Amnesty International Report 2005 - Angola

Covering events from January - December 2004

Refugees continued to return from neighbouring countries. The provision of judicial, social and other services in war-damaged rural areas remained inadequate. There were reports of politically motivated violence and suppression of non-violent demonstrations. Human rights violations by soldiers and police in Cabinda and in the diamond-mining areas continued. There were also many reports of human rights violations by police in other parts of the country. At least 500 families were forcibly evicted from their homes.

Background

The Government of National Unity, which included representatives of the former armed opposition National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, UNITA), made progress in reducing inflation and proposed to combat poverty. Over one million people remained dependent on food aid.

The government, in cooperation with the UN, began in January to develop a national plan of action on human rights: work on this continued at the end of 2004. An independent press flourished in Luanda but access to information outside the capital was mainly through state-controlled radio. The UN Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani, visited Angola in August. She acknowledged improved respect for human rights but urged the government to rebuild its judicial system and to be more open to civil society.

Refugee returns

Over 90,000 refugees were repatriated or returned spontaneously from neighbouring countries. Weak government structures in reception areas, lack of schools and clinics, and insufficient funds for food, seeds and tools made resettlement difficult. An inadequate system for issuing identity documents left many returnees without access to social services and vulnerable to extortion and ill-treatment by police and soldiers carrying out identity checks.

Political violence

UNITA complained that members of the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, MPLA) attacked its members and offices in several areas.

• In July, after UNITA tried to set up party offices in Cazombo, Moxico province, a mob burned or looted about 80 houses belonging to UNITA supporters and others who did not speak the local language. The crowd, allegedly encouraged by the municipal authorities, also wounded about 10 people. Unarmed police were reportedly deployed but did nothing to stop the violence.

Cabinda

The government said that fighting had ended in Cabinda, an Angolan enclave situated between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo. However, an estimated 30,000 government soldiers reportedly maintained a repressive presence, detaining and assaulting people suspected of supporting the Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave (Frente de Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda, FLEC), looting goods and crops, and causing villagers to flee to other areas.

• Human rights workers reported that soldiers based in Nkuto, Buco-Zau municipality, frequently detained people suspected of supporting FLEC. More than 60 women were reportedly briefly held in January and accused of taking food to FLEC. Some were beaten. Mateus Bulo, aged 66, and his daughter were among a group of people arrested in May. Mateus Bulo was subjected to a mock execution, then he and his daughter were both beaten with sticks before being allowed to return to their fields.

Members of a civil society organization, Mpalabanda, presented a petition for peace with thousands of signatures to the authorities in Cabinda city in July. In August, the two armed factions of FLEC – Renewed FLEC (FLEC Renovada) and FLEC-Armed Forces of Cabinda (FLEC-Forças Armadas de Cabinda, FLEC-FAC) – announced that they had united under the name FLEC and were ready for peace talks with the government.

Police

Efforts to improve police-community relations and training programmes formed part of the Modernization and Development Plan 2003/2007. However, there were many reports of police committing human rights violations. Senior officials admitted that excesses had occurred but it appeared that in many cases no disciplinary or criminal action was taken.

• Three men – Manuel do Rosario, Laurindo de Oliveira and Antonio Francisco – reportedly "disappeared" in April after being arrested in Luanda in possession of a stolen car. Relatives searching for the men saw this car parked in a police station. In May they found the bodies of the three men in an unofficial cemetery in Cazenga suburb. Police exhumed the bodies and opened an investigation, but no results were reported by the end of 2004.

Police reportedly used excessive force to control both violent and non-violent demonstrations.

• A violent protest in February concerning electricity supplies in Cafunfo, a diamond-mining town in northern Angola, left at least three people dead, according to official sources. Unofficial sources said that police fired indiscriminately, killing more than 10 people, including two teenage girls and 12-year-old David Alexandre Carlos, and wounding some 20 others. Seventeen protesters were subsequently detained and accused of disobeying the authorities, a crime punishable by up to seven months' imprisonment. Applications for bail were not granted. The trial began in July but was suspended and not concluded by the year's end. One of the defendants, a 15-year-old boy, was held with adult prisoners for several months before being given separate accommodation. There was apparently no inquiry into the reports that police had used excessive force.

The police authorities expressed concern about lack of respect for human rights, particularly after five people suffocated to death in an overcrowded police cell in Capenda-Camulemba municipality in northern Angola in December. Police shot dead two members of a crowd of protesters which had gathered outside the police station. A police inquiry was initiated.

In October, paramilitary police dispersed a peaceful demonstration by the Angolan Party for Democratic Support and Progress (Partido do Apoio Democrático e Progresso de Angola, PADEPA) calling for publication of oil revenues. In November, police dispersed another peaceful gathering and briefly arrested dozens of demonstrators. Seven were taken to police cells and complained of being beaten for refusing to sign confessions. They were charged with resistance to the authorities, tried and acquitted.

Hundreds of people were reportedly abused by paramilitary police and soldiers in December 2003 and January 2004 during the first phase of an operation to expel foreign nationals who had entered Angola's diamond fields after the war ended. Victims reported being held in harsh conditions for up to three months. Many complained of beatings, humiliating and unhygienic body cavity searches and theft. Some women were allegedly raped. In February the Interior Minister acknowledged that there had been abuses. Police said that by September 2004 more than 300,000 foreigners had been expelled.

Police said that the Civil Defence Organization (Organização da Defesa Civil, ODC), set up during the war, had been abolished. However, there were detailed reports of ODC cells continuing to operate, sometimes assisted by police, and abuses were attributed to some personnel.

Availability of weapons

Crime rates remained high, fuelled by widespread unemployment and the availability of weapons. One million civilians were estimated to hold firearms illegally. In July a national commission was set up to prevent the trafficking of light weapons and small arms. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and churches encouraged people to surrender weapons and the police and army seized thousands.

Economic, social and cultural rights

The Luanda Provincial Government's plans to close informal and unclean markets near the city centre and replace them with others, mostly in outlying suburbs, threatened many people's livelihoods. Traders protested after the Estalagem market was closed in March, reportedly without consultation and before alternative space had been prepared. Some demonstrators used violence and police reacted with what appeared to be excessive force, killing three people.

The National Assembly approved laws on urban development and land in March and August respectively. NGOs had submitted detailed recommendations during the drafting process and expressed concern that the new laws failed to provide adequate security of tenure for disadvantaged groups living in informal urban settlements and traditional communal areas.

At least 500 families living in areas designated for development in Luanda were evicted without adequate consultation or compensation. Hundreds of others were threatened with eviction. Many were rehoused in remote areas without amenities, schools or clinics. Some families had to share houses and some lost vegetable gardens. The last of about 4,000 families housed in tents since their eviction from Boavista in 2001 were allocated new houses in Viana.

• Over 1,100 people were evicted from 340 houses in Cambamba and Banga Ué in South Luanda in September without prior consultation. A civil construction firm and a military construction brigade demolished the houses, guarded by about 50 heavily armed police. Most of those evicted remained in the area without shelter.

Shortage of land and drought in south-east Angola led to a conflict between two groups of nomadic cattle herders in September which reportedly resulted in four deaths. The enclosure of large areas of land for commercial farming had increased pressure on remaining land and water sources.

Women and children

The government's report on women's rights submitted to the UNCommittee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in June admitted that the legal protection for victims of domestic violence was inadequate and that the police lacked sensitivity towards them.

In September the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child examined Angola's initial report on children's rights. The Committee welcomed progress in some areas but urged, among other things, further legal protection for children and the establishment of an independent national human rights institution.