal challenge to those who are going after her but she casts doubt on whether real justice is available to her in the Angolan courts even though it was her own father to oversaw the Justice system and laws.  The man she accuses of a political vendetta, President Lourenço, has called on her to cooperate but how feasible is it that Isabel would cooperate in bringing down her entire family?  

Only if they are unable to access ANY of the funds stashed overseas. Only if there is nowhere left to hide.

Really? Carlos Manuel de São Vicente is currently a jailbird. On September 23 he was remanded in custody in Viana prison (Luanda) awaiting trial, where conditions might soon make him forget his ill-gotten billions. One by one, the bit-part players in the Dos Santos kleptocracy are being taken down, evidence of their crimes adding up against the long-ruling kleptocrat-in-chief who oversaw the outrageous theft of tens of billions of dollars of Angolan patrimony. It’s no easy matter to bring a former president to justice – especially one who secured a permanent amnesty for his actions – but the wheels of justice are turning inexorably towards his family, friends and former colleagues.

Angola’s first President, Dr Agostinho Neto, must be spinning in his grave. None other than his own daughter and son-in-law’s names have been added to the long, LONG, list of “illustrious” Angolan politicians and officials accused of corruption, embezzlement and money laundering.

Step forward Irene Alexandra da Silva Neto (main photo) and Carlos Manuel de São Vicente, who are under investigation in Switzerland, the UK and Angola and whose global bank accounts and property holdings have been frozen. It’s the same old story – a political appointee given unaccountable and unsupervised power to move funds around, who creates a web of shell companies to funnel thousands of millions of US dollars into secret bank accounts.

The power couple were already in the sights of the Swiss authorities, with a court-ordered freeze on their bank accounts there, totalling almost one-billion US dollars. Following on behind was a similar operation in Angola where on September 8, 2020 the office of the Attorney-General of the Republic (PGR) ordered the seizure of all assets, including bank accounts, hotels, buildings and stock, belonging to the AAA group of companies headed by São Vicente.

Carlos Manuel de São Vicente has declined to make any public comment. He told the magazine Novo Jornal, “At this point in time I can make no statement because legal proceedings are active and I have to respect both banking and judicial secrecy.”

There’s not really much he can say (other than “Guilty, M’Lud”?) given the weight of evidence against him and the increasing appetite across Europe (even in post-Brexit UK) to clamp down on financial crimes. ­­

SONANGOL

Once again Angola’s much-pillaged national petroleum giant provided both the lucre and the means for embezzlement, illegal diversion of funds and money laundering. São Vicente was parachuted into Sonangol in the late 1990s thanks to his political connections, becoming the Director for Risk and Management. At the time, the notorious ‘Triumvirate’ member Manuel Vicente was Sonangol’s Chairman, a master of the dark arts of diverting state funds into private accounts.

In July 2000 Sonangol created the AAA group, consisting of five separate companies: AAA Serviços Financeiros Lda.; AAA Pensões; AAA Correctores de Seguros; AAA Seguros Lda.; and, AAA Serviços de Risco Lda. The stated aim was to create a home-grown insurance monopoly for the oil and gas industry.

Interviewed by World Investment News in February 2001, São Vicente revealed that the AAA Group was being opened up to international investors who’d be allowed a stake of up to 30%.

A mere four years later, Manuel Vicente transferred a 70% stake in AAA Serviços Financeiros to an offshore (shell) company named AAA (Angola) Investors Ltd fronted by José Fernando Faria de Bastos, whose law firm has been linked to other corruption cases.

This was just one of many shady deals with a growing network of offshore shell companies using the AAA name.

In short, within two years 88% of AAA Seguros no longer belonged to Sonangol but to a company named AAA Activos, sole proprietor Carlos Manuel de São Vicente. Sonangol (who had underwritten 100% of the operating capital) now owned a mere 10% with the remaining 2% divided between AAA Pensões and the aforementioned São Vicente.

As so many others found, siphoning off hundreds of millions of petrodollars from Sonangol was as easy as stealing candy from a baby. By October 2012, São Vicente, as sole proprietor of AAA Activos, had put 100 million US dollars into the Angolan subsidiary of South Africa’s Standard Bank, giving him a 49% stake. Somehow, this leger-de-main, was approved by the Angolan Central Bank, the BNA.

A NETWORK OF OFFSHORE ‘SHELL’ COMPANIES

Manuel Vicente’s Sonangol created the first of the AAA Group’s offshore shell companies back in April 1999, registering AAA Reinsurance Ltd in Bermuda with four low-level Sonangol employees as ‘straw’ directors whose names were soon replaced by São Vicente.

In March 2001 São Vicente registered AAA (Angola) Investors Ltd, also in Bermuda.

He then registered AAA Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers (IRB) Ltd. in London, UK in July 2002. British records show a Bermudan company named Global One Ltd listed as owning 70% of the capital, with 30% owned by Sonangol.

Sonangol appeared to have regained overall control of IRB when AAA Serviços Financeiros Lda acquired 100% of AAA IRB in 2004. But it was a subterfuge. São Vicente had set up a company called AAA International Ltd in Bermuda a year in advance, along with a second company he called AAA Risk Solutions Ltd, with himself as sole chairman, director and shareholder.

By 2005, the entire stock of AAA IRB was transferred to AAA International Ltd (though curiously Global One Ltd still showed up on the annual accounts).

São Vicente registered yet another AAA company (AAA Activos Lda) in June 2009 only to transfer 99.91% of its stock to AAA International 10 months later.

Over the next 13 years he would use AAA International as a way-station for money transfers from his main employer Sonangol via the AAA Group’s Angolan and offshore companies, into secret Swiss bank accounts held in his own and his family’s names.

OVERBILLING AND PHANTOM PAYMENTS

São Vicente used the London-registered reinsurance company, AAA IRB, to inflate the policy premiums purportedly charged by AAA Seguros in Luanda. This was of no consequence to the international oil companies for whom it was a deductible production cost. However, the cost of these inflated premiums was borne twice over by Angola – not only in “production cost” losses, but also because approximately 85% of the hard currency income from the premiums was diverted overseas to the AAA shell companies, supposedly for the ‘reinsurance’ market. In fact only one fifth of that – the real market value – was actually invested in reinsurance.

A concrete example: in 2015, of the 44 million Euro insurance premium paid by the US multinational Exxon Mobil to AAA Seguros, a staggering 35.5 million Euros was transferred directly to São Vicente’s AAA companies in London and Bermuda.

Another documented example shows Sonangol itself was shamelessly duped into paying 16.7 million Euros to AAA Seguros, which banked only 3.2 million of that. São Vicente’s wholly-owned AAA shell company in Bermuda was the recipient of the other 13.5 million. The scale of the theft is breathtaking. And he got away with it for more than a decade.

Layers of opacity thanks to the vertiginous transfer of stock and capital back and fore between companies with similar names, is typical of the financial schemes undertaken by global criminals in an attempt to hide the paper trail. These days such transactions instead act as a red flag, alerting financial investigators to problems with the provenance of the funds.

Legal analyst Rui Verde told Maka Angola: “The evidence shows clear violations of several Angolan laws: influence peddling, conflict of interest, abuse of trust, tax evasion, grand fraud and money laundering.”

Clearly São Vicente was only able to commit these crimes thanks to the generally lax situation created by the former President and his cohort to facilitate their own embezzlement and diversion of Angolan public funds, in particular Sonangol’s petrodollars. Between 2010 and 2015 capital flight from Angola was more than double that of the preceding decade. In the four years since 2016, it has halved again.

Thanks to a new law and updated controls by Angola’s central bank (BNA) we know that in 2015 alone, São Vicente was able to transfer 800 million US dollars to his offshore company accounts.

By then his confidence in the impenetrability of his scam was so overweening, São Vicente felt able to blackmail President dos Santos into releasing yet more hard currency his way on the grounds that without foreign exchange AAA Seguros would not be able to renew some of the insurance policies and Angolan oil production could grind to a halt. The office of the President ordered the central bank and Sonangol to comply and their respective heads, José Pedro de Morais and Francisco de Lemos José Maria sent another 300 million US dollars into offshore AAA companies.

By now São Vicente had nearly a billion US dollars stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. How much more had he spread around London, Bermuda and who knows where else? But his greed was not satiated. It was nothing to inflate invoices by 75%. Or to further enrich himself by claiming the cost of salaries and expenses for the IRB office (himself and 14 employees) was more than 30 million US dollars a year.

Things began to unravel in December 2016 when Sonangol commissioned a report into oil production insurance, reviewing all the existing policies, and discovered the extent of the overbilling. That same month a presidential despatch ended AAA Seguros’s monopoly and the state-run national insurance company ENSA took over. On that day, AAA IRB had 72.6 million GBP in its account in London. One year later, the account held a mere 4 million GBP.

When his Swiss assets were frozen as part of that country’s investigation into his dealings, São Vicente tried to claim that the monies in his accounts were the “repayments” of “loans” he had allegedly made to the AAA Group between 2009 and 2016. Unsurprisingly, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of any loans from the London and Bermudan-registered AAA companies to the Angolan companies. Furthermore the named account holders were not any of the AAA companies but São Vicente, his wife and children.

AAA Seguros, the goose that laid the golden eggs for São Vicente’s mini-empire of AAA shell companies, lost its insurance licence in February 2020 and was shuttered. The estimated losses to Angola over the years it was run by Carlos São Vicente are estimated in the billions. What will wound Angolans even more is the fact that this monumental scandal involves Irene Neto, daughter of the revered Dr Agostinho Neto, the man who led the fight for independence from Portugal and was the country’s founding father and first President.

As a leading member of the ruling MPLA party, its central committee and political bureau, Irene Neto repeatedly spoke out against the corruption that had betrayed the people of Angola. As a member of parliament, she gave an interview in 2017 in which she railed against the “shameless, obscene and monumental plundering of state funds” under the 38-year rule of President dos Santos. And she rejected allegations that her own family had been a beneficiary.

“All of that is nothing more than lies, myths and ambiguity, whether deliberate or not. Our family has never been involved in immoral or illegal practices. We know who we are.”

New York, October 27, 2020 — Angolan police should stop arresting and assaulting journalists and allow them to do their jobs freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

At least six journalists and one media worker were arrested – with four held for more than two days – and another was harassed while covering anti-government protests by civil society groups and opposition parties in the capital, Luanda, on October 24, according to news reports and Teixeira Candido, secretary general of the Union of Angolan Journalists (SJA), who spoke with CPJ via messaging app. All those detained were released without charge, Candido said.

“Angolan authorities must stop harassing and detaining journalists who are simply doing their work and must allow them to report freely,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “That three of the detained journalists and a driver were finally released without charge after more than two days in custody shows the police’s vindictiveness, as they were well aware that the journalists were simply covering the news of the day.”

Police forced two journalists from privately-owned Radio Essencial, Suely de Melo and Carlos Tome, photographer Santos Samuesseca of the radio station’s sister publication Valor Económico, and their driver, Leonardo Faustino, out of their car around 10:30 a.m. while the journalists were covering the protests, according to a statement by Evaristo Mulaza, the director of GEM Angola Global Media, the company which owns both outlets. In the statement, sent to CPJ via messaging app, Mulaza said that the journalists had identified themselves to police as journalists on assignment. He said that police beat the journalists and seized their cell phones and a camera. Geralda Embalo, the executive director of Valor Económico and sister publication Nova Gazeta, later provided further details of the assault via messaging app, saying the four were beaten with batons and kicked by police: “Nothing broken, [they were] just bruised, terrified humiliated…” Embalo said that police told De Melo: “Instead of covering demonstrations you should be looking for a husband.”

The four were taken to various police stations, until they were finally detained in Luanda’s Provincial Command, Mulaza said. The journalists and driver were interrogated by a public prosecutor and released without charge at 3 p.m. yesterday, he said, adding that no official had explained why the four had spent more than 50 hours in police custody. As of today Embalo said that the journalists’ equipment had not been returned.

CPJ spoke with Angolan police spokesman Nestor Gobel via messaging app on October 25, the day before the journalists and driver were released, and he told CPJ that police were working on getting the four out of custody. “Don’t worry things will be ok,” he said. Gobel did not respond to follow-up messages and a phone call regarding that and other incidents sent yesterday.

In a separate incident, two journalists who work for the private broadcaster TV Zimbo, Domingos Caiombo and Octávio Zoba, were detained and forced to delete their images of the protest on October 24, before they were released on the same day without charge, said Candido of SJA.

In another incident, two journalists, freelancers Osvaldo Silva and Nsimba Jorge who contribute to the French news agency AFP, were assaulted and harassed by police during the protests, according to both journalists. Silva told CPJ via messaging app that when he arrived at the protest, he was questioned by the police. He showed them his press credentials, but they insisted he needed police authorization to cover the protests. He said police hit him with their hands and truncheons, threw him on the ground and kicked him, and then bundled him into a police vehicle and confiscated his phone. He said he was taken to a police station and was released the same day but was unable to recover his phone until later. Silva said he returned to the protest, where police hit him on the buttocks, demanded his press credentials, and prevented him from taking photographs. Silva said he then left the protests. Nsimba told CPJ via messaging app that police wanted to confiscate his camera and when he resisted, they forced him to delete everything on his memory card; he said he was not detained.

In a statement provided to CPJ via messaging app, AFP’s Africa director, Boris Bachorz, said the agency strongly condemned the assault and urged Angolan authorities to ensure journalists can work without hindrance or threat. Candido urged the police to justify why they were repeatedly trampling on the rights of journalists and violating the right to media freedom recognized in Angola’s constitution.

Presidential spokesman Luis Fernando and Governor of Luanda Joana Lina did not reply to text messages seeking comment from CPJ yesterday or on October 25.

PRESS RELEASE

Lucapa

The third phase of training for about 350 Defence and Security staff took place in Lucapa municipality on Friday, conducted by the General Command of the Angola National Police and the UFOLO Research Centre.

The series of seminars addresses the correct and legal use of coercion (including firearms) and the protection of human rights. There were also sessions about good public service and models of police practice, as well as community policing. The last issue involves the observance of the rules and procedures during public meetings or demonstrations in the light of the Constitution and other current legislation.

The head of the National Police’s Department of Policing and Public Order, Superintendent Cláudio Tchivela, stated that “the police forces must act in a more proportionate manner, without causing damage to the population, whenever a confrontation is inevitable”.

Trainees also learned essential ideas about the best procedures to prevent or minimize outbreaks of tension with the populations, through proportionate policing alongside strict respect for human rights.

As noted by Sub-commissioner Pinduka Marques, deputy director of the Police Training School, who attended the training on behalf of the General Command of the National Police, these matters are intended to ensure “greater professionalism on the part of the police force”.

“The training aims to convey the best practices to deal with the concerns of the citizens who resort to the police services or to refer them to the competent bodies.”

Lucapa’s municipal administrator, Daniel Mutaza, pointed out that the training will contribute to better relations between the National Police and the communities so as to establish mutual trust at the local level. The training, he said, is expected to provide greater guarantees “for the protection of the right to life, the exercise of citizenship and human rights”.

The chairman of the UFOLO Centre, Rafael Marques de Morais, emphasized that the initiative establishes a platform for dialogue between civil society and the National Police, “which must be constant and ongoing”.

Beginning on 12 April, the training involved personnel from the municipalities of Cuango, Cambulo and Lucapa.

On 17 April, the Fourth Citizenship and Public Security Conference will be held in Saurimo, Lunda-Sul province, as part of this unprecedented partnership between the General Command of the National Police and UFOLO.

Angola’s Attorney-General has been asked to open an immediate criminal investigation into a multi-million-dollar real estate deal involving the Angolan Transport Minister and a close friend.  It is alleged the deal not only violated the Law on Public Probity but may also have involved a conspiracy to defraud the government of tens of millions of dollars.  Maka Angola‘s Rafael Marques reports on a burgeoning scandal.

In September 2021, the office of the President of Angola issued Decree 159/21 authorizing the purchase of two privately-owned buildings (the Welwitschia Business Centre and the Chicala) in the capital, Luanda, at a total cost of 114 million US dollars to provide office space for the Ministry of Transport and a Regulatory Agency. 

A subsequent investigation by Rafael Marques of Maka Angola, has reported to the Attorney-General’s Office allegations that a)  the buildings, which include luxury penthouse residential space, were not fit for the purpose stated, b)  there was a fraudulent and inflationary misrepresentation of the actual value of the buildings with the intent to defraud the public purse and c) that the transaction involved a conflict of pecuniary interest in violation of the Law on Public Probity because of the undeclared and long-standing relationship between the seller and the Minister of Transport.

Evidence emerged that the joint owner and Director-General of the company registered as the owner of the Welwitschia Business Centre (WBC), Rui Óscar Ferreira Santos Van-Dúnem, was a lifelong close friend of the Minister of Transport, Ricardo Viegas D’Abreu and that the conflict of interest had not been disclosed as required by Angolan law.

Furthermore, the 11-storey WBC, constructed in 2011 at a cost of 30 million USD with the top two floors arranged as private luxury penthouse apartments, had been listed for sale at a price of 45 million USD for several years but found no buyer.  A second building, the Chicala, similarly had been languishing on the real estate market for some time at a considerably lower price.  The elevated asking price for the two buildings, almost double their actual valuation, suggested an attempt to mislead the government over their true market value and defraud the Treasury of tens of millions of US dollars.

As Rafael Marques outlines in his report to the Attorney-General’s office, concerns over the suitability of the two buildings for the stated purpose, the unjustified and inflated price, and the undeclared conflict of interest between the seller and the Minister therefore require an immediate criminal investigation into whether the real estate deal involved attempted or actual impropriety, influence trafficking, corruption, collusion, misrepresentation, fraud or embezzlement.

‘MISERY AND MAGIC FUEL MAYHEM IN CAFUNFO’: A new book from Angolan journalist and human rights defender Rafael Marques reveals why a supposedly ‘peaceful protest’ in a diamond-rich but dirt-poor north-eastern town erupted into bloody violence and shocked the nation. (Read full book here.) 

Amid public outrage, there were claims that the security forces had used excessive force against peaceful demonstrators – but the truth lay elsewhere.

“Within a day of the news of terrible bloodshed during a protest march in the diamond-mining town of Cafunfo, some people had already drawn conclusions,” says Rafael Marques.  “It took me months of investigation to get to the truth.”

The undisputable facts were these:  when participants in a banned march clashed with security forces in Cafunfo on January 30th, 2021, at least a dozen people were killed and many more were injured.  Two members of the security forces were lucky to survive a gruesome assault by multiple protestors wielding scythes and machetes. 

Over six months of meticulous inquiry, award-winning journalist Rafael Marques gathered the evidence into a new book that reveals how traditional belief in magic was a major factor in mobilizing a vulnerable and illiterate group of people and inciting them to commit violence.

The author of several books and reports on this remote and troubled area, Marques made repeated visits and spent a total of 40 days on the ground collecting testimony from over 100 witnesses, including demonstrators and security force members, to determine what really happened.

The result of those months of painstaking inquiry is his new book ‘Misery and Magic Fuel Mayhem in Cafunfo’.  Itis a comprehensive account of what led to the unsanctioned demonstration and how the tragedy unfolded. 

SIFTING ALTERNATIVE VERSIONS OF ‘TRUTH’

With meticulous attention to detail, Rafael Marques lays out the context behind the march:        

• How decades of neglect and underdevelopment have led to hunger, poverty and desperation. 
• How cynical local figures distorted regional history to make a flawed case for autonomy.  
• How leaders of this banned separatist movement manipulated locals into believing the world was watching as they paraded their anguish. 
• And how these same leaders organized two days of fasting with shamans conducting ‘magic’ rituals to convince those on the march that they were immune from harm and could fly away.

Locals said more than 20 people were shot and killed; the authorities said it was six.   Rafael Marques’s investigation confirmed 13 people died while 16 were injured and six remain unaccounted for.  However, he cautions that this is not a ‘definitive number’ given the ‘highly confused situation’ on the ground.

Marques impartially and faithfully records the protestors’ version of events as well as that of the authorities who insist they came under unprovoked attack.  

DIAMONDS AND DESPAIR

The original Portuguese version of his book ‘Misery and Magic fuel Mayhem in Cafunfo ‘ had its official launch on October 18^th 2021 in Cafunfo itself.  This place is an anomaly in Angola:  not officially a town or municipality, the population hub grew around the extensive (and often privately-owned) diamond mining operations.  Little or none  of the wealth that accrued was deployed into providing essential services such as electricity, paved roads, piped water or into establishing a local political administration.

Nine out of every 10 residents in Cafunfo live below the poverty line, barely able to muster a single meal per day.  The absence of any state presence other than security, allowed third parties to radicalise these desperate locals who were induced to believe that they were legally allowed to stage a march to publicize their situation.

In fact, the demonstration was unauthorized and in contravention of emergency laws introduced to limit public gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Previous encounters with police and military led some participants to arm themselves with agricultural tools ‘for self-defence’. Scythes and machetes were used in a gruesome attack on poorly armed security forces in different locations, in which two men were hacked to within an inch of their lives.

At a third location, security reinforcements faced with a front line of protestors enraged by hunger and the rituals that made them feel invincible,  opened fire in what they said was self-defence.

Page by page, as the evidence is laid out, it becomes clear that a few politically ambitious, unscrupulous individuals took advantage of an illiterate populace with traditional animist beliefs in supernatural powers, to mobilize and control large numbers of people into a cult-like membership of an illicit organization and incite them to violence.

After sifting what could be corroborated from the disparate accounts, Rafael Marques was able to establish both a chronology of events and the astonishing role played by shamans and the use of botanical, or herbal, concoctions to create the conditions for a violent confrontation.

‘The magic rituals were instrumental in mobilizing the masses, most of them uneducated peasants or field workers, into a tactical command group targeted against the constitutional and political authorities.’

‘Some of those who took part felt they had extraordinary powers that enabled them to use violence to confront the security and defence forces who had been mobilized to prevent the unauthorised demonstration from taking place.’

His conclusion was that ‘the demonstration was not a peaceful one, and the participants’ faith in their magic powers created the condition for violence.’

IMMUNITY BY MAGIC

Over several days, a select group of up to 200 men were forced to go without food while consuming and applying herbal preparations that they were told would make them immune to harm. After a sleepless night of dance, prayer, chanting and in some cases the consumption of alcohol, they were sent out before dawn, armed with long knives and wooden staves to confront a poorly armed group of police and border guards charged with preventing an illegal gathering.

‘Many of them were fired up, believing they were untouchable.  Many were famished, had not been allowed to sleep and were in a sort of religious fervour when they set out.  They were told repeatedly there would be no retreat and they had to press on.  Imagine their mental state when they encountered impromptu and makeshift attempts to bar their advance – even in the face of warning shots fired over their heads.’

The first casualty was a police inspector, brutally hacked about the head and body.  The second was a demonstrator, allegedly struck in the head by a bullet (or a companion’s machete).  With little or no ammunition, the police and border guards kept retreating and the marchers kept pressing on towards the main police station and officers’ homes.  An army colonel, unarmed and with hands up, pleading for them to stop, was attacked in a flurry of flashing machetes, and left for dead.

By the time the ‘frontline’ of emboldened demonstrators reached a third roadblock, this  time reinforced by soldiers with assault rifles called in to support the hapless police and border guards, the impetus for violence from both sides was unstoppable.  Some survivors still claim they only got away because magic allowed them to fly over the melee into safety.

In his book, Rafael Marques enumerates all the factors which led to this tragedy.  ‘Ignorance, misery, negligence and political incompetence created a fertile ground for radicalization in Cafunfo, and in the face of government intransigence, other political forces seized the advantage.’

Having already organized a round-table conference of all interested parties in the region to open channels of communication, Rafael Marques concludes by offering recommendations to prevent any future tragedies of this kind:  suggesting government, mining interests and local communities come together to create a Sustainable Development Council to improve conditions on the ground and lift this neglected community out of ignorance and poverty.

Allegations of corruption have re-surfaced against the head of Angola’s largest private bank, the BAI (Banco Angolano de Investimentos),after a formal criminal complaint against Board Chair José Carlos de Castro Paiva was lodged with the Angolan Attorney-General on Monday.  Paiva is alleged to have diverted state assets worth millions of US dollars into private shell companies and bank accounts, to benefit himself and others linked to the discredited former President, José Eduardo dos Santos.

The formal complaint, citing instances of Paiva’s alleged money laundering and illegal diversion of public funds, was submitted by investigative journalist Rafael Marques and sociologist Tânia de Carvalho, to demand the Office of the Attorney-General launch a comprehensive investigation.

Previous allegations against Paiva have not been followed up in Angola.  Alleged to have been one of the key facilitators of the wholesale looting of public money by the former Angolan regime, Paiva joined the state oil monopoly in 1976 and by 1987 was appointed to head Sonangol’s London operations.  There he was well-placed to execute the instructions of the notorious Sonangol CEO, Manuel Vicente, whose links to former President and Kleptocrat-in-Chief José Eduardo dos Santos, are well documented. 

Evidence from the Luanda Leaks reports in 2020 and information emerging from multiple international criminal investigations revealed that the Angolan elite around dos Santos formed a criminal cabal that systematically diverted billions of petrodollars into their pockets.  They set up a huge network of shell companies in offshore tax havens and created their own private banking network to be able to move their wealth into regulated financial systems such as the USA and the EU.  Paiva was named as one of these corrupt “Secret Bankers” in the  OCCRP report that same year.

It’s unclear why the Angolan Justice system has failed to investigate beforehand how Paiva came to pocket many millions of US dollars from his positions at BAI and Sonangol.  Sonangol was one of the principal investors in the BAI bank when it was launched in 1996, holding 18.5% of stock. In 2006, Paiva was appointed to the BAI board, and it soon became clear that the bank was being operated as a laundromat for the dos Santos family and their accomplices.  Some of Sonangol’s initial stake would soon be transferred to others, including 5% to Paiva himself.

By 2010, when a US Senate Investigation into BAI’s activity in the United States reported numerous red flags suggesting maladministration and corruption at the BAI, Sonangol’s 18.5% of stock had mysteriously diminished by 10%, amid transfers of stock to shell companies whose beneficial owners turned out to be Paiva and fellow company directors, some (if not all) of whose names also feature in international corruption investigations.

As the complainants state in the denunciation sent to the Attorney-General “There were no financial movements consistent with or justifying the private purchase of BAI shares by Jose Carlos de Castro Paiva”.   Some of Sonangol shares in BAI were routed and re-routed by Paiva or his associates through separate transfer operations to entities in which he is named as one of the beneficial owners, e.g., to the Bahamas-registered Arcinella Assets (Paiva 7%), the British Virgin Islands-registered Sforza Properties (Paiva 6.5%) and Mauritius/France-registered Dabas Management (Paiva 5%). 

When these suspicious money movements triggered Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks, put in place in countries like the USA to achieve compliance with legal requirements, the BAI consistently stalled, failing to supply the required information (sometimes for years) until it was forced to the reveal the names of the beneficial owners, including Paiva’s, all the while requesting secrecy.

After a seven-year corruption investigation, Brazil’s Federal Police reported in 2020 that Paiva and his associates had invested millions of dollars from Sonangol accounts into construction of the Mussulo tourist resort and the Solar Tambaú residential condominium in the coastal town of João Pessoa in Paraíba State.  An initial US $5 million from Paiva and US $3 million from Theodore (Ted) Giletti (BAI Vice President) into Mussulo in 2009 via a Dominican Republic-registered company, Mobilware, was augmented in 2017 by some US $25 million again routed by indirect means to shield the identities of the beneficial owners (the money came from Leonard Cathan’s Geneva Wealth Capital Management in Switzerland and Giletti and the Mussulo offshore account in the British Virgin Islands).

Brazil said the ultimate destination was GBF Empreendimentos Imobiliários e de Turismo, a company owned by the Portuguese national João Carlos Guerra Alves Pina Ferreira, another Paiva associate.  Pina Ferreira and Paiva are co-directors of the company JCP Construções e Incorporações.   In all, the Brazilian police said there were 60 Angolans, including PEPs (Politically Exposed Persons) involved in the João Pessoa projects.  No formal investigation was set in motion in Luanda, despite sharing the Brazilians sharing their information with the Angolan Attorney-General’s office. 

To this day BAI continues to shield the identities of five of its eight main shareholders.

Over the past decade investigative journalist Rafael Marques de Morais’s Maka Angola website has consistently revealed allegations of corruption by Angolans and foreign nationals, naming officials, PEPs and private individuals, the shell companies and locations they used, and the investments they made – all with money that should have gone into the Angolan public purse.   Revelations about the role played by Paiva that were already in the public domain, have consistently been republished by Maka Angola.   But when his co-complainant Tânia de Carvalho, a sociologist and TV commentator, referred to Brazil’s case against Paiva in a broadcast, he went after her, complaining of defamation.  Just one day after she put her signature alongside Marques in the criminal complaint to the Attorney-General, Tânia de Carvalho was due to appear in court to face that defamation charge.  Notably, Paiva has never sued the original publications who reported allegations that he had diverted “millions and millions of Angolan money” to Swiss banks account (e.g., an account for MIDAS at Lombard, Odier, Darier and Hentsch, frozen on September 30th, 2004)

Further background

Angola’s first private bank was established on November 13, 1996, as the Banco Africano de Investimentos (BAI), later Banco Angolano de Investimentos (BAI), and commenced commercial operations on November 14, 1997.  The founders of the bank included José Carlos de Castro Paiva, then managing director of Sonangol London Ltd.; and Theodore Jameson Giletti, the American-born and British-trainer former banker who became BAI Vice-President.

In 1998 the listed shareholders of BAI were reported as following: Sonangol, the Angolan-state owned oil company: 19%; Grupo Crédito Agricola, a Portuguese financial institution: 10%; Service Group Angola, an affiliate of a Portuguese car company: 8%; Investec Bank Ltd., a South African financial institution: 7.5%; Amercon, a U.S. corporation: 6%; Banco Pinto e Sotto Mayor, a Portuguese financial institution: 5%; Dabas Management Ltd., a French corporation,  Brenco: 5%.

BAI’s initial president was Aguinaldo Jaime, who left the bank to become head of the Banco Nacional de Angola, BNA; two initial senior administrators were Joaquim Costa David, Angolan Minister of Finance, also a former head of Sonangol; and Ana Paula Gray, a banker with the South African Investec Bank, both of whom were made members of the board of directors. BAI’s chief executive officer was Jose de Lima Massano, a former Sonangol executive, accountant, and banker who is currently serving as the governor of Angolan Central Bank (Banco Nacional de Angola).

Perhaps the most notorious BAI director was Manuel Domingos Vicente, the former chief executive officer of Sonangol before being appointed by dos Santos as Angolan Vice-President. Vicente is one of dos Santos’s notorious “Triumvirate” – the former President’s three closest associates.  The Senate Subcommittee’s investigation found that of the other (smaller) shareholders, Brenco International was beneficially owned by Pierre Falcone, a notorious Angolan arms dealer, and his business associate, Arkady Gaydamak, both involved in the arms and bribery scandal known as Angolagate.  It also noted that Paiva had a majority ownership position thanks to his stake in the three SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicle companies) while simultaneously (at that time) holding positions as Chairman and managing director of Sonangol (London) Ltd and Chairman of the BAI bank.  BAI’s explanation for this was that he was a placeholder for other, unnamed Angolans. 

 ” BAI’s current Chairman Jose Paiva is the majority shareholder with 18.5% beneficial ownership through Arcinella Assets SA (7%), Sforza Properties (6.5%) and Dabas Management Limited (5.0%). Jose Paiva was elected as the beneficial owner of Arcinella and Sforza, both Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) companies purely as a result of his role as Chairman. The shares are being held temporarily, in effect on a custodial basis by the Bank until final shareholder registration can be concluded. The shareholders are (and will be) individuals of Angolan nationality with the intention that no one individual will have a shareholding more than 1%.”

More than a year later, HSBC’s legal counsel told the Senate Subcommittee “upon information and belief that both SPVs continue to be held in trust by Paiva”.  For more than one year, from March 2006 to June 2007, HSBC pressed BAI for ownership information that it routinely obtained from other foreign financial institutions and which the bank had determined was important due diligence information to understand its client’s operations. BAI provided some of the requested information but offered differing explanations for two shell companies holding 13.5% of its shares, finally claiming the shell companies were unable to identify their individual shareholders and assigning their shares “temporarily” to BAI’s chairman of the board (i.e., Paiva).

Today marks the 45^th anniversary of the terrifying events of May 27^th, 1977, in which the governing MPLA purged tens of thousands of its former comrades in arms. Amnesty International estimates at least 30,000 were murdered. Angolans who were alive then refer only obliquely to the massacre as “o 27 de Maio”, the day and month standing for events that cannot be named.

The official version released by the ruling MPLA stated that it had been forced to defend itself against an attempted coup by a faction in the party. Inconvenient facts were buried along with the victims or locked away in the minds of survivors. The reign of terror unleashed on the dissident faction (and anyone connected with them) silenced internal dissent for decades.

So many have suffered from “not knowing”, so many died over these 45 years still tortured by the inexplicable disappearance of sons and daughters. In President Lourenço, they found a man who understood their pain. His own wife, Ana, was one of tens of thousands of MPLA comrades who were detained and tortured, lucky to survive a purge that became a massacre touching almost every family.

Relatives of the dead, particularly those living outside Angola, had formed various groups to demand the truth. The Associação 27 de Maio was formed in Lisbon in 2005. The orphaned children of executed Nitistas formed their own Movement, Associação M27. Nothing changed until midway through President João Lourenço’s first term of office when he took the major step of admitting there had been “excesses” and promised an inquiry. Campaigners have demanded death certificates be issued (or re-issued and corrected to state the actual cause of death), and that the remains of their loved ones be located and exhumed for reburial.

So far, the much-vaunted inquiry has failed to deliver. It may even have spread misinformation, whether by intent or accident. The governing MPLA has the information and the power to authorise the release of any material or information, there are members of government, the security services and the armed forces still alive who can bear witness. Hasn’t enough time elapsed for them to disinter the buried truth in its entirety? Many insist that only then can there be true pardons for both sides involved. Only then can the freedom to speak lead to understanding, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Without these, it is argued, Angolans remain silenced and trapped by the culture of fear imposed since that terrible day.

NINETEEN SEVENTY-SEVEN

The newly independent Republic of Angola was born fighting. Agostinho Neto’s MPLA, at that time the best-positioned and strongest of the three liberation movements that had fought to achieve independence from Portugal, found itself ruling by default upon Independence in 1975. The other two movements, the FNLA led by Holden Roberto and UNITA led by Jonas Savimbi (who broke away from the FNLA), backed out of a power-sharing agreement and went back to war. Only the MPLA remained to control the seat of government and power, the capital Luanda. The ensuing civil war, unleashed and fuelled by the great powers, dominated all activity for the next three decades.

Luanda in 1977 was a place in which disillusion and doubt had chipped away at the euphoria of independence. Hopes of the promised better life as free Angolans were dwindling. The MPLA’s victory had been underwritten by the Soviet Union which offered material backing in hard currency, political and military training, and weapons with which to fight first the Portuguese and thereafter their FNLA and UNITA rivals.

The MPLA was at the same time a military organisation and a political one, a multi-racial self-described Marxist-Leninist movement guided by intellectuals, many of whom inevitably were either of White Portuguese or Mestiço (mixed) descent or who belonged to the assimilado class (Angolans incorporated by the colonial administration into an élite status as part of their divide-and-rule strategy) as these were the strata of society able to achieve a university education.

Diverging views began to emerge, that ‘true socialism’ had been abandoned thanks to a pragmatic decision by Agostinho Neto’s cabinet to sign contracts for oil exploration and extraction with American companies at a time when the US government was working to destroy them. Behind the scenes the United States was fighting a cold war, aiming to remove allegiance to the USSR by financing and strengthening UNITA (whose political allegiances flexed according to financial benefit) while persuading South Africa to deploy its defence forces as a surrogate. The near success of this cynical policy was foiled only by the deployment of tens of thousands of Cuban soldiers, the first wave of internacionalistas who came to Angola’s aid. Many Black Cubans feel a particular affinity for Angola- many are likely descended from the millions of Angolans enslaved and trafficked to North America.

Dissatisfaction was stoked by diverging ideological views and pan-Africanist arguments. Many Angolans struggled to understand why life was worse than under the Portuguese, still suffering the deprivations and destruction of war. Dissenters began to associate and debate alternative options for changing the course adopted by the MPLA leaders. Some may indeed have contemplated a coup, whether bloodless or not. Others simply wanted their President, Agostinho Neto, to pay more attention to the masses (poder popular) and less to the so-called “moderates”. Internal party paranoia led inexorably to catastrophe.

Assailed by enemies without and dissenters within, the ruling faction descended into a hotbed of paranoia. Cohesive links, forged by a shared commitment to independence, began to dissolve, and the growing numbers of dissenters began to be perceived as a rival faction who presented a clear danger to the existing leadership. President Agostinho Neto’s closest cohort of allies, linked by more than a decade of shared struggle, and ideological fraternity bonded in exile, had agreed on a strategy which opponents blamed on Lúcio Lara. Matters came to a head in October 1976 at the Third Plenary of the Central Committee of the MPLA, when Interior Minister Nito Alves and his ally José Van-Dúnem were openly accused by President Agostinho Neto of fomenting factionalism (fraccionismo) and were suspended for six months. They demanded – and got – an inquiry, headed by José Eduardo dos Santos. When towards the end of that inquiry Nito Alves called for a “grand assembly of members” to march and show their support, it finally snapped Agostinho Neto’s patience and he announced that the two men were “dangerous ultra-leftists” who had been expelled from the party altogether.

Nearly all the information in the public domain about o 27 de Maio has emerged either from the MPLA’s version of events or from outsiders. Partial accounts have been written by foreign journalists and academics, whose nationality or place of residence gave them no cause to fear personal reprisal or the sudden disappearance of loved ones in retribution. A contemporaneous account was written by the English Marxist journalist and MPLA sympathiser Michael Wolfers, who went to Luanda for the Independence celebrations and stayed to help train journalists for Rádio Nacional de Angola (RNA). He was present at the RNA complex on that day as an attempt was made to take over the station. From academics like Gerald Bender, David Birmingham or John Saul came additional information, gleaned from their research. Much of this parroted the MPLA official version of events for lack of alternative voices. Death or the fear of death had silenced many of those who knew what had really happened.

Recently the most comprehensive addition to this body of work came from my former colleague, Lara Pawson, who after a stint herself as the BBC’s correspondent in Luanda was intrigued by the mystery and dogged enough to continue seeking answers. What she learned formed the basis of her book ‘In the Name of the People, Angola’s Forgotten Massacre’. And yet she too found it impossible to get to the best-informed sources, the surviving participants from one side or the other.

It’s clear that much of the story is still deeply buried. The version of events published in a 60-page document by the Political Bureau of the MPLA in July 1977 acknowledged the existence of what it called fraccionismo (factionalism) and described the group as “pretend revolutionaries whose real intent was to divide the MPLA and consequently divert the people from their true objectives at that stage of the struggle: to defend the territorial integrity of the country against imperialism and National Reconstruction”. The politburo report identifies the leaders by their full names, Alves Bernardo Baptista (i.e., ‘Nito’ Alves) and José Jacinto da Silva Vieira Dias Van-Dúnem (i.e., José Van-Dúnem). It said the two men had been expelled from the MPLA Central Committee on May 21^st.

It accused them of planning a coup in three stages: the first stage was entryism: to infiltrate the governing MPLA party and its army, the FAPLA, to push their more extreme-left ideological strategy, while recruiting soldiers for an eventual military take-over. The MPLA accused José Van-Dúnem of using his personal military connections to recruit 200 soldiers and to sway the ‘infamous 9^th Brigade’ to his cause.

Stage Two was to undermine the existing political structure by spreading misinformation to discredit President Neto and the MPLA Central Committee, accusing them of being anti-Communist and failing to follow the ‘true path of Socialism’. It alleged they infiltrated the peoples’ committees, unions, and the MPLA youth and women’s movements to spread this message.

The third and final stage would be to effect a golpe de estado (a coup). Defense Minister Iko Carreira, Politburo Secretary Lúcio Lara, Head of DISA (Dept. of Information and Security Services – the secret police), Ludy Kissassunda and his deputy Henriques Santos ‘Onambwe’ were allegedly targets for assassination. Other leading members of the MPLA would be captured unharmed and held prisoner. They’d free political prisoners from São Paulo prison and take over the national radio station and the newspaper.

Survivors interviewed by Lara Pawson, inter alia, admit that Nito Alves began to organize dissenters in Sambizanga. The youth wing of the MPLA had established an excellent soccer team, Progresso, which due to growing popularity would hold club meetings every evening at the Salão Faria. Nito Alves was the club president and would often speak out and hold court. He was a ‘man of the people’.

Surviving Nitistas admit that all options were discussed in the lead-up to May 27^th, including deploying their military allies to force Lúcio Lara and others to step aside. Some, including his brother João, said José Van-Dúnem had argued persuasively that there should be no bloodshed and it was agreed they would summon their supporters onto the streets for a mass demonstration to show Agostinho Neto the weight of support for changing course. In the event, some factionalists undoubtedly went far beyond that.

At 0400 hours on the 27^th, a detachment from the 9^th Brigade led by two female commanders (Elvira da Conceição “Virinha” and Fernanda Delfine “Nandy”) in an armoured vehicle stormed the São Paulo prison to release Nitista political prisoners (amongst them the FAPLA political commissars who presented the popular Armed Forces’ radio programmes, Povo em Armas and Kudibanguela). In the firefight that ensued, the prison chief Helder Neto died from a gunshot wound (President Neto said he was murdered by the fraccionistas; others said he committed suicide so he would not be captured.)

Two hours later, Luis dos Passos and six soldiers from the 9^th Brigade secured the radio station, replacing the expected program with Kudibanguela. The presenter announced the radio had been taken over by “revolutionary comrades unjustly accused of treason and factionalism” saying “a new Marxist-Leninist revolutionary process was underway”. It’s said this was the moment Agostinho Neto called Fidel Castro to ask for Cuban military support to secure control.

By 0930, the radio announcer was telling listeners that in the face of Cuban tanks surrounding the presidential palace, the mass demonstration would now proceed to the Radio station instead. Cuban armoured vehicles, commanded by Colonel Rafael Moracén Limonta, accompanied by Onambwé and Delfim Castro from the DISA, the Angolan secret police, rolled up at 1130. As heavy machine gun fire raked through the crowd of demonstrators and the building was retaken, the station was still broadcasting until the Cuban Colonel took to the microphone in Spanish to tell the Angolan people and their President Agostinho Neto that the station was now in his hands and that there were some ‘confused people’ there. [“Que se encuentre aqui pueblo confundido.”]

By 1400 hours, the 9^th Brigade had surrendered. An hour later, the President appeared live on television to explain the protest as “members of the political and military leadership having tried to express their discontent over disciplinary measures”. By 1800 hours his tone had changed.

Some Nitistas had taken hostages. The Finance Minister, Saidy Mingas, reportedly went to the 9^th Brigade headquarters to try and calm the situation and was captured along with some officers believed to be loyal to the President. Apologists for the Nitistas say the hostage-taking was a short-term tactic, to avoid reprisals. They were taken to a location in Sambizanga (to the home of a footballer named Kiferro) to keep them out of the way. Weapons had been handed out the night before to local men linked to the football club, who were to guard them.

One version of events says there was no order to kill the hostages. ‘Someone’ opened fire in panic. An alternative version pins the murders on an undercover DISA agent named as ‘Tony Laton’. The murdered men included much-admired heroes of the liberation war, Comandantes Dangereux, Nzaji, Bula and Eurico as well as Saidy Mingas, the Minister of Finance. Their grisly end was the catalyst for the brutal repression that ensued.

President Agostinho Neto was incensed at the challenge to his leadership, even before learning that some of his close allies had been murdered. The deaths in Sambizanga, along with the storming of the prison and the attempted takeover of RNA were his justification for the bloodbath that followed, described as “swift judgement in tune with the national mood”. It was too late to argue that a coup wasn’t the intent that day. Neto had already spoken: “We are not going to waste time with trials, there will be no more pardons.

Hundreds of soldiers, including Cubans in tanks and armoured vehicles, were sent into Sambizanga. There was indiscriminate shooting over the days that followed as the Cubans sought out everyone connected with the Progresso football club. Cuban tanks flattened scores of houses. The ringleaders were soon rounded up or surrendered, unwilling to hide while so many of their supporters were being slaughtered. Nito Alves had been sheltering in the neighbouring province of Bengo. A local woman named Domingas who brought him food told him that the MPLA had threatened to execute his parents unless he surrendered. Through Domingas he passed word to Comandante Margoso to come and get him. He was executed but the whereabouts of his remains are a mystery.

Historian Wilfred Burchett writing in 1978 confirmed the executions of Nito Alves, José Van-Dúnem, Sita Valles, David Aires Machado, Comandante Jacob João Caetano, “Monstro Imortal” and Comandante Ernesto Eduardo Gomes da Silva “Bakalof”. Anyone suspected of links to the faction was seized, regardless of innocence. Cases of mistaken identity, or of innocents caught up in the purge, abound.

One of President Agostinho Neto’s personal friends, a man named Domingos Coelho da Cruz, narrowly avoided execution. He recounted to Rafael Marques de Morais (Director of Maka Angola) and Joaquim Pinto Andrade how DISA agents came to his house and dragged him away. They marched him out to the courtyard and lined him up ready for the firing squad. The DISA deputy director’s secretary recognized him as he was being led out, knew he was close to the President, and on her own initiative rang Agostinho Neto to confirm he had approved the execution order. He had not. Neto immediately got her to put the head of DISA on the line and ordered him to get his friend out of there and see him safely home.

Few were that lucky. A kangaroo court, dubbed “the Court of Tears” went through the motions: guilty as charged, sentenced. The names of these executioner judges are well known. Tens of thousands of people disappeared, some to prisons, some to re-education camps such as Tari and Muquitixe, some to exile. The vast majority ended up in unmarked graves. António Lourenço Galiano da Silva, the FAPLA political commissar who presented the radio show Povo em Armas and was freed by the insurrectionists from São Paulo, died during interrogation on June 8^th. Amadeu Amorim Neves “Dédé” was summoned to an hour-long meeting with José Van-Dúnem on May 26^th but declined to take part in the demonstration. He was still picked up by DISA and tortured and has named the two agents responsible. After a spell in solitary confinement in the casa de reclusão, he was sent to Tari. He says his life was saved when a friend interceded with the DISA director Ludy and deputy director Onambwé.

President Lourenço is standing for re-election in August this year, a second five-year term would see him still in office when the 50^th anniversary of 27 de Maio comes around. Children orphaned by the 27 de Maio purge, amongst them the son of José Van-Dúnem and Sita Valles, are pleading with President Lourenço to accept that the current inquiry under Justice Minister Francisco Queiroz is too flawed. They say it’s time to name names: “You cannot issue pardons, if you can’t identify who they are for.” They argue that the best chance of closing the chapter on nearly half a century of pain, would be to set up Angola’s own Truth and Reconciliation Commission – a tried and tested process that can help a traumatized nation to heal, and which would leave a legacy of honesty and justice for generations to come.

* Former BBC World Service Luanda Correspondent, 1990-92

Sources:

• Anita Coulson’s contemporaneous notes taken between 1989-1992 from conversations with Angolans regarding 27 de Maio. Notes taken from conversations with British journalists, 1988-2007 including inter alia Mike Wooldridge, Alex Vines, Tony Hodges, Chris Simpson, Lara Pawson, Justin Pearce, Louise Redvers.
• Pawson Lara: In the Name of the People, Angola’s forgotten massacre; and IPRI https://files.libcom.org/files/pawson-lara-the-27-may-in-angola.pdf
• A tentative de golpe de Estado de 27 de Maio de 77, Informação do Buró Político do MPLA, 12 de Julho de 1977, Edições Avante.
• British Library copy of Revista Relações Internacionais No. 14, published in June 2007
•  Chabal P, Birmingham D, Forrest J, Newitt M, Seibert G & Silva Andrade E : A History of Postcolonial Lusophone Africa. (esp. Ch. 2 The construction of the Nation State, and Ch. 3 The limits of nationhood]
• Dalila Cabrita Mateus, Alvaro Mateus: Purga em Angola, o 27 de Maio de 1977.
• Davidson, Basil, ‘Questions of Nationalism’, African Affairs V. 76, No. 302, 1977.
• Fauvet, Paul: Angola, the rise and fall of Nito Alves in ‘Review of African Political Economy’ pp 88-104 no. 9 May-Aug 1978.
• Numerous Articles in Jornal Folha 8.
• Survivors stories published in Expresso 27 de Maio: relatos dos sobreviventes https://expresso.pt/internacional/2017-05-29-27-de-maio-relatos-de-sobreviventes
• Cronologia published in Esquerda May 22, 2017 retrieved from https://www.esquerda.net/dossier/cronologia/48785
• Deutsche Welle: series of articles on 27 de Maio (2021-2). https://www.dw.com/pt-002/27-de-maio-de-1977/t-17408128
• Orfãos do 27 de Maio pedem restos mortais dos pais, in VOA, May 27.2019 https://www.voaportugues.com/a/órfãos-do-27-de-maio-pedem-restos-mortais-dos-pais/4934185.html
• Apontamentos sobre o 27 de Maio de 1977 em Angola, published in Estrategizando: https://estrategizando.pt/2018/05/27/apontamentos-sobre-o-27-de-maio-de-1977-em-angola/
• Órfãos do 27 de Maio em Angola https://www.dn.pt/internacional/orfaos-do-27-de-maio-em-angola-aguardam-serenamente-os-restos-mortais-dos-seus-pais-13774024.html
• Memorial às vítimas dos conflitos politicos… Article in Novo Jornal, 13 Feb 2022 https://novojornal.co.ao/politica/interior/memorial-as-vitimas-dos-conflitos-politicos-vai-sair-do-papel—governa-abre-concurso-publico-para-a-empreitada-106811.html
• Associação 27 de Maio, “Festival Política – 27 de Maio en Angola: desinformação, auto-censura e silêncios”. https://27maio.com/festival-politica-27-de-maio-em-angola-desinformacao-auto-censura-e-silencios/
• Vítimas: os três músicos mais populares do MPLA https://www.esquerda.net/dossier/vitimas-os-tres-musicos-mais-populares-do-mpla/48600

In the week that the International Red Cross launched an eight-million-dollar appeal to help feed the starving population of drought-ridden southern Angola, the Angolan Audit Court (the equivalent of the National Audit Office) is due to rule on the legality of a highly controversial government property purchase worth more than ten times that amount.

Maka Angola was tipped off in November last year that the Angolan Minister of Transport had agreed on behalf of the government, to buy property from a lifelong friend at an inflated amount in what gave the appearance of both a conflict of interest and an attempt to defraud the public purse. The Welwitschia Business Centre and Chicala buildings had been on the market for several years at a lower price when Transport Minister Ricardo Veiga D’Abreu (in the photo) stepped in to offer his childhood friend Rui Óscar Ferreira Santos Van-Dúnem a staggering 91-million-dollars[1] to take them off his hands.

We passed on the information to the Office of the Attorney-General of the Republic with a formal complaint of suspected criminality requiring investigation. Our complaint alleged that, in the first instance, the Welwitschia building was not fit for the purpose expressed by the Transport Minister as the motive for purchase, as it was partly given over to residential apartments. Secondly, that the value of the building had been exaggerated taking into account the previous price at which it was offered for sale. Our information suggested that the newly-inflated price being asked of the government was the result of a ‘sweetheart deal’ between the minister and the owner – at the very least involving a conflict of interest.

The Attorney-General’s office initially announced it would proceed to investigate, only to later announce that the complaint could be archived. To date there has been no mention of the findings of any official investigation. And yet, a reliable source has let us know that the Audit Court is preparing to authorize payment in full this very week.

According to information from the Finance Ministry, once given the go-ahead, payment of 85 million US dollars will be made in two tranches, first via Treasury Bonds, and then from ordinary Treasury Account resources.

What this amounts to is that Angolan taxpayers, who might reasonably expect their government to use its resources to counter the drought and incipient famine in southern Angola, will instead see another exorbitant sum go into the private pockets of well-connected Angolans.

We are told that the Finance Ministry expressed objections to this unlikely property deal but were told to follow “ordens superiores” – orders from above usually meaning from the highest-ranking levels of the Angolan State. The question remains why the Office of the Attorney-General failed to use all the legal means at its disposal to suspend or freeze a transaction tainted by rumours of corruption which is ruinous for the State coffers. If the information given to Maka Angola is correct, shouldn’t the Attorney-General’s office have given speedy attention to investigating a potential crime of such magnitude? Why didn’t it order a freeze pending resolution?

How can the Finance Ministry explain its own U-turn? In fact, in total contravention of the President’s directive to chase up all allegations of corruption how is it even possible that evidence can be swept aside while politically exposed persons continue to bleed the public purse? How can the Transport Minister justify paying just an exorbitant amount to a lifelong friend for buildings that failed to sell at a lower price and which do not meet the specification for government offices?

Even supposing that Ricardo Veiga D’Abreu is innocent of any wrongdoing and followed due procedures to reveal the potential conflict of interest, allowing others to assess the worth of the planned property acquisition, it is unacceptable that the Justice System fails to follow its own procedures to investigate complaints of corruption and at the very least offer a report of its findings, particularly if the evidence would clear government officials accused of possible wrongdoing. There is nothing to show that the Attorney-General’s office has taken any action on this case – without which the Audit Court and the Finance Ministry see their hands tied. And once the millions of US dollars have disappeared into private hands, it proves difficult – if not impossible – to recover these public funds.

It defies common sense for one or more branches of government to be given the leeway to make payments in disputed arrangements of this kind, with no respect for due legal process. Under General João Maria de Sousa, the Attorney-General who served the notorious kleptocracy of the Dos Santos Administration, the organization was more inclined to observe the law of the jungle than the Laws of the land. Survival of the fittest in those days assured impunity only for the best connected and richest Angolans. Even so, General de Sousa took care not to publicize those cases he shunted off into the archives rather than investigate. If your intention is to conceal the crimes of the corrupt, it is probably advisable not to announce publicly what you are up to.

How can society at large, and those who take political office in the belief they should serve the general public, sustain their faith that the fight against corruption in Angola is serious, and intended to apply to all regardless of rank? If Justice is to be done, it needs to be seen to be done. That is, that from the moment a complaint of suspected criminality is made, there should be due process from beginning to end and not just a cover-up or an attempt to fob off or gag those who come forward with evidence.

Finance Minister Vera Daves is no fool. She knows that her role requires honesty and transparency regarding national finances. She owes her President and the Angolan people a faithful accounting that payments from the public purse follow the procedures laid down by law and conform to regulations. Angolans should expect nothing but honest dealing from the institutions of government and should be able to count on accurate and transparent accounts of major spending decisions.

Dubious deals should not be allowed to melt into the shadows and this is why Maka Angola is issuing this public challenge to the Transport Minister, the Finance Minister the Office of the Attorney-General of the Republic and whomsoever else may have information or evidence that will result in a comprehensive clarification of the circumstances of this property acquisition and the price demanded for it. Without overwhelming evidence that the buildings in question are both fit for purpose and that the price at which they are offered for sale reflects their actual market value, the Attorney-General should obtain an immediate court injunction to freeze this transaction.

[1] As per Presidential Decree 159/21 dated September 23rd, 2021.

Humanitarian organizations are warning of an impending food emergency in southern Angola as the region faces the aftermath of the worst recorded drought in nearly half a century.  Launching an urgent eight-million-dollar appeal, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said five consecutive years of severe drought had left more than 1.5 million people at risk of famine.  It’s not known how many may have died already as a result of drought and malnutrition but thousands of starving people braved crocodile-infested rivers to cross the border into Namibia to seek help and survivors reported many dying along the way.  Namibia is repatriating drought refugees who, given the ongoing conditions, are having to regroup in resettlement camps in Angola.

The Angola Red Cross has begun delivering primary assistance to the worst-affected areas in the provinces of Huila, Cunene and Namibe.  But the situation is said to be critical, after publication of a recent drought analysis report across the vulnerable provinces revealed half-a-million people were already in what was determined as an IPC[1] “Phase 3, Crisis” situation while 300,000 people had gone beyond that to “Phase 4, Emergency” status, in need of immediate supplies of food and water. 

From the numbers assessed so far, it’s estimated that as many as 400,000 children in the region will required treatment for some level of acute malnutrition this year.  The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined three levels of wasting malnutrition caused by sudden reductions in quantity or quality of food intake:  rising from Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) to Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM).

According to the European Union, the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)and International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) reported that current available funding will only allow the supply of UNICEF emergency nutrition packs to 11,000 of the 56,000 children assessed to date as suffering from SAM while the prevalence of GAM in some provinces is already above the emergency threshold of 15%. An analysis conducted in 10 municipalities revealed 114,000 children under five already in need of help but a breakdown in the supply ‘pipeline’ means it will take several months to restock therapeutic feeding supplies.

The IFRC drought report, published in March, assessed the situation across five provinces severely affected by water scarcity and the consequent compromised sanitation and hygiene conditions.  Of the 16 worst affected communes, 12 were in Cunene Province while Huila and Namibewere also highlighted as priority regions for interventions.  It sparked a joint Red Cross and Angolan government mission to visit the affected areas the following month, after which they agreed to combine efforts to devise a strategy to address the root causes of food insecurity and drought. 

GENESIS OF A FOOD CRISIS

This crisis has been years in the making with a once fertile and productive region increasingly beleaguered by conflict and drought.  Some of this is due to climate change.  But food insecurity has been growing across the region for decades.  Colonial-era farms were abandoned and fell into ruin after the mass exodus of European settlers upon Independence from Portugal in 1975.  The ensuing 37 years of civil war displaced hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and rendered large tracts of land unworkable due to the indiscriminate sowing of landmines, constantly shifting in the sandy soils. 

Rural areas have been waiting 20 years since the official end of that Civil War for the benefits of peace.  Reconstruction and development projects were repeatedly delayed not least because, instead of investing in development to benefit the entire nation, the corrupt and self-serving Dos Santos Administration diverted billions of dollars in oil revenue into secret bank accounts and shell companies in tax havens abroad.  Despite extreme poverty and the absence of infrastructure for storage, transport and sale of produce, rural communities survived so long as the rains came to water their crops and provide grazing for their cattle. 

Consecutive years of drought, exacerbated by the repeated depredations of locust swarms, resulted in poor harvests year on year and livestock, once the regional measure of a family’s wealth, were attenuated – and in some places wiped out – by disease and lack of fodder.  In the past, local pastoralists would have been able to use common grazing areas to feed their cattle during periods of drought but a report by Amnesty International found that 67 percent of that land is now occupied by commercial cattle ranches. 

The result has been that peasants and pastoralists alike exhausted their reserves and many lost their livelihoods altogether.  National economic and health crises such as Covid-19 compounded the situation, disrupting an already weak supply chain and forcing up market prices of increasingly scarce food supplies.   People reported having to eat grass and leaves to alleviate crippling hunger pangs.  Hunger exacerbated by lack of access to safe water and sanitation resulted in a deadly cycle of malnutrition and disease. 

The World Bank has assessed the economic impact of the drought at 749 million US dollars.  In March this year, it drew up an aid and loan package worth 300 million US dollars to finance physical investments in urban and rural areas  to increase water security and help manage climate extremes in selected areas, in a project called the Climate Resilience and Water Security in Angola Project (RECLIMA). Jean-Christophe Carret, World Bank Country Director for Angola, said the RECLIMA project will be co-financed by the French Development Agency (AFD) through a euro-denominated loan equivalent to $150 million and will be implemented in Huila, Cunene and Namibe along with five other provinces (Zaire, Benguela, Kwanza Sul, Cuando Cubango, and Luanda). 

IMMEDIATE RESPONSE AND PLANS

In the short term the IFRC has recommended combined government and humanitarian organizations mobilize to treat acute malnutrition in all children under five years of age, along with pregnant and lactating women, and other special attention categories.  It also recommends ongoing assistance to reduce the deficit in food and water supplies by opening new multi-purpose boreholes near communities for livestock watering and by making seeds available for the next season.  The IFRC further calls for expansion of the Kwenda programme (a monetary transfer social assistance programme) to the worst affected areas.

The Angola Red Cross has identified as priorities the communities of Cahama and Kalonga (in Cunene province), Gambos/Chiange and Ombadja (in Huila province), and Virei and Calueque (in Namibe province due to widespread need and the absence of assistance from other actors.  It plans to assist 328,880 people in those areas by distributing voucher and CASH-plus payments to families in the short term (reaching a total of 213,772 people) to cover basic needs. The Red Cross will also engage with community representatives to deliver public health information and advice. 

The Ministry of Health, with support partners such as UNICEF, has set up community kitchens targeting malnourished children. The Angola Red Cross is already collaborating with these community kitchens through the DREF and will be replicating and expanding this successful model to create 30 community kitchens to serve a further 164,442 people.  It is also planned to establish community nutrition gardens along the Cafu canal similar to the FRESAN project (supported by the EU in coordination with the government), which has had a considerable impact in support for water, sanitation, and hygiene education projects (WASH).

The Angolan government has agreed to combine efforts with the international humanitarian community to devise a comprehensive drought response strategy.   The Angolan Minister of State for the Social Area (currently Carolina Cerqueira) will chair an inter-ministerial committee liaising with the Humanitarian Country Coordination Team (comprising the IFRC, Angola Red Cross and UN agencies) to devise a future drought response strategy, with coordination and management of on-the-ground efforts through the Department of Civil Protection. In line with its Drought Response Plan, the government is undertaking major adaptation and mitigation projects, one of them being the Cafu Canal which diverts water from the Kunene River.

In addition to the work of the Angola Red Cross and other non-governmental organizations, UNICEF has been supporting the Angolan Ministry of Health with nutrition interventions in the worst-hit municipalities, while the WFP has been supporting food distribution in resettlement camps for the drought refugees repatriated from Namibia to Cunene province.  The IFRC has emphasized that the next response priority is to ensure that all children suffering, or likely to suffer, from acute malnutrition get access to treatment.  It recommends expanding the provision of essential integrated health and nutrition services at community level to deliver education on water and sanitation, including household harvesting of rainwater and good practice for treating drinking water and dealing with sanitation.   

LONG TERM STRATEGY

The IFRC and the Angola Red Cross are also working with different parties (the government, African Union, Africa Development Bank, UN agencies, among others) in a long-term engagement strategy to create mechanisms that will allow people to adapt and be more resilient to climate shocks. This longer-term strategy is aligned with the IFRC8 Call for action and Pan-African Zero Hunger Initiative that undertakes a holistic approach to food security, associating specific interventions for rapid nutrition, food security and livelihood support for acute food-insecure communities, with a long-term strategy working towards zero hunger and more sustainable development.

Further recommendations to the combined government and humanitarian drought response strategy team include finding a mechanism to give early earning of extreme weather events, and to promote the construction of dams, reservoirs and drainage channels connecting rivers and communities.

[1] The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is an innovative multi-partner initiative for improving food security and nutrition analysis and decision-making.  It allows Governments, UN Agencies, NGOs, civil society and other relevant actors, to work together to determine the severity and magnitude of acute and chronic food insecurity, and acute malnutrition situations in a country, according to internationally-recognised scientific standards.

How did the President of Angola’s Court of Auditors manage to afford a home worth almost eight million US dollars? Allegedly by getting the State to pick up the bill. Whistle-blowers say Exalgina Gambôa should have the decency to step down while the Office of the Attorney-General of the Republic conducts a criminal investigation. This latest scandal makes a mockery of the Angolan government’s promise to fight corruption: it shows how the highest-ranking public officials – even those appointed to uphold the law – can abuse it with impunity by making use of their rank and privilege to divert state funds for private ends while still avoiding investigation and prosecution for corruption.For too many years Angola’s predatory political class has operated on the assumption that prestige positions in public service grants them the right to live in unparalleled luxury with all expenses charged to the state. The expectation of privileges and rewards far in excess of what may be merited was a hallmark of the profoundly corrupt Dos Santos Administration and continues to taint so many of those who in theory profess to believe in public service but in practice use their public role to enrich themselves.

Information has reached Maka Angola that the woman appointed as President of the Court of Auditors, Exalgina Gambôa (in the photo), is the latest public official to succumb to the temptations of the high life. The case has all the hallmarks of a classic example of misuse of public funds for unchallenged, exorbitant expenditure in perquisites and benefits for individual office holders – straight out of the playbook operated by the Dos Santos kleptocracy to buy the silence and loyalty of their accomplices at all levels of government.

The evidence that Exalgina Gambôa treated the Court’s reserve fund as her private piggy bank is overwhelming. Judge Gambôa repeatedly authorized payments from the reserve to cover nearly four million US dollars[1] in redecoration and furnishing expenses for her residence alone. The records show that Judge Gambôa’s residence, a detached property in the exclusive luxury Malunga Condominium development in Luanda’s Talatona district, was purchased by the Angolan government in 2020 for 3.5 million US dollars. That immediately raises the question as to why government funds should be used at all to purchase private residences for public officials.

A typical floorplan for the 41 generously sized luxury homes constructed in the Malunga Condominium shows four bedrooms (all with ensuite bathrooms), two reception rooms and a fully equipped chef’s kitchen, with integral laundry room and flex room totalling some 4800 square feet (450 sq mts). Also included on the lot were an in-ground swimming pool, an outdoor BBQ kitchen area, and parking for four vehicles.

Yet this ‘perquisite of office’ apparently was not good enough for Judge Gamboa. She determined that a luxury property of that size should be further enhanced by half-a-million US dollars’ worth of upgrades and correspondingly upmarket décor and furnishings. Especially if she didn’t have to pay for these enhancements herself.

Documentary evidence provided to Maka Angola shows that she dipped into the Audit Court’s reserve coffers to cover the costs. Judge Gambôa repeatedly authorised payments from the Audit Court’s private reserve accounts: a payment of 212,800,000 (half-a-million USD) to Sholin Construction[2] for “remodelling”; three payments to Annus Mirabilis Decoration[3] totalling 1,426,000,000 Kwanzas (3.3 million USD) and a further payment (for high-end furniture for personal use) to João Justino António’s JAV firm[4] for 199 million Kwanzas (461,000 US).

Thus a final audit of the amount spent on providing a luxury home for the President of the Court of Auditors ends up costing the Republic of Angola nearly eight million US dollars, more than double the original purchase price of the property.

Sources at the Court of Auditors have confirmed that since her appointment in 2018, Judge Gambôa has never authorized any institutional renovations other than for her own office.

What she did authorize (also from the Audit Court’s private reserve funds) was the acquisition of a luxury home for her deputy in Dalm Condominium in the Talatona neighbourhood; a snip at 189 million Kwanzas (437,000 USD)[5]. To be fair Exalgina spent six times that amount just on furniture for her own place… and in an extraordinary coincidence, somehow furniture obtained from JAV for this “lesser” residence for her deputy cost almost as much as it did for Exalgina’s place.

We spoke to Audit Court judges, including members who attended the plenary chaired by Judge Gambôa. Speaking off the record, or on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, they told Maka Angola that Exalgina Gambôa openly told the plenary that “the Court’s reserve coffers” were hers to dispose of as she saw fit.

A government source told us the Finance Ministry had rejected a budgetary request from Judge Gambôa for 2,000,000,000 (two-thousand-million kwanzas (=USD) to furnish her ‘official residence’ before she turned to her “private piggy bank”, i.e. the Audit Court’s reserve funds.

It appears to be a prima facie case of corruption for investigation by the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, which should additionally demand an explanation for expenses incurred regarding a mysterious additional payment of 526 million kwanzas (1.217 million USD) authorized by Judge Gambôa from the Audit Court’s reserves to a real estate company named Urbanização Nova Vida in February 2021. What did this buy and for whom?

A source told us: “The Court of Auditors acquired homes for the advisory judges in Boavida Condominium[6] and we have no records at all of any property acquired on behalf of the Court from Nova Vida.”  However, Urbanização Nova Vida is a real estate project owned by a company named Imogestin, and the President of the Board of Directors of Imogestin is a man named Rui Cruz, who just happens to be Exalgina Gambôa’s ex-husband.

The Court of Auditors’ mission is to “audit the legality of the financial and administrative actions of the State and all public or private institutions as determined by the Law, to ensure the appropriate application of public resources for the benefit of Angolan citizens”.

We contacted the Court of Auditors to ask for an explanation of Judge Gambôa’s expenditure.  The official response, signed by Gonçalo Leitão, simply states that “Court expenditures are in accordance with the annual accounts drawn up and approved by the Court’s Plenary Body” citing diverse laws[7] as though these were sufficient authorization for untrammelled spending by the highest Court official. On reading the official response, our legal adviser described it as “a joke”.

How is it possible to reconcile the use of public funds for private ends by the Audit Court President as “the appropriate application of public resources”? And how can anyone have faith in the Audit Court’s ability to supervise the legality of any financial administration by the state if its top official is not called to account for their abuse of public funds?

Following Maka Angola’s report on Audit Court President Exalgina Gambôa’s US$4 million dollar spend on home décor for her government-gifted US$4 million dollar private residence, evidence has emerged of anger and disbelief amid the Audit Court Plenary Advisory Judges who were rushed into approving, without proper scrutiny, the Court’s annual accounts.  The whole process appears to have been crafted to obscure evidence that without due authorization Exalgina Gambôa had far exceeded the amounts for magisterial perquisites permitted by law, and in so doing had committed a crime and brought the Audit Court into disrepute.

A scathing letter from Elisa Rangel Nunes, President of the Second Chamber of the Audit Court, dated June 22^nd, expresses her dismay that an institution, “defined in the Angolan Constitution as the body that sits at the apex of supervision and control of public spending” has been irredeemably tarnished by its most senior official whose corrupt behaviour has now gone viral in the public domain. Judge Rangel writes “the institution is now viewed by Angolans as unfit to meet its goals” because of the “improper acts” of its administrator.

News of the scandal broke when Maka Angola reported in detail based on irrefutable documentary evidence that Judge Gambôa had diverted obscene amounts of public money from the Audit Court Reserve Funds to remodel, decorate and furnish a brand-new property costing more or less the same amount which had been gifted to her by the state on account of her position. So far no explanation has been forthcoming from her for these and other enormous sums which she authorized for a separate property which appears to have nothing to do with the Court of Auditors at all. Sources close to Judge Gambôa have questioned whether there is any possibility this mystery property might be to the benefit of members of her family? Maka Angola has put these allegations to Judge Gambôa and awaits her answer.

In her letter, Elisa Rangel bravely acknowledges that she failed in her duty to verify and audit the President’s actions. It is clear that Maka Angola’s publication of indisputable evidence shocked Judge Rangel into awareness of the procedural illegality of her superior’s access to and disposal of public money, resulting in her writing a coruscating letter to Judge Gambôa.  The letter itself, in effect, is an admission of guilt – that in the absence of effective control over Audit Court President Gambôa’s disbursements, she was able to execute the “economic capture” of the institution she was appointed to supervise.

We notified the Audit Court of the allegations and gave them the right of reply prior to publishing the evidence sent to us regarding Audit Court President Gambôa’s spending habits. The official response, issued on June 16^th by their public relations department (with no word from Judge Gambôa herself), cited various Angolan laws and regulations which in their understanding duly awarded Judge Gambôa the authority to approve any spending she alone might deem appropriate, The response also noted that the Court Plenary had endorsed this. “The Court’s spending is accounted for in the Annual Reports which are drawn up and approved by the Plenary Session of the Court of Auditors”, as decreed by the laws and regulations concerning the rights and accoutrements of Magistrates[1].

However Judge Rangel make three significant points in her letter to Judge Gambôa, which point to a failure to follow the procedures which would have prevented any overspend or infringement of the law.

First she points to the President’s autocratic administrative style and the shortcuts in procedure by which she was able to get her spending approved by the Plenary.

Secondly she points to the maximum spending limits established by the Court for residences and furnishings of the Judiciary.

And thirdly she points to the legal requirement for independent financial audit by an external body[2] as per Article 50 of the the Law governing the Internal Structure and Governance of the Court of Auditors:

“External control of the Court of Auditors is subject to [the rules] set out in law for all those responsible for financial affairs and takes the following forms:

(b) Annual external vetting of the accounts of the Court’s coffers, this being the ultimate guarantor of the probity of the services which are the legal responsibility of the Court.”

Judge Rangel emphasizes that the legal requirements for the “analysis and evaluation of spending and receipts from the Court’s coffers, through annual accounts, have the exact same stringent requirements as they would for the Court’s own analysis and evaluation of the spending and receipts of other public institutions”. She goes on to write: “compliance with the law may appear irksome but it constitutes a form of protection”

Elisa Rangel then outlines how Exalgina Gambôa has broken the law by her failure to comply with the internal verification procedures of the Court of Auditors’ Reserves. She notes that the annual financial report was presented in individual sealed envelopes that were only handed to each of the Counsellor Judges of the Court Plenary seconds before the start of the plenary session that rubber-stamped approval. In other words, Judge Gambôa gave her colleagues no opportunity to study the accounts, or question them, before putting their approval to the vote.

Furthermore, she says the main body of the Annual Report only reflected the “sum of movements in receivables and outlay relative to the 2021 financial year, while the full breakdown of spending by beneficiary from January through December of that year was only contained in a single appendix attached to the report, with each amount expressed in the national currency, the Kwanza.”  Judge Rangel points out, “This annexe is the only record of those disbursements on furnishings not destined for the Court itself but for a private residence, as reported by the journalist who questions the excessive amounts spent.”

Judge Rangel reflects that the Plenary Advisory Judges were given no opportunity to verify, or question, individual spending items to ensure budgetary compliance. “I personally had no opportunity to study the full picture of monetary spending, item by item, and could never have imagined that such excessive amounts could be diverted to furniture to fill a single residence.

In fact, there are maximum spending limits laid down by law for the acquisition, furnishing and decoration of residences for the Court’s Advisory Panel of Judges. “The Court may only spend a maximum of 200 million Kwanzas (the equivalent of US$ 500,000 dollars) on the property itself, and a maximum amount of 85 million Kwanzas (US $ 200,000 dollars) on décor”, i.e. a sixth of the actual spend.

“I can now state for the record that the Audit Court Plenary gave its approval to the annual report without due consideration or proper oversight as none of those present was given the time or opportunity to question the individual amounts laid out [in the appendix]. “I admit my own blame in this matter, my mea culpa”, writes Judge Rangel, “that as one of the Court Advisory Judges who approved the contents, we inadvertently gave you the comfort you sought.”

This alone is an admission that the Plenary Judges failed to meet their obligations and failed in their duty of care by glossing over a report which was intentionally drafted to obscure illegal spending and which they failed to note had not been subjected to an independent external audit as required by law.

Elisa Rangel goes on to excoriate Exalgina Gambôa’s autocratic administrative style, noting that in practice it is useless for individual Judges to try to question any of the Audit Court President’s actions or spending, “given that her administration is clearly self-serving, and she has installed a Governance Board which does not dare to challenge or question her.”

This leads Judge Rangel to wonder “how on earth this journalist was able to gain access to the data, with specific sums and dates for all that was spent out of the Reserve Fund. This information can only have come from the departments forced to pay the contractors who had access to the paperwork signed by your own hand.” 

“And now this journalist is asking pertinent questions regarding concrete information with such specific detail that it is terrifying”. “Where does this end?”, questions Luisa Rangel. “How many more acts remain to be scrutinized and made public.” She ends her letter with advice to the President “that she and all her cohort must act with greater care as we are all public servants and must be accountable and transparent in all we do while in this role. This advice is clearly too little and too late.

As Pepetela has remarked, the next step in light of Elisa Rangel’s letter is for an immediate in-depth independent external audit of all the Audit Court’s accounts and reserve funds over that and preceding years so that the Audit Court President can be held to account for any and all irregularities.

This is a task that falls to the National Assembly, the peoples’ parliament, which is required by law to act on the information of financial malfeasance now in the public domain, in accordance with the Law of Governance and Procedures for the Court of Auditors.  Article 10, Clause 3 clearly states:

“It is a legal requirement that the accounts of the Court of Auditors, including its Reserve Coffers, undergo an independent audit process, with the designated firm to be selected on the basis of public tender.”  Why haven’t the peoples’ representatives in the National Assembly already acted? It appears they have distinguished themselves only by their total somnolence and failure to organize open competition for the legally required independent audit that would hold self-dealing officials such as Exalgina Gambôa to account. It is now a matter of utmost urgency that the National Assembly stir itself (or be required to stir itself by presidential decree) to act as the law requires.

[1] Law 7/94 Statute regarding Judicial and Public Ministry Magistrates.

[2] Article 50, Law 19/19 

The controversial former President of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, is reportedly close to death at the private Teknon clinic in Barcelona[1] while family members fight over who has the right to switch off the machines keeping him alive. Amid unconfirmed reports that the 79-year-old former head of state is brain dead, the right of his wife, Ana Paula Lemos dos Santos, to take decisions as his next of kin is challenged by some of his children. His daughter, Welwitschia dos Santos, wants a full police investigation into what she alleges was “attempted homicide, criminal negligence, a failure to render assistance and a breach of medical confidentiality”.

An official statement released “on behalf of the family”, late last week, stated that the former President had suffered a cardiac and respiratory arrest after falling downstairs at his Barcelona residence. This account is disputed by Welwitschia, known as ‘Tchizé’, who has instructed a lawyer to seek an injunction to prevent her father’s wife Ana Paula and his long-term Angolan physician Dr João Afonso, from making any decision on end-of-life care.

At the heart of this dispute is who gains control of the Dos Santos family fortune, and whether he should be buried in Angola or abroad. Despite his global notoriety for having presided over a kleptocracy, Dos Santos enshrined in the 2010 Constitution immunity from prosecution for five years after stepping down to ensure he personally would not face justice for the missing billions of petrodollars. However, several of his children[2] have been caught up in his successor’s anti-corruption campaign.

His first-born, Isabel, cannot return to Angola without facing charges of illegal diversion of funds and money laundering, while the eldest of her half-brothers, José Filomeno de Sousa dos Santos, spent several months in jail, and in 2021 the Supreme Court upheld his conviction and sentenced him to five years in prison. He cannot leave Angola. Tchizé, a former member of the Angolan parliament, fled the country in 2019 claiming her life was at risk due to what she called the “political vendetta against the Dos Santos family”. She too is facing charges, having benefited from her father’s largesse to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Through her lawyer (and via social media) ‘Tchizé’ alleges that a breach of confidentiality in releasing medical information, criminal negligence resulting in unexplained injuries and a failure of duty of care in seeking timely assistance for her father, amount to an attempted homicide. “As his daughter I will never permit them to turn off the [life support] machines while my father lives, while his heart is beating normally, a heart that is in good condition. He never had a heart attack, never had a cerebrovascular accident.”[3]

It was rumoured (but never confirmed) that José Eduardo was suffering from cancer while still President. He first went to Barcelona for medical treatment in 2006. After leaving office he then arranged a permanent residence in the Catalan city and lived there from April 2019 until his return to Luanda in September 2021. While at his Miramar residence in the capital he met President Lourenço in December and again in March before deteriorating health forced a return to Barcelona.

Tchizé alleges her father lost 30 kilos in weight during the six month he spent in Luanda, leaving him frail and in a wheelchair. She argues that as Ana Paula and her father had lived apart for some years, she had forfeited her rights as a spouse. Legal experts demur, pointing out that Ana Paula remains his legitimate wife and therefore his next-of-kin. They say it is not uncommon for couples to live apart but remain married and the former President had every opportunity to repudiate her but did not.

In addition to pointing the finger at Ana Paula for abandonment and negligence which she said worsened her father’s ill-health, Tchizé is clearly also taking aim at her father’s erstwhile ally. She floats the idea that João Lourenço might have wanted Dos Santos out of the picture before this year’s elections because her father had become so disillusioned at the legal pursuit of his children that it was possible that he could have voiced support for his former battlefield enemy, UNITA. Since he left office, the cost of Dos Santos’s private medical care, his family’s personal expenses, and those of his security detail, have continued to be met by the Angolan State. President Lourenço has emphasised that paying the bills does not give the government any say in decisions regarding Dos Santos’s ongoing medical care or when it should end. This is entirely a matter for his family. But concern over Dos Santos’s condition led Lourenço to telephone Ana Paula before despatching his Foreign Minister to Spain. Téte António now has the difficult diplomatic task of reconciling the warring Dos Santos family members so that when the inevitable happens, the remains of the former President can be returned to his homeland for the state funeral to which he is entitled.

[1] The Teknon Medical Centre is part of the private hospital group Quirónsalud, which also includes the Quirón Clinic, where the former Gabonese president Omar Bongo Ondimba died in 2009

[2]Dos Santos has acknowledged eight children by four women: Isabel, his eldest, born in 1973, is the only child from his first marriage to ‘the Russian’, Tatiana Kukanova, whom he met while studying in Azerbaijan. José Filomeno was born from a liaison with Filomena Sousa. A relationship with Maria Luísa Perdigão Abrantes produced Welwitschia José (Tchizé) and her brother José Eduardo Paulino (Coreon Dú). A liaison with Maria Bernarda Gourgel “Dadinha” produced one more son: Joess before his re-marriage to presidential plane flight attendant Ana Paula Cristovão Lemos in 1992 produced Eduane Danilo, Joseane, and Eduardo Breno.

[3] AVC (Acidente Vascular Cerebral), Cerebrovascular Accident = brain haemorrhage

On Friday July 8, coinciding with news of the death of former Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, it was revealed that two of his closest associates face trial on corruption charges in connection with business deals funded by the Peoples’ Republic of China to purchase Angolan oil and fund post-war reconstruction.

Facing multiple criminal charges are two Angolan Generals, Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior (better known by his nom-de-guerre, ‘Kopelipa’), and Leopoldino Fragoso de Nascimento (aka General ‘Dino’) along with co-defendants including Fernando Gomes dos Santos (a lawyer), a Chinese national, You Haming, and three corporate bodies: the China International Fund (CIF) and two companies registered offshore, Plansmart and Utter Right.  

The indictment, signed by three prosecutors[1] from the Ministério Público (Office of Public Prosecution) on July 4, runs to 80 pages listing 233 separate clauses detailing the alleged crimes, and citing 36 named witnesses to be called to testify. Generals ‘Kopelipa’ and ‘Dino’ both face trial on multiple charges of criminal association, money-laundering, fraud, falsification of documents and influence-peddling. General ‘Kopelipa’ faces additional charges of abuse of power and peculation.

BUT WHAT ABOUT MANUEL VICENTE?

Inexplicably, the third member of former President dos Santos’s ‘Triumvirate’, his one-time Vice-President and the National Oil Company Sonangol chairman and CEO Manuel Vicente, seems to have slipped the net. Vicente had been Dos Santos’s right-hand man in moving petrodollars into their various get-rich-quick schemes over decades and was also the prime mover of the relationship with China, including with the notorious Chinese ‘agent and fixer’ Sam Pa (currently serving a prison sentence in China for corruption).

The indictment reveals that at least at US $1.5 billion of China’s payment for Angolan oil were never passed on to Sonangol or Angola. It stressed that a Hong Kong-based company named ‘China Sonangol International Holding Limited’ (CSIHL), took and kept China’s payments for itself while acting as an intermediary. Guess what? According to the indictment, the chairman of CSIHL, which had no office or representative based in Angola, was none other than Manuel Vicente, chairman and CEO of Sonangol during these transactions.

Isn’t it curious then, when Manuel Vicente appears to have been the principal actor in this ingenious scheme to defraud the Angolan Treasury and the state-owned Sonangol company, that he is neither indicted nor called as a witness? Instead the chief prosecution witness from Sonangol is Francisco de Lemos Maria, Vicente’s successor as chairman and CEO (who arguably should be on the charge sheet himself). Lemos Maria had been Sonangol’s Chief Finance Officer during Vicente’s tenure. Other VIP witnesses include Carlos Feijó, the former Minister of State and the President’s Chief of Staff, and the former President of ESCOM, (Espírito Santo Commerce), a subsidiary of the Portuguese conglomerate Grupo Espírito Santo, Hélder Bataglia.

It is the case that as a former Vice-President, Manuel Vicente has enjoyed five years of immunity from prosecution for any crimes committed during his mandate, but that expires in September 2022. In any event, jurists argue that immunity conferred on him as Vice-President does not cover crimes he may have committed as the head of Sonangol from 1999-2012. It makes no sense for the state prosecution to issue an indictment that imputes crimes to Manuel Vicente on dozens of pages without including him as a defendant.

ZANGO

The prosecution case contains detailed (and exhaustive) evidence of a shady scheme by which the state was defrauded of hundreds of millions of dollars. Several buildings, funded through the Gabinete de Reconstrução Nacional (GRN), and intended for public housing in the Zango neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the capital, were sold back to Sonangol by CIF, leaving the state owning none of the buildings it had paid for.  In some instances, the state paid for the same buildings twice over with nothing to show for it. Inevitably, the state funds came directly from Sonangol (under Manuel Vicente). So, although General Kopelipa was tangentially involved as Head of the GRN, the financial sleight of hand in paying for buildings that were sold on for sums that were not paid to the real owner, was overseen by Manuel Vicente. And, according to the indictment, some US $2.5 billion of the funds routed to the GRN for reconstruction came from Chinese loans.

Furthermore, from 2010 onwards, management of the GRN building projects intended for public housing was transferred from the GRN to Sonangol. They were under the responsibility of both Manuel Vicente and two senior directors serving under him:  Francisco Lemos José (then CFO and later his successor) and Orlando Veloso. Moreover, the private employee of Vicente, Paulo Cascão, signed on behalf CIF for the sales to Sonangol with a power of attorney granted him by the same Vicente. Why then aren’t these four men facing charges in the Zango housing project case? The defence is likely to argue that General Kopelipa had no direct oversight of this project and General Dino was not involved in it. To add to the confusion, Paulo Cascão was also the executive director of Delta Imobiliária, which sold the Chinese-built social housing projects to the public. Kopelipa, Dino and Vicente, aka the ‘Triumvirate’, were the beneficial owners of Delta Imobiliária.

CHINA INTERNATIONAL FUND

A third instance of corruption cites the infamous China International Fund (CIF) with evidence that public funds for the construction of buildings were (once again) used for private ends. General Dino’s only connection with the CIF came at the direct request of President dos Santos to make sense of the CIF’s financial affairs and General Kopelipa’s only involvement was to organize the transfer to the state of all CIF assets in Angola as reparation.

However, the indictment fails to mention key information on the CIF matter offered by former President José Eduardo dos Santos himself. He wrote to Pitta Grós, the Attorney-General of the Republic, both on December 20, 2020 and November 8, 2021 offering his full cooperation in the investigation into the CIF scandal. The Attorney-General never replied. So the former President voluntarily prepared a detailed 12-page deposition, duly notarized, in which he completely exonerates General Dino of any responsibility in the affairs of the CIF, stating that “Lt Gen Leopoldino Fragoso de Nascimento and Dr Fernando Santos had nothing to do with the CIF company and had no knowledge of the origin of the funds that were invested in CIF Ltd.”  This deposition also states for the record that General Kopelipa acted lawfully, under the President’s instructions, in the matter.

It is clear from the content and tone of the deposition that former President dos Santos takes full responsibility, exonerates Kopelipa and Dino, and emphasizes that all actions taken in connection with the CIF were in the interests of post-war reconstruction.

THE OBLIGATION TO PRODUCE ALL AVAILABLE EVIDENCE

In itself this does not relieve the members of the Triumvirate from a case to answer on their involvement in these (and numerous other) questionable business ventures on behalf of former President dos Santos. All the senior members of the Dos Santos Administration who became obscenely wealthy – allegedly because of opaque business deals financed by public money conducted through offshore shell companies – have questions to answer.

However, they also have the right to a fair trial, and to the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven to the satisfaction of the courts of law. It is, therefore, the duty both of the state prosecutors and the defence lawyers to ensure they produce all the available evidence, especially testimony from the key actors. This would involve both admitting the former President’s notarized deposition into evidence and requiring the testimony of Manuel Vicente and others involved in, connected to, or with knowledge of, the alleged crimes.

[1] State Prosecution Attorneys Pedro Carvalho, Manuel Bambi, and Gilberto Vunge.

Ahead of Angola’s presidential and parliamentary elections this month, the United States Senate has taken the unusual step of passing a resolution calling for the electoral process to be conducted fairly, peacefully and transparently. Angolans might feel affronted by this: doesn’t their Constitution, along with numerous laws and regulations, already guarantee this?

The Senate Resolution says: “Angola is classified as ‘Not Free’ by Freedom House due to the ruling MPLA’s abuse of state institutions to control political processes and limit free expression”. It is critical of state control over the mass media and bureaucratic interference in opposition parties, and demands all parties and candidates be allowed to campaign without undue restriction, harassment or intimidation.

For this election to be credible, the US Senate urges the Angolan government to take a number of measures, including making electoral rolls public and allowing the European Union to send election monitors. In effect, the Americans have documented widespread concerns that Angola pays lip service to democracy while continuing to tilt the scales in favour of the ruling MPLA party.

In one way or another, the MPLA can access resources denied to any other political party. As the party of government, it can set rules and put people in place that may give the MPLA an advantage over the others. And in the event of any dispute over the conduct of the electoral process, including any challenge to the announced result, the MPLA can count on a roster of judges who owe their positions to the party that has ruled Angola since Independence in 1975.

It’s been two decades since the end of the civil war, yet most Angolans have yet to see any peace dividend. Where is the promised infrastructure and economic development for the far-flung provinces? Amid growing frustration and discontent many experts believe this election could see popular support for the MPLA begin to ebb and any attempt to rig the election could then spark unrest.

Diverse countries have different interpretations of democracy and the mere existence of laws, or the holding of periodic elections, may not necessarily guarantee fairness. Although this is the fifth multiparty election since 1992, Angola’s government and institutions have not always upheld democratic values, such as freedom of the press, the freedom to organise and register political parties and without an independent and impartial judiciary, there can be no confidence that the government can be held to account for any malpractice.

It’s strange then that none of the parties contesting this election has included in their manifesto any mention of judicial reform. Angola’s recent history has shown that the Justice system is in urgent need of reform, starting with a root-and-branch review of the judiciary. Far too many serving judges, especially at the most senior levels, have shown themselves to be partisan and incapable of giving independent and impartial judgement. Why else would the Attorney General of the Republic have determined to prosecute certain individuals but not others, regardless of overwhelming evidence?

If Angola wishes its political system to be respected across the globe, it is not enough to tackle economic questions – it must take concrete action to guarantee the separation and independence of the legislative, administrative and judicial estates.

The 58-page MPLA manifesto proclaims its overall strategy as ‘to consolidate peace and a democratic state of law and continue to reform the state, justice system, public administration, social communication, freedom of expression, and civil society’. This is the one and only time that the word “Justice” appears and there is no mention of how they might intend to reform it. This is extraordinary given the emphasis placed by the incumbent government on the fight against corruption. As we have seen, the judicial system was inadequate and unprepared to tackle this titanic task, leading to criticisms that its members excused some while pursuing a politically motivated vendetta against others.

The Angolan legal system has been dysfunctional and subordinate to realpolitik from the start. Add to this the inexperience, or lack of adequate training, of judges and it is hardly surprising there was no agreed procedure or template for handling complex financial crimes. These circumstances gave rise to an unsystematic and tardy case by case treatment.

As for the main opposition party, UNITA, mentions of judicial reform embrace lofty ideals such as ‘a national plan for judicial infrastructure’ to deliver ‘more straightforward, accessible and speedy justice”. However, it too fails to detail any specific measures as to how to improve the system or introduce technological innovation.

The absence of concrete plans to reform the judicial system has become a bone of contention in Angola in recent years. The country is still waiting for the most corrupt offenders to be brought to justice, men such as Manuel Vicente, the former Sonangol President elevated to Deputy President of Angola during the Dos Santos Administration. His post guaranteed him immunity from prosecution for a period of five years and there is considerable expectation as to what may happen when that period ends in September.

TALKING POINTS

Maka Angola has consulted legal experts with a view to offering the government and opposition parties some ideas for judicial reform: e.g.,

Who writes the campaign speeches for the Angolan President? A statistician? For a couple of hours on Wednesday, João Lourenço stupefied would-be MPLA supporters at a campaign rally in Malanje with a stuttering list of his government’s ‘achievements’ over the past five years, doing nothing to inspire confidence in MPLA’s ability to deliver on their promise of a better future.

Suffice to say, the speech was not well received by those in attendance. As the speech dragged on the frustration of those in attendance, particularly the young people, became all too clear. Members of the audience chatted, flittered, and giggled throughout, disregarding what was being said by the President. It was impossible to ignore the contempt demonstrated by the younger members of the audience, a clear signal that the MPLA was an antiquated out-of-touch party quickly losing its once uncontested grip on a pivotal demographic.

At times the President would start a new sentence, or paragraph, by emphatically shouting “MALANJE!”, the name of the town, followed by a minute-long pause. I began to wonder if he’d lost his place while reading out his speech or if this were a pre-recorded segment and there’d been some technical malfunction. The pregnant pause would eventually be followed by the next point on his list.

Through the years MPLA demagogues had become accustomed to engaging in a call-and-response routine. Perhaps Lourenço was pausing because he expected thousands of people to respond: “PRESENTE, CAMARADA PRESIDENT”, however, no such response came, and the organizers scrambled to fill the silence with canned applause to save face. The failure to parrot the expected reply made it clear they no longer see the MPLA leader as their comrade.

I was there with an Angolan journalist. We circulated, talking to people as we went, trying to gauge their most pressing concerns and whether any of the visiting candidates had enthused them. Some, perhaps suspicious of our intent, said at first that “naturally” their vote would be “for the MPLA, the peoples’ party”. But those who carried on talking to us soon revealed their disillusion. Anyone born after 2002, when the brutal civil war ended, had no reason to share their grandparents’ allegiance to a movement that brought liberation from colonialism, nor their parents’ acceptance of the wartime one-party system. They see no reason to support the historic party of government: “We study but there are no jobs for us, no future here.”

One after another, young people revealed their growing discontent with the current system. “People are hungry” was the most common complaint. “Everything is too expensive”.

Unfulfilled promises

Angola’s expected peace dividend has not brought any improvement in living standards for the majority. As João Lourenço droned on about some 500 new homes built in Malanje while the tens of thousands of people still living in crumbling colonial bungalows or one-roomed straw and mud huts, were grumbling “Well, who lives there? Not us”.

A one-party state accustomed to a centrally-planned economy may see itself as the paternalistic provider of everything, including housing, for the people. It creates a system of preferred patronage in which people have no option but to expect the state to provide. However, these days Malanje has grown far beyond the scope of a town that has had no significant construction since the colonial period. Over a million people now live in and around the town and it would be impossible for the state alone to satisfy the housing needs of so many.

As the President boasted of new roads completed to link Malanje to the capital, Luanda, some 350 kilometres to the west, those of us who had just endured six hours of giant potholes and dirt-road diversions were left blinking and open-mouthed at the blatant untruth.

The MPLA has spent millions on this campaign. The party hands out hats, t-shirts, wraps, flags, whistles, and beads in single use plastic bags, all emblazoned with the party logo – and sometimes the President’s face as well. It busses in thousands of party loyalists for the rallies. They are carefully placed right in front, stage-managed to show uncontrollable excitement to be captured by the cameras of the state-owned media, which fully controlled by the governing party. These party members whistle, cheer, pump fists and wave flags as required. But look ten rows back at those who came under their own steam to gawp at their President and hear his pitch, and you find people kissing their teeth, jeering openly, spitting at the empty promises repeated over 47 years and still undelivered.

Malanje is traditionally one of the MPLA strongholds. My strong impression is that the MPLA has already lost the youth vote here and may struggle to retain the loyalty of long-term supporters. Outside of the urban areas, Angola’s government has retained traditional leadership structures. Rural communities look to their traditional chief, the soba for guidance.

At this rally, the MPLA had brought the chiefs in from all over the province, some of them collected as early as 3 am. I was shocked to see them forced to sit on the ground, in the red dirt, at the side of the main stage. By midday with the sun burning down, the temperature had risen to 32º C with no cooling breeze. These sobas, many of them elderly, had been sitting there for hours with not so much as a cup of water given to them. They weren’t invited to join the President for lunch at the governor’s mansion – that was for the party apparatchiks.

It should surprise no-one to learn that the traditional authorities complain of being disrespected and maltreated. In conversation with one of the few female chiefs later –Soba Maria – she told me that the government has done nothing for her people: her community has no paved roads, no medical clinic, no school, no sanitation, only a single communal water pump with no other infrastructure whatsoever. As I was driven through rural areas surrounding the provincial capital after dark, long lines of people, mostly barefoot, were walking in single file at the road’s edge in pitch black conditions, many carrying on their heads baskets of the fruits and vegetables they had grown or gathered that day, as they made their way home.

Many people here count themselves lucky if they can provide a single meal for their family once a day. Empty bellies fuel discontent and the MPLA is clearly out of touch with the grinding existence of the people it has governed for four decades. Their campaign strategy seems so out-of-touch with reality: hours devoted to a litany of (frankly) paltry achievements, instead of an attempt to empathise and offer solutions.

Freedom of expression

Remarkably, younger people feel much freer to express their disapproval of the government compared with previous years. Over and over, we saw young men and women flashing the three-fingered sign that means they support the main opposition party, UNITA, or slating the current government out loud in public. Self-censorship for fear of immediate reprisal (at best detention and a beating, at worst maybe a bullet) has evaporated as quickly as peoples’ belief that the MPLA is capable of funding development across the provinces and not just filling the pockets of its leaders. This is a concrete achievement by President Lourenço, yet he never mentions it.

The MPLA seems in thrall to the cult of personality, as though their leader’s presence is enough. There was little or no attempt to adjust the text of his speech to make it relevant to the people of Malanje except for a fleeting reference to agriculture. Clearly the party is conscious of the perception that it has failed Angolans in the provinces but a list of economic talking points, such as how the Lourenço’s government has lowered national debt, is meaningless when the vast majority have no formal education beyond elementary or secondary school.

The President’s only nod to the actual locale of the rally (other than pathetic attempts to conjure a success out of residential construction for the few and road construction yet to be completed) was a little segment on agriculture and how the fertility of the ground and climate in Malanje could supply food reserves for years for Angola. “Could” is the operative word here. Without government investment in safe roads or rail links to nearby markets and refrigeration at more distant ones, without help for irrigation, fertilisation, seeds and seedlings, agricultural implements and machinery, how is this to be achieved in practice?

The lack of enthusiasm amongst the majority of those present in Malanje was so noteworthy that the MPLA organizers began to play canned applause for the moments when President Lourenço stopped speaking. He must have noticed, surely? Even the most charismatic of politicians would find it hard to win re-election on the strength of this campaign.

What’s the alternative?

What may yet save the MPLA is the conviction amongst many that the Opposition would do no better. “All these people (government members and officials) may be poor when they take the job, but they are rich very soon after,” one of our interlocutors was happy to be quoted as saying. It was a much-repeated sentiment.

The other factor in the MPLA’s favour is appreciation that Lourenço came to power inheriting a looted country, which, together with the falling price of oil and the COVID pandemic, hampered his efforts to relaunch the economy. Some say he should be given the chance of a second term to see if the MPLA really can deliver. Others argue that the President’s economic team are the same bad apples (with few exceptions) that helped Dos Santos plunder the Treasury. Perhaps, aware of the precariousness of his position, instead of a clean sweep Lourenço felt he had no option but to fill positions with loyalists at a time of transition.

Also, it cannot be discounted that the governing party came into this race with many advantages over its main opponent: it set the rules for the election, it counts on the resources and finances of government, absolute control of the state media, and can tip the balance in its own favour. The main opposition party, UNITA, has failed to put together a convincing and coherent manifesto. There are no specifics, no concrete plans, backed by evidence of how they would be financed or achieved.

Internal migration and demographic change showed in 2017 that UNITA has considerable support outside its traditional heartland. The MPLA knows the era when it could guarantee victory across the board, is over. UNITA’s candidate, Adalberto da Costa Júnior, says the Angolans are ready for change. And yes, they are. But does he have an experienced competent team who can hit the ground running, who have clear goals and estimates of how much of the national budget they can put towards achieving each one.

Silent on necessary reforms

Pro-democracy advocates argue that Angola needs a cross-party agreement for a separation of powers as well as a devolution of powers (and budgets) at provincial and municipal levels if things are to change. This would require considerable investment in training for public administrators and judges, appointed by selection on the basis of the best qualified, rather than partisanship, to create a non-political (or apolitical) cadre of career-minded public servants.

The current electoral system does not allow voters to pass judgement on corrupt or incompetent individuals. The electorate can only express a preference for one or other of the eight parties whose registration was approved, each of which has a slate of candidates in hierarchical order, the first of which is their leader and candidate for President. An Angolan voter does not have the power to choose someone from their region or district to represent them in parliament or as provincial governor. Under the current system, provincial governors, like ministers and senior officials, are appointed by presidential patronage. Not one of the parties in this election has expressed any intention to consider or discuss reforms of this kind. It’s a winner-take-all system designed to keep the party of power in power. The suspicion is that UNITA and the others simply want their turn on the gravy train.

Tone and style

Meanwhile back at the MPLA campaign rally in Malanje, after several hours of circulating through the crowd and listening to what people had to say, my over-riding impression was that the mood was indifference at best, contempt at worst. The atmosphere improved only when the President stopped speaking and the music started.

Lourenço’s dour style of public address could not be less well-suited to these times and places. I have yet to meet a single person, pro or anti-MPLA, willing to say they feel the President understands their plight. Instead, people said things like:

“Does he not know we are hungry?” “The President doesn’t feel our pain, none of them do.” “They are living well; they don’t care about us.” “These are just promises, promises… they don’t keep their promises.” “What can we do? If we vote for the others and they win, they are just there for their turn to fill their pockets.” “They are as bad as each other. If I vote… I don’t know if my vote counts for anything.”

If President Lourenço and the MPLA truly want to connect with the electorate at their remaining rallies, there is still time for them to adjust: show respect to local dignitaries, introduce more charismatic speakers, and get the President to speak last, and succinctly, with a realistic plan to address the cost of living and hunger issues. Instead of reading a lengthy script, have him talk to his fellow Angolans from the heart. Many people say they want to hear that he knows the MPLA has under-achieved, that he feels their pain, that he is sorry and wants to do better and that he understands this is the last-chance saloon.

From the time the polls opened at 0700, Angolans streamed into the Assembleias de Voto [polling stations] around the capital, Luanda, where some 33 percent of the national votes are cast.  Maka Angola spent the entire day touring the three most populous areas of Luanda.  What we witnessed was a peaceful, orderly, and swift process so far as the voting was concerned – later there would be allegations of some irregularities with videos circulated on social media alleging attempted fraud.

More than 14 million Angolans were eligible to vote in the August 24 poll and it was clear from the moment the Assembleias de Voto opened, that they would be busy.  All eight parties contesting this election had the right to appoint delegates as observers – but not all the parties could muster enough observers to scrutinize each one, as witnessed by national and international observers monitoring voting in diverse places.  

Some of these assembleias had several voting stations, the mesas de voto.  The designated assembleia for Maka Angola’s editor Rafael Marques was in Kinamba, where the polling station was set up as three separate tents, each with its own mesa.  The mesa where he voted, didn’t appear to have an opposition observer and he happened to mention this while being interviewed by a journalist for Mozambican television.  This set off a storm in a teacup, as it emerged that the UNITA delegate had been at the locale from an early hour.

It seemed like a small, possibly irrelevant, detail in terms of the broad picture of the day’s events but the significant attention and debate it attracted shows the nervousness on all sides that this election must be, and be seen to be, free and fair.   This is why UNITA’s leader, Adalberto Costa Júnior, called on supporters to vote and stay (“votou, sentou”) to bear witness to any attempt to rig the vote.

Much fuss was also made of other minor irregularities.  The national police, deployed without their usual handguns, were stationed in small numbers at each polling station.  The election law requires them to stay at a distance of 100 metres but in some places, such as narrow alleyways, or places where there might be larger crowds, they were closer than that.  Some assambleias did not post the register of voters as required by law.  Later, more serious allegations would emerge.

THE VOTE

The Maka Angola team spent the entire day touring the three most populous municipalities:  Cazenga, Viana and Cacuaco, while also receiving reports from around the city and elsewhere.  Overall, what we witnessed – and heard from others – was a calm, orderly and very efficient process. 

For most people it took less than a minute.  As they entered the tent or room, they would first show their identity card to be checked against the electoral roll by a CNE staffer in the presence of representatives of the various political parties.  Eight parties were standing in this election but the smaller parties did not always have enough volunteers to be in attendance at every polling station.

With identity confirmed, the voter is then handed a ballot paper showing, in vertical order, each of the eight parties.  The order was determined by pre-election ballot with UNITA at number three and the MPLA at number eight.  Alongside the party name and flag symbol is a picture of their candidate for President, i.e. the first person on the party list.

Voters are then instructed verbally to fold the ballot after putting an x in the box of their choice and then to insert it into the transparent ballot box.  All Angola uses these transparent ballot boxes so that scrutineers can see that they are not pre-stuffed and that there is no tampering.  When the poll closed at 1700 hours, the boxes were opened in the presence of party delegates and accredited observers to monitor the count.  The final tally is presented as one list, which has to be signed off by all the party delegates present.  This is then supposed to be posted for public inspection.

We toured polling stations from downtown Luanda to Cacuaco, Cazenga and Viana. These are not just the most populous in Luanda, they also contain some of the poorest, most neglected neighbourhoods, where garbage is piled high in the streets mingling with human waste.  These are areas of jerry-built homes around unpaved, trodden earth alleyways, often with no piped water or sewerage.  

Areas such as Kicolo and Ngola Kiluanje show mass support for UNITA.  After Angola’s first democratic election since Independence, in 1992, violence erupted and there were mass killings of people living here in areas perceived as UNITA strongholds.  Poverty, unemployment, hunger and dire living conditions are the factors making people here choose an alternative to the MPLA.  Some older people, brandishing three fingers as support for UNITA which is third in order on the ballot paper, told us they were no longer afraid of their bodies being thrown into the sea this time.  When polls closed at 1700 hours, almost all of the areas we visited were going quietly about their business, observed by the party representatives. 

There was one single exception, Assambleia de Voto No. 400 in the Sambizanga neighbourhood of the municipality of Cazenga. We saw a large group of young men standing within 100 metres of the tents used as polling stations and as we drew closer, we saw some acting aggressively, gesturing and yelling.  We approached on foot and found they had been drinking and were now, completely unprovoked, insulting the three police, one woman and two men, on duty.   Throughout the capital, the police were completely unarmed as ordered by the authorities to help instill a sense of trust (and avert any possibility of weapons discharge).

Other journalists had also approached to investigate, and as each worked to interview the crowd it became clear that the unruly ones were very drunk.  They shouted over each other, stumbled, flung their arms about but once they had yelled their grievances, some then dispersed.  Police reinforcements were on their way. While the national police were on foot and unarmed, convoys of Rapid Intervention Police [the PIR ‘ninjas’] drove around some parts of Luanda with sirens blaring and lights flashing to demonstrate their readiness for action in the event of any trouble.

IRREGULARITIES

Some assambleias did not display the cadastro – the register of electors assigned to their station, which we saw affixed to solid walls in many places but not to the canvas of tented stations.  The final count tally is presented as an Acta, which by law should be posted at each station.   We heard reports that the acta was not posted in some places.

Videos circulating on social media showed in one case a lady holding tightly onto the tally in her hand while others accused her of belonging to the MPLA and trying to tamper with it.  Another video showed a UNITA delegate complaining he had been ejected from the polling station for complaining about irregularities. There may be simple explanations for some of these but taken out of context they serve to ratchet up the tension.  

The opposition have created an expectation that they could actually overturn the MPLA supermajority and  form the next government.  Was this ever a realistic possibility?   Many ‘experts’ have predicted throughout that the MPLA would win, albeit with a reduced majority.  It is undeniable that support for the MPLA is falling – at a rate of 10% in three successive elections.  But most people are not ‘experts’.  What ordinary people desperate for change have been hearing is that the election is a close one, that UNITA has its best chance ever, that UNITA itself expects to win.  This sets the stage for rejection of the result if UNITA does not get a majority.  And this is the most likely scenario – big wins for UNITA in Luanda and other cities but not big enough.

RISKS AHEAD

Angolans sense that momentous changes are taking place with a significant swing of support to the opposition.  They fear the MPLA is not ready to surrender its control over the levers of power.  Claims that the ruling party may rig the election in its favour and the publishing of polls, prior to any results, showing the MPLA retaining about 60% of the expected vote, are stoking anger. 

Our team saw no evidence of rigging or fraud at the stations we visited on election day.  That is not the same as affirming the election was fair.  It has been evident throughout that the party of government was able to skew the process in its favour:  including a revision of the electoral law, the appointment of their own as President of the CNE, spending far in excess of other parties, and an MPLA propaganda advantage across the board.

Social media filled the gap for UNITA and other opposition parties.  As elsewhere in the world, the algorithms are such that the most controversial posts get shared the most.  Hence a rush to post every rumour, every suspicion can quickly generate a mood bordering on paranoia.

The UNITA leader, Adalberto Costa Júnior, and civil society associations had called on people to stay in the area after casting their vote, to watch for any irregularities (votou, sentou). 

In the three municipalities we toured throughout the day there was no sign of anyone actually doing this (except much later at that one station in Sambizanga) but later we got reports that people were gathering in some places “to protect the vote”.  So far, this election has been free of what Angolans call confusão but there is every risk that the final result – likely to be issued within days – will dash the hopes of millions on one side or the other.   The risk is that they may take their frustration and anger onto the streets. 

The situation in Angola’s is complex. The younger generation have shown the depth of their discontent with the lack of opportunity for study or employment. Young people in Angola see nothing to help them offered in politicians’ and technocrats’ speeches about the economy and they are desperate to change their lives for the better.

This is why, in the election that just took place, the younger generation overwhelmingly voted for change, and they did so in an unparalleled peaceful and orderly manner. No good purpose could be served by creating a situation in which peace and tranquillity are abandoned for conflict and violence. Destructive behaviour now is not going to deliver employment or put food on the table. There has to be a political response that meets the aspirations of the younger generation, that eases the pain of a demographic that has shown it wants a radical change in politics, government, and the economy, and it wants that change now.

Why waste the excellent example of democratic and civic responsibility evinced by Angolans in the elections on August 24^th? UNITA is entirely within its legitimate rights to challenge the results announced so far and to demand a recount. There is a right and proper way to do this, through the existing official channels, and this is exactly what UNITA is doing. The National Electoral Commission (CNE) needs to respond in the letter and spirit of the law, to examine all the signed-off tallies and compare them to ensure the correct results were registered and this process should be transparent.

You cannot achieve this by subjugating Angola’s national sovereignty and independence to a foreign organization. Angola neither wants nor needs to take orders from Portugal, or from any other foreign or multi-national body. Unwonted attempts to short-circuit the system, or sweep it aside, may seem like a practical solution in the short term, but they will set an anarchic and disastrous precedent.

The Angolan people, and above all, the under 30s, need answers. And they deserve to be given a full picture that can allay their fears and suspicions. Whatever the final numbers may show, there could (and should) be an immediate political response to the peoples’ demand for a change of attitudes and behaviour by the government. One aspect of the change they need to see should include stronger checks and balances on the powers of the presidency and government, including a requirement for scrutiny by the National Assembly, giving the opposition a more significant role in auditing the activities of government. The government needs to take swift action to make some of the necessary changes it has been contemplating, to show the electorate that it is listening to them and acting on their wishes. In particular, the government needs to act urgently to set a date for provincial and local elections, ideally in 2023.

People across the provinces need to be able to elect their local governments directly, so that the people holding these positions are not imposed by the national government but selected from their communities, with the local knowledge and contacts necessary to identify and prioritize the issues of most importance to their areas. Devolving powers to the provinces and local authorities would show voters that the national government has heard what they want and is acting on it. It allows the electorate to feel confident they can elect people they know and hold them directly to account. This act alone would alleviate some of the anger and tension felt across the nation.

People suspect the MPLA is reluctant to cede the reins of power for fear that UNITA has no experience of the complex tasks of government and may make a difficult economic situation worse. Provincial and local elections will certainly deliver devolved powers to UNITA in many places and gaining experience of direct control over local matters can serve as essential preparation for the wider task of governing nationally.

In addition, devolving administrative powers to provincial and local governments allows people outside the national capital to develop these skills and will create the capacity for a separation of powers between the political parties who may form governments and an independent and non-partisan public administration.

Change is inevitable. The older generation has a duty to help the younger generation acquire the necessary knowledge and skills so that in due course they can take over. The election on August 24^th has clearly shown that Angolans are ready for alternância – for political parties to alternate in government, as happens in all the established democratic systems. It seems self-evident that the outgoing government should concentrate its efforts now on re-establishing civic reconciliation and harmony, and on creating the necessary conditions for future transfers of power, thus averting any possibility that outside and predatory forces could once again seize a moment of disunion for their own advantage. Attitudes need to change, so that instead of immediate electoral gain, parties are able to consider what can guarantee medium- and longer-term progress, resulting in gradual but effective improvements of the lives of the many, not just the few. Experts concur that acting quickly to organize local elections, ensuring a swift devolution of governance at the local level, is certain to achieve a better balance of power between the MPLA (which has ruled unopposed at all levels for 47 years) and the main Opposition party UNITA. Establishing directly-elected local governments will usher in a new era in which local decisions are made in the best interest of all in the community, and multi-party democracy has real meaning and impact.