Gearing for election government closes human rights office

The Angolan government asked the UN on April 1 to close its human rights office after four years operation in the country. The UN accepted the request but local observers say that the rights issue remains current. This is not just because of the continuing conflict around Cabinda, b ut because of concerns over repression ahead of the upcoming elections, with the examples of Kenya and Zimbabwe to go on.

Electioneering will be taking place in a society still awash with light weapons left over from the civil war, and in which militias and private security companies are active - PSCs employ around 35,000 staff. The UN representative for human rights in the country, Vegard Bye, commented that it was Angola¹s ³sovereign right² to close the office, although the government and the UN had been negotiating a memorandum of understanding last year. The government and civil society organisations would now have more responsibility for human rights protection, the Angolan Council for Human Rights commented.

Torture allegation

The government announcement came in the midst of a number of rights issues. On Wednesday the Angolan Lawyers Association called for an investigation into allegations of the torture of civilian detainees in the Yabi prison in Cabinda, on orders of the local military commander. This was connected to the trial of a journalist, Fernando Lelo, who has been accused of instigating armed rebellion in Cabinda.

The decision to close the UN office comes also at a time when risks of pre-electoral violence are high because of the large number of weapons still in the hands of civilians. On February 9 the small opposition party Frente para Democracia (FpD) criticised the government¹s methods and said disarmament was not only a security issues but also a political one. It insisted that pro-government militias known as O Defesa civil¹ still operate, despite government denials.

It also called for the regulation of the activities of private security companies. According to a report by the Swiss Peace organisation last year, the number of PSCs in Angola grew from 90 to 307 between 2000 and 2004, with a workforce numbering tens of thousands. The biggest companies are owned by senior military and government officials. The largest is Teleservice, with contracts with the state-owned oil company, Sonangol, and several oil multinationals. The second, Alfa 5 is 30 percent owned by the state-owned diamond company, Endiama, and the third, Mamboji SARL, has expanded its activities to Congo-Brazzaville.

There is concern about their powers and the overall lack of regulation. The 1994 Diamond Law authorized PSCs contracted by diamond companies to monitor the movement of people and goods to prevent ³unauthorized diamond prospecting, research, reconnaissance and exploration² in the concessions. One of the most controversial operations in Luanda was the forced evictions of poor residents in March 2006, carried out by the police in cooperation with guards of the Visgo Segurança e Proteção PSC.

Hunger strike

In a separate development the former chief of foreign counter intelligence, Maria da Conceicao, has been hospitalized after she went on hunger strike. Her lawyer David Mendes said his client was transferred from the Viana penitentiary to the Luanda military hospital on the evening of April 7. He also said that her case file had disappeared from the Supreme Court. Da Conceicao was sentenced last year at the same time as former Foreign Intelligence Services head Fernando Miala, and has lodged an appeal but has not heard any word to date (SouthScan v21/06).

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Angola, one of Mugabe's supporters, is making sure that no statement it makes now will come back to haunt it later when it has its own election, say South African analysts. The Angolan leaders of the SADC monitoring team were quick to say that the election in Zimbabwe had bee n free and fair, before other monitors had time to make this evaluation. The Angolan opposition UNITA party¹s information secretary Adalberto da Costa Junior said the Kenya and Zimbabwe experiences served as a warning for Angola¹s own elections. "The refusal by international observers in Zimbabwe must not happen in Angola where the law on registration for elections is being violated", he said.

Last March, during a period of turbulence in Zimbabwe when a number of MDC leaders and followers were attacked, Angola's security minister visited Harare and announced a deal in which Angola would supply police support in the event of a breakdown in order.