A field of maize spoiled by drought in Zambia, one of the countries that has declared an emergency as it grapples with the effects of El Niño. Credit: WFP/Gabriela Vivacqua

By Kevin Humphrey
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Jul 23 2024 (IPS)

Heading into the traditional dry period of winter in southern Africa, there was significant consternation due to the drastically below average rainfall the region has been experiencing since January 2024.

Countries, including Botswana, Mozambique, Angola, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia, have only received less than 20 percent of the rainfall that they usually receive in the month of February. The driest January/February period in 40 years, according to a report issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Agriculture in these large areas of southern Africa has been seriously affected, as farming is rainfall-dependent with no access to irrigation systems.

Edward Phiri cooking mealies (maize) on an open fire at his vegetable stall in a busy street in Windsor West, Johannesburg. Edward, mentioned how expensive mealies had become in the last few months and that he was the only vegetable stall selling cooked maize. All the other stalls (at least 15 in a small but densely populated area) had closed down due to high costs. Credit: Kevin Humphrey/IPS

Machinda Marongwe, programme director of Oxfam Southern Africa, said the region is “in crisis” and called on donors to “immediately release resources” to prevent an “unimaginable humanitarian situation.”

“With all these countries facing multiple crises simultaneously, the urgency cannot be overstated,” Marongwe said.

In southern Africa, a region Oxfam describes as a “climate disaster hotspot,” El Nino, the climate pattern that originates along the equator in the Pacific Ocean, has severely influenced the weather in the region. A feature of El Nino is that it brings high temperatures and low rainfall to southern Africa. This dries out the ground, causing floods when it does rain.

Professor Jasper Knight of the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at Wits University spoke to IPS about the current extreme weather conditions.

A prolonged dry spell in southern Africa in early 2024 scorched crops and threatened food security for millions of people. The ongoing El Nino, which altered rainfall patterns during the growing season, has played a significant role in fueling the drought. Credit: NASA

“We are in an oscillating period of El Nino, and this causes variability in regional rainfall across southern Africa. Some parts of the region are very dry and have experienced heat waves; parts of southern Lesotho are currently in a crisis state of drought, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFRC),” says Knight.

“But this water crisis isn’t just about rainfall; it is also about managing water more effectively when it is already scarce. The water infrastructure in southern Africa is not fit for purpose and this makes the situation worse. Developing more resilient infrastructure will help buffer some of the negative effects of rainfall variability. This in turn will help society cope with drought events.”

In addition to the problem of raising crops, which has led to very real risks of food insecurity, a lack of water has ushered in widespread outbreaks of cholera. The rainy season misfired and became a drought and the fact that the next wet season is months away increases fears for the region as a whole in terms of the provision of food and the effects on people’s lives economically and in terms of dangerous health threats.

According to the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), southern Africa is in the grip of an urgent crisis.

FANRPAN stated in a recent media briefing that “the situation is dire and demands immediate attention. Widespread crop failure looms in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Livestock are dying at alarming rates due to a lack of water and vegetation.

“The movement of desperate people and animals is spreading diseases, including those transmissible to humans.”

A drought disaster was declared in Zambia on February 29 and Malawi’s president followed suit on March 23—for the fourth year in a row that weather conditions have led the country to do this. 

The World Food Programme (WFP) said El Niño was “exacerbating the devastating effects of the climate crisis in Malawi.” Zimbabwe joined them in early April.

Reuters reported Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa as saying, “More than 2.7 million people in the country will go hungry this year and more than USD 2 billion in aid is required for the country’s national response.”

Joe Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), spoke to IPS.

“This year’s El Nino-related production shortfalls are partially offset by larger carrying stocks following large maize crops in 2022 and 2023.  Poor crops have already resulted in increased imports in countries like Zimbabwe. Exports are expected to fall as stocks tighten in the region. The coming La Niña will hopefully bring needed precipitation to the region later this year, which should mean that the drought-related shortages are relatively short-lived.”

After heating up the eastern Pacific Ocean for about a year, El Niño finally died out in May 2024. As of July 2024, the eastern Pacific was in a neutral phase, but the reprieve may be short-lived. Credit: NASA

This hopeful forecast is also mentioned in a blog published, on April 10, 2024, by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Entitled “Southern Africa drought: Impacts on maize Production,” Joseph Glauber and Weston Anderson wrote: “Unlike 2014 to 2016, when key producer-exporter South Africa suffered back-to-back droughts, this year’s drought follows a year of good harvest and stock building. Larger beginning stocks will help buffer the impact of the current drought. However, supplies from outside the region will be necessary to meet consumption needs, and exports will likely decline, particularly to markets outside of Southern Africa.”

Drought and the attendant extreme hardships that it causes are undoubtedly creating havoc in the region. Hopefully, food stocks from countries like South Africa will go some way to alleviating this crisis and that this coming spring, there will be ample rain and bumper crops.

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Several Southern African countries have or are in the process of enacting legislation that limits the civil society space, with implications for human rights. Credit: CIVICUS Monitor

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Jul 31 2023 (IPS)

Freedom of expression is under threat as governments in Southern Africa have enacted laws restricting civil society organizations, says global rights advocacy organisation, CIVICUS, warning that human rights violations are on the increase globally.

“The state of civil society is unfortunately not improving; civil restrictions continue across the world,” said David Kode, the advocacy Lead at CIVICUS.

“More than 2 billion people live in countries that are rated as closed, which is the worst rating any country can have – this means that 28 percent of the world’s population are not able to speak out when there is corruption or human rights violations restrictions or cannot write articles as journalists without facing appraisals,” Kode told IPS in an interview, noting that the organization’s human rights tool is indicating growing suppression of civil space across the world.

The CIVICUS Monitor, a tool accessing the state of civic space in more than 190 countries, provides evidence of restrictions on human rights by governments. The CIVICUS Monitor rates the state of civil space ‘open, ‘repressed’, and ‘closed’ according to each country.

Kode notes that human rights violations are increasing globally with more restrictions on civil society in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The picture is not different in the Southern Africa region where restrictions on civil space have been continuing, and these have included censorship, violent response to protests, and restrictive laws as seen in Angola, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe

Closing Civil Society Space

Zimbabwe remains on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist as attacks on civic space continue ahead of the scheduled 2023 national elections.

Last November, Zimbabwe approved the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Bill, 2022, known as the Patriotic Act. The law seeks to create the offence of “wilfully damaging the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe” and will essentially criminalise the lobbying of foreign governments to extend or implement sanctions against Zimbabwe or its officials.

Furthermore, the Zimbabwe government gazetted the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill in November 2021, amending the Private Voluntary Organisations Act, which governs non-profit organizations. The main aim of the Bill is to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations to strengthen the country’s legal framework to combat money laundering, financing terrorism and proliferation.

Civil society organizations warn that the Bill could hinder their activities and financing with potential adverse impacts on economic development. Besides, NGOs argue that they are a low-risk sector with no precedence of financing terrorism and money laundering.

Musa Kika, Executive Director of Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, says the PVO will affect the operations of NGOs, including deterring donors from funding PVOs, fearing the money could end up under the grip of the government. Besides, the Bill has a provision giving the Minister of Justice unfettered powers to place under supervision or surveillance, using subjective discretion, those PVOs the Minister deems to be high risk.

“Continued hostility and harassment on the part of the government towards the work of CSOs in the country will thus only result in a hugely detrimental effect on their efforts in advancing the protection of and respect for the basic human rights and freedoms of ordinary Zimbabwean civilians as espoused under Zimbabwe’s Constitution,” Kika said. He noted that civil society organisations were operating in a tough environment in Zimbabwe where the government does not trust them, especially those working in the fields of governance and human rights.

“We have a government that does not want to account,” said Kika. “We have had many human rights activists who have been arrested on flimsy charges…Terrorism finance is being used as a cover, but the motive is to close the democratic space because the government and accountability in human rights and governance are sworn enemies.”

In Zimbabwe, NGOs have, in partnership with the government, supported development, providing a range of services in health, education, social protection, humanitarian assistance, environmental management, emergency response and democracy building.  A research report commissioned by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum in collaboration with the Southern Defenders and Accountability Lab has warned of huge job and financial losses if the Bill is passed into law.

United Nations experts have urged Zimbabwe’s President Emerson Mnangagwa to reject enacting a bill that would severely restrict civic space and the right to freedom of association in the country.

However, President Mnangagwa has defended the passage of the PVO Bill, vowing to speedily “sign it into law once it reaches my desk”. In a commentary in his weekly column published by the government-owned Sunday Mail, Mnangagwa said signing the bill into law will usher Zimbabwe into a “new era of genuine philanthropic and advocacy work, unsullied by ulterior political or financial motives.”

Mnangagwa said the law was meant to defend the country from foreign infiltration.

Engendering Patriotism but Endangering Democracy

Zimbabwe has also recently approved another repressive law known as the ‘Patriot Act’.

“The Patriotic Act is an extremely repressive and unconstitutional piece of legislation that has serious ramifications for citizens’ rights, particularly the rights of freedom of expression in the lead up to the elections,” human rights lawyer, Dough Coltart, tells IPS in an interview.

“There is a very real need to educate the citizens on what the ramifications of this Act are for people’s lives because the Act has far-reaching consequences for the entire country and will essentially stifle any public dialogue around the challenges we are facing as a country.”

“The Patriot law is a bad piece of legislation which is an affront to the practice of ethical journalism in Zimbabwe,” Njabulo Ncube, Coordinator of the Zimbabwe National Editors’ Forum (ZINEF), told IPS. “It stinks to the highest skies as it criminalizes the practice of good journalism. It is anti-media freedom and free expression…civil society organisations have also been caught in the mix; they cannot effectively make government account for its actions.”

Democracy Dimming

The situation in Zimbabwe is echoed in some countries across Southern Africa, where governments are cracking down on CSOs in the name of protecting national sovereignty and the threats of money laundering and terrorism financing.

In Angola, the country’s National Assembly, on May 25 2023, passed a draft NGO Statute, which CSOs have criticized for limiting freedom of association by giving the state excessive powers to interfere with civil society activities.

According to the Movimento de Defensores de Direitos Humanos de Angola (Movement of Human Rights Defenders of Angola, KUTAKESA), the government has targeted civil society with legislation that is meant for terrorists and money launderers, though it has never been proven in any court that a CSO has committed an act of terrorism in Angola.

On the contrary, the rationale of this legislation constitutes institutional terrorism, the target of which are CSOs, said Godinho Cristóvão, a jurist, human rights defender and executive director of KUTEKA in an interview with the CIVICUS Monitor.

“The Angolan authorities should have aligned themselves with the democratic rule of law and respected the work of CSOs and HRDs,” Cristóvão is quoted as saying.

“Instead, there has been an increase in threats, harassment and illegal arrests of human rights defenders who denounce or hold peaceful demonstrations against acts of bad governance and violations of citizens’ rights and freedoms. There have been clear setbacks with regard to the guarantee of fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the constitution, as well as the rights set out in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other human rights treaties Angola has ratified.”

In Mozambique, a new NGO on Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act, which overregulates CSOs, is seen as the death knell for the civic movement in the country. The Act was approved in October 2022 under the pretext of fighting terrorism. It has further curtailed freedoms of expression, information, press, assembly and public participation.

Paula Monjane, Executive Director of the Civil Society Learning and Capacity Building Centre (CESC), a Mozambican non-profit civil society organisation, said currently, the legislation was being proposed to silence dissenting voices and people fighting for better governance of public affairs and the protection of human rights in the country.

The draft Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Act law establishes a legal regime for the creation, organisation and functioning of CSOs, and Monjane highlighted that it contains several norms that violate freedom of association despite this right being safeguarded by the constitution and international human rights treaties.

“It gives the government absolute and discretionary powers to ‘create’, control the functioning of, suspend and extinguish CSOs,” said Monjane, adding, “If the bill is approved, it will legitimise already existing practices restricting civic space, allowing the persecution of dissenting voices and organisations critical of the government, up to banning them from continuing to operate.”

Monjane said if the bill is passed into law CSOs in Mozambique will push for it to be declared unconstitutional and will ask the African Union, through the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the United Nations, through the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association to urgently condemn it.

On actions to foster human rights and human rights defenders, Kode said civil society organisations must be supported to hold governments accountable for upholding national and international human rights conventions that they have subscribed to.

The Universal Periodic Review, an assessment of the state of civic and human rights of a country over a four-year period, provides recommendations to governments enabling them to open civic space and remove restrictive laws.

“Governments need to implement the recommendations of the UPR and not treat them as a formality for them to be seen by the international community as respecting human rights when they are not,” said Kode, adding that encouraging governments to implement the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development was also a way of getting them to see development alongside human rights.

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Families who fled militia attacks in Kasai Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo arrive at the newly established Lóvua settlement in northern Angola. Credit: UNHCR/Rui Padilha

By Roshni Majumdar
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 17 2017 (IPS)

The UN’s refugee agency is relocating more than 33,000 Congolese refugees from overcrowded temporary shelters in northern Angola to a more permanent establishment in Lóvua.

From April this year, Angola witnessed an influx of refugees—who were fleeing violence in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo—to its Lunda Norte province. The government rushed to manage the situation by setting up temporary centers in Cacanda and Mussunge.

From the very beginning, authorities in Angola deliberated on questions of a more permanent settlement to ensure stability within the country.

“The centers quickly became overcrowded and the situation became very difficult. The government began working on setting up Lóvua two months ago,” Margarida Loureiro, who works as an external relations officer at the UN Field Office in Dundo, the provincial capital of Lunda Norte, told IPS.

Not all refugees who have biometrically registered—and all 33,142 have—chose to live in the temporary centers. Many lived with other host communities across Lunda Norte. Unintentionally, this allowed the government to relocate, for instance, roughly 400 families from Mussunge, and close the shelter quickly.

Now, the UN refugee agency and government authorities, through town hall meetings, have brought attention to a more cohesive space for all Congolese refugees in Lóvua.

Lóvua, which is located 100 kms (or 62 miles) from the DRC border, has been bracketed into nine zones. Every zone is divided by nine villages and every village is divided by 72 plots of land. Each village can host a maximum of 360 people. When families first arrive at the shelter, they are assisted with food and blankets. After a 24-hour period of assistance, they are sent to their plot of land where they work to build their own homes.

Still, funding the project, in spite of an interagency appeal by the UN in June for 65.5 million dollars, has had dismal results—only 32 percent of the money has come through.

Agencies are predicting that an estimated 50,000 Congolese refugees will need help by the end of the year.

“Although the number of refugee arrivals have swindled at this time of the year, the government has kept its borders open. To ensure Lóvua’s sustainability, we still need greater funding,” said Margarida.

Angola is a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and has historically received refugees from the DRC. Before the influx in April, Angola hosted as many as 13,400 refugees from DRC.

Shanty town near Cape Town, South Africa. Credit: Chell Hill(CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

By Busani Bafana
LUANDA, Sep 3 2015 (IPS)

Slums are a curse and blessing in fast urbanising Africa. They have challenged Africa’s progress towards better living and working spaces but they also provide shelter for the swelling populations seeking a life in cities.

Rural Africans are pouring into towns and cities in search of jobs and other opportunities, but African cities – 25 of which are among the 100 fastest growing cities in the world – are not delivering the much needed support services, including housing, at the same rate as people are demanding them.

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) projects that nearly 1.3 billion people – more than the current population of China – will be living in cities in Africa in the next 15 years."We must encourage, identify ‎and celebrate the continent. Our schools need to train architects and city planners in no other way than to appreciate and promote African architectural culture" – Tokunbo Omisore, past president of the African Architects Association

Africa’s urbanisation rate of four percent a year is already over-stretching the capacity of its cities to provide adequate shelter, water, sanitation, energy and even food for its growing population.

Safe and resilient cities and human settlements is one of the aims of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be agreed on in New York next month. As the SDGs replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) launched in September 2000, UN-Habitat has largely succeeded in meeting the target of taking 100 million people out of slums by the time the MDGs expired in Asia, China and part of India … but not in Africa.

However, Tokunbo Omisore, past president of the African Architects Association, believes that Africa can solve its slums situation by planning and developing towns and cities that strike a balance in the provision of housing, water sanitation, energy and transport while luring investments to create jobs.

According to Omisore, the problem lies in the fact that so far settlements have been developed for people but not with people, and he asks if Africa wants the humane aspects of its cultural values and heritage reflected in its cities or has to replicate the cities of developed nations to become classified as developed.

“Slums and sprawls demand understanding the reasons and problems resulting in their existence and identifying the class of people living there,” says Omisore.

“African governments focus on the infrastructural development of developed nations without consideration for the human development of our different communities and ensuring creation of employment opportunities which is key to the sustainability of our cities. People make the cities, not the other way around.”

By redefining slums, policy-makers in Africa can work more on understanding the rural-urban links to arrive at African solutions for African problems, he argues, calling for a “campaign of marketing Africa and appreciating what is African.”

Aisa Kirabo Kacyira, Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of UN-Habitat. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

“We must encourage, identify ‎and celebrate the continent. Our schools need to train architects and city planners in no other way than to appreciate and promote African architectural culture.”

At a time Africa is grappling with the issue of land tenure, particularly in agriculture, limited and often expensive land in urban settlements is posing the question of whether Africa should build up or build across, and there are those who argue that densification is the answer to Africa’s housing woes.

At the 2nd Africa Urban Infrastructure Investment Forum hosted by United Cities and Local Government-Africa (UCLG-A) and the government of Angola in Luanda in April,  Aisa Kirabo Kacyira, Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of UN-Habitat argued that densification is an avenue for the transformation of Africa and its cities.

“If urbanisation should be possible and if we are going to build landed housing without going up, it simply means it will be expensive, but if we have to densify then we need to go up,” said Kacyira.

“Yes, let us stick to our identity and culture, but let us stick to principles that make economic sense. We are not going to have vibrant cities by running away from the problem and spreading and sprawling.”

Kacyira also argued that by planning, reducing desertification and recycling waste, African cities can help reduce their carbon footprint, a key issue on the post-MDG agenda.

Meanwhile, a Kenya housing project could represent a model for the future of

Housing in Africa. Muungano Wa Wanavijiji, a federation of slum dwellers, has partnered with Shack/Slum Dwellers International to provide decent shelter for people living in slums by creating a low cost three-level house called  ‘The Footprint’, which costs 1,000 dollars.

The project has built 300 houses in two settlements this year. Dwellers pay 20 percent towards the structure and are given support to access a microloan covering 80 percent of the cost.

The UCLG-A network which represents over 1,000 cities in Africa, estimates that Africa needs to mobilise investments of 80 billion dollars a year for upgrading urban infrastructure to meet the needs of urban residents.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Young Bangladeshi women raise their fists at a protest in Shahbagh. Credit: Kajal Hazra/IPS

By Clara Fok and Sara Vida Coumans
NEW YORK, Aug 11 2015 (IPS)

There’s a deep irony that as people around the world mark International Youth Day on Aug. 12, hardly any attention will be paid to the shrinking space for young human rights defenders who increasingly find themselves on the receiving end of government repression. 
In recent years, helped by the connective power of social media, the world has witnessed the growing force of young people fighting for and defending their rights and shaping their communities. Young people are mobilising the masses to hold governments accountable by calling on them to respect, protect and fulfil human rights. Young people are not just taking a back seat and swiping away on their gadgets, but are organising sit-ins, protests, occupying public space, and directly holding talks with governments.

Of course, young people have always played a key role in social movements where they have a huge stake. But now they are increasingly taking on leadership roles in peaceful protest movements and driving change.

Young people are not just taking a back seat and swiping away on their gadgets, but are organising sit-ins, protests, occupying public space, and directly holding talks with governments. They are not waiting to be told what to do.

This has come at a price. Unfortunately – and too frequently – states respond to young people’s peaceful civic engagement by beating and locking up youth activists.

Take Myanmar, for example. More than 100 student leaders, including human rights defenders and activists, are facing jail time for protesting against the new National Education Law. Among them is Phyoe Phyoe Aung, the 26-year-old leader of one of Myanmar’s largest student movements.

On Aug. 25, she’ll turn 27, but it looks likely she will spend her birthday behind bars as part of an unjust and lengthy prison sentence after she was arrested in March following a violent police crackdown on largely peaceful protests.

Many more across the country continue to be harassed and intimidated in what appears to be a systematic clampdown on the student movement.

This should come as no surprise – the Myanmar authorities have a long history of repressing student-led movements, which they fear will trigger wider calls for political change and threaten their grip on power.

On the other side of the world, things are no different. In June, the security forces in Angola arbitrarily arrested 15 youth activists for participating in a meeting where they peacefully discussed politics and some of the concerns they have regarding the government of President José Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power for the past 36 years.

They have been accused of planning to disrupt public order and posing a threat to national security. Even young activists who were not in the meeting were accused of being part of it. They are all being held in solitary confinement far away from their homes, making it very hard for their loved ones to visit. 

Efforts to secure the release of the activists were severely punished. On July 22, five people who tried to visit them were detained for nine hours and a few days later a peaceful protest calling for the release of the 15 was violently repressed.

Such heavy-handed responses are not unique to Myanmar and Angola. Everywhere – from Turkey to Venezuela, the United States to Egypt – young human rights defenders have been thrown behind bars for fighting for their rights.

Society does not always welcome the acts of resistance by young human rights defenders. As noted by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, “general perception of youth in society, also conveyed by established media outlets, often point to their young age and lack of maturity as grounds for not giving them a say in public affairs. Youth and student movements are seen as troublemakers rather than serious actors that can fruitfully contribute to public debate”.

But denying young people a seat at the table limits opportunities to engage in debates about the progressive realisation of human rights. Even when young people are allowed to participate, it is often meaningless or tokenistic, because it is widely assumed that they are there to learn and develop, rather than to equally contribute to solutions.

This age-centric approach becomes a vicious cycle – very little room is given for young people to actively participate and shape the agenda, while policy makers fail to effectively address the barriers young people face to accessing basic human rights.

We need to take a step back and reflect on what this means for how states react to young people when they are peacefully engaging with society in a bid to create a space for them to participate in decisions that affect their lives.

If governments are serious about the lives of young people, they must ensure that young human rights defenders can claim and exercise their rights freely and without fear.

It is true that meaningful youth civic engagement will not happen overnight and it takes time to create productive inter-generational partnerships that are based on trust. But governments can take the first step by immediately and unconditionally releasing all the human rights defenders detained for peacefully exercising their rights.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

The Southern Africa Litigation Centre, Amnesty International and over a dozen other human rights organisations including the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights have signed an open letter demanding justice for crusading Angolan journalist Rafael Marques de Morais, whose exposés have offended several military officials and other higher-ups.

In their letter, published this week in a Malawian newspaper, the group praised Marques for “his long history of holding the Angolan government to account for human rights abuses and corruption through his insightful, thoughtful and well regarded journalistic investigations” and noted that “for his efforts, he has been arrested and detained multiple times in Angola.”

In the latest effort to silence Marques, legal action was launched by a group of generals over his book ‘Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola’, first published in Portugal in 2011.

The book cites a litany of human rights violations – including killings, torture and forced evictions – that took place in Lunda Norte in northeastern Angola where diamond excavations were taking place. Military officials, diamond miners and private security contractors – named in the book – first attempted to sue Marques for defamation in Portugal but their case was dismissed.

After the book appeared, the author filed a charge with the Angolan Attorney General on Nov. 14, 2011. He called on the authorities to investigate the moral responsibility of the generals for serious abuses. After hearing victims’ testimonies in 2012, the Attorney General set the case aside. New charges were then filed against Marques.

If convicted, he faces up to nine years in prison and damages of 1.2 million dollars on the charge.

“Mr Marques is the recipient of numerous prestigious international awards for his work. He is an equal opportunity human rights defender, working to expose violations no matter who is the accused or accuser,” the open letter writers noted.

Angola, the fourth-biggest diamond producing country by value, has been relaxing restrictions on exploration and development after producers, including South African giant De Beers, cut back operations during the global financial crisis. The move is worrying environmentalists as well as local people and the rise in numbers of anti-government protests is an irritant to the authorities who are keen to make an example of Marques with a successful prosecution.

In his speech as joint winner of the 2015 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expressions in Journalism award last week, one of several international honours he has received, Marques said that the trial would make him stronger.

“It will show Angolans there is nothing to fear and challenge them to hold the authorities to account,” he said in a press interview.

Seven journalists have been murdered in Angola since 1992 and many others intimidated or imprisoned, according to The Guardian newspaper. This month, two activists, Marcos Mavungo and Arao Bula Tempo, were arrested in Angola’s northern oil-producing province Cabinda, hours before an anti-government protest was due to take place. They have been jailed on charges of sedition.

Previous demonstrations have been broken up using what Human Rights Watch call “excessive force” and last year a female student was hospitalised after a beating by police for taking part in a march.

Other signers to the open letter include Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the UK-based Media Legal Defence Initiative.

Edited by Phil Harris    

*The book – Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola – is not yet available in English.

Soldiers patrol an oil field in Paloug, in South Sudan's Upper Nile state. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 23 2014 (IPS)

The sharp decline in world petroleum prices – hailed as a bonanza to millions of motorists in the United States – is threatening to undermine the fragile economies of several African countries dependent on oil for their sustained growth.

The most vulnerable in the world’s poorest continent include Nigeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Sudan – as well as developing nations such as Algeria, Libya and Egypt in North Africa."In the long run, governments in these oil-exporting countries should use oil revenues to support productive sectors, employment generation, and also build financial reserves when oil prices are high." -- Dr. Shenggen Fan of IFPRI

Dr. Kwame Akonor, associate professor of political science at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, who has written extensively on the politics and economics of the continent, told IPS recent trends and developments such as the outbreak of Ebola and the fall of global oil prices “shows how tepid and volatile African economies are.”

In 2012, for instance, Sierra Leone and Liberia (two of the hardest hit countries with Ebola) were cited by the World Bank as the fastest growing sub-Saharan African countries, he pointed out.

In a similar vein, countries such as Algeria, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon are considered top performing economies due to the large concentration of their oil and gas reserves.

“But the ramifications of any economic crisis will undoubtedly negatively impact the fortunes of these countries,” said Akonor, who is also director of the University’s Centre for African Studies and the African Development Institute, a New York-based think tank.

The world price for crude oil has declined from 107 dollars per barrel last June to less than 70 dollars last week.

There are multiple reasons for the decline, including an increase in oil production, specifically in the United States; a fall in the global demand for oil due to a slow down of the world economy; and a positive fallout from conservation efforts.

As the New York Times pointed out: “We simply don’t burn as much energy as we did a few years ago to achieve the same amount of mileage, heat or manufacturing production.”

There are also geopolitical reasons for the continued decline in oil prices because Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s largest producers, has refused to take any action to stop the fall.

Despite the crisis, the Saudi oil minister Ali Al-Naimi was quoted as saying, “Why should I cut production?”

This has led to the conspiracy theory it is working in collusion with the United States to undermine the oil-dependent economies of three major adversaries: Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

Besides Saudi Arabia, the fall in prices is also affecting Iraq, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Oman.

But they are expected to overcome the crisis because of a collective estimated foreign exchange reserve amounting to over 1.5 trillion dollars.

The drop in oil prices, however, will have the most damaging effects on Africa which has been battling poverty, food shortages, HIV/AIDS, and more recently, the outbreak of Ebola.

The heaviest toll will be on Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa which depends on crude oil for about 80 percent of its revenues, according to the Wall Street Journal. The country’s currency, the naira, has declined about 15 percent since the beginning of the fall in oil prices.

Dr. Shenggen Fan, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), sees both a positive and negative side to the current oil crisis. He told IPS the recent decline in oil prices will help reduce food prices.

Since oil prices are highly co-related to food prices, high oil prices make agricultural production more expensive and thus cause food prices to increase, he added.

“Now that oil prices are on a downward trend, this is, by and large, good for global food security and nutrition,” he said.

Dr. Fan said poor producers and consumers in developing countries should be able to benefit from this – as long as their purchasing power increases.

However, he cautioned, oil exporting countries may lose government revenues from low oil prices.

Indeed, crude oil producing nations in Africa have felt the pinch of declining oil prices given the dependence of their economies on crude oil, he noted. In the short run, he said, poor people may suffer, if their governments reduce food subsidies.

“In the long run, governments in these oil-exporting countries should use oil revenues to support productive sectors, employment generation, and also build financial reserves when oil prices are high.”

When oil prices are low, these governments should use reserves to ensure that poor people are protected through social safety net programmes, he added.

Dr. Akonor told IPS as impressive as the current and long-term economic projections for Africa might seem, it does not change the precarious and fragile nature of the continent’s economic foundations.

“The high debt overhang and the heavy reliance on raw materials (such as oil) and minerals for exports, makes African economies susceptible to shock and systemic risks,” he noted.

Moreover, he said, the underlying human capital formation, especially amongst the burgeoning unemployed youth population, lacks the requisite skills that could lead to real sustainable growth and transformation.

“What is needed then is the effective implementation of development strategies and policies that would lead to long-term structural transformation and durable human development,” he argued.

One way to achieve this is through closer regional cooperation, given the small size of domestic markets and poor continental infrastructure. Transformative and human needs development must, amongst other things, address Africa’s poor infrastructure, said Dr. Akonor.

According to the African Development Bank, the road access rate in Africa is only 34 percent, compared with 50 percent in other developing regions. Only 30 percent of Africans have access to electricity, compared to 70-90 percent in other developing countries.

“What makes Africa’s development challenges vexing is that there has not been a shortage of autonomous development-related ideas between African leaders and interested publics,” Dr. Akonor said.

One can argue that Africa has debated and produced too many blueprints and programmes for over half a century without any tangible results or follow through, he said.

“Thus the major obstacle to durable economic performance in Africa has not been the ambitious nature of the development targets, but rather the absence of political will by African governments and the lack of consistency, coordination, and coherence at the sub regional, regional and even global levels to implement structural change,” Dr. Akonor declared.

“Transformational development will require that Africa add value to, and diversify, its export commodities. Building a solid industrial base and infrastructural capacity are also necessary prerequisites toward autonomous structural change.”

Dr. Fan told IPS that on the broader issue of the factors that influence food prices, it is important to realise the right price of food is not easy to determine.

What is important is that the prices of food (including the natural resources that are used for food production) fully reflect their economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits in order to send the right signals to all actors along the food supply chain.

“If this causes food prices to increase, social safety nets should be provided to protect poor people in the short term and also to help them move on to more productive activities in the long term,” Dr. Fan said.

In so doing, their food security and nutrition is not compromised, he declared.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Is this one of those rare occasions where policy-makers self-critically correct a gigantic blunder? Or is it a cold turnabout guided by pure self-interest?

On August 15, the foreign ministers of the European Union gathered in Brussels and decided that each would henceforth be free to supply arms to Kurdish rebels fighting Sunni extremists of the Islamic State in the north of Iraq. Even Germany which in the past had been unwilling to furnish military supplies to warring parties  in ‘conflict zones’, is now ready to provide armoured vehicles and other hardware to the Kurds opposing the Islamic State’s advance.

The decision of Europe’s foreign ministers may surprise some because, barely a year and four months ago, in April 2013, the European Union had lifted a previously instituted ban on all imports of Syrian oil.

Peter Custers

Moreover, the lifting of this boycott was quite explicitly intended to facilitate the flow of oil from areas in the north-east of Syria, where Sunni extremist rebel organisations had established a strong foothold, if not overall predominance over the region’s oil fields.

The Islamic State was not the only Sunni extremist organisation disputing control over Syrian oil fields. Yet there is little doubt that the fateful decision that the European Union took last year helped the Islamic State consolidate its hold over Syrian oil resources and prepare for a sweeping advance into areas with oil wells in the north of Iraq.

The outcome of the recent Brussels’ meeting thus appears to overturn a disastrous previous decision. To underline the point it is useful to briefly describe the extent to which Sunni extremist rebels have meanwhile established control over oil extraction and production in both Syria and Iraq.“Is this one of those rare occasions where policy-makers self-critically correct a gigantic blunder? Or is it a cold turnabout guided by pure self-interest?”

The Syrian oil fields are basically concentrated in Deir-ez-Zor, a province bordering on Iraq. Whereas oil extraction in Syria has always been very limited in size if measured as a percentage of world supplies, control over the Syrian oil wells plus its refinery has become crucial for the financing of the Islamic State’s war efforts.

In neighbouring Iraq, oil reserves are not concentrated in one single geographic region as they are in Syria. The bulk of the oil wells are to be found in the country’s south, at great distance from the Islamic State’s war theatre in the north. Only one-seventh of Iraq’s oil resources are said to be located in areas controlled by the Islamic State on the one hand, and Kurdish fighters on the other. Nevertheless, recent reports indicate that the Islamic State controls at least seven major oil wells in Iraq alone.

Using expertise gathered after it established control over wells in Syria, the Sunni extremist organisation is able to draw huge profits from the smuggling and sale of oil. It is the Islamic State’s oil-backed armed strength amassed in two adjacent civil wars that has now sent shivers throughout the Western world.

If the European Union’s April 2013 decision appears to have helped trigger the Islamic State’s current success, the situation created is historically novel. To my knowledge, never before has a rebel force fighting a civil war in the global South been able to base its war aspirations on control over oil.

True, in most of the civil wars that have rocked Africa over the last thirty years, access to raw materials has been fundamental. Witness the cases of Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo (DRC) and Sudan. It is also true that oil exports have been a specific mode of war financing, for instance in Angola and the Sudan.

Yet, in those cases, the state remained in command of the oil wealth. In Angola, the right-wing rebel movement UNITA relied heavily on smuggling rough diamonds towards financing its war, while the country’s oil fields were located at great distance UNITA’s war theatre.

In Sudan, oil fields are concentrated in the country’s south, that is, close to and in the region which was disputed by the rebel movement. But the regime of Omar Al-Bashir pursued an inhuman policy of depopulation through aerial bombardments, massacring hapless villagers and forcing survivors to flee. In the self-same process the rebels were deprived of access to people and oil.

Hence, strictly speaking there is no precedent for the oil-fuelled civil wars waged by Sunni rebels in Syria and Iraq.

Now – in turning from de facto supporters to opponents of the Islamic State – Europe’s foreign ministers have followed the U.S. lead, because the United States had just started bombardments of Islamic State positions in Iraq’s north.

Though loudly defended on the grounds of the Islamic State’s relentless persecution of minorities, the renewed U.S. military intervention is not devoid of self-interest. Uppermost in the minds of Pentagon officials is the nexus between oil and arms.

Shortly after President Barack Obama announced the withdrawal of U.S. occupation forces from Iraq in October 2011, the United States clinched a huge deal for the sale of F-16 fighter planes and other armaments to Iraq’s military, valued at 12 billion dollars. At least four in five of the top U.S. military corporations are beneficiaries of Iraqi purchases.

Coincidentally, around the time when the U.S.-Iraq agreement on arms’ sales was sealed, the extraction of Iraqi crude was back to old levels, crossing the threshold of three million barrels per day in 2012. As the Iraqi government’s income from oil extraction and exports rose exponentially, U.S. and competing Russian arms’ manufacturers both lined up to bag the orders.

And there is robust confidence that the oil-and-arms nexus can be sustained – according to euphoric projections of the International Energy Agency (IAE), the body of Western oil consumer nations, Iraq holds the key to future increases in world production of crude!

Western policy-makers are feverishly espousing the cause of Muslim Shias, Christians and Yezidis, who are persecuted in areas of Iraq controlled by the Islamic State and, yes, there is no doubt that the Sunni extremist force is guided by a Salafi ideology that severely discriminates against religious minorities, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.

But at what point in the past have Western states consistently defended religious minority rights in the Middle East? The idea seems to have emerged as an afterthought of the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq.

And are Muslim and Christian Arabs in Israel, Muslim Shias in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain – to name just some of the groups mistreated by the West’s close allies – likely to be charmed by the West’s resolve to save the Yezidis of Iraq?

In any case, it is high time that the policy reversals in Brussels be questioned.

To recap: a turnabout in relation to the twin civil wars in Syria/Iraq was staged twice. First, in September 2011, a general prohibition on investments in and exports of oil from Syria was imposed, affecting both Assad’s government and Syria’s opposition. Then, in 2013, the European Union shifted de facto towards a position favourable to Syria’s Sunni extremist rebels.

Although the European Union’s foreign ministers now appear to have realised their sin, the damage can no longer be repaired without a complete overhaul of E.U. policy-making towards the Middle East.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

*  Peter Custers, an academic researcher on Islam and religious tolerance with field work in South Asia, is also a theoretician on the arms’ trade and extraction of raw materials in the context of conflicts in the global South. He is the author of ‘Questioning Globalized Militarism’. 

In Angola, the Giant Sable’s natural habitat is Luando Reserve where some 70 are thought to live wild. But this population is now under threat following the allocation of prospecting rights to private diamond companies. Courtesy: Pedro Vaz Pinto

By Walter García and Louise Redvers
DUBAI, Jun 18 2013 (IPS)

Environmental campaigners are urging the Angolan government to halt plans to mine diamonds inside a national reserve that is home to the world’s last wild population of a rare antelope, the Giant Sable.

There are believed to be fewer than 100 purebred animals left and the species is listed as “critically endangered” on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In Angola, the Giant Sable’s natural habitat is Luando Reserve, which is situated in the northern province of Malange, where some 70 are thought to live wild. But this population is now under threat following the allocation of prospecting rights to a group of private Angolan diamond companies.

“Legally, this should not have been allowed to happen. The law is very clear, mineral activity is not permitted within protected areas,” a spokesperson for the Kissama Foundation, an Angolan environmental NGO, which has led major conservation projects, including the restocking of large game into parks, told IPS.

The spokesperson, who did not want to be named, said he was concerned for the physical impact that mining would have on the reserve.The Giant Sable is on an absolutely critical threshold. They are on their last breath before extinction so it’s not going to take much to push them over the edge." -- South African conservationist Brian Huntley

“This is going to put the Giant Sable population in great danger and we are very concerned that this has been permitted by the government.

“This is a desperate situation. We need support from the international community, we need people to make a noise and stop this from going ahead.”

Decades of civil war, along with widespread poaching, have decimated the Giant Sable Antelope population.

The Palanca Negra Gigante, as it is known in Portuguese, is Angola’s national symbol. Palancas Negras is the nickname of the southern African nation’s national soccer team, and the antelope’s long curved horn is pictured on the logo and fleet of the national airline, Transportes Aéreos Angolanos or TAAG.

While significant efforts, through both private and government-sponsored schemes, have been made to preserve and promote breeding of the animals inside a section of Cangandala Park, a national park also in Malange Province, Luando Reserve remains their natural habitat.

But 3,000 square km of the Capunda diamond mining concession falls nearly exclusively inside the Luando Reserve, straddling the provincial borders of Malange and Bie.

According to Angola’s environmental law and mining code, mineral activity is not permitted inside protected areas such as national parks and reserves and all projects must undergo an environmental assessment impact to judge risks and suitability.

Pedro Vaz Pinto, an Angolan who has led the programme to protect the Giant Sable in Cangandala Park, told IPS: “Mining inside the reserve would be a disaster for the animals. There are surely legal constraints that should not allow it.”

He added that there was already uncontrolled poaching linked to mining activities along the Kwanza River. He said that the meat was being used to feed miners and workers.

“I am extremely worried with the establishment of further organised industrial mining operations in the area and that poaching, which is a real threat to the Giant Sable, will only increase.”

But despite this, in June 2012, former minister of geology, mining and industry Joaquim David signed off on “Project Capunda”, the details of which were published in the government’s legal gazette, the Diario da Republica.

The companies listed behind the project – KCC Limitada, Yango Limitada and AM & BC Limitada – are all Angola-owned but hitherto unknown with no apparent record of prior involvement in the diamond sector.

The country’s state-owned diamond firm, Endiama, which automatically gets paid equity in every diamond project, holds a 32 percent share in the deal.

Although the Ministry of Environment failed to respond to requests for comment, both Endiama and the Ministry of Geology and Mines, tried to play down the situation.

Endiama spokesman Antonio Freitas told IPS: “Endiama is discussing possible alternatives with the project investors. The concession is in a large part inside the national park and the law must be respected.”

And in an email, Minister of Geology, Mining and Industry Francisco Manuel Monteiro de Queiroz, who replaced David in August 2012, told IPS that the ministry has been following this process with concern.

“We are working with the Ministry of Environment, Endiama and the concessionary companies to correct the situation in terms of the environmental law and the mineral code.

“The mineral code clearly prioritises protection of areas of environmental, cultural and other sensitivities when confronted with mining projects.”

Brian Huntley, an internationally-respected South African conservationist, who has collaborated closely with the Angolan government and several United Nations agencies to develop national park strategies, welcomed the high-level response.

He said that the ministries were engaging was extremely positive, but it was important that their words were followed by definitive actions.

“The Giant Sable is on an absolutely critical threshold,” he told IPS. “They are on their last breath before extinction so it’s not going to take much to push them over the edge.

“It’s actually a miracle they are still hanging in there. Any further pressure on them will be the end. The Giant Sable is a national icon and it is hugely important for the people and for the government, it must be protected.”

It has been claimed locally that the owners of the companies granted the mining concession have close links to powerful figures from the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA), which has been in power since independence from Portugal in 1975, and that the ministries are too scared to challenge the deal.

The rush to exploit mineral resources could spell environmental disaster for countries like Angola where weak institutions are regularly held hostage to personal interests that appear to be able to ride roughshod over legislation.

As well as the world’s fifth-biggest diamond exporter, Angola is Africa’s second-largest crude oil producer behind Nigeria, and there are growing concerns about the impact the rigs – and their spills – are having on the country’s coastline and fish stocks.

Drilling for oil off Angola’s coast. Angola is Africa’s second-largest crude oil producer behind Nigeria, and there are concerns about the impact the rigs and their spills are having on the country’s coastline and fish stocks. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS

A culture of secrecy, however, dominates Angola’s research institutions and ministerial departments and little information is ever published.

Private or overseas companies that are hired to carry out studies are not allowed to share their findings without governmental permission, which is seldom granted.

Local communities who claim to have been affected by oil spills are typically given ad hoc cash payouts by the multi-national firms operating in the area and strongly discouraged from speaking to the media.

Later this year, state oil company Sonangol is due to auction a number of new licences for onshore oil and gas exploration blocks, raising separate concerns about land contamination and habitat destruction.

Seismic studies are already underway inside one national park near the capital Luanda, and foreign operators have been seen inside a desert park in the south of the country.

Huntley stressed that it was a critical time for Angola in terms of its environmental management.

“After a decade of peace and the rehabilitation of infrastructure there has been a surge in activity, particularly in the extractive industries sector,” he said. Angola’s 27-year civil war ended in 2002 and over the past decade the country has had one of the fastest-growing economies on the continent.

“This places huge urgency on the consolidation and rehabilitation of national parks. On a positive side, there is a lot of interest in Angola and significant donor funding available so we do have an opportunity to match the interests of the industrialists and the conservationists by sensible planning and management.”

A group of men work a surface gold mine deep in the forest in Gbarpolu County, northwest Liberia. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Issa Sikiti da Silva
DAKAR, Mar 27 2013 (IPS)

Congolese small-scale miner Elizabeth Tshimanga has made a successful living from prospecting. But like many artisanal miners in Africa, hers has been a long and tough journey marred by harassment and disputes over her legal status as a miner.

The 50-year-old started working in Kasai region in central Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at the age of 25, before moving to neighbouring Angola where she continued mining diamonds.

“I encountered my biggest challenges in Angola, where security forces and officials harassed miners and dealers, detained us, and forced many women to have sexual relations with them to avoid trouble – they even took women to the bush to gang-rape them if they refused their sexual advances,” she says.

“But life goes on. You just tell yourself it’s all part of life,” she tells IPS, before boarding a plane from Dakar to Brussels, where she was due to sign some business deals.

Tshimanga does not mine any longer. But she employs 10 small-scale miners – six in the DRC and four in Angola – and says the harassment and inability to obtain mining licences continues.

The incidents of rape continue too, she says, adding she witnessed one incident only a few years ago in Angola. But as long as governments refuse to recognise artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) as a job, she says, the problems and challenges will not go away.

According to the South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA), a non-governmental research institute, ASM activities in Africa engage over eight million workers, who in turn support about 45 million dependents.

The institute says that artisanal diamond miners in the Marange diamond fields of Zimbabwe increased from a handful in 2004 to an estimated 35,000 in 2007. In Ghana, ASM contributed nine percent of total gold production in 2000, but by 2010 this had risen to 23 percent, with over a million Ghanaians directly dependent on ASM for their livelihoods.

Cultural anthropologist Marieke Heemskerk, who has over 30 years of experience researching the ASM sector and working with artisanal gold miners in Latin America, Nigeria and Senegal, among others, says the biggest challenge facing small-scale miners is their legal status.

“It is difficult to invest in a proper mining business without a mining title because banks will not give out loans and the miner himself has no certainty that he will be allowed to stay at a certain place.

“In many countries, the licensing process is lengthy, bureaucratic, complex, not transparent and even corrupt. As a result, wealthy and powerful people may obtain mining titles, but poor people in the hinterlands without the necessary political connections cannot.”

It is an obstacle that Tshimanga still comes across. “The other problem is mining licences, it is too complex and complicated to get one. You have to be politically connected or, if you are a woman, you have to become a girlfriend of one of these high-ranking officials before you get one,” she says.

According to the SAIIA, artisanal and small-scale mining is a thorny issue for both governments and large-scale mining (LSM) companies because often the artisanal miners operate in remote, unregulated and environmentally sensitive areas, are difficult to tax and pose a security challenge as they operate on the verge of LSM sites.

Heemskerk, who is based in Suriname, in northern South America, adds: “In many places we see government actions against untitled miners, ranging from bombing them to burning their equipment to simply chasing them away with the military.”

Adama Dieng is an uneducated, small-scale miner from Senegal who made a small fortune in Angola. He owns a three-storey building, has opened three mini-supermarkets in Dakar and has business interests across West Africa. He has even sent four of his children to Europe and put five of them through school.

But his wealth has come the hard way, from small-scale mining in the midst of Angola’s civil war, which began in 1975 and continued on and off until 2002.

“We went through all sorts of dangers, including regular detention, beatings and extortion by the army and rebels, and we faced death.” It is no wonder that he says small-scale mining is “one of the most dangerous but lucrative sources of livelihoods.”

“I still have a lot of respect for the sector for providing jobs to millions and taking many people out of poverty globally, despite its risks,” he tells IPS.

But he criticises the negative attitude of African governments and large mining companies towards ASM.

“The soil of a country and all its resources belong to every citizen of that country, but politicians and big companies just want everything for themselves. Most people in Africa are poor, and these guys are doing nothing for us. We are suffering while the politicians and LSM bosses are living like kings and princes. Why don’t they give us a chance to try improving our lives?” he asks.

Sarah Best, a senior researcher at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), a non-profit organisation promoting sustainable patterns of world development, tells IPS that instead of suppressing ASM activities, which often makes the situation worse, governments and big business should change their mindsets and recognise ASM as both highly productive and as a legitimate part of the mining sector.

“Governments have largely left small-scale mining on the margins. The first step to cooperation is building knowledge and a shared understanding of the sector,” Best says.

She also says IIED’s recent research on ASM has pointed to three major gaps in how knowledge shapes policy. “First, the knowledge that does exist is poorly shared. Second, the experience of small-scale miners and local communities is largely overlooked.

“Third, there is no multi-stakeholder space where committed individuals and organisations from different parts of the sector can come together to build trust, learn, innovate and find shared solutions,” she says.

Cultural anthropologist Heemskerk says that the legalisation and formalisation of small-scale gold miners would be a good first step to address many health, social, and environmental problems faced in the sector.

“You cannot regulate people who are considered illegal. We also must not forget that small-scale gold mining offers a job to millions of poor people, who may not have many alternative income-generating options.

“As such, it is an outlet for socio-economic problems. It reduced rural-urban migration (thus preventing the growth of huge shantytowns around the large cities) and increases consumption – as virtually all the money earned by local small-scale gold miners is spent in the country.”

Former Angolan soldiers participate in a masonry course offered by Odebrecht's Acreditar Programme in Luanda. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
LUANDA, Jan 30 2013 (IPS)

Brazil has turned to large infrastructure as a unique way to globally expand its economy and build up its political influence, with the added bonus of furthering the development of small nations. But this strategy is not without its risks.

Angola, which has been a major focus of Brazil’s transnational construction companies, faces the economic challenges typical of a young nation dependent on revenue from oil exports and with high levels of corruption, in a context where the line between public and private interests is hazy.

An example that serves to illustrate this blurring of the lines is Companhia de Bioenergia de Angola (BIOCOM), a local biofuel company that is preparing to produce sugar, ethanol and electricity to meet domestic consumption needs.

To implement this project, which includes 32,000 hectares of sugarcane crops and the construction of an industrial plant, the Brazilian giant Odebrecht partnered up with the country’s state oil company Sonangol and the private Angolan company Damer Indústria.

Damer was founded in 2007, on the eve of BIOCOM’S inception, by then Sonangol Head Director Manuel Domingos Vicente and two generals, Manuel Helder Vieira Dias, chief of the presidential military department, and Leopoldino Fragoso, a top presidential adviser.

Vicente, now vice president of Angola, has joint investments with the two generals in the oil industry, real estate and a range of other fields. These are the most visible examples of the state’s role as an incubator for business operators and the “national bourgeoisie” that is emerging from it.

Almost everything in Angola is dependant on the government. Lands are state-owned and all business ventures begin with a government concession for the necessary plot or facilities. Sonangol has partnered up with countless companies, investing its vast oil income.

The government’s nepotism and favouritism are no secret, but these practices find little active opposition in a scantly organised civil society. “Even God, when looking for a saviour for mankind, chose his own son,” is how Angolans humorously explain the wealth amassed by government and military officials and their relatives.

Journalist Rafael Marques de Moraes heads an anti-corruption organisation that regularly posts reports online denouncing serious cases of corruption, many of them well-documented, but so far these reports have failed to trigger public scandals, as might be expected in any other country.

Odebrecht moves in this context, occupying a privileged position as a government contractor and partner due to its role in the implementation of strategic power generation, water supply and road construction works, services that are sorely needed by the population. After 28 years of operating in the country, it has not only become a leader in infrastructure works, it is also a major investor in a wide range of industries, raking in multi-million-dollar profits that are not made public.

Emilio Odebrecht, CEO of the Brazilian conglomerate, visits Luanda every year to meet with Angola’s long-standing president, José Eduardo dos Santos (in office since 1979).

The group boosted its visibility through its involvement in the Nosso Super supermarket chain – present nationwide with 29 stores and the crown jewel of Luanda’s commerce – and the Belas Shopping mall, and through its participation in the capital’s urban redevelopment, which includes upgrading slums, expanding avenues and constructing basic sanitation works.

Its policy of employing and training local labour further increases the company’s influence in the construction sector. While this is the same strategy that Odebrecht applies in all 35 countries where it operates, it is of particular importance in Angola, as the lack of skilled workers is hindering the country’s development despite the oil boom.

Odebrecht is currently the country’s largest private employer, with some 20,000 workers hired directly. Ninety-three percent of its work force is made up of Angolans.

Odebrecht’s first work in Angola – the Capanda hydroelectric power plant – served “as a school to train an elite” group of technicians, who are currently holding senior positions in the government and in business, says Justino Amaro, the first Angolan to sit in Odebrecht Angola’s board of directors.

Training workers is an essential part of every project implemented by Odebrecht. As of mid 2012, 79,000 Angolans had benefited from the company’s training programmes. University student recruits receive special training and are groomed to occupy senior positions in the company.

In major projects, Odebrecht also offers technical training for the population living in the surrounding areas, preparing any interested young people – not just potential employees – for construction jobs. These technical courses are provided through the company’s Acreditar programme, which so far has trained some 3,000 workers in its three Angola units.

Odebrecht’s corporate social responsibility actions, which include providing poor communities with running water, schools, electricity and recreational opportunities, bolster the cooperation-for-development image projected by the company through its construction activities.

This is especially valuable in Angola, a country that is still being built after 37 years of independent life, and which is undergoing a process of post-war reconstruction.

But, above all, Angola has been a very lucrative business for Odebrecht, helping it become one of Brazil’s leading companies and the most globalised. In this sense, a common complaint among well-informed Angolans is the high cost of Odebrecht’s works.

Other Brazilian construction companies, such as Andrade Gutierrez, Camargo Correa and Queiroz Galvão, are also seizing the business opportunities afforded by the Angolan market.

Brazil’s strong presence in the country is not strictly private. The large projects implemented by these companies are supported by loans from Brazil’s state-owned development bank (BNDES), which finances the exporting of inputs and services necessary for such works.

In 2008 this contributed to making Angola the leading African importer of Brazilian goods, above the more populous South Africa and Nigeria, both of which have larger economies. But in 2010, imports plummeted to half their 2008 level, recovering only slightly over the following years.

Such are the risks of operating in an economy dependent on fluctuating oil prices and with high costs of living and production due to the energy boom. Its currency tends to be overvalued and that makes national products more expensive and imported goods cheaper.

The Angolan government fosters national production to substitute for imports, which are inundating the domestic market. BIOCOM is part of that effort, as is the Special Economic Area established some 30 kilometres from Luanda, with 73 industrial plants and an initial infrastructure built by Odebrecht.

However, greater market liberalisation could thwart many agricultural and industrial ventures. Which is why Angola rejects the free trade agreement proposed by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), of which it is a member, along with 13 other countries.

A free trade agreement could bring changes not only to the economy but also to government, and that poses a risk for projects tied to current government officials whose decisions may be questioned in the future. While for the time being dos Santos’ 33-year regime seems unshakable, industrial projects like BIOCOM’s are very long-term ventures.

Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has been in power for 33 years, and will serve another five-year term of office after his party’s landslide victory, which the opposition claims is fraudulent. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS

By Louise Redvers
LUANDA, Sep 4 2012 (IPS)

Question marks hang over the legitimacy of Angola’s general election as Africa’s second-longest serving leader Jose Eduardo dos Santos has won a five-year term in office following his party’s landslide victory.

The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) – which has ruled Angola since independence from Portugal in 1975 – secured a parliamentary majority of just under 72 percent.

Its former civil war enemy, the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), is second with nearly 19 percent, almost doubling its 2008 tally. Third is the newly-formed Salvation–Electoral Coalition (CASA-CE) which won six percent of the vote, according to provisional results released by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) on Monday, Sep. 4.

But while the MPLA – whose lavish campaign is reported to have cost over 70 million dollars – is celebrating its win, UNITA, CASA-CE and civil society groups are understood to be working on legal challenges to contest the results.

Once the final results are in, there is a 48-hour window available for a party to lodge a legal challenge with the southern African nation’s constitutional court.

In a statement issued on Sep. 3, UNITA said it was running its own parallel counting and was following the provisional results being presented by the CNE.

UNITA accused the CNE of using government security staff to run polling stations, questioned its processes for transmission of data, and complained about how many party delegates and observers had not been able to get accreditation to monitor proceedings.

The party has been critical of the CNE and its preparation for the election for some months, alleging fraudulent manipulation on the part of the MPLA. Complaints have centred around voter lists, the way they were compiled, audited and shared.

UNITA claims thousands of “ghost voters” have been added to the rolls and that the delay in publishing the final list would prevent many people from voting.

“We will not allow a brand of fraud to take place and we will not recognise the legitimacy of any government resulting from elections held outside of the law,” UNITA leader Isaías Samakuva said a week before the vote was due to take place.

On Aug. 31, the day of the elections, many people – exact numbers are unknown – were unable to vote due because they were unable to find their names on the voters’ list. Some were told that they were actually registered to vote several hundred kilometres away in another province.

The provisional results from the CNE indicate turnout was down significantly from 80 percent in 2008 to 60 percent this year. Turnout was significantly lower in the capital Luanda at around 50 percent.

However, teams from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries praised Angola’s CNE for the way it organised the election.

The AU mission chief, Cape Verde’s former President Pedro Pires, noted some issues with delayed accreditation of party delegations and observers, unfair access to public media space and a failure to allow diaspora voting. However, Pires said overall the election was “free, fair, transparent and credible”.

Bernand Membe, Tanzania’s Foreign Affairs Minister who headed the SADC mission, acknowledged some of the claims made by opposition parties but said: “We are of the opinion that while some of the issues raised were pertinent, they were nevertheless not of such magnitude as to have affected the credibility of the overall electoral process.”

Angolan musician and activist Luaty Beirao, who has been involved in various anti-government street protests and has helped set up a website that has been publishing complaints from the public about the election, told IPS that he was very disappointed in the observation missions’ standpoint.

“How can these elections be considered fair?” he asked.

“How can you say that thing went well just because there were no fights and people were not throwing stuff at cars or burning tyres in the street?

“Peaceful is not the only the way we analyse if an election was fair and free. We must analyse the high numbers of people who were not able to vote.”

Beirao, who has been jailed several times for his activism, added: “This election was rigged and this government is not legitimate.”

The CNE has denied any wrongdoing and the MPLA has accused the opposition of making up allegations of fraud to distract from their poor results.

The MPLA, however, has already claimed victory and many ordinary Angolans seemed oblivious of UNITA’s claims.

Avelino Pacheco, 22, from Luanda, told IPS: “In my opinion these elections went very well and we were free to chose who we wanted. The people have chosen the MPLA and President dos Santos.

“There was no fraud, we must respect the choice of the people,” the statistics student said.

A woman, waiting in a taxi queue who did not want to give her name, told IPS: “It doesn’t really matter about the result though, the MPLA is in power and will be for a long time. We should just accept it.”

Six other parties and coalitions, including the historic National Front for the Liberation of Angola and the Party of Social Renovation, shared the remaining three percent.

The country’s 27-year civil war only ended in 2002 and since independence in 1975 Angola has only had two previous elections.

The 2008 poll passed peacefully despite widespread allegations of vote-rigging, but the election in 1992 was abandoned midway and triggered a second phase of the civil war that lasted until 2002. The first civil war began after independence in 1975 until 1991.

Under the terms of the country’s 2010 constitution, the head of the party that wins the most parliamentary votes becomes president – thus Dos Santos is returned automatically to power.

This will be the 70-year’s first official mandate, Russian-trained engineer never having previously been formally elected, despite having ruling Angola since 1979.

While the oil-rich country has enjoyed stellar growth since the end of its three-decade civil war in 2002, and is forecast to see a GDP hike of 12 percent in 2012, only a few of its people have shared in the peace dividend.

According to the United Nation’s 2011 Human Development Index, Angola ranks 148 out of 187 countries and more than half of the population lives below the poverty line without access to basic services.

Several dozen protestors who were arrested for taking part in a demonstration in the capital Luanda in November 2011. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS

By Louise Redvers
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 6 2012 (IPS)

Preparations for Angola’s second peacetime polls scheduled for August are being overshadowed by allegations of electoral fraud, state media bias and growing concerns about a violent crackdown on activists and protestors.

Human Rights Watch has criticised the government for its heavy-handed response to street demonstrations by former soldiers demanding unpaid military pensions, and the lobby group said that it was worried about a series of violent attacks on youth groups known for their criticism of the government.

“The recent spate of serious abuses against protesters is an alarming sign that Angola’s government will not tolerate peaceful dissent,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director.

“The government should stop trying to silence these protests and focus on improving the election environment,” she added.

Meanwhile opposition groups are unhappy about how the elections, which are scheduled for Aug. 31, are being organised. Several parties who were on Friday Jul. 6 barred from taking part altogether – supposedly due to paperwork irregularities – are crying foul.

Of the 27 parties and coalitions who applied to run in the election, only nine have been formally approved by the Constitutional Court.

Among those rejected are the Bloco Democrático (BD), led by leading intellectual and former ruling party member Justino Pinto de Andrade; and Partido Popular, which was formed by respected human rights lawyer David Mendes.

“This is a symptom of Angolan democracy. They have deliberately blocked the parties who campaign for human rights and show solidarity to social causes,” BD secretary general, Filomeno Viera Lopes, told IPS.

The largest opposition party, União Nacional pela Independência Total de Angola (UNITA), has been cleared to run, but it remains highly critical of various aspects of the electoral process, especially around the allocation of tenders for services like the printing of ballot papers.

It is also asking whether it is really the National Electoral Commission (CNE) that is in charge of the election or the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA).

The CNE has refuted the allegations of wrongdoing and its president André da Silva Neto has said the vote will be conducted with “exemption, impartiality, transparency and fairness”.

The MPLA has also denied the fraud charges and accusations that it is targeting critical activists. Several senior figures, including President Jose Eduardo dos Santos himself, have publicly stated that the party was too big and too popular to need to cheat.

“From a judicial point of view, we have a lot of problems because the electoral commission is still violating the electoral law and we plan to formally complain to the constitutional courts about a number of issues,” UNITA spokesman Alcides Sakala said.

He complained about the state media bias towards the ruling party. He also cited a last-minute change to allow diaspora voting, despite the fact that overseas electoral registration had been restricted to embassy staff and MPLA supporters.

Sakala also expressed concern about a plan to allow police officers and the army to vote ahead of polling day.

“How will this process be monitored?” he asked. “No one will be able to control that and that raises a lot of concern from our side.”

While UNITA remains the largest party with 16 seats in parliament, it faces some stiff competition from new kid on the block Convergencia Ampla de Salvação de Angola (CASA-CE).

Formed just months ago by the highly regarded Abel Chivukuvuku, himself formerly of UNITA and with close links to the late war-time leader Jonas Savimbi, CASA-CE brings a new dynamic to the Angolan political scene.

Angolan expert Markus Weimer from London-based think tank Chatham House said that while CASA-CE could only hope to secure a few seats in parliament, its formation was ruffling feathers within the MPLA.

“I think the MPLA is worried by CASA-CE because it is an unknown,” he said. “The party has come seemingly from nowhere and from nothing and they are not quite sure how to handle them.”

Weimer said he was confident the MPLA, which has a firm grip on the country’s economy and media, both state and private, would win the vote. He added that it was crucial that the doubts over the voting process were cleared up.

“The process needs to be seen as legitimate by everyone for the MPLA’s win to be accepted,” he explained.

“The MPLA will be prepared to lose seats if it means the election is regarded as credible and legitimate.”

Angola’s experience of elections is limited, having only previously held two since the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975.

The 2008 poll passed peacefully despite widespread allegations of vote-rigging, but the election in 1992 was abandoned midway and triggered a second phase of the civil war that lasted until 2002. The first civil war began after independence in 1975 until 1991.

There are fears that if opposition parties do not feel the vote is conducted fairly, this could trigger protests and lead to unrest.

“We want to keep a positive approach and avoid this,” UNITA’s Sakala said.

“We will be insisting that the law is followed so that we can avoid other situations that can lead to other difficulties that are not good for the country.”

He said they had been encouraged by the Supreme Court’s June decision to uphold his party’s appeal against the appointment of MPLA member Suzanna Ingles to the presidency of the CNE despite only being a lawyer, and not a serving judge as the law required.

While this is a legislative election, the vote will also decide who will be Angola’s president because a controversial change in the constitution in 2010 means that the head of state is now elected from the top of the list of the party which wins the most parliamentary votes.

With the MPLA on course for what seems like another victory, Dos Santos, who has been in power for 33 years since 1979 despite never being formally elected, will be handed a new five-year term.

The length of the 69-year-old’s presidency, one of the longest in Africa, alongside widespread allegations of illicit enrichment by his family and inner circle, has been a driver for some of the recent youth protests.

Despite the country’s enormous oil wealth and impressive post-war economic growth, between half and two thirds of the population still live in poverty, many in slum-style conditions without access to running water, sanitation or electricity.

Namibia’s Omaruru River runs dry for much of the year, but along with the aquifers it feeds is a vital source of water for a wide area. Credit:Servaas van den Bosch/IPS

By Absalom Shigwedha
WINDHOEK, Jun 7 2012 (IPS)

A transboundary initiative aimed at providing clean drinking water and proper sanitation between Angola and Namibia is making steady progress.

The Kunene Transboundary Water Supply Project is a good model of trans-boundary cooperation in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). The KTWSP will improve the water supply for around 700,000 residents of southern Angola and northern Namibia, providing for domestic consumption, irrigation, and industry.

The project includes the rehabilitation of the Calueqe Dam in southern Angola, which suffered extensive damage during the country’s 27 years of civil war. So far, some 35 million dollars have been invested in the project, which is being funded by the Namibian and Angola governments and contributions from the UK, the German Development Bank and Australia.

Dr Kuiri Tjipangandjara, an engineer at the Namibia Water Corporation (NamWater) and co-Chair of the KTWSP, told IPS that construction of a new pipeline between the southern Angola towns of Xangongo and Ondjiva has already begun. This link will supply treated water to various towns and villages along its route, such as Namacunde, Santa-Clara and Chiedi.

Designs for the network to distribute water within and around Ondjiva are in progress, as are plans for another bulk water pipeline linking Santa Clara to the Namibian town of Oshakati.

Tjipangandjara said Angola has also begun setting up a water utility for the Kunene region.

“There was nothing in place before, and it takes time to set up such a utility and other facilities of the project,” he said.

Numerous design and feasibility studies must be conducted and approved by all involved parties: Angola, Namibia, SADC and the German Development Bank.

“Of course it will be a state-owned utility,” he said, but he did not venture to predict if it would eventually operate on a cost-recovery basis like NamWater, explaining that each country designs its own policies – dictated by the reality on the ground and by history.

The next phase of the project will look at replacing the open canal that runs for 150 kilometres between Calueqe and the Namibian town of Oshakati with a pipeline.

The open canal currently faces a number of challenges. During the rainy season, it is frequently damaged by floods and Tjipangandjara said people living along the canal not only freely draw water without permission – the occasional drowning has been reported – but some locals have also vandalised it. He explained that repairing this damage costs NamWater dearly in terms of maintenance.

He said replacing the canal with a pipeline will also eliminate losses through evaporation. “Seventy-six percent of the water that we pump from Calueqe into the canal is lost to evaporation,” Tjipangandjara told IPS.

Modestus Amutse is the councillor for Oshikuku constituency in the Omusati region through which the canal runs.

He told IPS that the KTWSP is a good initiative, but warned that replacing the open waterway with a pipeline could deny villagers access to water for irrigation and for their livestock. “This project will only be good if it is responsive to the needs of the people,” he said.

While he agreed that the canal lost water through evaporation, he stressed that many of his constituents were unemployed and could not afford to pay for water at communal access points. But, he said, they needed access to water for their gardens and livestock.

Tjipangandjara disagreed. “The current off-take of water from the canal is not approved by NamWater and is not managed.”

He suggested water should only be drawn at designated points. “It should be regulated and properly managed. The current practice is not correct.”

Tjipangandjara said that undertaking the KTWSP has improved understanding of the water supply in Namibia and Angola, and strengthened management of the Kunene River basin, including providing access to badly needed funds for infrastructure.

(END)

The Angolan government is being urged to carry out a thorough and independent investigation into allegations of sexual and physical abuse by its security forces against Congolese migrants.

In a 50-page report released on Monday, May 21, entitled “If You Come back We Will Kill You”, New York-based lobby group Human Rights Watch (HRW) documents chilling testimonies of men and women who entered Angola illegally to work.

Many claim that they were subjected to various forms of torture, beatings and gang rape while being held in custody in Angola before being deported back to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Angola shares a northern border with the DRC.

Migrants interviewed by HRW researchers between 2009 and 2011 told of how they were rounded up from diamond mines, markets and villages across northern Angola by a combination of border police, immigration officials and soldiers. They were then tied up, beaten, whipped with chains and scorched by hot knives.

Women, many pregnant or with young children and babies, described being thrown into cramped prison cells, which were packed with as many as 100 or even 150 other people. The women were forced to sit in their own urine and excrement and only had access to food and water if they had sex with the security guards.

“In prison they beat us when we refused to have sex with them and they kicked us with their boots in the belly,” recounted one 30-year-old woman, who was held in Condueji prison in Dundo, Lunda Norte province, which borders the DRC.

“They came in groups of 20 or 30 to ask for girls. We were 147 women in a cell and had nothing to eat, nothing to wash ourselves with, we were not able to sleep,” she added.

HRW noted that children often witnessed sexual abuse against their mothers and other female inmates.

One woman, aged 27, also held at Condueji, told HRW researchers: “We were 73 women and 27 children in the cell. They disturbed us all the time to have sex with us. They had different uniforms, khaki and green, blue and black.

“I finally accepted to have sex with a soldier in a khaki uniform because of the hunger. He gave me biscuits but I hurt a lot from the rape.”

Claims that Angolan security services are abusing Congolese migrants – many of whom cross the border to work in the vast open-pit diamond mines – are not new, however.

Nor are the mass deportations. Deportations began in 2003 just after the end of Angola’s decades of war (1961 to 2002), when it began tightening its borders and reinforcing national security. However, the deportations have steadily increased against a backdrop of deteriorating bilateral relations between the once-close allies.

The United Nations estimates some 400,000 Congolese citizens have been expelled from Angolan territory since the deportations began. U.N. reports from February 2011 showed there were 55,000 deportations during that year, and of that total, 3,770 people were raped.

Antonio Mangia, a protection officer at the International Committee for the Development of Peoples, an Italian non-governmental organisation that has U.N. funding to support and monitor Congolese citizens deported from Angola, told IPS that “the situation is very worrying.”

“We have seen more than 25,000 people expelled since January this year with more than 1,000 incidents of sexual or gender-based violence in that time.”

“Humanitarian assistance is under-funded, so the rights of these Congolese are violated twice, first in Angola, and then when they return to the DRC where they don’t have access to health care, shelter or other basic rights,” he added.

Angola makes no secret of its expulsion campaign, regularly writing about special deportation operations in border towns, as it defends its right to protect its territory and resources, particularly diamonds, which it claims the Congolese are trying to steal.

Over the years there have been a number of damning reports published by the U.N. cataloguing horrific abuse claims such as the ones recorded by HRW. There have also been several high-level visits from the organisation’s representatives to challenge Angola about the abuse allegations.

These included a mission by the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Margot Wallström, who also visited border areas in both Angola and DRC last year. In February this year U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon raised the issue at a meeting with Angolan Foreign Minister Georges Chicoty.

Chicoty, however, while agreeing to look into the situation, has played down the abuse claims. He has said on several occasions that allegations are made up to excuse the border infractions. It is a position shared by many in the Angolan government.

Earlier this month, U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Šimonović visited the DRC border and met a number of people who said they had been abused while being deported from Angola.

He told reporters that international human rights law was being violated and that he would raise the matter at the U.N. Security Council.

HRW researchers, who carried out their interviews on both sides of the border, speaking to government officials and aid workers, said that while there was no evidence that the Angolan officials in question had been ordered by their superiors to commit such serious crimes, the victims’ testimony indicated a “high degree of complicity” among the different security services involved in expulsion operations.

“These security officials routinely abused their authority and powers, particularly to sexually exploit migrant women and girls in their custody, and there is lack of effective oversight to prevent such abuses from taking place,” the report noted.

And it adds: “Information gathered through interviews with former detainees also suggests that the deprivation of essential items in custody, including food, water, and sanitation facilities, even if not deliberate, increases the vulnerability of migrants, particularly women and girls, to sexual abuse and exploitation, and exposes female inmates to health risks, such as HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.”

HRW acknowledges that since Wallstrom’s visit the Angolan government has made a commitment to increase protection of migrants’ rights by taking measures such as the construction of new detention facilities.

But concluding its report, it called on Angola to carry out “a thorough, credible, and impartial investigation into all allegations of serious abuse, including sexual violence, torture, degrading and inhumane treatment, and killings against irregular migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and others during past expulsions.”

As well as urging Angola and the DRC to “strengthen bilateral co-operation” to be able to respond better to problems along its shared border, HRW also makes a direct appeal to the U.N. to provide stronger oversight of the situation.

(END)