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.
“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.
(…)
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.
(…)
(…)
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...
And finally...
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1 comment:
1. Because it is never enough to stress the importance, relevance and accuracy of messages like Malavoloneke’s here, I must do just that: stress it!
But, let’s not make any mistakes: I am also a good friend of Fernando’s. With him I shared the anguishes that led many Angolan students in Portugal to bring about a “Manifesto for the Right to Live”, for which we went door to door to collect thousands of signatures from the Angolan community and friends of Angola in Portugal and held a well attended vigil in one of Lisbon’s main squares, which counted with such references of our national culture as Raul Indipwo and others, calling for a halt to the hostilities that followed the 1992 elections and for a lasting peace and true democracy in our country. Supporting him I was, a few months later, in the hunger strike he and other Angolan students held in front of the Angolan Embassy in Lisbon to protest at the victimisation those students were being subjected to as a result of the intolerance that marked those times in our national life. With him I traveled, some time later, to Brussels, to spread our message and express our desire for peace at the headquarters of the European Union. To him I suggested, a few years later in Luanda, when he asked my opinion about it, that it would be better for him to go to pursue his studies and leave the political/civic struggles aside for a while – this particular episode happened when he was working in the same office as Rafael Marques, under the auspices of the Open Society, and it would be particularly interesting to observe the evolution Marques’ relationship with that organisation had in more recent years...
For him I was happy when he let me know some time later that he was in Boston post-graduating in Law. To him go my praises for all the courage and strength he shows in fighting for Justice, Peace and Democracy in our country!
However… however, in this occasion, I subscribe to Malavoloneke’s message to him. And deep down in my heart I believe that Fernando also subscribes to it, at least for this once. For this peace we so longed for. For that right to live that we called for so earthly sixteen years ago! And that message was and is very simple: GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!
2. While I was living those moments with Fernando, I was also sharing momentous experiences with such ‘Mais Velhos’ from our country’s political History as Mario Pinto de Andrade, Manuel Lima and Daniel Chipenda (it was straight from this late Angolan nationalist's family home that I left, totally exhausted spiritually and psychologically, more than a decade ago, Lisbon to London, where I’ve been based ever since and from where I’ve been trying to give whatever contribution I can to our country and to our continent, until I can finally return home). With them and others, I learned many of the lessons they’ve accumulated along about half a century of struggles for liberation, peace and development in Africa. Through them I’ve learned something essential about ourselves: for all the differences in their individual stories and standings in the nationalist movement, there was one commonality – our future can only be dictated by our own past, culture and history.
It was from them that I got this sense of just how right Malavoloneke is in saying: “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 was what I learned from them that helped me make sense, not just of the letters from Unita and Mpla militants that I’ve reproduced in this post but, above all, of these particular passages from Douglass North’s Economics Nobel Prize Lecture, which I placed in the comment’s space to this post:
"(…)
Measuring and enforcing agreements in political markets is far more difficult. What is being exchanged (between constituents and legislators in a democracy) is promises for votes. The voter has little incentive to become informed because the likelihood that one's vote matters is infinitesimal; further the complexity of the issues produces genuine uncertainty. Enforcement of political agreements is beset by difficulties. Competition is far less effective than in economic markets. For a variety of simple, easy-to-measure and important-to-constituent-well-being policies, constituents may be well informed, but beyond such straightforward policy issues ideological stereotyping takes over and shapes the consequent performance of economies. It is the polity that defines and enforces property rights and in consequence it is not surprising that efficient economic markets are so exceptional.
(…)
History demonstrates that ideas, ideologies, myths, dogmas, and prejudices matter; and an understanding of the way they evolve is necessary for further progress in developing a framework to understand societal change. The rational choice framework assumes that individuals know what is in their self interest and act accordingly. That may be correct for individuals making choices in the highly developed markets of modern economies but it is patently false in making choices under conditions of uncertainty - the conditions that have characterized the political and economic choices that shaped (and continue to shape) historical change.
(…)
A common cultural heritage provides a means of reducing the divergence in the mental models that people in a society have, and constitutes the means for the intergenerational transfer of unifying perceptions. In pre-modern societies cultural learning provided a means of internal communication; it also provided shared explanations for phenomena outside the immediate experiences of the members of society in the form of religions, myths and dogmas. Such belief structures are not, however, confined to primitive societies but are an essential part of modern societies as well.
(…)
The key to the foregoing story is the kind of learning that the individuals in a society acquired through time. Time in this context entails not only current experiences and learning but also the cumulative experience of past generations that is embodied in culture. Collective learning - a term used by Hayek - consists of those experiences that have passed the slow test of time and are embodied in our language, institutions, technology, and ways of doing things. It is "the transmission in time of our accumulated stock of knowledge" (Hayek 1960: 27). It is culture that provides the key to path dependence - a term used to describe the powerful influence of the past on the present and future. The current learning of any generation takes place within the context of the perceptions derived from collective learning. Learning then is an incremental process filtered by the culture of a society which determines the perceived pay-offs, but there is no guarantee that the cumulative past experience of a society will necessarily fit them to solve new problems. Societies that get "stuck" embody belief systems and institutions that fail to confront and solve new problems of societal complexity.
(…)
Incentives embodied in belief systems as expressed in institutions determine economic performance through time, and however we wish to define economic performance the historical record is clear. Throughout most of history and for most societies in the past and present, economic performance has been anything but satisfactory. Human beings have, by trial and error, learned how to make economies perform better; but not only has this learning taken ten millenia (since the first economic revolution) - it has still escaped the grasp of almost half of the world's population. Moreover the radical improvement in economic performance, even when narrowly defined as material well-being, is a modern phenomenon of the last few centuries and confined until the last few decades to a small part of the world. Explaining the pace and direction of economic change throughout history presents a major puzzle.
(…)
We are just beginning to explore the nature of this historical process. The remarkable development of Western Europe from relative backwardness in the tenth century to world economic hegemony by the eighteenth century is a story of a gradually evolving belief system in the context of competition among fragmented political/economic units producing economic institutions and political structure that produced modern economic growth. And even within Western Europe there were successes (The Netherlands and England) and failures (Spain and Portugal) reflecting diverse external environmental experiences.
(…)
It is the admixture of formal rules, informal norms, and enforcement characteristics that shapes economic performance. While the rules may be changed overnight, the informal norms usually change only gradually. Since it is the norms that provide "legitimacy" to a set of rules, revolutionary change is never as revolutionary as its supporters desire and performance will be different than anticipated. And economies that adopt the formal rules of another economy will have very different performance characteristics than the first economy because of different informal norms and enforcement. The implication is that transferring the formal political and economic rules of successful western market economies to Third World and eastern European economies is not a sufficient condition for good economic performance. Privatization is not a panacea for solving poor economic performance."
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