Angola: Campaign for democratic Angola launched

CIVIL SOCIETY AND OPPOSITION LAUNCH THE
'CAMPAIGN FOR A DEMOCRATIC ANGOLA'

LUANDA, 9 March 2004 - Civil society and opposition parties on Tuesday
launched a united campaign to improve democracy in Angola, two years after
the end of its decades-long civil war.
The 'Campaign for a Democratic Angola', to be launched in a total of
four provinces this month, will see around 30 organisations combine their
efforts to push for change and ultimately improve the lives of the Angolan
people.
"We want to generate enough pressure to claim the realisation of the
current constitution, define when elections will be held and under what
conditions and to prepare citizens to play a more active role in changing
society," Rafael Marques, coordinator for the campaign said.
The war, which lasted 27 years, killed more than a million people and
displaced millions more, ended in April 2002. But in nearly two years of
peace, president Jose Eduardo dos Santos has failed to announce a date for
elections, citing the drafting of a new constitution as being the reason for
the delay.
Governmental promises to improve the lives of the country's population
of around 13 million after the end of the conflict have not been realised
and most people continue to live in abject poverty.
Pressure on the government to increase democracy and address the
problems of society has been growing.
"We've got scattered voices all pushing for democracy. We're now trying
to form a common platform from which together we can go forward and start to
respond to public demands," Marques said.
"The idea is to create a common alternative agenda," he added.
During the war - which ravaged the country's roads, schools and
hospitals - civil society was focused on ending to the conflict.
But with the onset of peace and its consolidation, a window of
opportunity now existed for its priorities to shift.
"Now that the military context in the country - with the exception of
Cabinda - is no longer a concern to us we can move ahead," Marques said.
Although the Angolan civil war is over, a low-intensity military
conflict continues in the northern enclave province of Cabinda, between
government forces and independentist guerillas.
Thousands of lives have already been lost and there have been widespread
human rights abuses against the civilian population by government soldiers.

ACT NOW OR GET LEFT BEHIND
The 'Campaign for a Democratic Angola' hopes that government will act on
the pressure but it is warning the country's leaders that society will move
on even without them.
"We need elections as soon as possible to enable people to choose who
they want to lead this country. We -- as civil society and opposition --
must not wait for the ruling party to set a date at its own convenience, we
need to create our own alternatives," Marques said.
The last and only post-independence elections in Angola took place in
1992.
This campaign also seeks to push political parties to look beyond their
internal agendas.
"We want to encourage government, including members of the MPLA and
UNITA, to be open to other initiatives that are for the benefit of the
country, not of the parties," Marques said.
"Our hope is that if citizens are taking these kinds of initiatives by
themselves, the ruling party will see more clearly that either it engages in
serious talks with other sectors of the society or it will be left behind,"
he said.
The campaign is joining the hands of opposition political parties, four
of which are represented in parliament and civil society organizations.
The campaign will be launched in at least another four provinces between
April and June and the aim is to take it country-wide.
A conference to draw up a concrete agenda is also planned for April.

Ends

Key background information :

* Angola is sub-saharan Africa's second largest oil producer after Nigeria.
It produces nearly one million barrels per day (bpd).
* United Nations figures reveal that Angola has one of the world's worst
under-five mortality rates, 80 percent of homes do not have electricity and
as many as half of all Angolans remain without safe water, proper health
care or education.
* A January 2004 report released by New-York based Human Rights Watch
alleged that $4 billion disappeared from the Angolan government coffers
between 1997-2002.
* International watchdog Transparency International in a survey last year
placed Angola among the world's ten most corrupt nations.
* Angola has more than one hundred opposition parties.

For further information about the campaign please contact :
* Adriano Parreira, spokesperson for political parties represented
(Portuguese, French) +244 92 400 386 [email protected]
* Rafael Marques, coordinator (English, Portuguese) +244 91 331 034
[email protected]

Campaign for a Democratic Angola

Manifesto for democracy

In colonial times, Angolans' greatest dream was independence. Once that had
been achieved, on 11 November 1975 amid discord and war among the liberation
movements, it was peace that became Angolans' most fervent wish. Hence,
confronted with the war situation in Cabinda, the greatest challenges
Angolans are facing now are democracy and the claiming of their rights and
freedoms.

It is now clear that the country rulers are making a point of ignoring the
existence of the people, so as to guarantee its own sovereignty and to
ensure that every political act is in the interests of its own well-being.

Despite the peace accord signed by the rival military leaders, the country
is experiencing its greatest ever political, economic and social crisis. The
government is doing nothing that might provide a way of alleviating social
exclusion and the suffering of the people. At the same time, the looting of
the country's wealth by its rulers is become ever more evident and ever more
scandalous as illustrated by the Angolagate, Pierre Falcone, the freezing of
assets in Switzerland and of the 37 million USD in a personal bank account
of the President of the Republic.

This dreadful state of affairs is sustained by the permanent coup d'état
which the government has imposed on the country and its people, by:

* Failing to implement the Constitution (absence of the Constitutional
Court, Ombudsman and democratic local government);
* Keeping it within the powers of the Attorney-General of the Republic to
defend socialist legality (law 5/90 of 7 April) and thereby a state of
"democratic dictatorship", and keeping the Attorney-General as subordinate
to the Presidency (Article 3 number 1 of law 5/90);
* Hindering the free exercise of the most fundamental civic and political
rights throughout the country;
* Preventing the exercise of social and economic rights;
* Stealing sovereignty from the people who are uniquely and legitimately
entitled to it, showing arrogance and the lack of will to hold free and fair
elections with the necessary urgency, so as to grant the people the right to
decide by ballot who should govern the country.

In this way, the MPLA is taking advantage of the fact of having ruled the
country since independence to run the national economy as a monopoly, using
the country's public institutions and natural resources to do so. With this
authoritarian and illegitimate power, the current leadership is
forestalling, with complete disregard to the will of citizens, a course of
action which might be able to bring the country to constitutional and
socio-economic normality.

Institutions such as the United Nations and countries with major petroleum
and other economic interests in our country have bestowed legitimacy upon
the present democratic farce. These countries and institutions pursue a
relationship of complicity with the MPLA regime, perpetuating the lack of
democratic legitimacy in the organs of state.

A country and a people cannot and must not be held hostage to the will of
one man, of one party, who are doing everything they can to ensure Angola
slides, slowly but surely, back into the past.

Only the people, through a free, secret, universal and regular franchise,
must be allowed to choose their leaders.

Thus the people, Angolan citizens, individually or through civil society
organisations and political parties, must, in a dignified and civilised
manner, take a greater initiative and responsibility in the process of
achieving constitutional normality and democratisation in the country.

Only through democracy can democracy be won.

We call for:

1. The bringing of a sense of morality to Angolan society, and the
restoration of values such as honesty, honour, solidarity, human dignity,
tolerance, and a sense of duty and responsibility in the exercise of public
duty.
2. Political parties and civil society to prioritise the discussion of ideas
and to put forward alternatives to the government's actions, so as to give
shape to a new vision for Angola.
3. An alternative national dialogue to address the following matters:

3.1 Defining the present structure of the organs of state and their
temporary legitimisation, until the holding of free and fair elections;
3.2 Defining the legal framework and tasks necessary to the process of
democratisation, including the establishment and functioning of the National
Electoral Council;
3.3 Consensus on the timetable for democratisation and the date for
elections.

Luanda, March 09 2004