ECHOES FROM THE ANGOLAN PRESS (23)

Antonio Freitas, in the Novo Jornal (NJ), comments on a controversial note sent by the Angolan Ministry of External Relations (MIREX) to all embassies, consulates and offices of international organisations in Luanda:


“The note restricts henceforth the circulation of diplomats inside the country, a measure being interpreted in some circles as a way of limiting the observation by them of what might be happening outside the capital during the electoral campaign. According to the document, the notified who might wish to travel outside Luanda must inform the MIREX of that intention at least three working days in advance. The ministry argues that the measure aims at ‘allowing the Angolan Government to fulfill its obligation to protect all inhabitants of the national territory, particularly the diplomatic agents.’
According to sources, the issue was discussed during a meeting between the External Relations minister, Joao Miranda, and the United States ambassador, Dan Mozena. The ambassador is said to have expressed his reservations about the measure, but was reassured by the minister that its only objective was ‘to provide an adequate protocol treatment’ to the diplomatic personnel. However, the note contains passages that don’t seem as comforting as the minister claims. For example, it refers to article 41 of the Vienna Convention, according to which ‘without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, the diplomatic agents, as well as having the duty to respect the laws and regulations of the accredited state, must not interfere in its internal affairs.’ This particular passage is taken by many as a serious warning to the foreign embassies which have usually taken positions whenever elections in African countries have unpleasant outcomes, as happened recently in Kenya and Zimbabwe. In an interview to the NJ last July, Dan Mozena said emphatically that his mission would be 'with an eye' on the Angolan elections."

As an echo of how party politics in the present campaign is being perceived by militants of the leading parties, there is a letter by a UNITA militant to the NJ in which he states:


“I am an old militant of UNITA who lived for a long time inside the UNITA liberated areas, including Jamba, the capital of the resistance at the time of Dr. Savimbi, the founding president of UNITA.
During the time that I lived in those areas, in relation to party-politics issues, there was no democracy in the true sense of the word, but there was Dr. Savimbi’s very able hand at manipulating politics, always taking into account the sensitivity and representativity of the local elites, bearing in mind their ethno-linguistic and racial belonging, which earned him lots of sympathy among the populations.
(…)
What we see today in Mr. Samakuva’s UNITA, as far as the choice of candidates for Members of Parliament (MPs) is concerned, is a scandal and is becoming dangerous for the harmony inside the party and the country. The elites of communities with political expression in various regions were almost all ignored. In retrospect, let’s mention the fact that in the pseudo-elections at the X Congress of UNITA, those who supported the parliamentarian Chivukuvuku for the leadership were removed from the places they held in the party, which contradicts the propaganda about democracy inside UNITA spread by Mr. Samakuva’s supporters. (…) The situation is even worse in the present choice of candidates for MPs, in provinces such as Benguela, where the genuine local UNITA elites are not represented and in their place friends and people from Mr. Samakuva’s region or his relatives were predominantly chosen. Quo vadis UNITA? The future will tell…”

Earlier in this series, I have published a similar letter from a MPLA militant appeared in the Angolense:



“In relation to the constitution of the list for future members of the National Assembly (MPs), I have to say that once again our glorious MPLA demonstrated that in terms of transparency and democracy it is the worst party. (…) Last Saturday, the Luanda Provincial Committee of the MPLA called a meeting with the directorships of the province’s ‘action committees’. The party bases, in spite of not having been informed beforehand of the reasons for the meeting, attended in mass. (…) [However], the meeting was pure and simply aimed at misleading the militants when the lists had already been made since March/April. The bases also became aware that the list for the national circle is equally very doubtful and doesn’t have any technical-professional credibility.
Within the various ‘action committees’ in Luanda’s urban areas (…) there are militants who sacrifice a lot in their work for the MPLA and are holders of undergraduate and masters degrees, among whom lawyers, university teachers and electoral trainers, with an enviable technical-professional experience. They are militants who have the MPLA at heart and whose presence in those committees will guarantee the party’s victory in the respective areas.

[However, it is sad to see that they were ignored in favour of mostly unknown faces].
(…)
That’s why, because of these injustices, the MPLA, mobilised with the sacrifice and supported by the bases, on polling day will see those same bases prefer to stay at home instead of voting for people that they don’t know and did not select. That’s also why the militant, if he chooses to vote, will do so for the opposition, which, in spite of the past, will probably have a better team for the National Assembly comparatively to our MPLA, which is not concerned with the Luanda vote because the victory will come from the provinces. We only regret that the MPLA continues to use the methods of the past and ignoring the fact that times have changed. It’s always the same people who get nominated, everything works on the basis of ‘schemes’ and corruption. When things are not done with transparency it’s a sign of corruption. That’s how the MPLA, even if unwillingly, is campaigning for the opposition.
I have expressed my opinion here because if I express it at the meeting I will be silenced, mistreated and perhaps killed. When a militant cannot just say what he feels and if he does is taken as disgruntled and when one is disgruntled it’s a crime, then it’s not possible to take these ideas to meetings. That’s how our MPLA is.”

Celso Malavoloneke, in the Semanario Angolense (SA), in an open letter to Fernando Macedo, president of the Association Justice, Peace and Democracy (AJPD), expresses his disagreements with the tone and the spirit of some of the positions this association has been taking on the current election campaign.

The proximate motive for Malavoloneke’s letter is a statement by AJPD, signed by Macedo and also published in the SA, according to which “The AJPD alerts the Angolan political community and the international community, specially the national and international observers, to the practices, unacceptable in a democratic state of rights, which have been occurring in the current electoral process, namely: the Government of Angola’s permanent propaganda in the state media using the same narrative discourse of one of the contending parties in clear violation of the principle of equal treatment and opportunity; the give-aways to members of the electorate of goods such as bicycles and motorcycles by political parties and organisations affected to them during acts of political campaign with vote orientation, all under the blind eye of the National Electoral Commission and the National Council for Social Communication; the persistence of attempts to violate the laws applicable to the electoral process, and the occasional political violence, even if of low intensity and not generalised, without the prompt charging of the responsible for such actions by the competent judicial and police bodies.”

In reaction to that statement, Malavoloneke asserts:

(…)

In 1991/92 I was placed in the southern region of the country coordinating the area of community development of a well known international ONG. In that role, I was witness to the damage caused to the bodies and minds of thousands of compatriots by inflammatory speeches and careless actions that have characterised that election campaign. The “friends” from the international community, headed by the United Nations and supported by the super-powers of the Cold War and Portugal, imposed their agenda and timing, anxious for a disposable solution in which the most honest hoped – they could only hope – that after they left the country Angolans would come to agreement the best way they could. However, all exploded even before that, with the consequences that we all know.
(…)

And, look, I forgot something: when the fight began, my functions changed, and do you know to what? Head of logistics of a makeshift travel agency to evacuate from the country the foreigners and their families from the chancelleries that contributed more or less openly to set the country on fire. And those chancelleries don’t seem far away from you and the AJPD. Ah! And I also evacuated some Angolans who all of a sudden produced other passports which they had been hiding, mind you…
(…)
Therefore, I would like you to understand that we all need ways out. Ways out that have also to be ways of hope. Ways of hope that do not need to be necessarily perfect, they just need to be necessarily ours. Created by us with the limitations that we have, created in our own context with our own specificities and created for our land with the adaptations that they might require, but not imposed by a theoretical script from any western country.
(…)

It seems to me that the Angolan elites have decided to look after these aspects and take that past as a reference. Therefore, your discourse, dear FM, sounds isolated and causes fears. Hence this reaction from your close brother. Our responsibility, as the elites, is to scrutinise the process, yes, but taking into account our idiosyncrasies. And one of them, really assumed, is that inflammatory, passionate, virulent speeches at this stage are arson attempts: whatever the reason, they are damaging, even dangerous, to the common good. Let us thus accept the imperfections of our process and let us build our own history with the responsibility of the great peoples where all tolerate each other. Because it is important at this stage for us to believe in the good will of everybody, whether or not it exists. It’s the price of the progress towards plain democracy. Where we arrive at not forcefully but by stages. Where mistakes, instead of throwing weapons, are pillars of the lessons learned in the way toward perfection.”

And finally...

Antonio Freitas, in the Novo Jornal (NJ), comments on a controversial note sent by the Angolan Ministry of External Relations (MIREX) to all embassies, consulates and offices of international organisations in Luanda:


“The note restricts henceforth the circulation of diplomats inside the country, a measure being interpreted in some circles as a way of limiting the observation by them of what might be happening outside the capital during the electoral campaign. According to the document, the notified who might wish to travel outside Luanda must inform the MIREX of that intention at least three working days in advance. The ministry argues that the measure aims at ‘allowing the Angolan Government to fulfill its obligation to protect all inhabitants of the national territory, particularly the diplomatic agents.’
According to sources, the issue was discussed during a meeting between the External Relations minister, Joao Miranda, and the United States ambassador, Dan Mozena. The ambassador is said to have expressed his reservations about the measure, but was reassured by the minister that its only objective was ‘to provide an adequate protocol treatment’ to the diplomatic personnel. However, the note contains passages that don’t seem as comforting as the minister claims. For example, it refers to article 41 of the Vienna Convention, according to which ‘without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, the diplomatic agents, as well as having the duty to respect the laws and regulations of the accredited state, must not interfere in its internal affairs.’ This particular passage is taken by many as a serious warning to the foreign embassies which have usually taken positions whenever elections in African countries have unpleasant outcomes, as happened recently in Kenya and Zimbabwe. In an interview to the NJ last July, Dan Mozena said emphatically that his mission would be 'with an eye' on the Angolan elections."

As an echo of how party politics in the present campaign is being perceived by militants of the leading parties, there is a letter by a UNITA militant to the NJ in which he states:


“I am an old militant of UNITA who lived for a long time inside the UNITA liberated areas, including Jamba, the capital of the resistance at the time of Dr. Savimbi, the founding president of UNITA.
During the time that I lived in those areas, in relation to party-politics issues, there was no democracy in the true sense of the word, but there was Dr. Savimbi’s very able hand at manipulating politics, always taking into account the sensitivity and representativity of the local elites, bearing in mind their ethno-linguistic and racial belonging, which earned him lots of sympathy among the populations.
(…)
What we see today in Mr. Samakuva’s UNITA, as far as the choice of candidates for Members of Parliament (MPs) is concerned, is a scandal and is becoming dangerous for the harmony inside the party and the country. The elites of communities with political expression in various regions were almost all ignored. In retrospect, let’s mention the fact that in the pseudo-elections at the X Congress of UNITA, those who supported the parliamentarian Chivukuvuku for the leadership were removed from the places they held in the party, which contradicts the propaganda about democracy inside UNITA spread by Mr. Samakuva’s supporters. (…) The situation is even worse in the present choice of candidates for MPs, in provinces such as Benguela, where the genuine local UNITA elites are not represented and in their place friends and people from Mr. Samakuva’s region or his relatives were predominantly chosen. Quo vadis UNITA? The future will tell…”

Earlier in this series, I have published a similar letter from a MPLA militant appeared in the Angolense:



“In relation to the constitution of the list for future members of the National Assembly (MPs), I have to say that once again our glorious MPLA demonstrated that in terms of transparency and democracy it is the worst party. (…) Last Saturday, the Luanda Provincial Committee of the MPLA called a meeting with the directorships of the province’s ‘action committees’. The party bases, in spite of not having been informed beforehand of the reasons for the meeting, attended in mass. (…) [However], the meeting was pure and simply aimed at misleading the militants when the lists had already been made since March/April. The bases also became aware that the list for the national circle is equally very doubtful and doesn’t have any technical-professional credibility.
Within the various ‘action committees’ in Luanda’s urban areas (…) there are militants who sacrifice a lot in their work for the MPLA and are holders of undergraduate and masters degrees, among whom lawyers, university teachers and electoral trainers, with an enviable technical-professional experience. They are militants who have the MPLA at heart and whose presence in those committees will guarantee the party’s victory in the respective areas.

[However, it is sad to see that they were ignored in favour of mostly unknown faces].
(…)
That’s why, because of these injustices, the MPLA, mobilised with the sacrifice and supported by the bases, on polling day will see those same bases prefer to stay at home instead of voting for people that they don’t know and did not select. That’s also why the militant, if he chooses to vote, will do so for the opposition, which, in spite of the past, will probably have a better team for the National Assembly comparatively to our MPLA, which is not concerned with the Luanda vote because the victory will come from the provinces. We only regret that the MPLA continues to use the methods of the past and ignoring the fact that times have changed. It’s always the same people who get nominated, everything works on the basis of ‘schemes’ and corruption. When things are not done with transparency it’s a sign of corruption. That’s how the MPLA, even if unwillingly, is campaigning for the opposition.
I have expressed my opinion here because if I express it at the meeting I will be silenced, mistreated and perhaps killed. When a militant cannot just say what he feels and if he does is taken as disgruntled and when one is disgruntled it’s a crime, then it’s not possible to take these ideas to meetings. That’s how our MPLA is.”

Celso Malavoloneke, in the Semanario Angolense (SA), in an open letter to Fernando Macedo, president of the Association Justice, Peace and Democracy (AJPD), expresses his disagreements with the tone and the spirit of some of the positions this association has been taking on the current election campaign.

The proximate motive for Malavoloneke’s letter is a statement by AJPD, signed by Macedo and also published in the SA, according to which “The AJPD alerts the Angolan political community and the international community, specially the national and international observers, to the practices, unacceptable in a democratic state of rights, which have been occurring in the current electoral process, namely: the Government of Angola’s permanent propaganda in the state media using the same narrative discourse of one of the contending parties in clear violation of the principle of equal treatment and opportunity; the give-aways to members of the electorate of goods such as bicycles and motorcycles by political parties and organisations affected to them during acts of political campaign with vote orientation, all under the blind eye of the National Electoral Commission and the National Council for Social Communication; the persistence of attempts to violate the laws applicable to the electoral process, and the occasional political violence, even if of low intensity and not generalised, without the prompt charging of the responsible for such actions by the competent judicial and police bodies.”

In reaction to that statement, Malavoloneke asserts:

(…)

In 1991/92 I was placed in the southern region of the country coordinating the area of community development of a well known international ONG. In that role, I was witness to the damage caused to the bodies and minds of thousands of compatriots by inflammatory speeches and careless actions that have characterised that election campaign. The “friends” from the international community, headed by the United Nations and supported by the super-powers of the Cold War and Portugal, imposed their agenda and timing, anxious for a disposable solution in which the most honest hoped – they could only hope – that after they left the country Angolans would come to agreement the best way they could. However, all exploded even before that, with the consequences that we all know.
(…)

And, look, I forgot something: when the fight began, my functions changed, and do you know to what? Head of logistics of a makeshift travel agency to evacuate from the country the foreigners and their families from the chancelleries that contributed more or less openly to set the country on fire. And those chancelleries don’t seem far away from you and the AJPD. Ah! And I also evacuated some Angolans who all of a sudden produced other passports which they had been hiding, mind you…
(…)
Therefore, I would like you to understand that we all need ways out. Ways out that have also to be ways of hope. Ways of hope that do not need to be necessarily perfect, they just need to be necessarily ours. Created by us with the limitations that we have, created in our own context with our own specificities and created for our land with the adaptations that they might require, but not imposed by a theoretical script from any western country.
(…)

It seems to me that the Angolan elites have decided to look after these aspects and take that past as a reference. Therefore, your discourse, dear FM, sounds isolated and causes fears. Hence this reaction from your close brother. Our responsibility, as the elites, is to scrutinise the process, yes, but taking into account our idiosyncrasies. And one of them, really assumed, is that inflammatory, passionate, virulent speeches at this stage are arson attempts: whatever the reason, they are damaging, even dangerous, to the common good. Let us thus accept the imperfections of our process and let us build our own history with the responsibility of the great peoples where all tolerate each other. Because it is important at this stage for us to believe in the good will of everybody, whether or not it exists. It’s the price of the progress towards plain democracy. Where we arrive at not forcefully but by stages. Where mistakes, instead of throwing weapons, are pillars of the lessons learned in the way toward perfection.”

And finally...