It has been four years of peace in Angola since the end of a decades-long civil war, but for the majority of Angolans the absence of fighting is the only benefit they enjoy, writes human rights activist Rafael Marques. Scheduled elections have been endlessly postponed, allowing the ruling elite to remain unaccountable to the population of the country while they maintain international legitimacy through corrupt use of Angola’s vast oil wealth.

For more than a decade, while the ruling class has focused on its own transformation into a bourgeois class by plundering the country’s riches, the majority of Angolans have been reviving their hopes for the future on empty promises in a vacuum.

Those in power are managing such a vacuum and selling it as a kind of stability pact. It is a pact similar to that established between a robber who points a gun at a citizen in broad daylight and in public, strips the victim of his belongings and then, civilly, requests the understanding, silence and quietness of the victim. The robbed person, in turn, thanks the perpetrator for the common sense shown in sparing his life. It is in this sense that Angolans are grateful for peace.

Four years have passed since the achievement of peace in 2002 after decades of civil war. Another legislative mandate has come to an end, since the first and last elections of 1992, without people casting their ballot – and, therefore, without the opportunity for them to hold to account and choose their political leaders as well as legitimize the rule of power.

Once again, the President of the Republic, in his much awaited state of the union address, disappointed people’s hopes for elections in 2006. Showing his normal political expediency, he now suggests voting might take place in 2007. In 2000 he announced the possibility of elections for 2001, whether the war stopped or not, and that he would retire. However, he has been pushing the prospect further into the future ever since.

Apart from the question of elections, the speech by President Dos Santos to the nation had two more key points, the setting up of the Bank for the Development of Angola (BDA) and the construction of housing for those in need.

For the President, the bank will be the catalyst for the reconstruction of the country. However, it is little more than another expedient for the redistribution of windfall profits from oil among the ruling families and their particular interests. Similar initiatives in the past, particularly the now defunct Caixa Agro-Pecuária (CAP), have suggested the final end of government-funded commercial banks. Once the ruling families and their associates borrow all the funds at a bank’s disposal, it is declared bankrupt, dismantled and privatized. As for the money lent, the trick is to write it off as bad loans and let the matter rest for good. The oil funds in question stem from rocketing prices in the international markets. This has generated a windfall, over and above the budgeted oil income, of a magnitude of which Angolans have no idea. Due to a lack of transparency and to the creative accounting practices in the Angolan public sector, the real sums the government has amassed are, at this point, anybody’s guess (The Angolan Ambassador to Brazil, General Alberto Neto, reaffirmed in an interview to the daily O Globo (21.11.2005) that “the country’s oil income does not pass through the Angolan financial institutions”, and such a procedure makes it even more difficult to track the real sums derived from the oil revenues, which officially account for more than 80% of the country’s income.)

Secondly, as far as building houses is concerned, the government should promote job creation, ensure the payment of real salaries and introduce policies for housing development that provide the incentives for the private sector to take up the task and for citizens to afford access to credit and to be able to pay for their accommodation out of their own salaries. Angolans need decent wages for decent jobs, not permanent government or international charity.

Electoral patriotism

As for the need for people to legitimize the exercise of power, society has been taking notice of the electoral mobilization the ruling Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has set in motion even though it remains silent on the setting of a date for elections. People have also been ready for elections to be called at three months’ notice (within the legal deadline). Nevertheless, Angolans still need to be registered to vote and there is no hint of when this will happen, along with other essential tasks to ensure a free and fair electoral process. These tactics could make it impossible for the opposition and public opinion to make any impression on the regime’s hold on power.

However, one fundamental question arises from this scenario of doubt and deceitfulness. What’s behind the regime’s postponement of elections for as long as it can? It has absolute control over the country’s riches, the media with a national outreach and the public administration. Furthermore, it uses the army and the national police as it pleases and as a means to achieve whatever ends it may pursue. It has support from the Western powerhouses in exchange for a large chunk of Angolan natural resources (oil and diamonds). There is also a Chinese bid for another slice of the country’s lucrative market with expensive loans, billions worth of construction contracts and so forth.

The factors mentioned above have been conspiring to eliminate the people as a fundamental factor for pressure and change. So the regime is afraid to hold elections because it is not sure whether it can control the emotions, anger and frustrations of the people. It is afraid of people’s reactions during an election campaign amid increased publicity.

Another element to take into account is the MPLA’s ideological problem or, more precisely, the lack of it. The end of socialism, or of the Marxism-Leninism it used to profess, led the MPLA to import, for its own survival, Western consumerism to provide a set of values required to regulate the dynamics of society.

Hence, the President’s appeal in his speech to patriotism is a mockery for he himself provides no example of it. Patriotism must be the sharing of a set of moral and national values which unite the citizens in the defence of their common interests, the country, and the dignity and the equality it reserves to each one of its children.

For its part, the government is hooked on corruption. It is unable to come up with a set of polices and the right course of action to effectively improve people’s lives and to develop the country. It is a regime with neither an ideology nor a nation-building project.

Corruption in Angola has taken on a life of its own. It serves the regime well to annihilate any signs of opposition, dissenting voices or alternative leaderships as well as to sabotage any action by the regime to deliver welfare to the people.

The absence of morals in the conduct of government officials and the gradual deletion of references to the people in public statements provides the necessary peace of mind for the very same government officials to pocket as they please the public funds assigned to them. The current Minister of Finances, Jose Pedro de Morais, and the Governor of the Central Bank, Amadeu Mauricio, are just the latest officials to present the country in recent months with financial scandals of an international dimension. The Brazilian daily O Globo (13.11.2005), in its coverage of a national corruption scandal (O Mensalao) that has shaken the presidency of Lula da Silva, exposed the Angolan connexion. A Brazilian businessman, Marcos V. de Souse, wire transferred around US$ 2.7 million to the personal bank accounts of the abovementioned Angolan officials. Days later, the newspaper, as a follow up to the same case, unearthed other remittances worth US$ 1,6 million to the personal account of the President of the Angolan Central Bank. In their defence, the Angolan ambassador to Brazil, Alberto Neto, told O Globo (21.11.2005), that “every man has a price, what matters is to know how much” The spokesperson for the Angolan Ministry of Finances stated that it was a duty for government officials to take 15% in commissions for the deals they close.

The Chinese Godfather

Once again the government, in its bid to re-legitimize itself, has turned abroad to seek credit and political protection. This time its port of call is China, after earlier docking at the White House (and its satellite Western allies) and, before that, mooring for a long time at the Kremlin and in Havana. In essence the government knows how to cuddle up to the permanent members of the UN Security Council, those with the power of veto.

The Dos Santos regime needs international legitimacy to keep in check its own people, its internal critics and its adversaries. The consequences of this extreme dependency upon foreign forces for the legitimization of power may be accounted for in terms of years of war, the slaughter of many Angolans and the never ending onslaught upon the country’s wealth. No less serious is the people’s feeling of a loss of dignity and self respect in its own household, humiliated and despised by the government’s friends of the hour. The example of the diamond rich territory of the Lundas is a point in case. The report ‘Lundas: The Stones of Death’ provides a detailed account of the complicity between the government, international diamond mining companies and dealers in spreading terror, destitution and misery in the region. The report is available at

For a long time shrewd foreigners have explored for their own benefit the political, economic, social and intellectual shortcomings of the ruling class and the vanity of its desire to mutate into an assimilated bourgeoisie – the elite. As a consequence, the MPLA is adrift. Its government has no influence over the Presidency. The President rules alone, under the influence of foreign interests. This tightens his grip on power, as well as being his major weakness, his Achilles, in his dealings with the society. Thus, in today’s Angola, the American lobbies, some Portuguese interests, the Chinese, and so on hold more true and meaningful power over the government than that collegial body holds itself, not to mention its forlorn individual members.

There is a power vacuum. The government, and especially the President, are held hostage by interests foreign to Angolan society. Individual members of the ruling class generally ponder that they are getting richer by the day and busy themselves with shopping sprees.

The Western government partners in these ransacking ventures settle their accounts among themselves. They only make a pretence of demanding some measure of respect for human rights, transparency and democracy whenever specific business projects with the government turn sour, or periodically, when their code of honour among thieves is violated. Only then do these Western governments choose to denounce the Angolan regime in international corridors as corrupt, incompetent and despicable. At the same time, their own countries welcome without any reservations the bank deposits, investments and profits from the looting of Angola.

The regime, represented by the MPLA, should reduce its propaganda efforts and goodwill-bolstering operations, like building dubious, cheap and short-lived housing projects. It must opt for a policy based on being near to the people and their problems. It must replace propaganda by respect for freedom of expression in the state media, which are the only ones with nationwide coverage. This would allow public debate to flourish and produce solutions as well as establishing a culture of checks and balances.

Freedom of expression and of the press is fundamental to curb corruption and create a public mindset to generate enough pressure on the government to punish corrupt officials. Corruption is the institution holding the government together. Reassuring initiatives to fight it might enable the authorities to postpone the holding of elections without causing public anger. By taking on corruption, President Dos Santos could find the peace and rest that he wants and the MPLA could find its way back to being a popular movement.

As for the patriotism called for by Dos Santos, his regime must be capable of defending Angolans from many an international partner which finds in Angola a land of promise in which to sow discord under official patronage and treat Angolans as replaceable, unserviceable, undignified and undeserving objects. The logic is simple: if the government does not treat its own citizens with respect and in a dignified way, who else will?

By preserving the interests, dignity and respect of the Angolan people, Angola could evolve towards an open market, a safe haven for foreign investment, a hospitable destiny for tourists from all over the world and a second home for those who may choose it in their quest for sun and prosperity. Otherwise, direct confrontation between the people and power (in the sense of a privileged minority aided and abetted by foreign interests) will only be a matter of time. In the showdown of what will be a class struggle between the very rich and the totally destitute, due to the lack of intermediate social structures, all will end up as losers. The MPLA’s battle cry used to be “Hail the People’s Power”. Many still recall this power and keep it inside themselves, for the benefit of the majority.

* Rafael Marques is an Angolan Human Rights Activist ([email protected])

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