The daily life of the Angolan citizens living in diamond areas of Lunda Norte, East of Angola, is difficult. Natives claim the right of exploiting diamond in their mother land. However public enterprises forbidden them to do so. Photo: José Paulo

Reportage

Dela artikeln:

Dela på facebook
Dela på twitter

Which Horizon Awaits Angola?

In 2017, João Lourenço took office as the new President of Angola, thus ending his predecessor José Eduardo dos Santos’ 38 years as the occupant of the presidential palace in the capital of Luanda. The former Defense Minister promised reforms and a better tomorrow for all Angolans—but above all; a major overhaul of the country’s political and financial corridors, hampered by nepotism and corruption. 

The new government has taken its citizens along on a three year long, turbulent ride, where the fight does not end with a super-rich and for-a-long-time untouchable elite, in a country with one of the world’s lowest life expectancies. “The looting of Angola” is the work of external actors and foreign countries—whose interests and benefits are challenged with the arrival of altering power structure.

By Klas Lundström

ANGOLA President João Lourenço stepped over the threshold of Angola’s powder keg and entered the political sphere in his early 20s. The year was 1974, and Angola was still a Portuguese colony. Rival political fractions—assisted and financed by various external interests—advanced their positions. But in the end, it was The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, the M.P.L.A., supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba, that seized the power after independence on November 11, 1975.

A power monopoly that the M.P.L.A., since then, has maintained; thanks to a won civil war, by winning fair general elections and by winning other, not-as-fair general elections.

João Lourenço’s journey to the presidency began in the eastern province of Moxico, along the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, and one of the most severe battlefields during the nearly 30-year-long civil war. After serving as the province’s governor, he was elected Secretary-General of the M.P.L.A. in 1998.

A challenged elite

In 2002, João Lourenço openly challenged the incumbent President, José Eduardo dos Santos, following the defeat of the U.S.-backed guerrilla, U.N.I.T.A. But his gesture was not well-received and Lourenço lost his Secretary-General position as a result. Despite a number of influential political positions since then, among the Angola’s Defense Minister, many people still expressed surprise in 2017.

“The election of Lourenço as the M.P.L.A. presidential candidate was unexpected, and far from predictable,” writes Rui Verde in Angola e Futuro (“Angola and the Future”).

Rui Verde—a law professor at the University of Oxford and the legal adviser to the Angolan corruption and human rights watch dog network, Maka Angola—argues that the outgoing President José Eduardo dos Santos must have had at least one of his children in mind as a potential successor. Either his son, José Filomenos dos Santos, also known as “Zenú,” or his daughter, Isabel dos Santos—both future protagonists in the Shakespearian Angolan drama that kickstarted after Lourenços accession.

“In a matter of months, Luanda politics became unrecognizable,” writes Mathias Alencastro, a historian focusing on contemporary political developments in Angola and Mozambique, in a report for the French think tank, I.F.R.I.

Lourenço ignored the constraints imposed by dos Santos and moved on to reassert his authority, adds Alencastro, and in a series of administrative changes over a period of two months, “he completely rebalanced the relation between the dos Santos family and the Angolan state.”

The reason—as Alencastro, and many with him, saw things—was João Lourenço’s fulfilled election pledge; to launch a conquest against Angola’s widespread culture of corruption. Before long, he had made himself at home and smashed bricked power structures with investigations into nepotism, corruption and abuse of power.

An absolute necessary initiative, according to Mathias Alencastro, if João Lourenço wishes to appear as “an independent ruler” in a new and shifting political landscape. But also, necessary if he wanted to break new ground in international relations.

“Most importantly, in order to truly bring an end to the patronage system structured around dos Santos, he will have to rethink the relations between the state and the oil sector,” Mathias Alencastro summarized.

João Lourenço was elected Angola’s third president on August 23, 2017 Foto: Lise Åserud / NTB scanpix / TT

Bank accounts, billionaires, and hunger

Within a few hours on November 16, 2017—merely nine days prior to Lourenço’s first day in office­—a bank account linked to the state-owned Angolan oil company Sonangol was emptied. At dawn, the account contained $57 million. At dusk, only $309 remained.

What happened?

The dollar bills—the undisputed oil currency—had been transferred from Sonangol, and by extension from the Angolan taxpayers, to a consulting company with close ties to the president’s daughter, Isabel dos Santos.

In 2013, Forbes Magazines “crowned” Isabel dos Santos as Africa’s first female billionaire. Her fortune consisted of $3bn in private wealth and a managerial position at the state-owned Sonangol. Her network of contacts, business dealings and interests in Angolan cement and (yes, blood) diamonds sailed far away from the Angolan shores—reaching Portugal, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, China and the United States.

An impressive fortune made in a country where 48 percent live below the poverty line, and where 74 out of 1,000 children die before their fifth birthday; a country led by one of the most corrupt regimes of our time. An unimaginable class society in which residents have been forced to learn to “follow the system within a system that cannot hold.”

“Angolans are increasingly fed up with the discourse of peace brandished like a weapon by the government to silence its critics,” writes anthropologist Jon Schubert, in his ethnography study, “Working the System”.

The peace that followed the end of the civil war became the cornerstone to the political status quo on which José Eduardo dos Santos ruled. A status quo that finally faltered when João Lourenço took office—and finally collapsed with “Luanda Leaks.”

Reversed colonialism

In January 2020, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed some 700,000 emails and documents, presenting how Isabel dos Santos and her husband, the recently deceased Congolese-Danish art dealer Sindika Dokolo, built a business empire thanks to revenues and lucrative contracts from Angola’s diamond and oil industries.

All in all, the married couple controlled 400 companies and subsidiaries in 41 different countries. Among them, 94 were found to be inaccessible for the public due to judicial barriers in Malta, Mauritius and Hong Kong.

“Angola has embarked on a very selective witch-hunt, that suits the purpose of saying that there are two or three people there are related to the family of dos Santos. I regret that Angola has chosen this path, I think we all stand a lot to lose,” said Isabel dos Santos, in regard to the ongoing investigation into her wealth and business, in an interview with the BBC.

Isabel dos Santos’ rising star, and subsequent fallout with the current government, have remained intertwined with her father’s presidency and compliant partners—including European sovereign states such as Angola’s former colonial power: Portugal. It was in Angola—not Brussels—that Portugal not only sought, but also found, their feet in the wake of the financial crisis in 2008. It was in Luanda that Portugal created new jobs within the Angolan construction sector.

“We should take advantage of this moment of financial and economic crisis to strengthen our bilateral relations,” said then-Portuguese Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, after a meeting with José Eduardo dos Santos in Luanda 2011.

Angolan “petrodollars” from Sonangol became an important ladder during Portugal’s climb out of the abyss of the Euro crisis. Capital was invested in, among other things, financially weakened Portuguese banks that operate in a number of E.U. member states. In Portugal, there were serious talks of “a reverse colonialism.”

“Portugal, which was the colonizing country, has become colonized by Angolan investment,” Celso Filipe, deputy director of Lisbon’s business daily Jornal de Negócios, told Politico.

In this March 5, 2015, file photo, Isabel dos Santos, reportedly Africa’s richest woman, and her husband and art collector, Sindika Dokolo, arrive for a ceremony at the City Hall in Porto, Portugal. Police in Dubai said Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020, they don’t suspect foul play in the death of Dokolo, the husband of the embattled Angolan billionaire dos Santos, after his death free diving off the city-state as corruption allegations circle both him and his wife. (Photo: AP/Paulo Duarte

“The fight of titans”

From President dos Santos’ point of view, Portugal’s actions following the “Luanda Leaks” can thus be seen as a betrayal, following Angola’s billions of invested dollars in Portugal’s euro havocked economy. In February 2020, Portuguese authorities froze Isabel dos Santos’ assets in the country following “a request for international legal cooperation from Angolan authorities.”

The ex-President’s son, “Zenú,” has already been sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering and fraud; a sentence that is appealed and that involves a number of Angolan potentates with close ties to the dos Santos family’s inner circle.

The extent of Angola’s “privatization of sovereignty” during the presidency of José Eduardo dos Santos has been absurd, according to Rui Verde.

“Isabel dos Santos has become the most well-known and wealthy woman in Africa and is unable to justify the origin of her fortune. Some days she talks about stories of eggs, others about restaurants and logistics. The truth is that any investigation easily establishes links between Sonangol’s financing and her ventures,” Rui Verde tells Global Magazine.

Therefore, he continues, it has become the most media important case for the Angolan state.

“Its success represents the triumph of the fight against corruption, while its failure will mean that the main suspect will go unpunished. It will be a disaster.”

President Lourenço’s anticorruption crusade has not merely, however, cast its net over members of the dos Santos family. Involved in the ever-growing scheme are politicians, oil managers and high-ranking military officials. All the while close allies of the current President Lourenço have thus far escaped greetings from the anticorruption forces—hence fueling Isabel dos Santos’ allegations that the ongoing investigations, her frozen assets and potential lawsuits in Angola are “politically motivated.”

“Isabel dos Santos has been assuming herself as the true leader of the opposition to João Lourenço, in that measure we are witnessing a fight of titans of which only one can win. It is for these reasons that any delay or impasse in the process is always a defeat for João Lourenço,” says Rui Verde.

Same old … same old

Like other nations worldwide, Angola faces an ongoing covid-19 pandemic in the wake of crumbling oil prices, an unprepared and virtually non-existent healthcare, and question marks for the future that causes concern among the public.

Recently, eight journalists were arrested by police in Luanda during a civil demonstration for better living conditions and more jobs. Among the arrested were freelance reporters affiliated with the news agency A.F.P., as well as domestic reporters working for newspapers and T.V. channels. One of many examples of a lingering dictatorial climate in Angola, one which President João Lourenço and his administration now is responsible for.

Also, Lourenço’s anti-corruption combat has suffered a “boomerang effect,” after his own chief of staff, Edeltrudes Costa, was found involved in conflicts of interest and of enriching himself by obtaining public payolas in public contracts, according to The Africa Report.

$24bn out—$24bn in

Billions in lost tax revenues while a socioeconomic elite party on yachts in Cannes and New York, surrounded by global cultural and financial frontrunners. The contrast could not be greater for the majority of Angola’s residents. Luanda was in 2017, yet again, labeled the planet’s most expensive capital to live in. Here, nearly 70 percent live in slum conditions, without proper access to clean drinking water or nutritious food.

João Lourenço and the incumbent M.P.L.A. government thus have much to gain by reclaiming “stolen assets,” vanished from the country’s treasure coffins. According to the official anti-corruption investigation, the sum of the “looting” reaches a staggering $24bn—and the prosecutor’s office only find themselves digging deeper and deeper into a corruption swamp that in the long run might undermine the relations with two of Angola’s most important partners: China and the European Union.

“In macroeconomic terms, they are never going to get anything close to $24bn back from the global economy,” Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, a professor of African studies at Oxford University, told the Financial Times.

$24bn also happens to be the sum of the loan that Angola has struck with the International Monetary Fund, beside brokering a $6.7bn of debt relief deal with three other large creditors, believed to be Chinese.

Angola changes, Europe loses

Angola stands on another threshold, glancing into the third decade of the 21st century. The war has ended, but the nation remains scarred by the 30-year-conflict. The African nation has become an economic superpower, but the vast majority of its population remains in dire demand of life’s essential needs. In the protracted political silence where a nation’s economy remains tied, others might say “cursed,” to a single natural resource—oil—the feeling of change was never spotted in the horizon. A sentiment—or wish—now shaken in its foundations.

In addition to the dos Santos family’s own domestic financial and political network, there have been foreign banks, lawyers, consultants and other technical assistants who have made big money from the long-term looting, reminds Rui Verde.

“There is a huge layer of beneficiaries of this loot that is found far north of the globe and eagerly participates in the task without any due diligence or moral limit,” he says.

A phenomenon which, in addition to the almost live-streamed prosecutions and trials of Isabel and “Zenú” dos Santos, remains poorly studied and researched—but nonetheless complex and indispensable components in every attempt to understand modern Angola—and what horizon the nation chooses, or is able, to set sail against.

“Limitation of this foreign ‘cooperation’ would certainly curb corrupt activities more effectively,” says Rui Verde. “With some irony it can be said that Europe is one of the major beneficiaries of corruption in Angola. And probably China.”

Dela artikeln:

Dela på facebook
Dela på twitter
Stäng X

Du har kommit till Tidningen Global´s arkiv med äldre artiklar.

Besök tidningenglobal.se för att läsa aktuella nyheter från hela världen.