Wayzata World Factbook 1996/The World Factbook - 1996 Edition - Wayzata Technology (3079) (1996).iso/pc/text/humanrts/angola.txt

Text File | 1996-01-04 | 25KB | 500 lines

TITLE:  ANGOLA HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE:  FEBRUARY 1995


                             ANGOLA


Throughout 1994 the Government of the Republic of Angola and
the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA)
remained embroiled in a brutal civil war.  However, the
Government, led by President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, and
UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi, also engaged in peace negotiations
in Lusaka under the auspices of the United Nations and with the
help of three observer countries, Portugal, Russia, and the
United States.  The two parties signed a peace agreement, the
Lusaka Protocol, on November 20 which calls for a cease-fire,
the withdrawal and disarming of UNITA, and the creation of a
new national army made up of fighters from both sides.
However, at year's end, very little progress had been made in
implementing the Lusaka Protocol.

Fighting resumed in October 1992, after UNITA declared the
results of the September 1992 elections fraudulent.  The United
Nations considered these elections free and fair.  Since the
renewed fighting UNITA has captured control of as much as 70
percent of the country, but the majority of the population has
remained in, or fled to, government-controlled areas.  The
Government continued to have the diplomatic support of the
international community and the U.N. Security Council
throughout the year.  By May the Government began to redress
the military situation and by year's end had retaken several
strategic points from UNITA.  The cease-fire established by the
Lusaka Protocol went into effect on November 22.  Despite
violations on both sides, confirmed by U.N. observers, the
cease-fire appeared to be generally holding through the year's
end.

To counter UNITA, the Government continued a major buildup in
1994 of its military and police organizations and also
continued to arm urban civilians.  These civilians, sympathetic
to the governing party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation
of Angola (MPLA), assisted government forces during the
outbreak of hostilities that led to the resumption of the civil
war.  All of these organizations, including the Government and
UNITA, were responsible for persistent human rights abuses.
The MPLA controlled tightly the 220-member National Assembly
and harassed the few opposition deputies, including UNITA
deputies, in attendance.  MPLA leader President dos Santos
continued to manipulate the party in order to consolidate
political control and neutralize potential opposition.

The Ministry of Interior is responsible for internal security;
it created the Rapid Intervention Police, a paramilitary group,
in late 1992 to quell civil unrest.  The Ministry has on
occasion loaned the Rapid Intervention Police to the armed
forces.

Angola has great economic potential with extensive petroleum
and diamond reserves, rich agricultural land, and latent
hydroelectric resources.  However, the economy continued to
contract in 1994 as a result of war and misguided economic
policy.  Areas under government control in 1994 suffered from
hyperinflation--from 800 to 1,000 percent, scarcity of consumer
goods, massive unemployment and underemployment, and continuing
pervasive corruption.  UNITA-controlled areas reportedly
experienced similar problems, with perhaps the exception of
pervasive corruption.  Subsistence agriculture, traditionally
the main source of income for the majority of Angola's
approximately 10 million citizens, continued to be severely
constrained by war-related damage, including heavy use of land
mines by both sides.

Human rights deteriorated further in the face of an intensified
armed conflict and the failure of the Government and UNITA to
stop egregious violations of humanitarian law.  Military and
security forces on both sides flagrantly disregarded
fundamental humanitarian values in their treatment of prisoners
of war (POW's), their extrajudicial killings of unarmed
civilians, including humanitarian relief workers, women,
children, and the elderly.  Both sides repeatedly interfered
for political purposes with internationally provided
humanitarian assistance.  Informed observers estimated that
approximately 1,000 persons died daily at the beginning of 1994
and that at least 100,000 persons have perished since fighting
resumed in 1992.  Other human rights abuses included
mistreatment of detainees, deplorable prison conditions,
arbitrary arrest and detention, unfair trials, broad
restrictions on freedom of speech, press, and association, and
violence against women and children.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1  Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
           Freedom from:

     a.  Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

There were credible accounts that government military officers
killed civilian men, women, children, and elderly persons
suspected of being UNITA sympathizers after they recaptured
N'Dalatando in May (see Section 1.g.).  As the war worsened
throughout 1994, common criminal violence often was
indistinguishable from politically motivated violence.
Fighting between members of the military and police and among
military, police, and bandits in a large open-air market on the
outskirts of Luanda regularly resulted in fatalities.  There
were eyewitness accounts of police killing unarmed civilians,
including youths and street children in Luanda, and of violent,
unexplained deaths, such as the August discovery of a
well-known journalist who was found stuffed in a garbage can in
a Luanda suburb.  Unknown assailants assassinated the Vice
Governor of Malange Province in early July.  It is widely
believed that the killing was for political reasons.

In January the National Assembly Subcommittee for Human Rights
released an investigative report, which failed to find the
Government culpable for the events of "bloody Friday January
23, 1993," when military, national police, and civilians
massacred unknown numbers of Bakongo residents of Luanda,
Lubango, Benguela, and Namibe provinces.  The head of the
political opposition party, Partido Democratico Para O
Progresso-Alianca Nacional Angolana (PDP-ANA), whose members
are almost exclusively Bakongo, proclaimed the report a
whitewash, alleging that it contained testimony by policemen
who participated in the "ethnic cleansing" and that the
investigation was carried out by National Assembly deputies
politically aligned with the ruling MPLA.  Opposition National
Assembly deputies boycotted the plenary session scheduled to
debate the report for fear of MPLA reprisals.  The report was
approved ultimately, but the session did not have a quorum.

In June UNITA admitted to executing summarily South African
mercenaries fighting for the Government and subsequently
published their photographs in UNITA's newspaper Terra Angolana.

     b.  Disappearance

Throughout 1994, both Government and UNITA officials accused
one another of abductions, disappearances, and the killing of
civilians.  The details of these incidents are unavailable.

The Government's Ministry of Assistance and Social Reinsertion
encouraged programs of U.N. agencies and international
nongovernmental organizations (NGO's) to search for family
members of orphans and abandoned children.

     c.  Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
         Treatment or Punishment

There were unsubstantiated reports that the police tortured
detainees.  Interior Ministry personnel routinely beat
detainees held in Comarca de Luanda, a prison on the outskirts
of Luanda, to extract information or confessions prior to
bringing them to trial.  In many cases, the police routinely
beat and then released arrestees rather than go through the
effort of preparing a formal case.  No new information was
available on the Laboratoria, where, according to credible
reports, government personnel tortured detainees in 1993.

The Government, the Angolan Human Rights Association, and the
National Assembly Subcommittee on Human Rights acknowledged
publicly that conditions in Angola's prisons are inhumane.
Cells designed for 10 prisoners contain 30 and are divided by
open toilets and sewage.  Prisoners die of malnutrition and
tuberculosis.  Many prisons, lacking financial and other
support from the Government, failed to supply prisoners with
food and medicine, and prisoners had to depend on international
relief organizations and their families and friends for basic
support.  Although the Government reportedly authorized access
early in the year to all prisons for members of the National
Assembly's Subcommittee on Human Rights, by midyear the
deputies abandoned the project to improve prison conditions due
to government opposition.

While detailed information is lacking, there are reliable
reports that the Government and UNITA are both culpable of
abuse of human rights of prisoners and of prisoners in
uniform.  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
had only limited access in 1994 to prisoners.

     d.  Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

Transfer of the judicial process and prison system portfolios
from the Interior Ministry to the Justice Ministry did not
occur as agreed to by the Council of Ministers in 1993, and
Interior Ministry officials systematically, arbitrarily, and
secretly detained people for all categories of crime, without
trial, for indeterminate periods of time.  The rights of
detainees were not respected.

Under Angolan law, a person caught in the act of a crime can be
arrested and detained immediately.  Otherwise, the law states
that arrests require a warrant signed by a judge or a
provincial attorney general, followed by a public statement of
the grounds for arrest.  The prosecuting attorney and defense
attorney have a maximum of 90 days to prepare a case.
Detainees are to be allowed prompt access to family members and
a lawyer.

The number of POW's and other political and security detainees
held by the Government at year's end was unknown.  The
Secretary-General of the Angola Human Rights Association (AHRA)
remained in detention, and the Supreme Court had not responded
to his appeal.  The trial of the President of the AHRA was
repeatedly postponed and remained pending at year's end.

While there were no known well-known UNITA sympathizers under
government detention in Luanda in 1994, the Government kept
senior UNITA leaders in Luanda under surveillance and did not
allow them to travel abroad.  The two highest ranking civilian
UNITA leaders were not allowed to travel abroad from October
1992 until November 1994.  The Government made efforts to
integrate senior UNITA leaders into Angolan society.

UNITA arrested two Angolan humanitarian relief workers in
Huambo in July for violating "state security."  One was held
incommunicado; the other was held indefinitely without charge
but was allowed visitors.  When government forces recaptured
Huambo in November, these two relief workers disappeared.  The
ICRC estimated that there were hundreds of persons, both
military and civilian, arrested and detained by UNITA in
connection with the conflict or for security reasons.  UNITA
did not allow the ICRC full access to their detainees, despite
promises to do so, and only a limited number of detainees could
be visited by the ICRC in the cities of Huambo and Uige.  At
the end of 1994, and with the recapture of Huambo by government
forces, there was no information about the whereabouts of the
detainees.  The ICRC also acknowledged that UNITA has held an
unknown number of MPLA activists captured in other areas such
as Caimbambo since the renewal of hostilities in 1992.

     e.  Denial of Fair Public Trial

In October 1991, the Code for Penal Process was amended
nominally to guarantee a public trial, establish a system of
bail, and recognize the accused's right to counsel and to
testify.  Despite these legal safeguards, and despite Ministry
of Justice calls for judicial reform, significant shortcomings
in the administration of justice persisted.  As noted in
Section 1.d., the Ministry of Interior frequently arbitrarily
arrested and detained people, often without the objective of a
trial.  Trials for political and security crimes are handled
exclusively by the Supreme Court.  There were no known
political or security trials in 1994.

The court system is comprised of a Supreme Court at the
appellate level and municipal and provincial courts (the latter
under the authority of the Ministry of Justice) of original
jurisdiction.  Although the 1992 law on constitutional revision
speaks of an independent judiciary, as does the 1991 amended
Constitution, in practice the judiciary is not independent.
The President of the Republic has strong appointive powers,
including of Supreme Court judges (for life terms), with no
requirement for National Assembly confirmation.  At the end of
the year, the President had filled only 9 of the 16 positions.
The Court serves as an appellate tribunal for questions of law
and fact, but it does not have authority to interpret the
Constitution.  The Constitution reserves this role for a
Constitutional Court, a bench that remained empty throughout
the year.

Municipal courts normally deal rapidly with routine civil and
misdemeanor cases on a daily basis.  Judges are normally
respected laymen, not licensed lawyers.  The judge and two
laymen selected by the full court act as jury.  Routine cases
are normally dispatched by a court within 3 months.  The
verdict is pronounced the day following the conclusion of the
trial, in the presence of the defendant.

UNITA has not set up an independent judicial system, but it has
a military and civilian court system in several provinces.
Trials are never public.  UNITA President Dr. Jonas Savimbi
appoints the judges.  The juries consist of elderly men chosen
from the community.  Reportedly the accused person has the
right to a lawyer.  Two national humanitarian assistance
workers arrested in Huambo were to be tried in private and were
not permitted outside counsel; however, they disappeared when
government forces recaptured the city.

     f.  Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
         Correspondence

The Government routinely maintains surveillance of certain
groups, such as UNITA and other opposition National Assembly
deputies, opposition party leaders, known or suspected Angolan
or foreign UNITA sympathizers, and foreign diplomats.  The law
requires judicial search warrants, and in practice the law is
respected.  However, as far as known there were no search
warrants issued before the roundup of Lebanese and other
foreign businessmen in 1993.

     g.  Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian
         Law in Internal Conflicts

Both government and UNITA forces were responsible for
widespread abuses of humanitarian standards during the course
of the war.  There were credible reports that the Government
carried out indiscriminate bombing between March and May on the
provincial capital of N'Dalatando.  The Government never
revealed the death toll, but a large percentage of the
casualties was reportedly civilian.  In June the Chief of Staff
of the armed forces admitted government fighter aircraft
mistakenly bombed a village school in Waku Kungo, Cuanza Sul,
reportedly killing 89 children.

Both the Government and UNITA used land mines indiscriminately,
causing a large number of fatalities and injuries.  There were
also credible reports that government soldiers targeted
displaced women, stealing their humanitarian food rations and
raping them.

The Government and UNITA both impeded provision of emergency
relief supplies and assistance by the ICRC, other
nongovernmental voluntary organizations, and United Nations
agencies.  The military was also responsible for the murder of
an Angolan humanitarian relief worker in Malange; and
provincial authorities often harassed relief workers and
refused to comply with regulations governing the distribution
of humanitarian assistance.  In UNITA-held Huambo, soldiers
forcibly removed relief food in July from CARE International
warehouses.  UNITA caused the mortality rate to rise
considerably by withholding clearance for the majority of the
humanitarian flights from May to late August to the besieged
provincial capitals of Malange and Kuito, and sometimes fired
on aircraft.  In response the Government denied humanitarian
assistance flights to Huambo and Uige.

Credible sources, including eyewitnesses, reported that both
sides forcibly conscripted children as young as 12 into
military service throughout Angola.

Section 2  Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

     a.  Freedom of Speech and Press

Although the 1991 Constitution provides for freedom of
expression, in reality free speech is muted in the National
Assembly, and the Government tightly controls the media,
including media access to controversial public figures.
Luanda's commercial radio station (LAC) and the weekly
newspaper Correio da Semana are privately owned but are not
independent.  The majority of LAC and Correio stockholders are
MPLA leaders who hue closely to the party line.  In mid-1994
even LAC was told to cancel a popular daily program somewhat
critical of the Government.  Media policy and censorship are
controlled by a committee composed of the Minister of
Information, the press spokesman for the Presidency, and the
directors of the state-owned radio, television, and newspaper.
Additionally, the Prime Minister has staff devoted exclusively
to censoring the government-owned and controlled newspaper
Jornal de Angola.

Although national radio has separate stations in each
provincial capital, broadcasters must clear all programs with
national radio headquarters in Luanda.  There are five private
radio stations in Luanda which censor themselves.
Transmissions of Vorgan, UNITA's radio station, are heard
throughout Angola.  UNITA's newspaper, Terra Angolana, cannot
be found in Luanda.

The Government resorted to even stricter censorship in response
to enhanced public awareness of human rights, which has evolved
despite the war.  Journalists admit they are under self-
censorship and that repeated "errors in judgment" result in
dismissal.  The only source of news about the war acceptable to
the Government is the spokesperson for the Chief of Staff of
the armed forces.  The Government is more liberal with foreign
news agencies, such as the Voice of America and the British
Broadcasting Corporation, in part because most people lack the
equipment needed to receive international transmissions.

Credible members of the independent Angolan Journalists
Syndicate (SJA) alleged in 1994 that the Government continued
to restrict press freedom, including access to controversial
public figures.  The cause of death of the journalist mentioned
in Section 1.a. was determined to be homicide by an unknown
assailant.  The SJA did not the challenge the determination.
Regarding the death of two journalists in 1993, the SJA said
that the Government has never published the results of their
investigation, and the SJA is powerless to do anything about it.

Foreign journalists must register with the government press
center to obtain access to officials and to travel within
Angola.  Both the Government and UNITA invited journalists to
planned press events and to visit areas under their control.

Academic life has been severely circumscribed by the war, and
the university is barely functioning.  There is academic
freedom; academics do not practice self-censorship.

     b.  Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

The Constitution provides for the right of peaceful assembly
with 3-day notification and the right of association.  However,
in practice the Government carefully controls both assembly and
association.  For example, authorities in Luanda vetoed plans,
properly submitted in advance, for a commemoration on the first
anniversary of Bakongos killed in a military- and police-
inspired massacre in January 1993, warning of serious
repercussions for anyone who congregated on the anniversary
(see Section 1.a.).

Regulations allow the Government to deny required registration
to private associations on security grounds.  The Government
uses its powers arbitrarily to limit association activities
deemed inimical to its interests, such as in the case of the
Angolan Human Rights Association (see Section 4).

UNITA did not allow freedom of assembly and association in
areas under its control.

     c.  Freedom of Religion

Freedom of religion, including separation of church and state,
is provided for in the Constitution and respected in practice.

     d.  Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
         Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation

The civil war greatly inhibited freedom of movement within the
country and forced large numbers of persons to flee combat
areas.  According to U.N. statistics, since late 1992, 2
million people have fled to government-controlled territory
from the interior just ahead of UNITA's advancing troops, where
they remain.  However, wartime conditions prevented physical
access to many areas of the country by humanitarian
organizations, and the exact number of persons severely
affected by the war remained unknown.

While citizens have the legal right to change residence and
workplace in government-controlled areas, the scarcity of
habitable dwellings as well as massive unemployment and
underemployment effectively impeded most voluntary changes.
The Government restricted travel of its citizens abroad,
largely by limiting access to foreign exchange or, in the case
of UNITA leaders, denying permission outright.  At the same
time, MPLA deputies and high-level government officials had
unlimited access to foreign exchange and the right to travel
abroad.

There are substantiated reports that the Government impeded
opposition party leaders from traveling from Luanda to their
constituencies in the interior.

Section 3  Respect for Political Rights:  The Right of Citizens
           to Change Their Government

While the Angolan people for the first time exercised their
constitutional right to change their government through
peaceful means in the September 1992 presidential and
legislative elections, the resumption of the war stalled the
democratization process, and a second round of presidential
elections had to be postponed indefinitely.  Consequently,
governmental power, including in the National Assembly,
remained exclusively in the hands of a small group within the
MPLA.

The National Assembly consists of 220 deputies, 130 elected on
a national basis and 90 elected to represent the provinces.
Eleven of the 70 UNITA deputies elected in the 1992 election
took their seats in 1994.  There are several deputies
representing smaller parties.  However, few opposition deputies
participated in National Assembly debate.  MPLA deputies have
admitted publicly that National Assembly debate was
superfluous, and the Assembly simply rubberstamped the
Presidency's initiatives.

The Minister of the Interior attempted to impeach an opposition
deputy for having criticized the Government in the
international media.  The opposition deputy apologized formally
to the Government in order to retain his seat.  Several months
later, policemen reportedly attempted to kill that same
deputy.  The Government's investigation of the incident was not
completed at year's end.

The peace negotiations in Lusaka reached a successful
conclusion on November 20 when representatives of the
Government, UNITA, and the United Nations signed the Lusaka
Protocol.  A Joint Commission of delegations of the Government,
UNITA, and the three observer nations, chaired by the U.N.
Secretary General's Special Representative, began meeting in
Luanda in December to implement the Lusaka Protocol.  Limited
progress had been made at year's end.

In 1993 the Government prepared guidelines for local government
elections, scheduled to take place 2 years after the 1992
presidential and legislative elections.  However, at the end of
1994, the Council of Ministers had taken no action on the
guidelines, effectively shelving local elections indefinitely.

While there are no legal barriers to the participation of
indigenous people in the political process, they are
underrepresented in the National Assembly and do not
participate actively in politics (see Section 5).  Women
occupied 32 of the 220 National Assembly seats.  One of the
nine Supreme Court judges is a woman, and there are three women
in the Prime Minister's Cabinet.