Angola: Focus on Eastern Angola

Campaign for a Democratic Angola

Lunda–Sul, Saurimo

May, 2004

Public Report nº4

I. Context

From civil society’s standpoint and insofar as democratic openness is concerned, the Eastern region is notable for its dearth of NGOs, with a few involved in the health sector and humanitarian aid.

During colonial times and, thereafter, up to the end of the 80s, Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul provinces (North and South Lunda) were considered restricted areas, where access was possible for non-natives only with special authorization by the State Security services. In 1978, a decision by the central committee of the ruling MPLA, divided Lunda into two provinces.

With the end of a one party system, in 1991, the Lunda provinces became another El Dorado, with get-rich-quick schemes through panning for alluvial diamonds. After years of social, political and economic isolation, the local populations became victims of an “invasion” of people originating from all parts of the country and the world, who besides exploring for diamonds also exploited local ignorance. Compounded by the paucity of government economic and social policies for the region.

Currently, the Lunda provinces, with over 500,000 inhabitants, generate formal revenues, from the extraction of diamonds, estimated at around 700 million dollars a year.

By way of illustration, the government is funding for the first time, since independence in 1975, the construction of a school in the Lunda-Sul province. This region has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the country, with some estimates putting it as high as 80% of the local population. Most of the local students - whether at elementary or at the only high school building - attend classes either standing or seated on the ground. Beyond the provincial capital, Saurimo, there are scarcely classes beyond fourth grade, and a great number under trees. The same applies to the capital of Lunda-Norte province, the municipality of Chitato, where there is a high school and a soon to start tertiary institution, while the rest of the province grasps with education at fourth grade only.

Regarding the health sector, Lunda-Sul’s provincial hospital has been under repair for the past two years and thus remains closed. Meanwhile, the provincial hospital of Lunda-Norte has been inoperative for about three years.

In both provinces, the population, with rare exceptions, lives in adobe houses and/or mud (wattle and daub) huts.

Despite the dependence of most of the population on subsistence agriculture, in certain villages, privately armed diamond mining companies have been preventing the population from accessing their fields, because of mining operations. The same occurs with fishing carried out in rivers of the region.

II. Campaign for a Democratic Angola

The “Campaign for a Democratic Angola” was launched on April 16 in the province of Lunda–Sul, in the presence of up to 150 people, with the goal of contributing to open up the East to democracy.

On behalf of the traditional authorities and of the Lunda–Tchokwe people, King Muatchissengue Wa Tembo praised the importance of the campaign for raising the conscience of the populations, calling attention: to the depredation of the resources (diamonds), without benefiting the locals. This traditional figure, railed against the fact that the local population has been kept ignorant and consequently plundered more and more.

Ironically, the craftsmanship of the Lunda-Tchokwe people remains the most representative of the Angola culture and most appreciated abroad. In spite of the backwardness that locals have been subjected to since independence, all crafts on display at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, on Angola, including the Mwana Pwô mask, are work of the Lunda-Tchokwe.

After presentation of the campaign goals and the Manifesto for Democracy, the meeting then moved on to a straw poll in which those present were consulted on whether the extraction of diamonds in both provinces benefits the local population, or not; whether the fixing of a date for elections should be contingent on the approval of the Constitutional Law, and in what year elections should be held.

Regarding the extraction of diamonds, 133 of the votes counted believed that it brings no benefit to the population, versus 1 vote against the motion.

With regard to fixing the election dates for some time after the approval of the Constitutional Law, 113 of the votes were for holding the elections before the approval of the Constitutional Law, while 11 votes were against, preferring a date subsequent to the approval of the Constitutional Law.

As to the ideal year for holding elections, 130 participants voted in favor of holding them in 2005, while 5 voted for 2006, with 1 vote each for 2004 and 2008, respectively.

The possible disappearance of the East, through neglect and abandonment, with exception of the diamond depredation, by the ruling class, and the sub-human conditions in which the local population lives, dominated the participants' concerns.

In the closing session, the Campaign members expressed their solidarity in favor of the Lunda-Tchokwé communities and condemned the official policy of regarding the East only as a diamond mine.

III. Outreach

Radio Ecclesia broadcast the ceremony a day later, while Semanario Angolense published a 4 pages supplement on the event. Voice of America, which has a daily program on Angola (Linha Directa) and is the only nationwide alternative to the State controlled National Radio of Angola’s propaganda, has been covering the campaign and thus enabling the people outside the capital to learn about such an initiative.

For the first time, since the campaign launch in March 9, the National Radio of Angola locally allowed the coverage of the campaign and for activists to be on air and express their views on democracy.

IV. Since the Launch

The campaign’s next stop will be the Northern province of Uíge, in the second week of May, after Luanda, Cabinda, Huambo and Lunda-Sul. The conference on the challenges of democracy, as a preparation for a National Alternative Dialogue, has been postponed for the second week of June, bringing together up to 50 political and civil society organizations that have subscribed to the campaign so far.

III. General information on Eastern Angola

The Eastern part of Angola is the largest geographical region of the country, with an area more than 350,000 km2, and a size larger than Great Britain. This area covers the provinces of Moxico, Lunda-Sul and Lunda-Norte.

Moxico province was the most despoiled by the colonial war of liberation and in the civil wars. Ironically, it was in Moxico where the colonial war formally terminated, with the signing of the Lunhameje Cease -Fire Agreement, in 1974, between the Portuguese colonial administration and the MPLA. Also, in Moxico, the 1991 Cease-Fire Agreement was signed between the Government and UNITA, which gave rise to the Bicesse Peace Accords and the first and only elections in Angola. On February 22, 2002, Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA, was killed in Moxico, sealing the military defeat of UNITA and, consequently, paving the way to the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the remnants of UNITA leadership and the Government.

The Lundas, in turn, have produced more violence through the greed for diamonds. Effectively the war in those provinces was one of plundering between the Government forces, UNITA and garimpeiros..

The population from these areas, due to their enormous mining potential, found themselves coerced to abandon the production of agricultural goods, rooted out from their ancestral land, and at the mercy of the obscure and often bloody enterprise of accessing diamonds in Lundas.

The process of population displacement has been accompanied by a process of disavowal of the traditional authorities, caught in a morass involving State interest, private interests and political formations.

The highest poverty and inflation indices currently measured in Angola, are located precisely in that part of the country where, due to an irony of fate, the highest cost-of-living indicators are also found. As a result of all this, and also because of the area’s exclusion from the centers of decision-making, the East of Angola is seen both as a region of banishment, but, equally, as an oasis of easy pickings for every type of adventurer.

It is in this area where the process of direct capital accumulation has been taking place, in primary terms, by the emerging economic and political ruling class. This accumulation is achieved through the granting of concessions to favored parties or through illicit appropriation, with or without the use of violence, of diamond bearing areas. These mines escape the control of the State.

All this indicates that the East of Angola is being transformed into a zone of potential future conflicts with unimaginable consequences, besides the aggravation of the socio-economic situation. This deterioration impacts particularly on the continuous decline in the human development indices, and in the exclusion of this area from the possible democratization process in the country.

ENDS

The Campaign for a Democratic Angola

C/O: Largo da Unidade Africana, 41
Bairro do Miramar, Luanda
Angola
Tel: +244 91 331 034
E-mail: [email protected]