Angola at the Crossroads: Between Kleptocracy and Development 9780755606733, 9780755606764, 9780755606740

Table of contents :
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Figure
Acknowledgements
Acronyms
Introduction and method
Basic background: Post-war Angola. Reconstruction and ‘privatization of sovereignty’ (2002–10)
Part I: Dos Santos’s last moves (2010–17)
Chapter 1: Hope revisited (2010–14)
Chapter 2: Crisis and abandonment (2014–17)
Part II: Transition and hope in Africa? (2017–20)
Chapter 3: Dos Santos’s tiesHow to cut the Gordian knot?
Chapter 4: Breaking the mould: Lourenço acts
Conclusions: Is this time different?
Epilogue
Selected bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Angola at the Crossroads

ii

Angola at the Crossroads Between Kleptocracy and Development Rui Santos Verde

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 This edition published 2022 Copyright © Rui Santos Verde, 2021 Rui Santos Verde has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Series design by Adriana Brioso All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-0-7556-0673-3 PB: 978-0-7556-4056-0 ePDF: 978-0-7556-0674-0 eBook: 978-0-7556-0675-7 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters

Contents List of figure Acknowledgements List of acronyms

vi vii x

Introduction and method 1 Basic background: Post-war Angola. Reconstruction and ‘privatization of sovereignty’ (2002–10) 10 Part I  Dos Santos’s last moves (2010–17) 1 2

Hope revisited (2010–14) 33 Crisis and abandonment (2014–17) 64

Part II  Transition and hope in Africa? (2017–20) 3 Dos Santos’s ties: How to cut the Gordian knot? 117 4 Breaking the mould: Lourenço acts 128 Conclusions: Is this time different? 177 Epilogue 186 Selected bibliography Index

190 197

Figure 1 The scheme of power in Angola. Based in Rui Verde, Angola e Dinheiro (Cascais: RCP Edições, 2016), 87

14

Acknowledgements It was on a cold, grey, cloudy afternoon, typical of Oxford, that a bright young scholar was leading a seminar about Angola at the African Studies Centre of the University of Oxford. Her message was intense: we should not always look at Africa as the horror portrayed by Joseph Conrad. There are also beautiful stories in Africa that deserve to be told, stories of hope and courage. Such was the main theme of Jess Auerbach’s talk on Angola.1 Listening to her and thinking about Angola, some inner questioning arose: How is it possible to create an optimistic view on Angola? The first time I went to Angola, some twenty years ago, the country was still fighting a long civil war. ‘Les peuples heureux n’ont pas d’histoire’ (happy people have no history) wrote the French poet Paul Valéry. Indeed, Angola seemed to confirm this maxim, since its rich history has been intense and full of bitter challenges for its people. The Liberation War in 1961, swiftly followed by civil war in 1975. More or less, forty years of uninterrupted strife and violence, complemented by autocracy and poverty. Accordingly, the initial memory I have of Luanda, the capital city of Angola, is of the smell of rubbish everywhere, evidenced by the conspicuous hills of dirt that were to be found on each street corner. Then, scarcity, starvation and machine guns seemed to be the symbols of Angola. It is true that the civil war ended in 2002, and a period of reconstruction and economic growth occurred. But that was not enough to be optimistic, as soon it became clear that a rapacious oligarchy, protected by an apparently suave dictator, was the sole beneficiary of the economic transformation, leaving the people of Angola behind. Only around 2012, a motive for hope emerged. This was when I became acquainted with Rafael Marques, the journalist and activist who symbolized the pacifist resistance and denunciation of the excesses of the regime. Marques became a friend and a teacher of all things Angolan. I must thank him for his splendid guidance and, mostly, for introducing me to the core of Angola, be it people (ministers, activists, generals, ordinary citizens, young people, musicians, writers), cultures, food or simply magnificent views. Rafael Marques is today the Jess Auerbach has written an interesting book about Angola, From Water to Wine: Becoming Middle Class in Angola (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020).

1

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Acknowledgements

head of Maka Angola, the entity that promotes democracy and fights corruption, as well as of the new Ufolo Centre for Good Governance. I wish him the best of luck in this new endeavour. Specifically, after the 2017 presidential election, a change started to take effect. Freedoms were enlarged, although not completely, the fight against corruption was brought into mainstream political discourse, and several highprofile corruption cases were taken to court. Most importantly, civil society awoke. Now, although cautiously, it is possible to develop a narrative that allows some optimism. Perhaps Angola is on a path from kleptocracy to hope. That is the story of this book. The description of Angola’s last years, and of the new tracks with which it is trying to experiment. It is too early to set conclusions in stone, but it is possible to discern a trail from pessimism to optimism, from despair to hope. Although, with hope, frustration and disenchantment could rapidly arrive. From the academy, I must acknowledge Ricardo Soares de Oliveira’s role in writing this book. Since I arrived at Oxford, he has been an interested interlocutor regarding the evolution of Angola’s politics, and our conversations about some incongruencies of President Lourenço’s attitudes towards the different kleptocrats have been useful. His vast body of work on Angola has been most helpful, too. The works of Justin Pearce and Alberto Oliveira Pinto, an old acquaintance, also deserve due mention, as they have served as a solid background for my research. Wale Abedanwi and Miles Tendi at the University of Oxford, the former head of the African Studies Centre, and the director of the MPhil course in African Studies, respectively, have always been supportive of my work and have created a challenging environment in which to develop it. At least in the African Studies Centre of the University of Oxford there is still freedom of research and expression. Also, a special thanks to David Pratten, the present head of the Centre, who allowed me to continue my work without interruption after the COVID-19 disruption. Several Angolans deserve serious acknowledgements for their contribution to this book. Most of them wish to remain anonymous. In thanking the composer and rap singer MCK for sharing his experience of persecution and making music during dos Santos’s years, I am expressing my gratitude to several individuals. A special greeting is due to the Angola Research Network and its coordinator Filipe Delfim Santos, who have made it possible to obtain the necessary funds to research and write the book, apart from allowing me to make several work trips to Angola to re-ascertain directly the realities in the field.

Acknowledgements

ix

Jean-Jacques Wondo was of immense help concerning the conundrums of Democratic Republic of Congo politics and David Renous indefatigable in his explanations of diamond trade and tax evasion schemes. Finally, I must thank my wife Mafalda who has read and often corrected my manuscript and has been a constant source of inspiration.

Acronyms ACP

African, Caribbean and Pacific group of States

ASCORP

Angola Selling Corporation

BAI

Banco Angolano de Investimentos (Angolan Investment Bank)

BES

Banco Espírito Santo (Espírito Santo Bank)

BESA

Banco Espírito Santo Angola (Espírito Santo Bank Angola)

BKI

Banco Kwanza Invest (Kwazna Investment Bank)

BNA

Banco Nacional de Angola (National Bank of Angola)

BPI

Banco Português de Investimento (Portuguese Investment Bank)

CNE

Comissão Nacional Eleitoral (National Electoral Commission)

CNN

Cable News Network (USA)

CPLP

Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa (Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries)

CRA

Constituição da República de Angola (Constitution of the Republic of Angola)

DCIAP

Departamento Central de Investigação e Acção Penal (Central Department of Penal Investigation and Action)

DRC

Democratic Republic of Congo

DW

Deutsche Welle (German public international broadcaster)

ENDIAMA

Empresa Nacional de Prospecção, Exploração, Lapidação e Comercialização de Diamantes de Angola (state company dedicated to the exercise of Prospecting, Recognition, Exploration, Cutting and Marketing of diamonds)

Acronyms

xi

FAA

Forças Armadas de Angola (Angolan Armed Forces)

FNLA

Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (National Liberation Front of Angola)

FOCAC

Forum on China-Africa Cooperation

FSDEA

Fundo Soberano de Angola (Sovereign Fund of Angola)

GDP

Gross Domestic Product

GURN

Governo de Unidade e Reconstrução Nacional (National Unity and Reconstruction Cabinet)

HRW

Human Rights Watch

ICIJ

International Consortium of Investigative Journalism

IMF

International Monetary Fund

MAT

Ministério da Administração do Território (Ministry of Territorial Administration)

MPLA

Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (Popular Liberation Movement of Angola)

OECD

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

OGE

Orçamento Geral do Estado (General State Budget)

OPEC

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries

PEP

Politically Exposed Person

RDP

Rádio Difusão Portuguesa (Portuguese Broadcast Radio)

RNA

Rádio Nacional de Angola (Angolan National Radio)

RTP

Rádio Televisão Portuguesa (Portuguese Radio and Television, the Portuguese public international broadcaster)

SADEC

Southern African Development Community

SINFIC

Sistemas de Informação Industriais e Consultoria, SA (Industrial IT Systems Consultancy)

SISM

Serviço de Inteligência e Segurança Militar (Military Intelligence and Security Services)

Acronyms

xii

SME

Serviço de Migração e Estrangeiros (Border and Immigration Services)

SODIAM

Sociedade de Comercialização de Diamantes de Angola (Society for the Commercialization of Angolan Diamonds)

SONANGOL Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola (National Fuel Society of Angola) TPA

Televisão Pública de Angola (Angolan Public Television)

TVI

Rádio Televisão Independente (Portuguese Independent Radio Television)

UN

United Nations

UNDP

United Nations Development Programme

UNHDI

United Nations Human Development Index

UNITA

União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola)

Introduction and method

This is a book about Angola. For a broad British audience the most recent references to Angola were made by Boris Johnson, asserting that ‘Families across Angola will shortly be tucking into delicious wholesome chicken from Northern Ireland’,1 or the BBC Panorama reporting that Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman, ‘ripped off Angola’.2 Nonetheless, Angola is much more than a market for Irish chickens or a place to nourish possible kleptocrats. It is one of the biggest economies in sub-Saharan Africa, alongside Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia, being the second major oil power, and a sizeable diamond producer. It developed a pivotal role during the Cold War, as well as claiming a central role in the independence of Namibia and in the creation of strategic conditions for the liberation of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. Angola experienced a long colonial history beginning when the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão landed at the mouth of the Congo River in 1484. The initial contact between the different people from Africa and Europe was amicable and engaging. An imperial messianic/providentialist view that attributed to the Portuguese nation the historical ‘task’ of owning and colonizing the overseas dominions and ‘civilizing’ the indigenous populations was the justification for Portuguese travels and disembarkations in Africa. However, Angola rapidly became the main source for slaves intended for Brazil, and appearances of equal treatment and friendship between cultures were abandoned. The territory, still politically undefined, turned into the basis for sustaining the Portuguese Empire by being the supplier of slaves to Brazil, the powerhouse of the imperial economy. The following saying became famous: ‘without sugar there would be no Brazil, without slaves there would be

Boris Johnson, PM Africa Investment Summit speech: 20 January 2020 Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street, 20 January 2020. Available online: https​://ww​w.gov​.uk/g​overn​ment/​speec​hes/​ pm-afr​ica-i​nvest​ment-​summi​t-spe​ech-2​0-jan​uary-​2020 (accessed 3 February 2020). 2 BBC, Isabel dos Santos: Africa’s Richest Woman ‘Ripped Off Angola’, BBC Panorama, 19 January 2020. Available online: https​://ww​w.bbc​.co.u​k/new​s/wor​ld-af​rica-​51128​950 (accessed 3 February 2020). 1

2

Angola at the Crossroads

no sugar, without Angola there would be no slaves’.3 Some attempts to promote the commercial and industrial development of Angola were made from time to time, seeking to reduce the Angolan dependence on slavery. That was the case of the role of the governor sent by the Marquis of Pombal, Francisco de Sousa Coutinho in the eighteenth century. However, these developmental incursions were the exception rather than the rule. Angola’s main role in the Portuguese imperial system has always been that of a slave supplier. From the nineteenth century onwards, a more detailed exploration of the territory by the Portuguese began, based on its own rhetoric. According to that view, the Portuguese mission was to ‘free’ the indigenous people from barbarism and to teach them the joys of Western values and way of life. Filling up the natives’ ‘empty’ world with the knowledge of ‘civilization’ became the great objective of the colonial mission. The most important goal was to develop a civilized action on people. The control of the human body itself, the behaviours and their actions were at the centre of the colonial mission. In the end, such proclamations hid the continuation of slave labour under disguise during the end of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. By one way or another, there was always legislation that deeply consecrated the division between natives and Portuguese citizens. Portuguese laws embodied the concepts of racialization and juridification of the Other. The most elaborated and at the same time the strictest law dividing human beings based on skin colour existed in Angola, at least until 1961, when the Liberation War began. After independence in 1975, Angola found itself heavily involved in the Cold War. The Soviet Union, opting for a strategy of indirect confrontation with the United States, made Angola one of the favourite boards of its global struggle. The United States after some advances and setbacks, during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, invested heavily in containing what they considered the Soviet expan­ sionism. Angola saw Cuban troops, Soviet instructors, CIA agents, South African commandos arrive and a whole panoply of warriors and associates populated and devastated the country in the 1980s. Only the end of the Cold War allowed Angola’s first serious attempt of a peace agreement and democratization in 1992, which was unsuccessful. In fact, it would be only in 2002, with the death of the leader of the main opposition force to the government, that the country achieved peace.4 Stuart Schwartz, Os Escravos: ‘Remédios de todas as outras coisas’ in Francisco Bethencourt e Kirti Chaudhuri, História da Expansão Portuguesa Vol. 2 (Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores, 1998), 232. 4 A good summary of this can be found in Henry Kissinger, Diplomacia (Lisboa: Gradiva, 1996), 515, 609, 657, 675–6 (Portuguese translation of Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995]). 3

Introduction and Method

3

Angola has a special role in southern Africa, since in addition to the vast Atlantic coast that traditionally connects it to the American continent, especially Brazil, it has a rich hinterland, serving as a hub for the DRC, where it has on several occasions projected its forces to stabilize the country, as well as for the Great Lakes region. In fact, Angola intends, as its ultimate strategic objective, to constitute itself as a regional alternative to South Africa, which it considers to be still too rooted in segregationist attitudes.5 Today, Angola could open an original path for reform in Africa regarding the fight against corruption, the functioning of proper democracy and the establishment of tranquillity in the Great Lakes area. This text addresses the most recent events in Angola over the last ten years, beginning with the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution and the subsequent elections of 2012, ending with the latest events that occurred up until Spring 2020. It does not include any analysis of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in Angola. About this, just to mention that the government seems to have been quick to react, and the known numbers are quite small. More specifically, this book is focused on the decline and fall of former President José Eduardo dos Santos, from 2014 onwards and in the first two and a half years of the new President João Lourenço’s term (2017–March 2020). It evokes how the dream of economic growth and promised prosperity broke out in a crisis brought on by the internal kleptocracy and the abrupt drop in oil prices, leading to the withdrawal of President dos Santos, but not before his daughter was declared the richest woman in Africa. It analyses the reform attempt initiated by President Lourenço, which, at least rhetorically, aims to combat corruption and promote development. This book follows a path not yet addressed in another work, focusing on the events that occurred in Angola since 2014, in particular the story of José Eduardo dos Santos’s exit from power, the measures and doubts about the fight against corruption promoted by the new president of the Republic, João Lourenço, the inadequacy of the policies of the IMF regarding countries with development difficulties, whose main problems are structural and not cyclical. In fact, it describes a very unique experience that is taking place in Angola, which is simultaneously trying to fight corruption and liberalize the economy from within a regime that has itself led the country to a stalemate, in a situation of economic and financial crisis.

Eugénio da Costa Almeida, Angola – Potência Regional em Emergência (Lisboa: Colibri, 2011).

5

4

Angola at the Crossroads

First, it will start by a short background description of Angola’s postwar reconstruction and ‘privatization of sovereignty’ (2002–10). This opening chapter will briefly illustrate the peace process and the plans for reconstruction, highlighting the international problems with Western powers, the IMF and the fundamental role of China. It will feature the entrance of the ‘new’ China in Angola that will serve as a model for other endeavours. The rapid growth that occurred between 2003 and 2008 will be described. The reinforcement of presidential power will then be addressed as well as the justification for the establishment of a kleptocratic system through the skewed imitation of some constitutional ideas from South Africa and the United States. Part I of the book will focus on the last years of dos Santos’s presidency. After the 2009 economic crisis there was a renovation of hope. The economy was gaining ground again and major projects were coming back, but simultaneously the kleptocratic system continued its internationalization; a written constitution, but of Napoleonic type was adopted, and dubious elections took place. Repression was maintained, but generally with discretion. There was a broad collaborationism with the regime, with few exceptions. The technocrats who controlled Sonangol (the national oil company) projected the image of efficient managers. After the halcyon years of 2005–7, this was a new high point for the regime. In 2014, the fall in the price of oil generated a deep crisis in Angolan economy and finances, exposing the incompetence and incapacity of the rulers. Such events and what took place thereafter marks the bulk of this work. The government was perplexed not knowing how to react in a timely manner. Repression increased and became more visible and ridiculed. Social media networks started to play a significant role in discontent. The regime closed in on itself. President dos Santos and his family advanced to directly occupy key positions in the country’s economy. Control intensified. However, the growing middle and technocratic classes were dissatisfied. The levels of corruption were unbearable, and the situation seemed to get explosive. Sick, the president decided or was obliged to withdraw, that will be discussed, and a successor was indicated, the then Defence Minister João Lourenço. Following the 2017 elections, Lourenço’s legislative measures and actions in the fight against corruption and for economic reform will be explored. Although accusations of electoral fraud surrounded his election, the new president became rapidly popular by making several promises that matched the yearnings of the population: to combat corruption and promote economic

Introduction and Method

5

development. He began his term with good expectations mainly because of his insistent rhetoric. With these policies, Lourenço sought simultaneously to gain political legitimacy, to strengthen his power, to free the economy from the oligarchic constraints posed by the previous holders of power and to create a good image abroad. In addition to the speeches, Lourenço began to act. His agency spread into several areas, the most relevant being (i) the dismissal of former leaders linked to the previous president, including the removal of Isabel dos Santos, daughter of José Eduardo, from the leadership of Sonangol, and of José Filomeno dos Santos (Zenú), the elder son, from his position as CEO of the Sovereign Fund. The sweep was wide and general. Also, in the same direction was the abolition of monopolies, such as that of Isabel dos Santos in the diamond trade, or the annulment of public contracts portrayed as illegal, as in the case of the construction of a dam (Caculo Cabaça) attributed to a company of the same Isabel dos Santos; (ii) the empowerment of the attorney general and of the prosecution service was another step at the forefront of Lourenço’s policies. The attorney general was replaced, and prosecution began in a series of criminal cases against influential figures of the past, the most important of which will be detailed; additionally, (iii) the enactment of a new legislation for the recovery of assets ensued. Nevertheless, Lourenço’s new policies and legislation opened up several interrogations. The first aspect to be examined is that the legal cases that were announced during 2018 and 2019 with great impact have, not, during a long period, provoked any special consequences. Therefore the reality was that by September 2019 there was only one criminal case with any visibility, that of the former minister of transport, which can hardly be considered to represent a broader fight against corruption. This perception only began to change in December 2019, when the case against the former president’s son, José Filomeno, went to trial, and charges against his daughter, Isabel dos Santos, were made public. In the summer of 2020, José Filomeno was sentenced to five years in prison. Moreover, although the legal cases were few, the truth is that some obvious violations of the law by the authorities took place when conducting them. This behaviour, in addition to demonstrating the usual contempt for the rule of law that was the traditional attitude, showed the lack of technical preparation of most magistrates and officials who were not properly prepared for the new tasks that were committed to them. While in South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa established new directorates and special courts to combat corruption, and a broad commission of inquiry regarding ‘State Capture’, in Angola nothing so

6

Angola at the Crossroads

comprehensive was done. For the initial years, the whole job was delivered by a sub-department within the Attorney General’s Office which only had three magistrates and the director. This sub-department had no officers with expertise in economic–financial affairs. The essential governmental argument was that by combating corruption it would create a new climate of confidence for investment as well as lift the obstacles to the free operation of the markets. These two direct consequences of the new anti-corruption policy would induce significant economic growth. International institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank embraced these assumptions, lifting their expectations for the Angolan economy in 2018. However, that was not enough. It is clear that the fight against corruption must be complemented by the creation of a ‘social climate’ propitious to investment and that all of this takes time. Therefore, in 2018 the Angolan economy did not move forwards. Consequently, the expectations of the executive, the IMF and the World Bank were misplaced, at least for the time being. More structural institutional and economic reforms were yet needed. Nonetheless, despite these shortcomings, the president has maintained a firm hand and a determination in his vaunted purposes, and at the same time civil society has felt free and occupied the centre stage in demanding the eradication of corruption, the guarantee of freedom and the creation of jobs. Consequently, today, the political process has liberated society; therefore, the positive prospects lie not only in the government’s attitudes and policies but also in the conscience and action of individual members of society. There is a confluence of objectives that enable a reasonable impartial spectator to foresee a new, more critical and participatory era in Angola, allowing the abandonment of the past horrors of poverty and kleptocracy, and to sail in the hope of better days. The description and analysis of such transformation and path are the objectives of Part II of this book. * * * The sources for this kind of work are scarce. In respect to modern Angola’s historical background, there are comprehensive and solid works by David Birmingham, Justin Pearce, Alberto Oliveira Pinto, Douglas Wheeler, René Pélissier, Rafael Marques, Alexandra Marques and several Angolan or Portuguese authors, as well as archives, mostly in Portugal. However, for the last few years there is only the reference work of Ricardo Soares de Oliveira’s Magnificent and Beggar Land, and little else. And even Soares de Oliveira’s work was completed

Introduction and Method

7

only in February 2014. It is a launching pad for this book, but it cannot be used as a script since the book focuses mainly on the events that occurred posteriorly. For the period that spans from 2014 to 2020, I have been lucky enough to accompany some facts live as the legal adviser to Rafael Marques’s Maka Angola. I have, therefore, direct knowledge of several events, as a secondary actor. Also, during this period I have written extensively about Angola’s current legal, political and economic affairs, deepening my knowledge on such subjects and building up a reasonable personal archive with relevant documentation. Beyond direct knowledge and information, I have had access to Rafael Marques’s archives that, despite not yet being organized and catalogued, have an immense richness of content. Furthermore, it was possible to conduct over twenty-five direct interviews with relevant personages that are referred to throughout the book. Due to the transitional nature of the situation in Angola, they preferred to remain anonymous, but the debt owed to their insights is enormous. There were, also, sample interviews conducted with random members of the population in central Luanda. These do not pretend to create any scientific body of knowledge, but rather create an impressionist view of street opinions. Both activities took place in Luanda during the last semester of 2019 and the first weeks of 2020. In today’s age, engaging with research via social media platforms plays an important role in getting acquainted with facts and opinions on the ground; Facebook and WhatsApp are now a splendid source of information on the real Angola. All in all, it has been possible to draw a clear picture of the main political, legal, and to a lesser extent, economic landscape of Angola between 2014 and 2020, and to account for several differentiated views. Naturally, the narrative and the analysis provided in this book are a work in progress. It is too early to give a definite response to most of the questions raised, but I aim to discern a path and present an argument with clear interpretations and conclusions. Several texts, originally in Portuguese, are quoted and translated into English to facilitate the reader’s understanding. All translations are my own. The GDP figures mentioned in the text have all been retrieved from the World Bank (IBRD-IDA) data page, available online at https​://da​ta.wo​rldba​nk.or​ g/ind​icato​r/NY.​GDP.M​KTP.K​D.ZG?​locat​ions=​AO. Oil prices referenced are Brent/crude as quoted in NASDAQ, also available online at https​://ww​w.nas​ daq.c​om/ma​rket-​activ​ity/c​ommod​ities​/bz per cent3Anmx. Also Oilprice.com was considered: https​://oi​lpric​e.com​/oil-​price​-char​ts/46​. Human Development Reports can be consulted at the United Nations Development Programme,

8

Angola at the Crossroads

online at http://www.hdr.undp.org/en. Every allusion to Human Development Indexes has been taken from there. * * * De-berlinization: It is one of those impenetrable academic expressions that I would have liked to have invented, but I did not. I was confronted with the expression for the first time in an interview by the Angolan researcher Agnela Barros Wilper. Wilper was referring to the need to overcome language barriers to get to know Africa. I would like to extend the expression to involve university research on Africa. In fact, the new African countries that achieved independence from the 1950s/1960s of the last century officially adopted the language of the colonial power, not least because this could often be the only unifying factor in the new states. And with language came culture, and especially preferential ties with the former colonizer, building a dynamic of affirmation that always had as a reference, often in an almost psychological love/hate relationship, the former colonial power. Simultaneously, the colonial powers maintained and encouraged such connections, and benefited from the fact that the historical collections (archives, cultural objects, etc.) of the new countries were often kept in the old metropolises, and that the new African statesmen, had usually, obtained their degrees at the universities situated at the head of the former empires. While not delving into disputes about neocolonialism, the truth is that colonialism is abundantly present in post-independence university knowledge and education. It will not be an exaggeration, although maybe a simplification, to assert that each former colonial power has specialized educationally in its former colonies. In the UK, where there is a lot of openness, a strong component of African studies is focused on Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. At the University of Oxford, the African Studies Centre, a very open place, a seminar programme for the Michaelmas term of 2019/2020 was half dedicated to South Africa and Nigeria, the rest being general issues, with just one reference to Angola. On the other hand, if we are interested in Congo (Kinshasa) we will discover an extraordinarily strong vein in Belgium, while in France, studies on Francophone Africa predominate. Portugal, of course, is dedicated to Angola, Mozambique and other Portuguese-speaking countries. And yet, it should not be that way. African countries tend to build their own identity over time, which will always be a mix of their pre-colonial past, the colonial past and the present. To that extent, even if by an absurd hypothesis we

Introduction and Method

9

wanted to think of an algorithm that would numerically translate the formation of national identity, the colonial period would not exceed 33 per cent. It is enough for us to look at the present Angolan foreign policy to verify that despite belonging to the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP), during the last year, the country has approached the organization of the Francophonie and intends to join the Commonwealth, not to mention the preferential ties that both Angola and Mozambique have created with China. Thus, it is necessary to overcome the language barrier and with serious intellectual effort realize that Europe cannot continue to look at Africa as it did at the time of the Berlin Conference (1884–5) because the various African countries do not look at each other in such a way. * * * A final note on limitation of liability. Some of the people mentioned in this book are subject to criminal investigation and accused in lawsuits. However, they enjoy the universal right of presumption of innocence provided for in Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ‘until guilt is legally proven in the course of a public process in which all necessary guarantees of defence are assured’. Other people or entities referred to are neither accused nor under investigation in any criminal proceedings. They are only mentioned because they appear in other places such as the media, official reports or court decisions as persons of interest. They are not formally suspected of any illegality or irregularity, and they always enjoy, even if they are charged, the universal right of presumption of innocence.

Basic background Post-war Angola. Reconstruction and ‘privatization of sovereignty’ (2002–10)

Military victory as the founding act of the new Angola The image is a powerful one. The once indomitable warrior lies prostrate in a rumpled green uniform. Jonas Savimbi is dead, and his body is being shown on television. Savimbi was the leader of UNITA,1 the movement that from 1975 fought an interminable civil war against José Eduardo dos Santos’s MPLA. This broadcast marked the definite end of the internal armed conflict that ravaged Angola since its independence. The date was 22 February 2002. Shot to death in battle, Savimbi could have expected to turn into a martyr, just like Chilean president Salvador Allende after being pictured with his machine gun resisting Pinochet in 1973. It did not happen – UNITA troops were cornered2 and rapidly capitulated. In fact, on 4 April 2002, the Luena Memorandum was signed between the heads of both armed forces.3 Although generally announced as a peace agreement, this was more a document of military surrender. Justin Pearce clearly highlights that the MPLA strategy was straightforward. What was in question was not a broad peace agreement and social appeasement, but a mere end of violence and hostilities.4 That was the reason why the signatories were military, and the scope of the memorandum was limited and technical: ceasefire and resolution of all pendent military questions.5 There is a thoroughly detailed biography of Jonas Savimbi that deserves to be read, even though some observers think it too pro Savimbi: Fred Bridgland, Jonas Savimbi: A Key to Africa (London: Coronet books, 1998). 2 Douglas Wheeler and René Pélissier, História de Angola (Lisboa: Tinta da China, 2013), 371; Justin Pearce, A Guerra Civil em Angola.1975–2002, Pref. Rafael Marques, Trans. S. Silva (Lisboa: Tinta da China, 2017), 233. 3 Memorando de Entendimento Complementar ao Protocolo de Lusaka para a cessação de hostilidades e resolução das demais questões militares pendentes nos termos do Protocolo de Lusaka. The document can be consulted at https​://ww​w.usi​p.org​/site​s/def​ault/​files​/file​/reso​urces​/coll​ectio​ns/pe​ace_a​greem​ ents/​angol​a_040​42002​.pdf (accessed 30 August 2019). 4 Pearce, op.cit., pp. 237–8. 5 Clause 1.1. 1

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Beyond the rhetoric it was soon too apparent that despite the halo that quickly enveloped President dos Santos as the ‘Peace Architect’, the document thoroughly reflected a military triumph that did not require Carthaginian terms, but ended any UNITA military might and severed its political capacity and social implantation.6 Soares de Oliveira called the 2002 events a ‘clear-cut military victory’.7 This will explain most of MPLAs future behaviour. The founding act of Angola’s peaceful phase, which began in 2002, was not an act of peace, but an act of military victory. One army beat the other. And this founding act had two effects, effects which accompany army winnings since antiquity. Power was legitimized by force, so the winners would not lose in elections that they had achieved by human sacrifice. This reasoning justifies the rulers’ view that when elections exist, only the MPLA has the right to rule because it won the war and paid a high price in lives and blood. The second effect of military victory is the right to loot. The triumphant generals, as frequently seen in history, felt entitled to the riches of the country they had conquered. And this fact underlies the assault on national wealth that has been done on a massive scale since that time. Consequently, the regime that followed was based on war victory; such a victory will not be lost in any election. Thus, the fraud that Angola witnessed in the electoral acts and the subsequent race for the private appropriation of national wealth were, in the minds of the victors, the just and natural triumphs of winning a war. They won, it is theirs and they will not lose what they have won.8 A public symptom of such an approach was shown by retired General Andrade in 2018 who, when ordered by a court of law to vacate a building to which he was not entitled, refused with the argument ‘I am a general’, adding louder, ‘I have immunities, I don’t have to obey any court.’9 Consequently, any analysis of the Angolan regime after 2002 cannot start from a formal and legalistic perspective. A realistic and historical–political point of view is mandatory. It should be noted that most Angolan leaders were educated in the schools of the old Soviet Union, which took a Marxist–Leninist perspective of law and of social sciences. According to Marxist theorists, these subjects are not an end in themselves, but rather an instrument of domination by the oppressive class. Thus, the oppressed Pearce, op.cit., p. 238–42. Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Magnificent and Beggar Land: Angola since the Civil War (London: Hurst and Company, 2015). 8 This idea was expressed in several interviews with retired generals. 9 Maka Angola, ‘General Andrade desobedece ordem do tribunal’, Maka Angola, 7 December 2017. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​7/12/​gener​al-an​drade​-deso​bedec​e-ord​em-do​ -trib​unal/​(accessed 30 August 2019). 6 7

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had to disrespect the law, or rewrite history, to win their struggle. The law is used in the revolutionary struggle as a weapon; and after victory, it will be one of the political instruments of the state to achieve its objectives. Complying with the law is only justified if it contributes to the pursued ends. The law has no worth by itself and the rule of law is a tool of the dominant class,10 not a self-sustaining value. In short, despite wearing the garments of Western modernity, the exercise of power in Angola after 2002 was based on war victory, not law. This meant that all power, as well the national wealth, belonged to the victorious leader. Law and other social constructs would be useful only and to the extent of the interests of the leadership.

Angola in 2002: Misery and personal power It is not difficult to imagine what a country would look like after forty-one years of war, first for independence, then civil. It is evident that war was not permanent, did not always cover the whole territory, but, nonetheless, was a constant presence in Angolan life. The war mines were scattered throughout the territory making even the smallest displacement of the population a life-threatening habit.11 Refugees, food shortages, epidemic outbreaks were the quotidian and visible signs of life in Angola, as Soares de Oliveira12 comprehensively described. Having voyaged extensively in Angola during this period, the most impressive images were the garbage dumps in Luanda. Real hills of dirt that stood in the urban landscape where children played, and adults sought something to survive. All this mass of garbage and people were pushed by the force of the waters when it rained, turning the streets into seas of junk and death. Luanda prepared in colonial times to house a population of 500,000 inhabitants, and having had no special infrastructure expansion after independence, eventually grew to house more than 6 million people.13 Homes and official buildings were in disrepair. For instance, in the Ministry of Education all the lifts were out of order, the illumination provided by a few naked lamps, and dirt was everywhere. One other adopted habit was to drive with machine guns. When travelling by car For an overview of legal Marxism see Hugh Collins, Marxism and Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984). 11 David Birmingham, Breve História de Angola, trans. R. Guerra (Lisboa: Guerra e Paz, 2017) 181. 12 de Oliveira, op.cit. p. 53. 13 Alberto Oliveira Pinto, História de angola. Da Pré-História ao Início do Século XXI (Lisboa: Mercado das Letras, 2015), 766. 10

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within the city, I always had a machine gun at my feet and walking alone in the streets was strongly advised against. In broader terms, in 2002, according to the most comprehensive report of the time, the Human Development Report,14 Angola was a least developed country, occupying the 161st place in a total of 173, below countries like Eritrea or the Democratic Republic of Congo. Life expectancy only reached 45.2 years, births attended by a health specialist were just 22 per cent, 51 per cent of the population was undernourished and the infant mortality rate was situated at 172/1,000, the worst number in the world apart from Sierra Leone. The famous Thomas Hobbes quote written in seventeenth-century England, the ‘life of man, [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’,15 applied perfectly to Angola in 2002. Such a situation was appalling in a country that had extensive riches in oil, gas, diamonds, iron ore, manganese, tin, fertile soils and a climate exceptionally conducive to good agriculture. The silencing of weapons had finally allowed the start of thinking in a more structured way about the country’s development. However, the mistakes and misconceptions of both the MPLA leadership and much of the international community were deepened and continued. Sadly, it cannot be said that this epoch marked a new beginning, or that ‘Angola starts now’.16 Birmingham, quite rightly, emphasized that Angola had never known political and legal institutions such as ‘government by consent’, ‘trial by jury’, or ‘participative local government’. The country inherited a police state that was established by the Portuguese at the beginning of the twentieth century by famous colonialists such as Paiva Couceiro or Norton de Matos.17 This centralized and authoritarian state, built by the colonial power, was adopted and hulled by MPLA after independence. Politically, despite the publicized constitution of the National Unity and Reconstruction Government (GURN)18 after 1997, a kind of national unity government, the fact was that such government constituted a cosmetic construction. It was impossible to be any other way as the war was still being fought. It was a ‘mere appearance’ as members from other political forces were the target of strong internal discrimination. An apparent government of reconciliation was in fact a government based on the discrimination and humiliation of representatives of United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2002. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), XIII: 9. 16 The motto adopted by some Angolans after 2002 as clearly explained by Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, op.cit., pp. 1–5. 17 Birmingham, op.cit .p. 181. 18 GURN-Governo de Unidade e Reconciliação Nacional (National Reconciliation and Unity Government). 14 15

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Angola at the Crossroads

other parties, as recalled by one of its members. According to him, in the GURN, opposition party ministers and deputy ministers had only ‘decorative functions’ and national directors had even more power in practice than their hierarchical superiors. ‘The MPLA was not a party capable of living in a healthy way with members of other parties’, he concluded.19 The fact was that true power rested with President dos Santos and the MPLA leadership. The president, his family and close associates constituted the centre and the real power. They dominated the main leverages of wealth in Angola, namely the oil company, Sonangol and the diamond exploration. Beyond this nucleus of power gravitated a group of generals, ministers and intermediaries who complemented the activities of dos Santos. The institutional organs – government, parliamentary assembly or courts – were powerless (Figure 1). The continuity and the centralization of power in dos Santos himself during the end of the 1990s/early 2000s are very well documented in the case of Arkady Gaydamak. Gaydamak had been a key man in the Angolan power structure, a fascinating character, demonstrating that reality is always more interesting

Figure 1  The scheme of power in Angola. Based in Rui Verde, Angola e Dinheiro (Cascais: RCP Edições, 2016), 87.

Interview of Sapalo António, at the time vice-minister for industry, representing the small political party PRS (Social Renewal Party) in José Adalberto, ‘Governo de Reconciliação Nacional de Angola nasceu há 20 anos’, Deutsche Welle, 11 April 2017, available online: https​://ww​w.dw.​com/p​t-002​/gove​ rno-d​e-rec​oncil​ia per centC3 per centA7 per centC3 per centA3o-nacional-de-angola-nasceu-h per centC3 per centA1-20-anos/a-38385610 (Accessed 2 September 2019).

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than fiction. Gaydamak, baptized Arkady, was a Russian Jew. Born in 1952, he showed a closed but distinct face, bringing with him the cold, sharp air of the steppes, though time has softened his features. A holder of the Légion d’Honneur for services rendered to France, he was sentenced to prison by the French courts, and later on acquitted after appeals to higher courts. Owner of the Israeli soccer club Beitar for some time, he was a candidate for mayor of Jerusalem and practices philanthropy with prodigality. His billionaire deals involve diamonds and guns. He is an honorary citizen of Angola and apparently has for many years run its secret services and diamond trade. Gaydamak was one of the true powers of Angola in the orbit of President dos Santos. The legal dispute on English soil between Gaydamak and diamond dealer Lev Leviev shed light on the workings of Angolan power. It all went public in the ‘Gaydamak vs. Leviev’ case, tried by Judge Sir Geoffrey Voss at the High Court in London in the summer of 2012.20 Gaydamak had filed an action against Leviev to enforce an alleged settlement made between them in 2001, Leviev disputed the validity of this agreement. The legal arguments are not important here. What is relevant is the modus operandi, typical in Angola, showing that there was a robust informal power structure that superseded any formal institutional and legal organization. In this case, as in many others, everything happened and got complicated because legal formalities were abandoned, and accords were set up outside the law. Legally, in Angola, all diamonds are state property and can only be traded with the permission of Endiama, a state company. Reality proved to be different. The scheme that Gaydamak described was completely out-of-law and included private companies which controlled the diamond trade. His intervention began in 1998, with the creation of private companies that at the same time had to ensure the military security of diamond regions and diamond transactions. In the middle of the story surfaces the first (and former) wife of President dos Santos, Tatiana, and their daughter Isabel as holders of 25 per cent of the private corporation that had the monopoly in the purchase and subsequent sale of Angolan diamonds. This monopolistic company was called ‘Ascorp’ and their holding corporation was named ‘Tais’ (acronym for Tatiana and Isabel). The plot follows with more corporations and changes of social denominations, evidently to obscure tracks. Documentation, as usual, was based on manuscripts (with varying interpretations), memos that may or may not have come into force, and sometimes cryptic e-mail messages became imperceptible. However, it is crystal clear that there was a lot of money involved, Gaydamak V Leviev [2012] EWHC 1740 (CH).

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Angola at the Crossroads

and that Angolan presidential power determined the agreements. In court, Gaydamak gave a detailed and highly informative statement demonstrating how these shadow games worked in business day-to-day, In 2000, I had already many reasons to conceal my participation in the company with the exclusive right to trade Angolan diamonds, for the reason of my deep and big problem, links to the French internal politics, and for the reason of my position on the international raw material market and to be a target of the big company. That was the reason. And also to think about the reputation of the Angolan government that can be accused to provide a right to participate in the company with the exclusive diamond trading to somebody who is known for many years as to be close to the MPLA government.21

Questioned, during the hearing at the High Court in London, if he was the one to decide who was licenced to trade diamonds, he replied, I had a possibility to suggest the structure, the system, to cut the revenue to the rebels, because I had the possibility to discuss trade with the President and a member of the government and security services and head of the Angolan army, and I suggest him new system how to stop the war by cutting the financing to the rebels that finance their arm buying through the illegal diamond trading. To create a control we needed one governmental system to control all the exports. That was ASCORP and that was my idea and type of proposal. Only later on professional diamantaires they went to his company, already to execute the professional work.

The judge, Sir Geoffrey Voss, was puzzled by the ease and informality with which power and money circulated in Angola. Gaydamak was bluntly asked, ‘Are you suggesting this money wasn’t accounted for because there are so many million dollars there that nobody bothered, or are you suggesting that it was accounted for and that your representative signed a piece of paper for it?’ Gaydamak himself explained the source of his power in Angola, clarifying that his main asset was the licence with exclusive rights to export diamonds. This licence was obtained because he was able to create secure mechanisms to cut funding sources to UNITA. He added that between 1998 and 2002 (the year of Savimbi’s death and the end of the war), he controlled Angolan security and secret intelligence. Both diamonds and security were in his hands and he reported directly to the president. Gaydamak v Leviev [2012] EWHC 1740 (Ch) (29 June 2012). https​://ww​w.bai​lii.o​rg/ew​/case​s/EWH​ C/Ch/​2012/​1740.​html.​paragraph 84.

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It can be concluded that before 2002, dos Santos was already wielding power obscurely and without control, blending private and public interests, national wealth and personal profit, national security and individual interest. It follows, that a rotten political and economic system, where sovereignty was privatized, was already in place, disregarding any constitutional and legal framework.

President José Eduardo dos Santos José Eduardo dos Santos is one of the main characters of this story, perhaps even the focal protagonist. He was born in Luanda in 1942, allegedly in the Sambizanga district, although there are no records of the existence of this neighbourhood in 1942. Some say that his parents were from the island of São Tomé, another Portuguese colony, so they claim that José Eduardo is not Angolan. His childhood is unclear. Some claim that he went to primary school in Luanda, while others purport that this happened in São Tomé.22 There seems to be no doubt that he attended high school in Luanda during colonial times, namely the Liceu Salvador Correia de Sá. Dos Santos turned to politics early, having joined the MPLA in 1958 when he was sixteen years old, and taking an active part in the revolt against Portugal after 1961. He swiftly became a member of the revolutionary army and a representative of the MPLA in CongoBrazzaville. He also coordinated the MPLA youth organization, of which he was vice president. Sometime during the 1960s he went to Baku in the then Soviet Union Republic of Azerbaijan, to take a degree as an oil engineer. However, it is the military expertise in telecommunications that he also obtained in the Soviet Union that gave him the leverage to return to Angola and assume key military telecommunications posts in the liberation army. The fact is, it would seem that between 1964 and 1969 dos Santos was in the Soviet Union. History accelerated with the Carnation Revolution in Portugal on 25 April 1974, highlighting dos Santos’s role in diplomacy, representing the MPLA in Congo-Brazzaville, Yugoslavia and China, and preparing Angola for independence. In September 1974, he was elected as member of the MPLA Central Committee and Political Bureau. In June 1975, he became both the head of the MPLA Foreign Affairs Department and the Health Department. After Angola’s independence on 11 November 1975, dos Santos became the foreign affairs minister of the People’s

See Rui Verde, Os Três Magníficos (Cascais: RCP Edições, 2016), 28.

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Republic of Angola. He later held the post of deputy prime minister and minister for economic planning and development. José Eduardo dos Santos had several skills on his side. The first of these was his training in the Soviet Union. All his technical and intellectual expertise had been given by the communist superpower. He was one of the advanced pupils of the Soviet regime in Africa.23 Another of his skills lay in his ability to please Greeks and Trojans, specializing in non-commitment and ambiguity. Finally, he had military experience, especially in communications. He was a kind of diplomatic technocrat and a Moscow man, but with a seemingly quiet outlook. The quiet Angolan. When Agostinho Neto died in 1979 while undergoing a routine surgery in Moscow, dos Santos was named president of the Republic and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, after being named president of the MPLA. He was a ‘suave’ man, most probably none of his colleagues thought they were selecting a strong leader. However, from then until 2017, dos Santos controlled Angola’s destiny. He navigated with expertise and firmness through the civil war years, obtaining, as mentioned earlier, the final military victory in 2002, and guaranteeing himself, in the process, full control of Angola’s politics and wealth.

Specious golden age of Angolan economy: Reconstruction, accumulation and China With the war over, the ground was laid for Angola’s seemingly resplendent takeoff. From 2002 to 2008, with the exception of 2003, annual economic growth as measured by GDP was consistently above 10 per cent, peaking in 2007.24 In 2002 the economy accomplished an unusual 13.66 per cent of growth. The exiguous hotels of the capital had their lobbies bursting with activity. Angola seemed a kind of American Far West where people from all nations and professions met with Angolan partners (generals and ministers) in the bars to discuss the opportunities raised by the end of war. The doors of Hotel Trópico, for some time almost the only one operating under decent conditions in the city, were always open, with people entering and exiting, jeeps idling at the front door and ministers running in a sweat for their business meetings in the hotel rooms. Rui Verde, Os Três Magníficos, cit. 32. World Bank, ‘Angola, GDP annual growth %’. Available online: https​://da​ta.wo​rldba​nk.or​g/ind​ icato​r/NY.​GDP.M​KTP.K​D.ZG?​end=2​018&l​ocati​ons=A​O&sta​rt=19​81&vi​ew=ch​art (accessed 3 September 2019).

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It was the time of reconstruction, a miraculous programme of growth and prosperity for Angola that the MPLA announced. Buildings, infrastructure, a gleaming city.25 All was promised and devised by the victorious power. The question, as previously referenced, was that a personal system of power was already in place, and such a system would seize the state and the economy. Additionally, contrary to what happened in the Middle Ages in England – where the king was obliged to accept the intromission of parliament in order to raise taxes for his wars and royal marriages – in Angola dos Santos and the MPLA did not need the people nor revenue from taxation. All could be done through the exploitation of natural resources such as oil and diamonds; as Tom Burgis eloquently wrote, ‘the contract between rulers and the ruled breaks down because the ruling class does not need to tax people to fund government – so it has no need of their consent.’26 This was evidently what occurred in Angola. The MPLA alone decided on the future of Angola and put forward its plans for the reconstruction. Beyond the glimmering facades of the new buildings in Luanda, the fundamentals of the new economy of Angola were clear-cut and old: an excessive reliance on oil production and diamonds, as well as an exaggerated propulsion of consumption. In the diamond sector, arrangements were made with Gaydamak’s former partner, Leviev, the president’s daughter, Isabel dos Santos, the corrupt Brazilian corporation, Odebrecht, later to be severely affected by Lava-Jato judicial investigation, and some Russian counterparts. Besides these two sectors (oil and diamonds), the growth was small and inefficient except for a mini boom of real estate construction in residential areas in Luanda, making the building sector grow 12.6 per cent in 2003. Finally, in the services sector, the communications sub-sector grew 35 per cent in the first half of 2004 after the launch of a second operator of mobile phones.27 The beneficiaries of the real estate growth were the generals and ministers that dominated the construction partnerships, and in the case of mobile phones, the daughter of the president, Isabel dos Santos. It is enlightening to tell the story of how she acquired the position in the mobile phone company. ‘Tied by the law that barred the entry of private individuals in the telecommunications sector, José Eduardo dos Santos did not half hesitate to undo the obstacle at the Council of Ministers meeting, The reconstruction process is very well described in Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Magnificent . . ., pp. 58–73. 26 Tom Burgis, The Looting Machine (London: William Collins, 2015), 5. 27 OECD ‘Angola, 2005’. Available at http:​//www​.oecd​.org/​count​ries/​angol​a/353​50793​.pdf (accessed 3 September 2019). 25

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posing the question, “If we were the ones who made the law, then what is the problem with changing it?”’28 This is how Isabel dos Santos’s entry into the mobile phone market – through the establishment of a new private company, Unitel – is described by veteran journalist Gustavo Costa. For those who want to trace her fortune, without even beginning to include the suspicions links to diamond trafficking, arms deals or her role as her father’s proxy, the key point is Unitel, the mobile phone operator. This case illustrates what was to be called the primitive accumulation of wealth which was dos Santos’s fundamental policy in the creation of the entrepreneurial class. His idea was to raise a new business class from his family, generals and ministers that would support the regime. The origin of the money for this new class would be the state and the riches it controlled. So, he really envisaged a kind of wealth transfer. Once again, it is better to look at a concrete example: the Angolan Investment Bank (BAI). Rafael Marques, investigative journalist and civic fighter, has done methodical research on the evolution of the bank’s ownership.29 In 1996 when the bank was founded, Sonangol, the state oil company, was the main shareholder with 18.5 per cent of the capital. According to the journalist’s investigation, Sonangol, over the years, transferred at least 10 per cent to private shareholders within the Angolan ruling elite. Noteworthy are the names of Manuel Vicente and Fernando Piedade dos Santos, both former vice presidents of the Republic of Angola. Today, the ruling elite owns 47.75 per cent of BAI shares. This percentage went into private hands without apparent legal justification. Naturally, Angolan leaders do not take these transfers head-on, but as they exist, they justify them according to the necessity of primitive accumulation of wealth. Soares de Oliveira illustrates the point very well when he writes that the ‘MPLA had an almost unique degree of autonomy from the society it ruled: victorious and cash-rich, it hovered above a demobilized population exhausted by four decades of war and in no position to make claims over the direction of the reconstruction policy’. A reconstruction made at will and a policy of private wealth accumulation based on transfers from the public domain, tapping from an economy fuelled by oil and diamonds, all framed by a political system based on dos Santos’s personal

Gustavo Costa, ‘Angola: doença de José Eduardo dos Santos abala regime’, Expresso, 20 May 2017, 41. Available online: https​://ex​press​o.pt/​inter​nacio​nal/2​017-0​5-20-​Angol​a-doe​nca-d​e-Jos​e-Edu​ardo-​ dos-S​antos​-abal​a-reg​ime (accessed 28 October 2019). 29 Rafael Marques, ‘BAI à Lavandaria do regime’, Maka Angola, 8 June 2012. Available online: http:​// mak​aango​la.or​g/201​2/06/​08/ba​i-a-l​avand​aria-​do-re​gime/​(accessed in 3 September 2019). 28

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dominion. Those were the main characteristics of the ‘golden era’ announced after 2002. There is another fundamental aspect that needs to be considered with regard to Angola’s ‘golden era’: the arrival and role of China. After Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and subsequent growth in China, Angola was the first African country to test a new model of collaboration named the ‘Angola mode’30 and subsequently became Beijing’s main trading partner in Africa.31 This model started to be used in 2004, and on the Angolan side it was negotiated by the then head of Security Services, General Fernando Miala, who now, in 2019, after a fall from grace and being imprisoned by dos Santos, under Lourenço’s government, was reinstated as head of the Security Services. This shows that the approach to China was never seen as a pure economic or technical issue, but one with the utmost relevance to the politics and security of the regime. Most authors32 argue that Angola’s move towards China was a consequence of dos Santos’s failure to achieve any agreement with the IMF and Western powers for the post-civil war reconstruction. Western-dominated institutions and governments had political demands of good governance and democratization with which the Angolan government did not want to comply. Perhaps, this is not exactly the full explanation, as in fact Western powers involved themselves with Angola in several private businesses.33 Most probably, the option was more due to the internal and cultural nature of the country, reflecting a mistrust on the part of the Angolan government, even a conspiratorial view,34 with regard to the Western powers, and the need to affirm a strong and proper sovereign stance. It is important to mention that dos Santos negotiated the 2002 agreement attesting the end of the civil war with no external participation. The Angola that dos Santos and the MPLA envisaged did not render vassalage to the West and looked for new allies in other parts of the world. This is the context of Angola’s move towards China. The partnership was initiated with a loan of several billion

Burgis, The Looting Machine, p. 86. Reuters, ‘China Hails Angola as Largest African Trade Partner’, Reuters, 19 January 2009. Available at https​://ww​w.reu​ters.​com/a​rticl​e/oza​bs-ch​ina-a​ngola​-idAF​JOE50​I0202​00901​19 (Accessed 4 September 2019). 32 de Oliveira, Magnificent . . ., p. 54 (2015:54); May Tan-Mullins, G. Mohan, and M. Power, ‘Redefining “Aid” in the China–Africa Context’, Development and Change 41 (5) (2010): 857–81; Assis Malaquias, ‘China Is Angola’s New Best Friend-for Now’, in M. Power and A. Alves (eds.), China and Angola: A Marriage of Convenience? (Fahamu: Pambazuka, 2010). 33 de Oliveira, Magnificent . . ., p. 54. 34 In conversation with the head of Strategic Services from the Ministry of the Interior who personally confirmed the cultural distrust and affirmed with conviction that the 11 September attack in the United States was a CIA plot. Luanda, July 2006. 30 31

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dollars at very low-interest rates, granted by China to the government of Angola.35 Subsequently, the Angolan government used these loans in the construction of infrastructure that was awarded to Chinese companies. Angola paid the loans to China using oil or minerals as collaterals; consequently, in practice, Angola became one of the main suppliers of oil to China. Although, there are some similarities between the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party and the MPLA, from ‘orthodox’, ‘communist’ parties to ‘authoritarian’ parties embracing liberal economics and free market developmental goals, the truth is that the simultaneous relationship between the two countries and parties was fairly recent.36 In the past, as early as 1964, China had supported the FNLA with arms and at least 112 military advisers.37 This was a movement in opposition to Portugal and to the MPLA, which was defeated in the first days of the civil war. After that China favoured UNITA, the enemy of MPLA, thus underestimating the latter. These misconceptions help explain the long spell of time that the independent Angola took to formalize the opening of diplomatic relations with China. Clearly, China’s interest in Angola dates at least from the 1960s, but it was only around the beginning of the twentyfirst century that it established an effective connection with the MPLA and the Angolan government. When Chinese credit lines began to emerge in Angola, they were considered a blessing for the country and for the African continent. Politically, the Chinese did not meddle in internal affairs, and economically, their approach was incredibly competitive: a breath of fresh air after the multiple exploitations of the colonial and Western powers. At the outset, it seemed like a win–win situation, China gained political influence, markets for its companies and access to the raw materials it needed so much for its economic expansion. Angola obtained money to equip the country with basic infrastructure at low prices and without political conditioning. Nonetheless, it must be emphasized that intervention of China in Angola did in fact have political effects, not just economic consequences. It aimed at creating the covenants ‘of a new world order, in which long-downtrodden peoples could unite to ensure their advancement’.38 A caliginous downswing was apparent in Chinese dealings, the expanding and generalized corruption that they allowed. The meeting of two secretive state apparatus resulted in the formulation of a complex web of personal interests Tan-Mullins et al., op.cit. Malaquias, op.cit. 37 FNLA-Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola-Angola’s Liberation National Front. 38 Burgis, The Looting Machine, p. 87. 35 36

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and corruption accompanying ‘official’ businesses. At the heart of this network of complicity was Sam Pa, now imprisoned in China under the Xi Jinping anti-corruption purge. Sam Pa rose from obscurity to acquire companies and businesses in five different continents worth tens of billions of dollars, and helped to build a comprehensive web of corporations, based at 88 Queensway in Hong Kong. Sam Pa’s group had business with BP, Total and Glencore, and interests ranging from Indonesian gas to a Dubai refinery, luxury apartments in Singapore, and a fleet of Airbus aircrafts. It encompassed a network of private companies based in tax havens to support two large companies. One was China Sonangol, which is mainly an oil company, but also owns the old JP Morgan building in front of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street,39 and contrary to what the designation suggests has nothing to do with Sonangol in Angola. Of great relevance is the fact that Sam Pa did not act alone, but apparently in collusion with especially important Angolan dignitaries, such as apparently Manuel Vicente, former CEO of Sonangol and vice president of the Republic. One of the underlying clues showing links between Vicente and Pa was the ‘forgetfulness’ of the former when he assumed the vice presidency of the Republic in Angola. Conflicting with the Angolan Constitution, Vicente continued to accumulate state functions alongside private positions abroad. Documents – then revealed, as usual, by investigative journalist Rafael Marques – showed that Vicente renewed his tenure as director of the Hong Kong-based China Sonangol on 6 September 2012. Vicente submitted his confirmation as director of the company, six days after being elected vice president of the Republic. Previously, Vicente already held a government post as Minister of State for Economic Coordination, to which he was appointed by presidential decree in January 2012.40 As referenced, this accumulation was strictly forbidden by the Angolan Constitution. Marques explains that it was through China Sonangol that President dos Santos, Vicente and General Kopelipa transformed the process of national reconstruction into a business for their own profit. This triumvirate had guaranteed the annual shipment of no less than half of Angolan oil to China and had provided the presidential guard to receive, at Luanda’s airport, more than 200,000 Chinese business people, sent to Angola to implement the reconstruction projects, Marques argued. This presidential group, through Tom Burgis, ‘China in Africa: How Sam Pa Became the Middleman’, Financial Times, 8 August 2014. Available online: https​://ww​w.ft.​com/c​onten​t/308​a133a​-1db8​-11e4​-b927​-0014​4feab​dc0 (accessed 5 September 2019). 40 Rafael Marques, ‘Vice-Presidente de Angola é director na China-Sonangol’, Maka Angola, 24 June 2013. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​3/06/​vice-​presi​dent e-de-​angol​a-e-d​irect​ or-na​-chin​a-son​angol​/ (accessed 5 September 2019). 39

24

Angola at the Crossroads

several mechanisms, created more than a dozen companies using Sonangol’s name and brand which were paramount in both Angola’s political power and its political economy. The chief architect of this approach was, initially, the arms dealer, Pierre Falcone, one of the most successful intermediaries of the country’s leadership. Falcone’s Piersons Capital, at the time, seemingly, received 5 per cent of the business/economic values created between China and Sonangol under the guise of national reconstruction.41 The Economist, a UK weekly newspaper,42 exposed how China Sonangol enriched their owners. It purchased crude oil at a base price determined in 2005 and resold it to China at its actual market price. In 2005, according to the paper, the price of a barrel of oil was below US$55, but, for instance, in 2011, above US$100. Therefore, in that year oil worth of more than US$100 was acquired at US$55 by China Sonangol to be sold at double the cost. The profits from this corruption scheme were valued at tens of billions of dollars over almost a decade. The losses to Angola were incalculable.

Elections, crisis and a surprising saviour: The IMF The year 2008 was finally an electoral year. Between 1975 and 1992 there were no general elections, as the MPLA’s Marxist system provided for a different way of choosing leaderships, following the Soviet formula, that is the small elective cells chose the upper bodies and so on. And at the same time the civil war prevented any attempt to launch an electoral process on a national level,43 handing the ‘party-state a suffocating national security culture that is one of its perennial traits’.44 The first elections took place in 1992.45 For the first time in Angola, a free, fair and universal suffrage was attempted. This endeavour did not yield Rafael Marques, ‘Vice-Presidente de Angola é director na China-Sonangol’, Maka Angola, 24 June 2013. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​3/06/​vice-​presi​dente​-de-a​ngola​-e-di​recto​ r-na-​china​-sona​ngol/​(accessed 5 September 2019). 42 ‘The Queensway Syndicate and the Africa Trade’, The Economist, 13 August 2011. Available online: https​://ww​w.eco​nomis​t.com​/brie​fing/​2011/​08/13​/the-​queen​sway-​syndi​cate-​and-t​he-af​rica-​trade​ (accessed 5 September 2019). 43 Sebastião Bessa, O sistema eleitoral angolano: a consolidação democrática através da garantia de eleições livres (Lisboa: UAL, 2104). 44 de Oliveira, Magnificent . . ., p. 96. 45 This was the result of the Agreement of Bicesse, signed at the High School of Tourism, Estoril, Portugal, by José Eduardo dos Santos (president of the Republic of Angola and leader of the MPLA) and Jonas Savimbi (leader of the opposing party in the war UNITA-Angola´s Total Independence National Union) on 31 May 1991. The agreement stipulated that the first free and democratic elections in Angola, supervised by the United Nations, were to be held. As well as stating that all the belligerent forces would be integrated into the Angolan Armed Forces. The Portuguese State, through use of its own Armed Forces, would provide the necessary training. These Agreements permitted a temporary armistice in the Angolan Civil War between MPLA and UNITA. 41

Basic Background

25

positive results; on the contrary, it rekindled the civil war that had persisted in the country since 1975. The consequence of this failure was that under the vestige of a newly created democratic framework,46 an authoritarian government continued, with the same president and party in power. It is interesting to note that a change in the political norm did not imply a change in sheer political power relations. In practice, despite living under an allegedly democratic system, between 1992 and 2008 no elections took place. Only when the MPLA felt that it had extended its grip throughout the territory, enclosing the population within the regime, did it decide to convoke elections. The elections occurred on 5 and 6 September 2008, resulting in a sweeping victory for the MPLA with 81.7 per cent of the vote. Several political parties and coalitions competed in these elections, but just four opposition parties managed to win parliamentary representation and the MPLA’s landslide victory translated into winning 191 of the 220 parliamentary seats. The main opposition party was UNITA, their former civil war foe, obtaining a modest 10.36 per cent and sixteen seats. It is important to note that these elections were only legislative, to elect in parliament alone, and not presidential. Possibly dos Santos did not want to risk going to votes, an anxiety that subsequently informed the electoral presidential system in the future 2010 Constitution, as will be explained further. Therefore, dos Santos, at the time, had no electoral legitimacy to be president. He was never directly elected.47 Several organizations, like HRW,48 doubted that the elections were free and fair. They highlighted that the supervisory body, the National Electoral Commission (CNE), lacked impartiality as it was dominated by the ruling party; the media was unfavourable to opposition parties and freedom of expression was limited; acts of intimidation and unpunished political violence perpetrated by supporters of MPLA prevented opposition parties from conducting a free campaign across the country. Apparently, conditions improved slightly during the campaign, but the general impression and statements from the opposition were that the elections were fraudulent. Despite this, the opposition accepted the results and took its place in parliament. It is thought Constitutional Law 12/91 of 6 March introduced profound changes in the Angolan constitutional model. Such modifications resulted in a radical change in the political and economic system. Angola moved, at least in the letter, from a one-party state to a multi-party democracy. The constitutional amendments provided for the introduction of the necessary conditions for the implementation of multi-party democracy and forms of guaranteeing and recognizing the fundamental rights of citizens. There was also a constitutional consecration of the basic principles of a market economy. 47 In 1979 he was chosen by a petit comité of MPLA grandees. 48 Human Rights Watch, ‘Democracy or Monopoly? Angola’s Reluctant Return to Elections’, Human Rights Watch, 23 February 2009. Available online: https​://ww​w.hrw​.org/​repor​t/200​9/02/​23/de​mocra​ cy-or​-mono​poly/​angol​as-re​lucta​nt-re​turn-​elect​ions (accessed 5 September 2019). 46

26

Angola at the Crossroads

that the opposition was halted in its protests for two reasons: it had lost the war and it did not want to be blamed for any recrudescence; additionally, deputies were softened by the promise of material benefits.49 The resounding victory of the MPLA was initially matched by Angola’s economic growth. In 2008, GDP growth was still at two digits, attaining 11.1 per cent. Yet, this stood to be the last year of expansion above 10 per cent. The next year a miserable 0.8 per cent was obtained.50 Unfortunately, by 2008, and despite the marked growth of the economy, the living conditions of the general population had not been particularly improved, which is not really surprising in view of the leadership behaviours described earlier. Looking again at the UN Human Development Index,51 it is easy to find that the differences between 2002 and 2007/2008 are insignificant. By 2008, in terms of the overall position, Angola was 162nd out of 177 countries listed as low in the development index. Life expectancy apparently dropped to 41.7 years, lower than that in 2002. There was some improvement in births assisted by health professionals, which rose to 45 per cent, and rates of malnourishment at least remained stable at 35 per cent. Nonetheless, in terms of child mortality, Angola remained at the highest rate in the world aside from Sierra Leone, with 154 deaths per 1,000 births. Although in a few sectors some improvements took place, the dismal reality was that the GDP growth did not have a generalized spillover effect and was not reflected in people’s lives. And it was going to get worse. In the end, the golden years, 2002–8, did not translate themselves into benefits for the overall population. Oil price achieved a peak of US$145.9352 per barrel in June 2008. Abruptly in February 2009, it dropped as low as US$36.98 a barrel. Coincidentally, the diamond market also suffered a similar slump: both within the context of the world economic crisis. This new reality was awfully bad news for the Angolan economy that was not prepared to face its impact. Since the country survives largely from imports, any break in foreign currency income halts the economy. In 2009, the government first attempted to find domestic financing by issuing Treasury Bonds. However, this attempt did not work, as Angolan billionaires did not want to finance their own country. Then dos Santos turned to the banking system, but quickly depleted the country’s financial resources and strangled the national economy even further. Subsequently, after Interview with former opposition deputies. World Bank, https​://da​ta.wo​rldba​nk.or​g/ind​icato​r/NY.​GDP.M​KTP.K​D.ZG?​locat​ions=​AO 51 Human Development Report http:​//hdr​.undp​.org/​sites​/defa​ult/f​i les/​repor​ts/26​8/hdr​_2007​2008_​ en_co​mplet​e.pdf​. 52 Adjusted to 2019 US dollar rates. 49 50

Basic Background

27

some hesitation, the Angolan authorities reacted by tightening fiscal policy and reducing capital expenditure by 17 per cent in 2009, as well through the monetary policy raising reserve requirements for banks from 15 per cent to 30 per cent and increasing the central bank’s rediscount rate from 20 per cent to 25 per cent.53 At the same time, Angola finally had to resort to accepting money from the IMF, making a so-called standby agreement, which enabled it to meet its immediate financing needs with a loan of US$1.4 billion. Although the agreement contained several clauses of political and administrative reform, the IMF was quite benevolent and did not require its implementation. The agreement with the IMF saved dos Santos’s regime from the breakdown of the balance of payments. Absurdly, the IMF was responsible for prolonging the Angolan misgovernment by not adequately monitoring the structural reform process that should have been carried out. It would seem that dos Santos was nimble enough to receive money from the IMF without real strings attached.

The 2010 Constitution: The furtive imperial presidency The crisis did not impair the work of the National Assembly elected in 2008 to prepare a new constitution for Angola. This was realized in 2010, with the drafting and approval of the Constitution with 186 votes in favour, 2 abstentions and no votes against. The Constitution of the Republic of Angola was promulgated on 5 February 2010. Portuguese legal scholar Bacelar Gouveia stated that the Constitution of the Republic of Angola was drawn up under a rigorous procedure that united the parliamentary and presidential democratic legitimacy and the technocratic legitimacy of distinguished constitutionalists.54 However, the general benevolent appraisal, obtained from both Angolan and Portuguese55 legal scholars, hid a more complicated reality. In fact, the Constitution served to consecrate an imperial or hyperbolic presidency, as well as an electoral system that reflected the ‘fears’ of dos Santos. According to the new Constitution, the president of the Republic is not elected by direct suffrage, but, indirectly, by

IMF (2009), ‘Angola: Request for Stand-By-Arrangement’. Available online at https​://ww​w.imf​.org/​ exter​nal/p​ubs/f​t /scr​/2009​/cr09​320.p​df (accessed 10 September 2019). 54 Jorge Bacelar Gouveia, Direito Constitucional de Angola (Luanda e Lisboa: IDILP, 2014), 122. 55 Jónatas Machado, a professor from the ancient University of Coimbra who also teaches in Angola, described the Constitution as a document that ‘highlights the values of human dignity, equality, freedom, justice, democracy, solidarity, social progress and peace. It is upon them that the Republic of Angola is founded as a Constitutional State.’ Jónatas Machado, Direito Constitucional angolano (Coimbra: Coimbra Editora, 2015), 71. 53

28

Angola at the Crossroads

virtue of being the first name in the lists of deputies from parties56 competing for general elections. The position of president of the Republic will be assigned to the name at the top of the list of the party securing the most votes in the general elections. Dos Santos’s constitutional experts wanted to prevent any embarrassment to the president. Since the 1992 elections – indeed the first to take place in the country – the MPLA had been more popular than dos Santos. In those elections the MPLA immediately obtained an absolute majority of over 53 per cent, while dos Santos secured only 49.5 per cent. And even though some, like Herman Cohen,57 have recently claimed that dos Santos attained 51 per cent, the truth is that both figures rank always below the MPLA. This popular distinction between MPLA and dos Santos in favour of the former was both the basic reason why the 2008 election was only legislative and why the new system of electing the president of the Republic using a list of deputies, merging party and state, executive and legislative, was embodied in the 2010 Constitution. Contradictorily, the Constitution gave a furtively elected president an exaggerated power, propelling a kind of Bonapartism. The powers of the president of the Republic of Angola are identical to those of a plebiscitary dictator. He is a Napoleon. And he has incomparably more power than the already-enormously powerful US president, since all the major nominations made by the latter are submitted to Senate approval and presidential decisions are controlled, and often annulled, by the judiciary. In Angola this system of control between the various constitutional powers does not exist, providing a motive to call the Angolan presidency an imperial or hyperbolic presidency. It must be said that despite all the legal formalities, Angolans lived under a situation of ‘sham constitutionalism’.58 The formal institutions of government and their constitutional-legal apparatus did not reflect the true nature of the power effectively exercised by President dos Santos, supported by the money and the structure of Sonangol. It was clear that cosmetic democratization measures were needed to give a veneer of popular legitimacy and international credibility, mostly after the IMF help in 2009. All steps taken have had this dual function, both maintaining dos Santos in power and giving international legitimation. Internally, it was believed that only by keeping the president in office could the order and stability necessary for economic growth be guaranteed. The system of presidential clientelism and dependencies of central power was accentuated Or coalitions of parties. Herman Cohen, The Mind of the African Strongman: Conversations with Dictators, Statesmen, and Father Figures (Washington, DC: New Academia, 2015), 139–54. 58 David Law and Mila Versteeg, Sham Constitutions, 101 Calif. L. Rev. 863 (2013). 56 57

Basic Background

29

rather than restricted, making it increasingly irreformable.59 Fundamental rights continued to be restricted. Demonstrations were strictly banned. Extrajudicial killings occurred, as in the cases of the two political activists Alves Kamulingue and Isaías Cassule. Judicial independence was inexistent, as shown by the deferent rulings from the Constitutional Court that went so far as to prohibit parliamentary scrutiny of the executive, nullifying any apparent possibility of constitutional checks and balances.60 However, the existence of a constitution with a democratic form and the announcement of respect for the rule of law had a medium-term consequence, perhaps unexpected for the political power, but especially important in hastening the decline of dos Santos. It allowed the main civil society activists, such as Rafael Marques,61 to confront dos Santos with the breach of the fundamental law that his legislative had approved, exposing his hypocrisy and putting constant constitutional and legal pressure on the regime. This strategy of ‘juridifying’ the challenges to the regime, although it had no short-term gains in the politically controlled national courts, forced matters to be discussed in public hearings, throwing abundant light on the regime’s abuses of power across the spheres of both domestic and international public opinion. It was a permanent and constant strategy, inspired by dissidents’ resistance to the Soviet regime based on the Helsinki Charter. The compliance with the Constitution and the law was the aim of the articles published in Marques’s Maka Angola and of the judicial demands he and his legal team put through the judiciary apparatus. After the 2009 scare, the government seemed to be gaining ground in 2010: a new constitution, the economy recovering, public accounts again solvent due to a further rise in the price of oil. Dos Santos tried to control the situation, so that his elite could continue their business smoothly, seizing more land, building glimmering towers and using public money for their own pleasure.

Verde (2016: 84). Acórdão n. 319/2013. 61 Regarding the pivotal role of Rafael Marques in denouncing the regime’s corrupt abuses and fighting for democracy see Douglas Wheeler, op.cit. p. 374; David Birmingham, História de Angola . . ., p. 180 and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira which refer to Marques’s use of legal challenges to defy the regime, Magnificent . . ., p. 142. 59 60

30

Part I

Dos Santos’s last moves (2010–17)

32

1

Hope revisited (2010–14)

Luanda bay is almost idyllic, with spits like arms of land serenely and warmly embracing the sea. Seen from Ilha de Luanda (a nearby island, now linked to the continent), Luanda’s skyline was, again in 2010, bursting with activity, with buildings under construction, cranes operating, a new modern city finally taking the place of the old Portuguese colonial architectural layout. After the 2009 economic crisis, there was a renovation of hope. The economy gained ground again and major projects were coming back. From the low prices of previous years, when it dropped almost to US$60 dollars a barrel, in 2011, oil once again broke the US$120 barrier. Significantly, until 2014, it did not fall below US$100. The direct relationship between the price of oil and Angolan economic growth was once again decisive, demonstrating the country’s complete dependence on crude oil. The economy recovered too, and public finances were balanced. In 2011, GDP grew to 3.4 per cent, and in 2012, it accelerated to 8.5 per cent. It seemed that the hectic pace of the recent years would return. Nonetheless, news of systemic corruption and what is now called the ‘capture of the state’ abounded. In 2010, Marques published perhaps one of his most compelling and destructive texts,1 revealing the way Angola’s presidency was used as a shady business cartel and the consequences of this practice on the freedom and development of citizens, as well as on the political and economic stability of the country. In his text, Marques alleges that a presidential triumvirate composed of General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Junior (‘Kopelipa’), the minister of state and head of the Military House of the Presidency of the Republic; General Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento (‘Dino’), presidential communications director; and Manuel Vicente, then chairman of the board of directors and managing director of Sonangol meddle in the political economy of Rafael Marques, ‘Presidência da República. O epicentro da corrupção em Angola’, Maka Angola, 2 September 2010. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​0/09/​presi​denci​a-da-​repub​lica-​ o-epi​centr​o-da-​corru​pcao-​em-an​gola/​(accessed 1 October 2019).

1

34

Angola at the Crossroads

Angola, making no distinction between public and private affairs and their own purse. At the root of almost all the schemes lay Sonangol, the largest company in the country and the largest contributor to state revenue. It was undoubtedly the main source of illicit enrichment of the Angolan leaders. These were Marques’s conclusions. But the accusations of wrongdoing did not come only from the main Angolan civic activist. In the following year (2011), the IMF published a note on the disappearance of large amounts of money from the Angolan treasury. It was euphemistically called an ‘Unexplained Residual in the Budget’.2 This residue was equivalent to about US$32 billion and would have come about between 2007 and 2010. What is perplexing is that this discovery did not lead to any practical action, but to a mere exchange of words between the government, some NGOs and activists. There was no follow-up, neither from the IMF nor from any international organizations. In fact, 2011 and 2012 would see a renewal of the global projection of the financial power of the Angolan elite, namely in Portugal.

Reversal of fortunes: Angola disembarks in Portugal In modern history, Portugal was the first European country to reach the shores of sub-Saharan Africa and the last to leave.3 In the case of Angola, Portuguese nobleman Diogo Cão landed at the mouth of the Zaire River in 1482, and Angola’s last Portuguese governor, Admiral Leonel Cardoso, only hastily fled the country in November 1975, leaving it in a state of civil war. The Portuguese colonization lasted around 500 years, mainly ordained with the power to exploit the business of slavery across the Americas. Angola was the main source of slaves transported to Brazil. It is no exaggeration to say that at least until the second half of nineteenth century, the slave trade was the focus of the Angolan colonization, and up to 1961, forced labour was legal.4 Decolonization was a deeply traumatic event, both for the Angolans and the Portuguese. The former had been forced to fight uninterruptedly since 1961, the latter ended the process, breathless and exhausted. The Portuguese IMF (2011), ‘IMF Country Report n. 11/346’. December 2011. Available online: https​://ww​w.imf​ .org/​exter​nal/p​ubs/f​t /scr​/2011​/cr11​346.p​df, p. 9 (accessed 1 October 2019). 3 João Paulo Oliveira e Costa, José Damião Rodrigues e Pedro Aires de Oliveira, História da Expansão e do Império Português (Lisboa: Esfera dos Livros, 2017) for a broad perspective of the Portuguese Empire. 4 José Pedro Monteiro, Portugal e a questão do trabalho forçado (Lisboa: Ed.70, 2018) traces the end of forced labour in Portuguese colonies. 2

Hope Revisited (2010–14)

35

military had no choice but to overthrow their own nationalist and authoritarian regime that persisted with the war. The speed at which the end unfolded caught many Portuguese civilians living in Angola off guard and they had to flee the country leaving all their possessions behind. It is enough to look at the colonial city of Luanda, its durability and architectural extension to realize that the Portuguese thought they would stay in Angola forever.5 For all these reasons, it could be assumed that relations between both countries and their peoples would not recover quickly. And indeed, for several years no proper dynamic was established between the two countries, still hostages to war. Most contacts and businesses were handled by former Portuguese military personnel who were close to the Communist Party and had contributed to arming and transferring power to the MPLA.6 Portuguese political parties, with the marked exception of the communists, were initially leaning towards supporting UNITA, and in Portugal there was a great deal of acrimony about the decolonization process. This situation began to be reversed with Portugal’s intense participation in the Bicesse Accords in 1992, which, despite their failure, created the conditions for a renewed proximity between the two countries. After 2002, a large portion of Angolan investments were made in Portugal. Important acquisitions to be mentioned are a large part of Galp, the Portuguese oil company, in 2006, and a position at BPI, one of the most important banks in Portugal, in 2008. Also, real estate, hotels, vineyards and farms were collected by the Angolan elite. In 2011, Portugal faced a severe financial crisis, hinted at previously due to the continual lack of productivity and competitiveness of the economy. This crisis was not a ‘burst bubble’ crisis, but simply reflected one fact: there was no efficient application of money or capital in Portugal. The European Union/ IMF’s intervention and subsequent austerity is known. What is less documented is that this was an opportunity for Angolans to expand their businesses. The moneyhungry Portugal welcomed Angolan money with open arms, not caring about the origins or such dull details such as Angola’s endemic corruption. Lisbon, 2012: Portuguese television broadcasting the images of Angolan gentlemen in fine-cut Italian suits, perfectly polished shoes, discreet silk ties, sporting American-style smiles while entering the Hotel Ritz. With them are the best-known Portuguese lawyers and financiers, exuding an air of importance, as if they dominated everything. They dominated nothing. The news that came out About Portuguese permanence and exodus see: Fernando Tavares Pimenta, Angola, os Brancos e a Independência (Lisboa: Afrontamento, 2016), Isabel Lima Barreto, Exodus of white people minority from Angola. Adaptations to the Brazilian context. Outros Tempos, 9 (13) (June 2012). 6 Alexandra Marques, Os segredos da descolonização de Angola (Lisboa: D.Quixote, 2013), 62. 5

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Angola at the Crossroads

was quite simple. The Angolan gentlemen are now the owners of the Portuguese Millennium Bank where their money was housed. The circle was closed. Another paradigmatic case was the luxury residential complex of Estoril Sol Residence, situated on the seafront in Estoril, Portugal. The complex has some of the most expensive apartments in Portugal, ranging from one million to about six million US dollars per unit, and became known as the ‘Angolan building’. Angolan elite constituted the main clients of this real estate project that started in 2010. Angolans apparently owned approximately thirty apartments.7 The most famous holder was, perhaps, Manuel Vicente, head of Sonangol and future vice president of the Angolan Republic. He paid about US$3.8 million for the whole ninth floor with a privileged sea view, and the money was funnelled through several offshore companies. Curiously, these same companies had been used to buy the apartments of General Dino and General Kopelipa. Despite the high prices, Angolans ostensibly bought several apartments in the complex. Some of the acquisitions raised suspicions with the Portuguese judicial authorities, who subsequently opened criminal inquiries. These inquiries became a cause célèbre due to the effects they had on the Portuguese judiciary and in Portuguese politics. The magistrate responsible for the investigation of Manuel Vicente was Orlando Figueira. Figueira was a high-ranking DCIAP magistrate. He filed the lawsuits and abruptly abandoned the magistracy, starting to work in a bank dominated by Angolans. Later, this situation led to a criminal charge that greatly disrupted relations between Angola and Portugal. In 2013, the Portuguese foreign minister, Rui Machete, sent ‘diplomatic apologies’ to the Angolan state for judicial investigations that affected high dignitaries of its regime. And, violating the secrecy of justice, the minister also said that in the ongoing investigations in Portugal, which, for the most part, involved suspicions of massive money transfers, there was nothing substantially noteworthy, making it clear that if something was wrong, it was only in the filling of the bureaucratic forms. With this fragility, Portugal opened the doors of the European Union to Angolan capital without paying particular attention to the origin of the funds or the accusations of corruption that were already abundant. Angola’s positive coverage in the Portuguese mass media was greatly expanded. In January 2012, Portuguese state television (RTP) broadcasted live from the Angolan capital a programme to commemorate the reunion between the two countries. The engagement of public TV, then supervised by Minister Rafael Marques, ‘O prédio dos Angolanos no Estoril Sol’, MakaAngola, 26 July 2012. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​2/07/​o-pre​dio-d​os-an​golan​os-no​-esto​ril-s​ol/ (accessed 1 October 2019).

7

Hope Revisited (2010–14)

37

Relvas, was criticized by Pedro Rosa Mendes, a radio host on Portuguese public radio (RDP), in noticeably clear terms. A few days later Mendes was fired from RDP for indeterminate reasons. Later, when Minister Relvas left the political arena and returned to private life, he entered into several businesses with the Angolan elites. For example, he joined the former deputy governor of the Angolan Central Bank, Mário Palhares, to compete for the privatization of a Portuguese investment bank, Banco Efisa. Perhaps the most important news piece of Angolan promotion was a lengthy prime-time reportage on a private Portuguese television channel, TVI, a few years later. In this broadcast, Portuguese journalist Victor Bandarra outlined a shimmering panorama of Angola, a rapidly developing country with unique growth perspectives. This was all part of the image of renewed strength that the regime was projecting. What is interesting to emphasize is that these events were not typical of neocolonialism,8 neither in its old form as the continuous economic dominance of the colonial power over the new country, nor in what can be called a new neocolonialism or ‘neo-neo colonialism’. The neo-neo colonialism or judicial neocolonialism takes the shape of the Western countries trying to impose their values through international courts and justice,9 as echoed in the words of Mahmood Mamdani. He considered the International Criminal Court (ICC) to be a Western court established solely to try African crimes against humanity and as such, an assertion of neocolonial dominance.10 The relationship between Angola and Portugal is a more complex one that needs to be contextualized, as the ‘strong’ country is not the former colonial power and the ‘weak’ country is not the previous colony. In some ways there is a predominance of Angola in the relationship, due to the financial capacity of its leadership, despite the fact that this is counterbalanced by the know-how and expertise that Portugal still offers to Angola in several fields from engineering to law.11 The position of Portugal since Angola’s independence has been a weak one. In fact, after losing its former colonies in 1975, Portugal almost went bankrupt three times12 For traditional neocolonialism see Samir Amin, Neo-Colonialism in West Africa (London: Penguin, 1973). 9 R. Schuerch, The International Criminal Court at the Mercy of Powerful States: An Assessment of the Neo-Colonialism Claim Made by African Stakeholders – International Criminal Justice Series 13 (2017): 3. 10 Mahmood Mamdani, ‘Darfur, ICC and the New Humanitarian Order’, Pambazuka News, 17 September 2008. https​://ww​w.pam​bazuk​a.org​/gove​rnanc​e/dar​fur-i​cc-an​d-new​-huma​nitar​ian-o​ rder (accessed 26 September 2017). 11 See Verde, Angola e Dinheiro. 12 João César das Neves, As 10 Questões da Recuperação (Lisboa: Dom Quixote, 2013), 25. 8

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Angola at the Crossroads

and is now permanently indebted. It needs constant financing, and one of the largest financiers of the Portuguese economy have been the Angolans.13 David Birmingham rightly emphasizes that Portugal became dependent on Angola’s investment and migration to survive its economic and financial crisis.14

The 2012 elections Yachts, skyscrapers and cranes were again filling the bay of Luanda. After the scare of 2009 and the apparent recovery, 2012 seemed the ideal year for elections, as set out in the constitution. Theoretically, these elections, for the first time, would allow dos Santos to be chosen by the population as president of the Republic. In fact, it was not to be exactly like this. As mentioned previously, the constitutional regime established in the 2010 Constitution regarding the election of the powerful president was indirect. People vote for the party, and the first name in the party list for member of parliament will be elected president of the Republic. One way or another the very process of being elected would be a first for dos Santos. Accordingly, the regime made considerable efforts to promote, both domestically and abroad, an image of modernity, good governance, national prosperity, and the general well-being of Angolans. In 2012 dos Santos assigned around US$40 million from his own presidential budget to spread a positive image of Angola throughout the world. One of the chosen vehicles for his regime’s campaign was CNN. The role of the CNN resulted in controversy, as it happened in Portugal with the pro-regime coverage by the TVI network. Kim Norgaard, at the time its South African delegation chief, made a visit to Luanda and met with the Angolan authorities to discuss the modalities of a series of TV reports to improve the regime’s image, focusing on the country’s economic growth. This sort of approach between a reputed international media network and a government like that of Angola was very much criticized by human rights activists. It was considered bizarre that a prominent international media group such as CNN would engage in formal agreements with a political regime about a country’s international news coverage because of the fundamental standards of independence and exemption to which it ought to adhere. The controversy

Verde, Angola e Dinheiro, 9. Birmingham, História, 185.

13 14

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worsened when the agreement detailing that the regime would pay US$17 million for advertising on CNN International15 became public. Based on the situation of an economic recovery, once more with money, on good terms with international media, and building up a reputation for efficient management, especially in Sonangol,16 Angola advanced towards elections. Internally, cash was distributed among the population, although with copious ‘leaks’. Before the elections of August 2012, dos Santos, in an effort of social improvement and to demonstrate real concern for the most disadvantaged sections of the population, launched several social support programmes for the people. These programmes consisted essentially of direct money transfers into the hands of the population. Large-scale projects (over US$1 billion) were approved. However, the projects were informally operated with the consequence that the confusion and lack of technical and accounting rigour allowed most of the funds to be diverted for the personal enjoyment of the project directors17 and just a small amount reached the population. Beyond the supposed recovery and the propagandistic international media coverage, the MPLA feared the consequences of social discontent across the country, as well as the influence of the Arab Spring on the consciousness of many Angolans. In consequence, the elections were set up by various party initiatives to ensure its certain victory. Regularly, MPLA militants violently ambushed UNITA supporters seeking to carry out their political activities in various locations in the provinces of Benguela and Huambo. The clashes resulted in injuries and deaths, albeit neither confirmed nor dismissed by either the MPLA or the local authorities. Yet the MPLA made no unambiguous public pronouncements discouraging acts of violence by its militants. There was no disciplinary action or criminal prosecution of those who offended public order. In Benguela, where the situation was most critical, the authorities did respond by deploying four military companies in areas deemed sensitive from the point of view of political competition between the MPLA and UNITA. However, the military began to conduct constant day and night patrol mainly in areas of great UNITA influence, such as the village of Kangumbe. In these areas, as well as in the municipalities of Bocoio and Ganda, the military used heavy weapons on patrols, including PKM machine guns, and created a climate of great insecurity Rafael Marques, ‘CNN planeia cobertura favorável de Angola’, MakaAngola, February 2012. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​2/01/​presi​dente​-jose​-edua​rdo-d​os-sa​ntos-​nepot​ ismo-​corru​pcao-​e-pro​pagan​da-na​-cnn/​(accessed 1 October 2019). 16 Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Business success, ‘Angola-Style: Postcolonial Politics and the Rise and Rise of Sonangol’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 45 (4) (2007), pp. 595–619. 17 Interview with a former adviser to the president of the Republic. 15

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and intimidation among UNITA supporters. Also, in addition to the deployment of military in sensitive areas, the ostensible presence of Commissioner Eduardo Octávio, deputy head of the State Intelligence and Security Services (SINSE), in the MPLA election campaign coordination commission constituted another form of psychological pressure and a violation of the Political Parties Act, which prohibits party affiliation with members of the security forces. Additionally, since the death of its leader Jonas Savimbi ten years before, UNITA, at the level of the political structure, had been drained by massive and regular defections to the MPLA. Ultimately, nothing was left to chance and the methods used in 2008 to technically control the elections were repeated. Indra, the Spanish company accused at the time of the last election of having contributed to electoral fraud by doubling the impression of the required number of ballot papers, was hired again to provide those, as well ballot boxes, electoral protocols for recording minutes during the elections, and equipment for the centres of scrutiny. Moreover, General Kopelipa, the infamous head of the Military House of the Presidency of the Republic, which oversaw Indra’s operations in 2008, was reappointed to this role in 2012. Other companies hired to provide support including the transportation of electoral material were owned by generals close to President dos Santos.18 On 31 August 2012, elections took place. The results were predicable. The MPLA attained 71 per cent (compared with 82 per cent in 2008) and 175 out of the 220 seats in the National Assembly. UNITA raised its score to 18.6 per cent, doubling its representation in parliament with thirty-two seats, and the small parties obtained meagre results. The opposition appealed to the electoral organ and Constitutional Court but to no avail. After a short period of nonconformism, they gave up contesting the electoral results and occupied the seats in parliament.19 At last, dos Santos was formally legitimized as president of the Republic by popular vote. He was inaugurated on 26 September 2012. The ceremony was discreet, contrary to what would have been expected. The changes made to the government consolidated his power. Five new ministries were created, expanding the mega government structure of the country. As Paula Cristina Roque

Paula Cristina Roque, ‘Segundas eleições pós-guerra em Angola. A alquimia da mudança’, Relatório da Situação, Instituto para Estudos de Segurança, 2013, 7. Available online: https​://ww​w.inf​o-ang​ ola.c​om/at​tachm​ents/​artic​le/40​90/Si​tRep2​013_2​3Maio​PT.pd​f (accessed 1 October 2019). 19 Although the party made a criminal complaint that was duly filed. 18

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articulated, a big government in Angola did not mean a better administration but more beneficiaries and more energy dispersion.20

The Angolan society: Power without citizens Somehow, politically, Angola was a country without population. That did not mean that it was a desert where human beings were absent – the population of Angola was around twenty-five million according to a 2014 census. It meant that the government was not dependent on the population. The leadership built its wealth based on the natural resources of the land with the help of foreign experts and companies. The Angolans themselves were not really needed. This may seem like a caricature, but it reflected the raw nature of power. The instinct of the leadership was always to create vast compounds, heavily guarded and encircled by walls or barbed wire. Inside, they would exploit the natural resources or live in plush mansions, islands of wealth, where ordinary Angolans were not admitted, or if they were, just as servants or auxiliaries. Such a mentality was everywhere in Angola, from the urban architecture, where buildings were thought of as an insular self-sufficient spaces that did not need any infrastructure and were designed only for the very rich, to the presidential palace, be it the bunker called Futungo de Belas, or the present Palácio da Cidade Alta. The symbolic structure of power was always conceived in terms of separating the people from the power. Meanwhile, society was generally submissive to the political power and manifestations of discontent were rare. A society of fear was established. Fear from past wars, and fear of possible repression. It is not too much to remember that Angola experienced a situation of war from 1961 until 2002, despite it not being a total war or encompassing the whole territory. This created a collective perception of permanent fear. Any peace, even if unsatisfactory from the political, economic or social point of view, was preferable to war for those who had lived it and felt it. Therefore, particularly the older sections of the population accepted the new designs of the MPLA without resistance. And for the few who dared to protest, the regime reacted harshly. This was the case in the abduction and killing of Alves Kamulingue and Isaías Cassule that took place in 2012. The two activists were involved in organizing a demonstration of former presidential guards, who had been reintegrated into civilian life as garbage collectors and then sent home unemployed, with nothing, and visibly humiliated. Kamulingue Roque, ‘Segundas eleições pós-guerra em Angola. A alquimia da mudança’, 8.

20

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Angola at the Crossroads

vanished while circulating at noon in central Luanda, going to a demonstration that should have brought together former members of the Presidential Guard Unit and former combatants claiming pensions. A few days later, his companion Isaías Cassule, one of the organizers of the demonstration, was also kidnapped in the municipality of Cazenga, at dusk. Then, Kamulingue’s wife Isa Rodrigues received anonymous calls reporting the alleged whereabouts of her husband, somewhere in a police unit on the outskirts of Luanda. These rumours began to spread among journalists. Other rumours ran on the internet that the kidnapped men had been executed. Numbers were disconnected so that their families were unable to call back and ask for further explanations. It was later discovered that the two had been murdered by state security agencies. Still later, the perpetrators, though not the moral authors, were brought to trial and sentenced. However, further along, the General who commanded the abduction and murder operation was acquitted by the Constitutional Court and the rest saw their sentences reduced. In a way, the policy of abduction of individuals who publicly spoke out against the regime was not new. The difference was that, normally, they had been returned to freedom after sessions of torture and threats. In this case, something happened, and they were killed. The message was always clear, those who defy the regime will be arrested, and could be killed. Consequently, the negligent reaction of society is of no surprise. For years, political repression, war and corruption had been used as the mechanisms to impose fear on society. Citizens rarely expressed sympathy with one another when rulers committed criminal acts that violated their basic rights. Angola remained a state where citizen participation was limited to its submission to an irresponsible, authoritarian power. The dangers of an Arab Spring, that tormented the leadership, were inexistent. The contestation was limited to a few sporadic pronouncements without popular support. Peaceful acceptance of the situation and indefinite fear were the rule. For example, perhaps the main incident following the 2012 electoral results was an attempt by ten young people to hold a vigil before UNITA’s presidency in Maianga, Luanda, to pressurize the opposition political parties to boycott parliament by refusing to attend. They were rapidly arrested without a cause. Adolfo Campos, one of the detainees, explained that, as a basis for the detention, the police brought a forged document, dated 2011, stating that the Luanda Provincial Government had refused their request for vigil and so they had to be taken away. After six hours, the National Police released them, but not before threatening to shoot the detainees.21 Interview with UNITA politicians.

21

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43

The tamed judicial power The constitutional arrangements of 2010 foresaw the establishment of an independent and impartial judiciary that would serve as a fundamental underpinning of the rule of law and democracy. In a liberal and democratic system, the judiciary is a power in its own right, whose primary function is to protect the individual, safeguard freedoms and act as a counterbalance to political power and demagogic passions. The essential duty of the judge is to apply the constitution and the law, to balance and to protect people equally. Yet, courts in Angola were not functioning as an independent power nor a guarantee of democracy, but as another instrument of the presidential power, more specifically of dos Santos. It could be said that it was the Chinese model, not the classic description of Montesquieu and Locke, that was followed by the practice of the Angolan judiciary. Judges did not assume themselves to be independent organs of sovereignty that existed to administer justice, but rather an integral part of the MPLA’s executive machine, treating law as an instrument of power like any other. Recently, Zhou Qiang, the chairman of the Chinese Supreme People’s Court, urged his judges not to fall into the ‘Western pitfalls’ and believe in false myths such as ‘independence of the judiciary’, ‘constitutional democracy’ and ‘separation of powers’.22 This was very much the approach adopted by the Angolan judiciary. That is not to say that all courts of the land submitted to the rule of an iron fist from the presidency. Ordinary courts sometimes took decisions against governmental desires. For example, in August 2013, Judge Salomão Filipe acquitted the journalist Domingos da Cruz (later involved in the famous case 15 + 2), accused of instigating collective disobedience, at a trial hearing at the Luanda Provincial Court. In his ruling, the judge dismissed the accusation, affirming that he could not find any description, under the current law, of the crime against which the defendant was accused. However, in the end such decisions were not really important. If they had been, either they would have been overturned by the higher courts or approached differently by the power. Domingos da Cruz, in less than two years, was in jail for other supposed crimes.

Michael Forsythe, ‘China’s Chief Justice Rejects an Independent Judiciary, and Reformers Wince’, New York Times, 18 January 2017. Available online: https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​017/0​1/18/​world​/ asia​/chin​a-chi​ef-ju​stice​-cour​ts-zh​ou-qi​ang.h​tml (accessed 8 January 2020). For a general perspective on Chinese courts see Kwai Hang Ng and Xin He, Embedded Courts. Judicial Decision-Making in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

22

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Court control was diffuse and discrete, based on two methods: by placing trusted judges in key ordinary courts to whom sensitive cases would be distributed, and by fully controlling the higher courts (Supreme Court and Constitutional Court), through the appointment of the so-called merit jurists, not career judges, trusted by the president of the Republic in the leadership of these Areopagus. In fact, the ‘merit jurists’ were a manner for the executive power to control the judiciary, a path to create a body of vigilantes infiltrated among career judges. It is easy to apprehend that the rules to be a ‘merit jurist’ were not rules, but rather vague statements, allowing the entry into the high courts of people deemed politically convenient to the president. Therefore, what could have been a good idea at the outset – the entry of individuals from outside the judiciary into the courts, opening them up to society – ended up by being an uncontrolled surveillance mechanism, and ultimately violating the principles of internal independence of the judiciary. Dos Santos was attentive and designated as heads of judiciary two of his loyal henchmen. The Supreme Court was chaired by Manuel da Costa Aragão, a former minister of justice and ambassador to Argentina and Morocco, who, although he held a degree in law, had no knowledge of courts. As president of the Constitutional Court, the most important court for political matters, he chose Rui Ferreira. Ferreira was a well-known and prestigious lawyer that had acted several times as dos Santos’s counsel. His tenure during his time at the court was characterized by a total subservience to the presidential power, as well as participation in shady business denounced by the local press. One of the multiple cases that emerged at the time, involving Ferreira, was a dispute with the managing partner of the Lisboa Santos organization, António Lisboa Santos Júnior, over the ownership of the Dom Q Club building, formerly known as Dom Quixote Discotheque, in Luanda. Apparently, Ferreira used powers granted to him as an attorney to become the owner of the property, ignoring the mandate he received to transfer the building, and appointed his daughter as the disco manager. Later, while occupying the position of president of the Constitutional Court, he entered into several dealings involving the commercial exploration of farms and ranches, an activity which was completely forbidden by the constitution and legal provisions. In one case, an application on behalf of the presiding judge of the Constitutional Court surfaced, showing him as a representative of a commercial company. Through that application, the judge intended to acquire ownership rights over thousands of hectares of land in Kwanza Sul. Ferreira and two of his sons were in the process of acquiring 24,812 hectares in the commune

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of Lonhe. In this application the place, on the road, on a roadside rock next to the workers’ first house, is inscribed, in huge letters, in white ink, ‘Fazenda RF’ (Rui Ferreira). In the new area of infrastructure, located in a dense forest, the ‘boss Rui’ caravan, as the employees called it, was parked. With a porch to make a balcony, the caravan had a bucolic view, with a small lake in front, the drinking fountain for the cattle. Parallel to the caravan, there was a zinc sheet cover that served as a warehouse for work equipment.23 Such entrepreneurial ventures were obviously strictly forbidden to judges. By letting it go public and failing to denounce it, dos Santos spread the idea that all public officials were as corrupt as himself and shared his values and attitudes. It was a way of compromising judges in corrupt and illegal activities. And, consequently, there were no relevant cases decided at the higher courts where the position of the government was not upheld. In the end judges behaved, themselves, as the ultimate symbols of the authoritarian regime, not exercising their role in office with the necessary tranquillity and impartiality. Judges became executioners at the service of the regime. Systematically, the judges’ actions placed them as mere officials under the orders of the president.

Happy days are not here again: slow growth and Sonangol’s woes Although oil prices remained above US$110, or even higher than, or close to, US$120 in 2011–13, this no longer brought back the accelerated levels of economic growth of the previous decade, showing that the putative Angolan development model based on oil and in the creation of a small oligarchy was a distant mirage. Between 2011 and 2014, with the exception of 2012, GDP rose around 5 per cent.24 This was half the value of the previous decade, and, even if it is an encouraging figure for a mature economy, it represents a frustration and a permanence of poverty and low development for a country like Angola. A certain paradox explains Angola’s inability to develop. On the one hand, it was too dependent on oil, but on the other hand, even when oil prices were Rui Verde, ‘Opinião legal sobre a fazenda do Juiz Rui Ferreira’, MakaAngola, 10 November 2014. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​4/11/​opini​ao-le​gal-s​obre-​a-faz​enda-​do-ju​iz-ru​ i-fer​reira​/ (accessed 2 October 2014). The facts are described in Rafael Marques, ‘Presidente do Tribunal Constitucional justifica posse de terras’, MakaAngola, 1 November 2014. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​4/11/​presi​dente​-do-t​ribun​al-co​nstit​ucion​al-ju​stifi​ca-po​sse-d​e-ter​ ras/ (accessed 2 October 2014). 24 Precisely 3.4 per cent in 2011; 8.5 per cent in 2012; 4.9 per cent in 2013; and 4.8 per cent in 2014. 23

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promising, the dysfunctionality of its economic structure, disastrous futures contracts and Sonangol’s inefficiency did no longer allow the country to benefit from its potential advantages. In 2014, Angola was the second-most concentrated economy in the world after Iraq, according to the United Nations Development Programme.25 As a result, a drop in oil prices affected the whole country, as it accounted for approximately 95 per cent of exports and 75 per cent of tax revenues.26 Money started to run out. In addition, national production was concentrated in a handful of ‘entrepreneurs’ who were but rentiers receiving benefits from the power structure but not used to efficiency and competition. It was obvious that the second-most concentrated economy after Iraq needed diversification. But how to diversify? The problem was that the country’s few important economic activities were in the hands of the ruling oligarchy. For diversification to exist, markets must be open, economic activity should be liberated and competition must be encouraged. All current beneficiaries of the scheme would have their protected markets invaded, would have to compete with others and would no longer be given commissions. Most likely, diversification would imply the insolvency of many generals, used to commanding everything without dispute. The issue of diversification was primarily political, and almost impossible to achieve within a government dependent on the support of an oligarchy. Diversification also implied, in addition to the creation of free markets, the establishment by the state of what Schumpeter called the ‘social climate’.27 Investors who are going to diversify must feel that the state is with them, they should not be afraid of expropriations, of corrupt ministers, of slow and corrupt bureaucracy, of nonfunctioning courts. Moreover, there must be basic infrastructure: energy and water. Consider one example, diversification in tourism. Angola has beautiful natural sites, but to build a hotel one must create a completely autonomous structure, because potable water can be lacking and energy can be intermittent. Tourists going to Angola have an overly complicated visa process, which is expensive. Combining hotels that must have their own electricity generators and

Nirit-Bem-Ali, ‘Inequality Clouds Growing Economy’, Africa Renewal, August 2014. Available online: https​://ww​w.un.​org/a​frica​renew​al/ma​gazin​e/aug​ust-2​014/i​nequa​lity-​cloud​s-gro​wing-​econo​ my (accessed 2 October 2019). 26 In 2017, the oil sector accounted for about 64 per cent of tax revenues and over 95 per cent of exports in Angola. Regarding 2011–14, the dependence was even slightly higher, cfr. IMF, ‘Angola’, Country report n. 18/157, 2 May 2018, 6. 27 For a discussion of Schumpeter’s theory regarding underdeveloped countries see: Prem Singh Laumas, ‘Schumpeter’s Theory of Economic Development and Underdeveloped Countries’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 76 (4) (November 1962), pp. 653–9. 25

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water infrastructure together with annoying and expensive visa processes will dishearten any promoter of tourism. Two factual illustrations concerning the rentier practices and the problems posed by visas are important to highlight. General Dino was a member of the Angolan presidential staff belonging to the trio that dominated the country’s politics and economy together with dos Santos’s family. Consultant to the minister of state and head of the Security House of the President of the Republic, Dino was known in Angola as dos Santos’s frontman; his wealth evaluated to more than US$1 billion. Investigative journalist Michel Weiss published, in 2014, a devastating account of Dino’s dealings,28 mostly his participation in a 15 per cent stake of the multinational Puma Energy International, which granted him a fortune of US$750 million. Puma Energy is a subsidiary of the Swiss multinational Trafigura, considered to be the world’s third-largest private trader of oil and metals. The important aspect revealed was that through his companies the general both controlled the importation to Angola of oil derivatives, such as gasoline, and, practically, held a monopoly on its distribution. Pumangol, his company, experienced a meteoric expansion. This monopoly was made possible as, despite Angola being a producer of oil, it only has a small capacity to refine. It, therefore, needs to import oil derivatives, such business directly being delivered to Dino. Moreover, in Angola, Dino had qualified participations in Unitel, Biocom, the Kero supermarket chain, the Medianova group (owner of TV Zimbo, the weekly O País, etc.). With his army background, Dino was certainly one of the most privileged of the Angolan Armed Forces officers, enriching fast and without visible explanation, exploiting legal or de facto monopolies given to him by dos Santos. As an anecdote, people tell in Luanda that when General Dino is in a difficult meeting, he puts his pistol on the table as a show of his brute power. If General Dino is a perfect example of how the rentier monopolistic class has appropriated the Angolan economy and how they will not let it thrive, the economic bottlenecks also arise from excessive bureaucracy that degenerates into corruption. The administrative difficulty in obtaining visas is a symptomatic case. During 2012, within the space of about a year, the Directorate of the Migration and Borders Service (SME) issued over 14,000 fraudulent work visas priced individually anywhere between US$5,000 and US$15,000, and without any proceeds arriving in the national coffers. The operation would have earned Michel Weiss, ‘The 750 Million Dollar Man’, Foreign Policy, 13 February 2014. Available online: https​ ://fo​reign​polic​y.com​/2014​/02/1​3/the​-750-​milli​on-do​llar-​man/ (accessed 2 October 2019).

28

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Angola at the Crossroads

the corrupt officers over US$90 million, with nothing to show for the state. This data appears in a Ministry of the Interior inspection report to the SME. The national director of the SME and his deputy, José Paulino da Silva and Eduardo João de Sousa Santos, were reported as being the lynchpins of the scheme, granting fraudulent work visas to thousands of foreigners. At the core of the network of corruption, inspectors also identified sixteen staff, including both the secretary and the assistant to the SME national director. It identified, for instance, that in record time, forty-eight work visas were processed and issued, twentyeight of which were to Chinese and twenty to Vietnamese applicants. They were personally delivered by da Silva to the head of the Foreign Affairs Department, Gilberto Teixeira Manuel. According to the inspection, the documents were issued without files or with insufficient supporting documents and without payment of fees. The report states that once registered and issued, such visas were withdrawn from normal procedure and remained under the control of the officials involved in the facilitation scheme; as soon as the national director authorized their issue, these officials took their passports into the issuing room and stayed there until the visas were stamped.29 It is not necessary to delve into corruption theories to understand what was going on.30 Primarily, the president of the country set the example by diverting the available money and creating his confederate clique. Such an action had two results. On the one hand, there was no longer the necessary money for the survival of the civil servants and the public services, so they had to resort to corrupt activities to obtain money. On the other hand, they merely followed the leader’s example. How could they be punished if they did nothing but imitate the supreme power? This environment could not have been further from the appropriate social climate to promote economic development, entrepreneurship and economic diversification. And as time went on, it was this castrating structure which solidified in Angola, constituting the real obstacle to progress. In addition to such a poisoned climate, another more serious problem existed: the engine of the economy, Sonangol, was no longer able to propel the Angolan economy, due to the previous decade of accumulated political and managerial errors, as well as large financial embezzlements. Ironically, the weak point of Rafael Marques, ‘Vistos ilegais rendem mais de 90 milhões de dólares’, MakaAngola, 7 March 2014. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​4/03/​visto​s-ile​gais-​rende​m-mai​s-de-​90-mi​lhoes​ -de-d​olare​s/ (accessed 2 October 2019). 30 A good explanation of corruption theories can be found in Susan Rose-Ackerman and Bonnie Palifka, Corruption and Government. Causes, Consequences, and Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 29

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the Angolan regime that drove it to the brink of implosion was its strongest point: Sonangol. In fact, the exact position of the company was never well understood since the supposed audits and technical studies that were ordered by the government were never published. The official annual reports and accounts are the only technical element available to analysis and present a clear picture of losses and of an out of control situation. In 2013, when the price of oil was between US$116 per barrel Brent and US$110 per barrel Brent, Sonangol’s situation was already fragile. Mainly because its results did not come from its core business activity, but from two formal accounting aspects: the revaluation of assets (chiefly in oil exploration and the production segment, and in international investments); and a reduction in tax obligations as a consequence of new legislation. This meant that Sonangol based its resultant annual profits on formal devices and state aid. Consider the first case: asset revaluation. If the company had an asset that was worth US$100, when revaluated the asset was set to be worth US$200. It is a mere nominal operation; it creates nothing new. Incidentally, and for this reason, auditor Ernst & Young raised reservations in the certification of accounts. The other aspect on which the company’s results were based, as mentioned earlier, was a tax break: the state lowered the taxes payable by Sonangol. That is to say it gave the corporation an allowance. In terms of results derived from its core business, Sonangol admitted that in 2013, oil production decreased by 10 per cent and the remuneration to the concessionaire was reduced from 10 per cent to 7 per cent; the company-recorded sales were down 8 per cent from 2012. In terms of the estimated targets for 2013, all blocks in production in this period were in default, representing an overall deviation of 29.7 per cent; revenues valued in US dollars were down 8 per cent in the same period in 2012. This was in 2012/2013, confirming that despite the high oil price, Sonangol was inefficient. The year 2014 was no better. The company no longer had an operating profit, on the contrary, its profit continually depended on accounting operations that were not certified by its auditor, Ernst & Young. Sonangol’s 2014 accounts presented a picture of runaway finances and severe losses. The first problem mentioned was a set of operations with the state worth 405 billion kwanzas, at the time corresponding to US$4 billion, being unclear whether they were ever properly reflected in the financial statements. So, there were US$4 billion in supposed transactions with the Angolan treasury that were inexplicable and indecipherable. The second problem detected was US$300 million of impairments recognition related to investments in Iraq. If in the first case there were US$4 billion of unexplained movement of funds, in the second there

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was a ‘ghost’ investment in Iraq. The third problem was concerning US$500 million in corporate finance activity receivable from an associate, for which no documents were known. In addition, in the area of shipping and maritime transport, the figures were obscure, so the auditor declined to give an opinion. The same happened in real estate activity. Neither was anything perceived about the values of health services, namely the famous Girassol Clinic. Thus, a good part of Sonangol’s activities had no control. Moreover, debts owing and payments pending to and from large suppliers were not quantified or properly documented. An allegedly profitable company was completely out of control. Its main problem was its relationship with the state, its promiscuity with the political power, even though these were easily identifiable management problems. The company that Vicente directed from 1999 until 2012 was a giant with feet of clay, and Vicente was to be considered guilty, mostly by Isabel dos Santos, of its misdeeds. Tom Burgis described Vicente’s tenure as the president of Sonangol, writing that during that period at least US$4.2 billion completely disappeared.31 Ricardo Soares de Oliveira also spoke of the Angolan presidency’s ‘rentier ambition’ and the role that Vicente played in the elaboration and management of sophisticated operations through offshore accounts in which large sums of money, generally not identified, were funnelled.32 In the second decade of the twenty-first century, Sonangol resembled a worn-out, tired and inefficient engine that could no longer move the Angolan economy. Danger was lurking for the regime that had forgotten its population. Meanwhile, a new star was born.

The beaming face of the regime: Isabel dos Santos The year 2013 would be the year of the international stardom of Isabel dos Santos, the eldest daughter of President dos Santos. She was active in the past, but not too much. It is after 2013 that her activity augmented enormously. Until then her stance had been discreet, simply mingling with her father, Sonangol and the presidential circle. Her strong personality and elegant face jumped to the global spotlight at this point in time. In March 2013, there was the – now famous – lunch with the Financial Times (FT).33 At Scott’s, Mayfair, the pleasant London Burgis, The Looting Machine, 12. Soares de Oliveira, Business success, Angola-style, 596. 33 Tom Burgis, ‘Lunch with the FT: Isabel dos Santos’, Financial Times, 29 March 2013. Available online: https​://ww​w.ft.​com/c​onten​t/6ff​d2edc​-955e​-11e2​-a4fa​-0014​4feab​dc0 (accessed 4 October 2019). 31 32

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seafood restaurant, Isabel dos Santos – charming, self-assured and intelligent – tried to convince Tom Burgis of her impeccable business credentials. Burgis published a broad and agreeable portrait of her in the FT. However, the most important fact from this report, that would haunt Isabel dos Santos in the future, would be the transcription of her statement: ‘I’ve had business sense since I was very young. I sold chicken eggs when I was six.’ It would be a source of countless jokes, and it was sarcastically established in the popular mind that the origin of Isabel dos Santos’s fortune had been the sale of eggs. She was given a new nickname: “Princesa dos ovos” (Egg Princess). Later, in September, Kerry Dolan published a less agreeable portrait of Isabel dos Santos in the US magazine, Forbes. The title, ‘Daddy’s Girl: How an African “Princess” Banked $3 Billion in a Country Living on $2 a Day’,34 demolished her image as an astute businesswoman, and the text was a methodical deconstruction of the origins of her fortune and the opacity of her business, questioning her narratives, and demonstrating the corrupt and unreliable country Angola had become. Her response was fast and curious: to buy the Forbes edition of Africa. Isabel dos Santos gave a speech at the London School of Economics in 2017,35 in which she sought to define herself as a successful businesswoman and dispel doubts about the origin of her vast fortune. She began to recount that her success story began in 1994, complaining that it was exceedingly difficult to initiate any activity as an entrepreneur in Angola. Isabel dos Santos explained that she began by selling her car, obtaining from it and previous savings around US$30,000. Subsequently, she joined a friend who also added some money. Their first business was a beverage distribution, which evolved into a logistics firm. The deal, she said, was slow to produce results in the face of the difficulties of a time where banks did not operate properly in Angola. She recalls that it took them six years to get somewhere. Growing a business was difficult and very organic. And that was the base for her future business endeavours. Apparently, the business she was referring to is now a famous restaurant called Miami Beach. A nice place right on the seafront with a sophisticated causal environment and excellent fish and lobster, but hardly a fortune maker. Isabel dos Santos was born in 1973 in Baku, Azerbaijan, then part of the Soviet Union. She obtained an engineering degree from King’s College, London. Kerry Dolan, ‘Daddy’s Girl: How an African “Princess” Banked $3 Billion in a Country Living on $2 a Day’, Forbes, 2 September 2013. Available online: https​://ww​w.for​bes.c​om/si​tes/k​errya​dolan​/2013​ /08/1​4/how​-isab​el-do​s-san​tos-t​ook-t​he-sh​ort-r​oute-​to-be​come-​afric​as-ri​chest​-woma​n/ (accessed 4 October 2019). 35 ISABEL DOS SANTOS @LSE Africa Summit 2017 – London. Available online: https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=x17​f-cHH​P4Y (accessed 30 October 2019). 34

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She was twenty-one years old when she started her business activities as she herself described, and most probably while still doing graduation in London. The conundrum is that Isabel dos Santos did not have a brilliant idea when at university like Bill Gates with Microsoft or Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook. In fact, there was no millionaire idea, and Isabel dos Santos herself confessed that the food and drinks business was extremely hard and that it took six years to thrive (1994–2000). The truth is that there are no records of enrichments derived from the drinks or the logistics business in Angola in the 1990s. No source of fortune, be it at university or in beverages, arises in Isabel dos Santos’s life. And that is the puzzlement that accompanies her ascent, a eureka moment is not discernible. Therefore, one can safely admit that until 2000, Isabel dos Santos did not have any lucrative business that gave her millions. The well-known records and her own statements restrict Isabel dos Santos’s business activities in the 1990s to the Miami Beach restaurant coupled with a logistics company. There is no fortune or accelerating factor there. Some observers tend to attribute the origin of Isabel dos Santos’s rise to fortune to her participation in Unitel, the mobile phone company.36 If one accepts this explanation, then there is always a riddle that arises: where did Isabel dos Santos get the money to contribute to 25 per cent of Unitel’s capital, when she herself confessed that she had no money because of the permanent trouble in her restaurant business and that the banks did not lend? It should be noted, by the way, that Isabel dos Santos was not even thirty years old at the time. Investigative journalist Rafael Marques tells a different story. According to him,37 Isabel dos Santos acted as a proxy for her father, at least, since the creation of Ascorp in 1997. This company held a monopoly on the purchase of diamonds that came from mining and took the responsibility of establishing control on the organizational mechanisms for such a mining trade. In the process, it served as the effective solution to introduce Angola’s diamonds onto the international circuit and increase state revenues. The inclusion of President dos Santos’s daughter Isabel, as a shareholder in Ascorp, gave the company the political credentials to act with impunity. Marques bluntly adds that Ascorp reveals, right at the outset, a conflict of interest and nepotism. In the end, it is easily unambiguous to conclude that the source of Isabel dos Santos’s fortune is not the result of any serendipitous event but undeniably linked to her father. Verde, Angola e Futuro, 48. Rafael Marques, Diamantes de Sangue (Tinta-da-China: Lisboa, 2011), 32–3.

36 37

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The hypothesis advanced in this book is quite simple and makes the relation between Sonangol’s money and Isabel dos Santos’s fortune. There is a parallel association between both the oil company and the president’s daughter. Unitel, the mobile phone company, had Sonangol as a partner and depended on its financing to develop the technological infrastructure. Her next big moves were several acquisitions in Portugal. Most of them were associated with Sonangol. A share in the Portuguese bank, BPI, was one of the initial undertakings. In 2008, Isabel dos Santos bought 9.7 per cent of the shares in BPI, the shares held by the Millennium BCP bank. Millenium BCP had been in a crisis of governance, and shortly before selling its shares in BPI to Isabel dos Santos, Sonangol had become its largest shareholder. Therefore, the BPI operation resulted, in practice, from an agreement between Isabel dos Santos and Sonangol. Another operation, and this one would be the most important of them all, was her acquisition of a relevant share in Galp, the Portuguese oil company. It is important to explain the importance of Galp. It is one of the largest Portuguese companies, incorporated as a public company based in Portugal, dedicated to energy, mainly oil and natural gas, with a turnover of €15 billion and a net income of around €500 million. Sonangol was essential for the consummation of this business. Actually, it acted both as a partner and as a financier to Isabel dos Santos. Sonangol acquired shares in Galp and assigned them to Isabel dos Santos under her new company Exem who would reimburse Sonangol with future dividends obtained from the very same Galp shares. Initially, it was announced that the entire Angolan participation was funnelled through Sonangol’s property. Isabel dos Santos’s indirect participation in Galp was publicly confirmed only in 2008. Apparently, the Sonangol oil company ceded part of its position to Isabel dos Santos sometime after 2005. It happened in 2006, as stated in the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ (MoU) document, dated 25 January 2006, signed between Sonangol and Exem Africa Limited. This document was about the investment of Sonangol in Galp. The MoU simply and clearly describes the terms of the investment. Its parties are Manuel Vicente, representing Sonangol, and Fidel Assis Araújo, representing an entity called Exem. Vicente does not need introductions. At the time, he was the chairman of the board of directors of Sonangol, in which capacity he participated in the MoU. Araújo was one of Isabel dos Santos’s representatives. The MoU described the interest in investing in the Portuguese company through a joint venture (Sonangol and Exem). The terms were as follows: Sonangol would act and take all necessary measures to implement the investment on behalf of both parties. Sonangol was to advance and pay singularly both its own investment

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and Exem’s (owned by Isabel dos Santos). Once the legal formalities for the constitution of Exem as an entity were fulfilled, Exem would have 40 per cent of the shares acquired from Galp, meanwhile Exem (owned by Isabel dos Santos) would reimburse Sonangol through the dividends resulting from Galp shares. Essentially Sonangol worked as a generous financier for Isabel dos Santos. While rapidly expanding her business empire, Isabel dos Santos did not neglect, what was her first recorded activity, the diamond trade. On 27 February 2012, a Malta-based company, Victoria Limited, acquired 72.5 per cent of De Grisogono Holding SA. Fawaz Gruosi, the charming Italian of Lebanese origin, known as the King of Black Diamonds, founder of the company and a famous jewellery maker, announced that the transaction amounted to more than US$100 million. Several more transactions followed, and in the end, it became clear that the man behind the acquisitions was Sindika Dokolo,38 the husband of Isabel dos Santos. The couple married in 2002. Dokolo was Congolese (from DRC) and died in October 2020. He was born in Kinshasa, son of an old scion of Mobutu, the banker Augustin Dokolo Sanu, who ended up accused of serious financial misdemeanours and who also had trouble with the former Zairean dictator, losing his bank and properties. The strategic value of this acquisition was explained by Gruosi in an interview with Switzerland’s Le Matin, acknowledging that Angolan investment is ‘a great opportunity for De Grisogono because it gives us privileged access to the highest quality gems that allow us a form of integration that few brands can achieve’.39 Dokolo was also crystal clear when referring to the objectives of their operation, ‘Regarding the investment mentioned and considering that Angola has a huge potential of precious materials, diamonds, gold, etc., it makes strategic sense to want to extend its presence from the exploration phase to the international luxury market, thus proceeding to a vertical integration of the entire value chain.’40 The strategy was easy and shrewd. With the addition of De Grisogono, Isabel dos Santos would vertically dominate the diamond market from exploration on the hard terrain of the Lunda provinces, in the interior of Angola, through exportation and marketing, right up to the sales in the highest profile stores on Rafael Marques de Morais, ‘Os diamantes e o marido de Isabel dos Santos’, MakaAngola, 20 February 2014. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​4/02/​os-di​amant​es-e-​o-mar​ido-d​e-isa​bel-d​ os-sa​ntos/​(accessed 9 October 2019). 39 Filipe Fernandes, Isabel dos Santos – Segredos e Poder do Dinheiro (Alfragide: Casa das Letras, 2015), n137. 40 Celso Filipe, ‘Sindika Dokolo: “Reduzir a imagem de Angola à corrupção é uma manipulação desonesta”’, Jornal de Negócios, 3 December 2013. Available online: https​://ww​w.jor​nalde​negoc​ios. p​t/emp​resas​/deta​lhe/r​eduzi​r-a-i​magem​-de-a​ngola​-a-co​rrupc​ao-e-​uma-m​anipu​lacao​-deso​nesta​ (accessed 9 October 2019). 38

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the most fashionable streets of the world. A few years later, a diamond expert, David Renous, came to the European Parliament to explain the alleged forms of tax evasion used by Isabel dos Santos not to fulfil her tax duties towards the Angolan state.41 At that time, most of the world was stunned by the prowess of the president of Angola’s eldest daughter. As a showcase of its potential, in 2016, De Grisogono opened a magnificent store in London’s exclusive Bond Street. The great question raised by this business, beyond the tax evasion denounced by David Renous, was that it was made in partnership with Sodiam. Sodiam is an Angolan state-owned company which centralizes the buying and selling of all the national production of diamonds under a ‘Single Trading Channel’, according to Executive Decree No. 156/06 of the Ministry of Geology and Mines. The proven partnership between Isabel dos Santos, Sindika Dokolo and Sodiam was, again, a mixing up of public and private companies to the advantage of Isabel dos Santos’s interests, as alleged nowadays by the Angolan attorney general.42 Despite some qualms, and some solitary voices of dissent, in those years Isabel dos Santos was the shining star of Angola, the richest woman in Africa, a powerful investor in Portugal. Her brilliance surpassed Sonangol’s former fame, and the presidential trio Vicente, Dino and Kopelipa. She was an example of a forwardlooking, rich, sophisticated Angola that embraced the world. Nevertheless, her fate was indisputably linked to the complex web of relationships with the state and its major companies that had been designed by her father since Ascorp’s inception at the end of the twentieth century. Few dared to confront her with such suspicions, at least in Angola and Portugal, but the documentation, since made available and described here, clearly shows the indelible crossing of public institutions with Isabel dos Santos’s private initiatives.

The shape of things to come: The BESA scandal BESA was an Angolan bank founded in 2001 as a subsidiary of the venerable Banco Espírito Santo (BES), one of the most traditional Portuguese banks belonging to the Espírito Santo family, a centenary clan that was part of the top echelons of Lisbon’s financial aristocracy. Rapidly, under the fast and methodical pace imposed by its general manager, Álvaro Sobrinho, BESA reached the top of Ana Gomes, ‘Press Conference tomorrow at 2pm in room PHS 0A50 (EP): “#Omega Diamond Case in #Belgium: An Opportunity to Repatriate Assets to #Angola” with @RafaelMdeMorais and David Renous’, Twitter, 19 June 2018. 42 Cfr. Case n. 3301/2019-C-Provincial Court of Luanda. 41

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Luanda’s banking sector. Then the problems began. In 2013, Sobrinho stepped down from his post as CEO of the Angolan bank, and in Portugal a serious crisis started to affect BES and the Espírito Santo family. Disaster struck in both Luanda and Lisbon. In Portugal, the Portuguese central bank intervened, and the apparently solid financial group BES went into resolution as specified then by a new European Union law. In Angola, what could be described as a confusion was also taking place. It was revealed publicly that BESA had more than US$5 billion in outstanding credit which allegedly it had neglected to register to whom it had been lent and did not know if it would ever receive it back. This represented over 80 per cent of the bank’s loan portfolio. Alongside these credits, it also had a debt of €3.3 billion to BES in Portugal. Surprisingly, a benchmark bank in Angola, appointed as one of the government’s main financial contributors in various major projects, chaired by Paulo Kassoma, former Angolan prime minister and newly elected secretary general of the MPLA, with renowned figures in the regime, such as General Kopelipa or General Dino as minority reference shareholders, was said to be bankrupt. The first version of this story, released in Angola in May 2014, assigned all responsibility to the BESA executive Álvaro Sobrinho, but reassured everyone that the bank had a sovereign guarantee signed by President dos Santos that made the Angolan treasury responsible for fulfilling BESA’s debts. The bankruptcy would be avoided as it looked like BESA’s obligations would be honoured by the Republic of Angola. This apparently pacified the market, although it was bizarre for a state to honour the debts of a totally private bank. However, some of the mysterious beneficiaries of BESA loans had begun to emerge, and it turned out that they were part of the regime’s elite. For example, Roberto de Almeida, former MPLA vice president, had received a US$10 million loan but when his name appeared as a beneficiary of BESA, he confirmed the acceptance of the money, hastily declaring that he would not repay it because he thought it was a gift. According to Angolan social networks, Marta Santos, the president’s sister, also appeared as one of the beneficiaries of BESA loans. The Angolan digital press spread the news that the president’s sister had created a joint venture with a Portuguese builder called José Guilherme. One thing is certain: the famous Angolan political–economic elite was one of the greatest beneficiaries of BESA’s generosity and had no intention of giving the money back. This situation lasted until the BES crash in Portugal, which occurred in the summer of 2014. If the Portuguese authorities were thinking of calling on the Angolan sovereign guarantee to recover BESA’s debts to BES, they were

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quickly disillusioned, as dos Santos cagily revoked it. Portuguese creditors were left empty-handed and Portuguese taxpayers had to bear the costs. After the revocation, dos Santos decided to intervene in BESA, appointing provisional directors. Under the terms of the intervention law (article 117 of the Angolan Financial Institutions Act, Law no. 13/05, of 30 September), no payment would be required for the duration of state intervention. That was not the end of the matter. A kind of coup followed. The key moment for the coup was a BESA general meeting held on 28 October 2014. In that meeting, BES, which held 55.7 per cent of BESA’s capital, saw its participation reduced to zero. And companies linked to dos Santos and his followers took over the bank – namely Geni SA, Lektron Capital SA, and Sonangol (again Dino, Kopelipa and Vicente). The bank was renamed Banco Económico and became a thriving institution. It was later disclosed that, as usual, Sonangol supplied the money to finance the ‘takeover’. The Angolan central bank (BNA) played a substantial role in commanding this bank appropriation, as there were deliberations from BNA that imposed a certain conduct on BESA’s former shareholders and on the bank itself. BNA is the supervising body of the Angolan banks and has various powers over them. On 20 October 2014, BNA’s board of directors took a decision on BESA, which essentially imposed a reduction of the existing capital, followed by a fresh money capital increase. In fact, the BESA general meeting was convened to comply with the new BNA requirements. The picturesque fact was that the representative of BES, that flew from Portugal, was prevented from participating in the meeting by a very opportune police roadblock in the streets of Luanda. When she finally reached the meeting, she was banned from entering it, as BES’s capital had already been reduced to zero. What is truly clear, today, is that BNA and dos Santos’s men arranged a scheme to take BESA out of BES and keep it. This scheme included deliberations of the BNA, a general meeting of BESA and a calculated police roadblock that prevented the majority shareholder from voting against having their participation reduced to zero. This BESA case is an exemplary situation, demonstrating how a group of private individuals can use state entities to take ownership of a bank. The case also shed light on the bad faith of dos Santos’s actions: he revoked a sovereign guarantee when it was going to be called, and he sent the police force to stop private foreign shareholders from participating in a determinative general meeting.43 These events are known personally and have been recounted in interviews by some of the participants in the process.

43

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The Sun King still shining In January 2016, the Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso published an impressive front-page featuring a photograph of dos Santos and the epithet: ‘José Eduardo dos Santos: The Angolan Sun King.’44 Perhaps at the time the presidency was beginning to show signs of decay, but certainly at the end of 2014, it was undoubtedly an accurate description of dos Santos’s rule. The president of the Republic reigned undeterred in Angola. The war victory and oil wealth had allowed him to exercise an untamed personal power. Constitutional and legal constraints were absent; there was no control over the compliance with the constitution and the law, as the courts and other justice organs were subject to the wishes of the president, since he was personally responsible for designating those in office. BESA’s history had demonstrated the extent of the presidential impudence, not honouring guarantees, taking banks into his inner circle. His family was becoming more and more powerful. His daughter Isabel dos Santos was the richest woman in Africa, his son José Filomeno had assumed the presidency of the Sovereign Fund with US$5 billion to manage, and his sister Marta was the greatest skyscraper builder in Luanda. The collectivism that initially accompanied decision-making in the MPLA and the government had long since ended. Dos Santos got rid of the figure of an executive-empowered prime minister who shadowed him, and now the governmental number two was a powerless vice president. The MPLA party headquarters were daubed the Kremlin as a nickname in honour of the opacity and centralization of Soviet power. Factually, there were no limits to dos Santos’s power. The president, accustomed to behaving as a king who is accountable to no one, not even to his own party, let alone the country, from time to time, criticized his own governance as if he were not responsible, mirroring the attitude of former absolute kings that dismissed ministers at their own pleasure, as if they were not important pieces in the government. If the executive did not work, the president spoke as if he was an alien; if there was anyone to praise, he praised himself. For him, contradictions and political responsibility did not exist. When it came to his appearance, he always tried to dress with style and colour, matching suit, shirt and tie. He dressed impeccably. Image was more important than facts. Internationally, dos Santos preferred few commitments, focusing on controlling the border Nicolau Santos, ‘José Eduardo dos Santos: O Rei Sol angolano’, Expresso, 2 January 2016. Available online: https​://ex​press​o.pt/​inter​nacio​nal/2​016-0​1-02-​Jose-​Eduar​do-do​s-San​tos-O​-Rei-​Sol-a​ngola​ no (accessed 8 October 2019).

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areas of Angola, especially DRC, in addition to maintaining relationships with Portugal and Brazil, for obvious reasons, and not embarking on too many global activities. In 2014, there were three major global events: Nelson Mandela’s funeral, the Football World Cup and the United States–Africa Leaders’ Summit. The president only chose to make a personal appearance at the opening of the World Cup and to meet Dilma Rousseff, the president of Brazil. He was a man shut in his palace, he preferred attending Miss Angola contests, watching TV, playing football with staff rather than immersion into any interaction with the people. The protocol to access the palace was very rigid as he favoured family and familiar faces.45 Journalist Estelle Maussion in a recent book46 gives a vivid description of dos Santos’s life and attitudes when he was president, affirming that he decided everything by himself and distributed resources to his family, generously and as he wished. Describing dos Santos’s family lunches, Maussion writes, In the joyful noise caused by the grandchildren, all observe the reaction of the patriarch, José Eduardo, the incarnation of an iron fist in a velvet glove. Never a rise in the tone of voice, never a public scene, but an undisputed authority. Impenetrable tribal leader, he decides, separates, promotes and punishes. He is not only brother, father, grandfather, leader or President, he is the master of existence, the ‘godfather’ of a supreme and unscrupulous clan which dominates Angola.47

The journalist also describes the presidential district as a ‘bunker’: His omnipotence is not felt as strongly elsewhere as in the Cidade Alta, the district that houses the presidential palace. Luanda is a noisy, chaotic city with broken or non-existent sidewalks and anarchic car traffic. Located on the heights of the city, Cidade Alta is a paradise of greenery, silence and order. (. . .) Beautiful palm boulevards, perfectly paved streets and sidewalks, pink and white buildings dating from the colonial era, decorated with colonnades. We hear the birds singing. In this idyllic setting one would almost forget that it is a bunker. (. . .) On the way, uniformed soldiers armed with machine guns are placed at each door every 100 meters.48 Based on Rafael Marques de Morais, ‘As prioridades diplomáticas do presidente, os negócios e os discursos’, MakaAngola, 11 August 2014. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​4/08/​ as-pr​iorid​ades-​diplo​matic​as-do​-pres​ident​e-os-​negoc​ios-e​-os-d​iscur​sos/ (accessed 25 October 2019). 46 Estelle Maussion, La dos Santos company – Mainmise sur L’Angola (Paris: Karthala, 2019), 6. Free translation from the French by the author. 47 Estelle Maussion, La dos Santos Company, 7–8. Free translation from the French by the author. 48 Estelle Maussion, La dos Santos company etc, p. 6. 45

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Sindika Dokolo, dos Santos’s son-in-law, seemed to believe that there was a model of Angolan development at the apex of which his father-in-law reigned imperturbable. In an interview given to a Portuguese financial paper, Dokolo affirmed that there were similarities between the Angolan and Singaporean development models having no doubt that a good strategy was being followed in Angola. Undaunted, he continued by stating that successful strategies take time to be recognized and that he was certain that the Angolan model would be celebrated unanimously twenty years on.49 In fact, what could be called the Angolan model tried vaguely to present itself as a copy of that of Singapore. Vice president Vicente, the former CEO of Sonangol, and a so-called technocrat, was also keen on references to Singapore, and while in government, he sought to strengthen ties with the Asian country, while basing many of his or Sonangol’s business affairs in the city-state. What may have been in the minds of people such as Dokolo or Vicente was a supposedly modern non-ideological model translated into a political economy framework comprising of an authoritarian government which would coexist alongside a wild state capitalist regime, where an intricating complex of state-owned enterprises operated conjointly with a dynamic private sector on a competitive basis, without stifling and following bureaucratic rules. In a way, the skyline of Luanda with its sparkling new skyscrapers sought to mimic Singapore’s Marina Bay. But it was evident that Angola was not Singapore. The corruption that abounded in Angola does not exist in Singapore, where it is fiercely fought. The city-state economy was not dominated by hoggish oligarchies, state-owned enterprises were run by efficiency criteria and economic freedom actually existed. Nothing in Angola resembled Singapore, even the ways of obtaining popular consent were different. This was nothing more than a sterile propaganda that would soon, to the misfortune of the Angolans, be ferociously flung to the ground.

2014: The end is nigh At the start of 2014, the figures presented by the UNHDI remained uninspiring. The country was still underdeveloped, at 149th place down the list, life expectancy had risen slightly to 51.9 years, while infant mortality was still the highest in the world, Filipe, ‘Sindika Dokolo: “Reduzir a imagem de Angola à corrupção é uma manipulação desonesta”’, Jornal de Negócios, 3 December 2013. Available online: https​://ww​w.jor​nalde​negoc​ios.p​t/eco​nomia​ /mund​o/afr​ica/a​ngola​/deta​lhe/r​eduzi​r_a_i​magem​_de_a​ngola​_a_co​rrupc​ao_e_​uma_m​anipu​lacao​ _deso​nesta​(accessed 21 October 2019).

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with 100 babies dying per 1,000 born.50 While it was true that there had been some developments since 2002, it was certain that the structural deficiencies remained. The mathematics of economic growth did not significantly improve the quality of life of the population. The impact of both the end of the war and the billions of dollars made from natural wealth was felt only marginally, beyond the obvious benefits of peace and tranquillity. There was no success story to present, no massive withdrawal from poverty, no creation of a prosperous, progressive society. There were only small islands of wealth surrounded by walls and guards. This is not to say that there was no spillover effect for a while, creating an idea of prosperity among the middle class linked to high functionalism and the liberal professions. An artificially strong kwanza (local currency) allowed the purchase of abundant imported goods and a sense of possibility of overseas profligacy to those who travelled to the European capitals, especially Lisbon. Portuguese newspapers, such as Correio da Manhã, an equivalent to the UK’s Daily Mail, wrote stories of spending51 An hour inside the Hugo Boss store, on Avenida da Liberdade, in Lisbon, and three thousand euros spent on t-shirts, shirts and trousers of the famous German brand, sparkle in the eyes of Luís. The shopping is a gift from his uncle, an Angolan businessman, who during a stopover on his business trip to Brazil, helps to renew the wardrobe of his 24-year-old nephew, a computer engineering student.

Daily flights from Angola brought a new wave of wealthy Angolan tourists that guaranteed the survival of the luxury shops of Lisbon’s most expensive street, Avenida da Liberdade, the tenth most expensive shopping street in the world. The exuberant young Angolan elite chose the BBC, a bar in Belém, where they drank very high-quality Moët & Chandon champagne and whisky. Afterwards, to prolong the party they went to the exclusive lounge ‘Festas do Trixu’, where entrance is by invitation only and consumption of champagne priced €4,000/ bottle is the rule. They ate at O Largo, in S. Carlos Square, or at Porto de Santa Maria, in Guincho, Cascais, expensive, Michelin-starred restaurants. Angolans housed themselves in suites at the Hotel D. Pedro, Amoreiras – whose rates range from €400 to €1,000 with breakfast and VIP treatment – and spent inordinate sums in Lisbon and its surrounds. Passionate about international brands, Angolans were the most noticeable customers at Lisbon’s ‘refined’ stores. On UNDP, Human Development Report 2014 Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience (New York: UNDP, 2014). 51 Correio da Manhã, ‘Angolanos à conquista de Portugal’, Correio da Manhã, 18 September 2011. Available online: https​://ww​w.cmj​ornal​.pt/m​ais-c​m/dom​ingo/​detal​he/an​golan​os-a-​conqu​ista-​ de-po​rtuga​l (accessed 21 October 2019). Several examples and quotes that follow are collected from this article. Author’s free translation from the Portuguese. 50

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Avenida da Liberdade, it was usual to see young mothers laden with shopping, with not enough hands to hold their own Dolce & Gabanna handbags, a new €2,000 handbag bought in the nearby Prada, and the small hand of their daughters. The assiduity with which young Angolans came to Lisbon, where daily spending could exceed €5,000 was astonishing. At Dolce & Gabanna the turnover fluctuates daily, in line with the pace of Luanda–Lisbon flights, explained a shopkeeper to the aforementioned newspaper. The peaks happened in summer and before the New Year. For a wedding, for example, Angolan formality requires more than one outfit to be worn: one for the civil or religious ceremony, another for the cocktail party, and a different one for the evening would be the minimum required. The designer Augustus received many such Angolans in his stores. He explained: they already travel more, shop in Paris, New York, and Dubai, so they are more demanding. A few years ago, they were looking for everything that was flashing, bright colours, but now they have a refined taste. They come looking for clothes for parties and weddings, to have exclusivity, (. . .) they do not look at prices. If they like it, they take it.

In her salon and spa, the owner, Lúcia Piloto also felt the Angolan demand, ‘In Angola they only do maintenance, such as brushing, here they cut, colour, straighten (which can cost between €250 and €1600)’, adding, ‘they are people who take care of their hair a lot and pay attention to the care of the face, body and well-being’.52 Some Angolan customers spent €100,000 per season; therefore, attentive shops provided special conditions. Loja das Meias, one of the most prestigious places in Lisbon, for example, has created a ‘Prestige Luanda Card’ especially directed at this market, which gave access to personalized treatment. Shopping was customized. Angolan preferences were for suitcases and shoes; Dior and Stella McCartney brands were at the top, even though they cost €3,000–-€4,000 apiece. Clínica do Tempo, an anti-ageing salon, was filled with Angolans due to its discretion and personalized service. The strategy of the clinic was to advertise in Angola but not to open a centre there, as Angolans favoured coming to Lisbon. Moreover, the quality of the Portuguese cuisine drew Angolans to the best restaurants in Lisbon. Isabel dos Santos, when she visited Portugal, often stayed at the Ritz Hotel, despite owning a home next to El Corte Inglés (Lisbon’s Correio da Manhã, ‘Angolanos à conquista de Portugal’, Correio da Manhã, 18 September 2011. Available online: https​://ww​w.cmj​ornal​.pt/m​ais-c​m/dom​ingo/​detal​he/an​golan​os-a-​conqu​ista-​ de-po​rtuga​l (accessed 21 October 2019). Several examples and quotes that follow are collected from this article. Author’s free translation from the Portuguese.

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equivalent to Harrods of London), and she was frequently seen at Gambrinus restaurant, a very exquisite place. Wealthy Angolans also chose to dine at O Largo and D’Oliva gourmet restaurants. At that time, the Portuguese Association of Real Estate noted that Angolan investment in Portugal was quite noticeable and represented about 10 per cent of Portugal’s luxury real estate sales. The largest number of transactions took place in Lisbon, Cascais and the Algarve, and the objective was to invest or have a second home. The apparent wealth explosion was also to be felt inside Angola. In 2014, Angola’s first premium department store, DuCarmo, opened its doors in the Torres do Carmo building hosting twenty-one top-tier brands, featuring international fashion items and accessories for men, women and children. The project was developed by the Angolan Pangaea Luxury Group, under the management of the Portuguese businessman Rui Teixeira (former manager of Hugo Boss stores in Portugal). The space was advertised as inspired by stores such as Harrods (London) and the Galeries Lafayette (Paris). A second department store whose opening was also announced for 2014 was the Sky Gallery labelled as Angola’s first luxury mall. This was a Portuguese–Angolan investment of over US$50 million, which included brands such as Zegna, Gucci and Armani. It cannot be said that this superfluous spending on luxury goods, recreational real estate and various consumer products was only carried out by the powerful elites. There was obviously an extension of economic possibilities to an emerging middle class. If we look back at the time and consider currency parities: a court judge would earn a salary that quickly approached $10,000 a month, similar to several other senior positions.53 This means that money circulated in wider circles than the few dozen presidential billionaires. What happened, however, was that there was simply a widespread circulation of cash, which largely translated into inflationary pressures, but there was no creation of productive wealth. The country lived on imports. Consequently, if it can be said that a small middle class seemed to be emerging, the truth is that from an economic point of view, growth never returned to the levels of the first decade of the twenty-first century. That dynamic never returned. And then, Nemesis acted: the price of oil tumbled. In June 2014, it peaked at US$115.06, but abruptly in December of the same year it dropped to US$61.1 never to reach US$100, not even US$90, again (October 2019). This was catastrophic. An unbalanced economy saw its dominant product lose half its value in less than six months. Interview with a first instance court judge.

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Perplexity The fall in the price of oil generated a deep crisis in the Angolan economy and finances that exposed the incompetence and incapacity of the regime, but that was not immediately apprehensible. Those in power were perplexed, not reacting in a timely manner. In 2014, economic growth was around 4.8 per cent. It was a fact that the price of oil fell dramatically. It was also a fact that the Angolan economy depended on the price of oil. However, for the 2014 Angolan crisis the obvious facts end here. From this point onwards only perplexities arise. The price of oil was US$81. This was the reference price for budgetary purposes, which was adjusted to US$40 with the revision of the General State Budget (OGE) in 2015. In 2011, the OGE price of oil was US$65 per barrel, while the international market average was US$105.1 The difference allowed for capital gains of US$40 per barrel. From 2012 to 2014, this added value ranged from US$20 to US$40 per barrel. Therefore, formally, there was a financial buffer that would absorb economic shocks. Strangely enough, those capital gains or savings were nowhere to be seen when difficulties arose after 2014. There should have been money in the coffers to deal with the economic and financial bumps. However, what transpired was that the Angolan government was caught completely by surprise and with empty coffers; and the Sovereign Fund was established to make up for this, but it was unable to help as it was experiencing losses in its investments. Now, the gains from the Fund should have been used to stabilize the situation, but nothing happened. The Fund did not make any profits and its financial investments were not useful. A question mark regarding the usefulness of the Fund started to rise among civil society and opinion makers. The idea that the elites had been living in a party atmosphere where easy money pervaded was

Interview with a former adviser to the president of the Republic.

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now accentuated furthermore, given the concrete reality and the challenges for which they had no solutions. From the point of view of economic policy, many measures that were being taken only made the situation worse, as for example, banning imports, which only benefited the two or three oligarchs that dominated the domestic market, creating inflationary pressures and eliminating competition. At this time, the cheapest products ought to have been sought. In the name of the crisis, a protectionist, clientele-based model for the Angolan economy was being legally implemented. Imports were prohibited by decree, limiting the internal market and handing it over to a select few. That is, the crisis allowed for increased oligarchical control of the economy, not the contrary, as might be expected. But, in the end, what the crisis clearly demonstrated, above all, was the weaknesses of the Angolan economic model, which had been apparent for years. There was thus a visible depletion of an economic model based on easy money from oil and the patina of respectability and sophistication that it usually entails. It is not normal to arrive at the end of a situation of growth with no reserves, no real economy and a fear of foreigners. After more or less succeeding in surpassing the 2009 crisis, and returning to an albeit limited growth, it appeared that by 2014 the government was out of solutions to deal with a new crisis, and mostly resorted to deepening authoritarian tendencies and hoping for a miracle: the rise of oil prices. The following years were awkwardly marked by judicial cases and clumsy political decisions and not by any attempt to reform the regime and the economy.

Rafael Marques confronts the court Several individuals confronted the authoritarianism, the disrespect for the basic freedoms and the deep corruption that permeated Angola particularly after the end of civil war (2002). Rafael Marques is a symbol of these individuals. From early days he maintained a consistent stream of denunciation. Born in Luanda in 1971, he became notorious in the 1990s as an independent-minded journalist in the official Jornal de Angola. Soon he was kicked out and began a long career of investigative journalism and civic activism. From 1998 to 2004 he worked for George Soros’s Open Society in Angola, promoting activities in the area of education, media, democracy and human rights. Meanwhile, in 1999, he was arrested following a lawsuit which was filed by indication of President dos Santos after the publication of the article ‘O batôn da ditadura’ (Dictatorship’s

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lipstick)2 in 1999. In the text, Marques blamed dos Santos for the ‘breakdown of state institutions’, accusing him of promoting incompetence, embezzlement and corruption ‘as social and political values’. Marques was sentenced to six months in prison. Already in jail, under protest, the journalist refused to eat for several days as a consequence of being prevented by the authorities from meeting his lawyer and his family. He was later released on bail, but the police prevented him from leaving the country or talking to other journalists. Despite a stay in prison and the harsh treatment he was subjected to, Marques did not give up and was focused on creating a representative coalition of both civil society and the churches to promote the end of the civil war. However, in 2001, he was arrested again after visiting refugees at a resettlement camp outside Luanda, together with the BBC reporter, and now Sussex professor, Justin Pearce. He never stopped denouncing and writing about the constant legal trampling and corrupt practices of the government, focusing on the diamond region in the Lunda provinces. By 2005, he was no longer working with Soros, having left the Open Society. Some think that it was a result of a bargain between Soros and dos Santos, the former dispensed with Marques’s services, and the latter promised in return to respect human rights and not threaten Marques’s life.3 This has not been confirmed, but the truth was that Marques lost a fundamental platform and a very influential international support. Nevertheless, this turn of events allowed him to act completely independent following a lonely but determined path. In 2009, despite constant harassment from dos Santos, Marques was able to obtain a Masters’ degree in African Studies from St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, but returned home to no job prospects. He dedicated his time to writing a book about the human exploitation in the Luanda provinces and to a cautious development of the self-founded Maka Angola, which was to become the most fundamental entity in Angola for fighting corruption and promoting democracy. In 2011 he published the book Diamantes de Sangue: Tortura e Corrupção em Angola (Blood diamonds: Torture and Corruption in Angola). This was a frontal attack on the pattern of systematic human rights violations, mostly torture and murder to which local populations from the diamond region were subjected. In the text, he argued that for the benefit of those who exploited diamonds, populations were kept in conditions of slavery – tortured, murdered, robbed, and prevented from engaging in any self-subsistence activities. Beyond the Rafael Marques de Morais, ‘O “bâton” da ditadura’, Público, 1 April 2000, Available online: https​:// ww​w.pub​lico.​pt/20​00/04​/01/j​ornal​/o-ba​ton-d​a-dit​adura​-1420​50 (accessed 9 January 2020). 3 Interview with a person close to Rafael Marques at the time. 2

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horrendous facts described, the document constituted a true indictment of the ruling elite that dominated diamond prospecting. The book was very polemic. Consequently, the generals and mine owners sued Rafael in Angola, after a failed attempt in Portugal. The main accusation was slander against President dos Santos. The lawsuit was filed by seven generals, including General Kopelipa, Minister of State and Head of the Military House of President Republic of Angola, and two former chiefs of staff of the Angolan Armed Forces João de Matos and Armando da Cruz Neto. Marques’s trial was to be held at the beginning of 2015, after various postponements in 2014. Again, the journalist was alone in the dock confronting the regime in its courts with the threat of a prison sentence hanging over him. Some, as Angolan academic sociologist Paulo de Carvalho, argued the fact that Marques was driven to the courtroom and not murdered by security forces was proof that Angola could consider itself as obeying the rule of law and following democratic principles, adding that Marques only had public visibility precisely because he had been allowed to publish his texts in the Angolan press. This proves that there was freedom of expression, no censorship and democracy in Angola, elaborated Carvalho. His conclusion was that if Marques had been killed, he would be simply one more statistic, a stranger. But, on the contrary, Carvalho asserts, it was the democracy of the Angolan system that made him known worldwide.4 In fact, the story is rather different. It transpired5 that the possibility of the physical elimination of Marques was seriously discussed in high presidential circles, and that at least one of dos Santos’s daughters was against such an extreme decision. In the end, dos Santos considered it better to keep Marques alive as it would maintain a certain democratic image of Angola in the United States and in western Europe, places with whom the elite made business and where they had real estate. An assassination could lead to some form of sanctions or upheaval that were considered unwelcome – better to maintain appearances. Keeping Marques alive was a way to ensure Angola would not be considered a pariah in the West. It should be noted that since the time he worked with Soros and the Open Society, he was well known internationally. Marques had also been awarded several global prizes. In 2000 he received the Percy Qoboza Paulo de Carvalho, ‘Ativista Rafael Marques estar vivo prova que Angola é democracia’, Club-K, 12 March 2014. Available online: https​://cl​ub-k.​net/i​ndex.​php?o​ption​=com_​conte​nt&vi​ew=ar​ticle​ &id=1​7650:​paulo​-de-c​arval​ho-at​ivist​a-raf​ael-m​arque​s-est​ar-vi​vo-pr​ova-q​ue-an​gola-​e-dem​ocrac​ ia&ca​tid=2​3:pol​itica​&Item​id=12​3&lan​g=pt (accessed 22 October 2019). 5 Interview with a person close to Rafael Marques at the time.

4

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Award from the National Association of Black Journalists (USA). In 2006 he won the Civil Foundation’s Courage Prize from the Train Foundation (USA) for his human rights activities. Transparency International awarded him the Integrity Award in 2013 for his research work on institutional corruption in Angola. In turn, in 2014, UCLA Anderson School of Management awarded him one of the most prestigious journalism awards in the United States, in the international reporting category, the Gerald Loeb Award. Consequently, dos Santos’s strategy was not to kill Marques, but to keep him under pressure and frequently chastened. For example, in 2013, within Rapid Intervention Police Headquarters, one of the commanders stomped on his back with boots on while subordinates filmed the act, thus demonstrating that Marques could be crushed by the regime with total impunity. The 2015 trial was a new enactment of the old strategy. The trial of Rafael Marques de Morais began on 24 March in Luanda under strong security measures. During the opening session, the defence team first learned that new charges were being brought against the defendant, albeit no formal notification had occurred. The trial was postponed to 23 April 2015 so that Marques and his lawyers could be formally notified of these new charges. Initially, eight accusations for slanderous charges were pending. Then the prosecution added, unexpectedly, fifteen new charges of defamation. Neither the defendant nor his lawyers, Luís Nascimento and David Mendes, had any prior knowledge of these new charges. The case turned out to be farcical. Sensibly, some of the generals who were uncomfortable with the international projection that the trial was having – countless international journalists and human rights protection organizations denounced the prosecution worldwide – felt the need to avoid too much impact. They approached Marques to arrange an out-of-court settlement. In fact, this was achieved with common sense on both sides. However, someone ‘forgot’ to communicate this to the prosecutor and the judge. Marques, despite fulfilling his part of the agreement, was sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence.6 The defence appealed to the Supreme Court, but a year later there still was no decision. In the meantime, another judicial farce was to begin, that of the so-called 15 + 2 or Luanda’s reading club. Coincidentally, it was at the same time as the criminal case against Vice President Vicente began in Portugal. The most important consequence of this case was not the criminal condemnation of Vicente, which Facts known personally, as legal advisor to Rafael Marques.

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up to now (July 2020) has yet to occur, but his political downfall in Angola and the absolute eradication of any possibility of ever being considered as a future candidate for president of the Republic.

The invention of a coup: 15 + 2 or the ‘revús’ case With dramatic intonations, in June 2015, the Minister of the Interior and the attorney general announced in parliament the arrest of fifteen young people, whom the authorities accused of preparing a rebellion and an attack on the president. Luaty Beirão, Nito Alves, Afonso Matias ‘Mbanza Hamza’, José Hata, Hitler Samussuko, Inocêncio Brito ‘Drux’, Sedrick de Carvalho, Albano Bingo, Fernando Tomás ‘Nicola’, Nelson Dibango, Arante Kivuvu, Nuno Álvaro Dala, Benedito Jeremiah, Domingos da Cruz and Osvaldo Caholo were the names of the detainees. They were later joined by two others, hence the designation 15 + 2. Because of their revolutionary intentions, they were also called ‘revús’ (from the word ‘revolucionários’, revolutionaries). The authorities presented a video as clear evidence of the act of preparation for the rebellion. The video was secretly filmed by a government official who infiltrated himself into this group of youthful individuals as they held a debate. In the video, Domingos da Cruz and Luaty Beirão discussed forms of popular mobilization but differed on the consequences. Da Cruz defended an immediate demobilization in case of an armed reaction by the authorities against protesters. Beirão, meanwhile, argued that institutional violence should not intimidate protesters, even if the police and the military shoot at the protesters. The discussion was fairly theoretical, and the motto of the debate was how to achieve the end of the power of President dos Santos in a peaceful way. That was not the view held by the Attorney General’s Office who insisted that these young people had been meeting regularly since 16 May with the aim of training cadres to mobilize the population of Luanda for insurrection and collective disobedience. Bizarrely, however, the proof given for the intended coup was flimsy: according to the prosecutor’s office, the alleged insurgents had in their possession instruction manuals and other documents, as well as personal notebooks, which proved the group’s criminal intentions. In the end it became clear that the ‘manuals’ were simply a translation of Gene Sharp’s book From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. Sharp was a famous American pacifist scholar, and his book has been used internationally as an instruction manual for non-violent action across the world. Reports from the

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interrogation show that the police wanted to know about the books they were discussing. Police tactics were the usual – beatings, torture, filming the arrests, humiliation. But in the end the case boiled down to a group of young people that disliked dos Santos and met to discuss books on non-violent ways to end his regime. No operational plans, arms or any proof of conspiratorial association were found. The truth was that the operation and the fear it evoked was related to the current economic crisis, which was getting worse daily and was threatening the stability of the regime itself. Even the sacred Sonangol was under scrutiny, with some secret reports published in the papers revealing that it faced a situation of technical bankruptcy. Rumours of new murky dealings with China were everywhere; popular speculation held that dos Santos had gone to China to exchange large tracts of land for new loans, thus promoting the establishment of Chinese settlements in Angola. Therefore, to quell the rumours, a political gesture and a show of force from the regime was needed. The grave accusations, that this group of young people were preparing a coup, paved the way for the media – detained and controlled by the state – and the intelligence services to spread a climate of fear that in turn justified widespread repression, in the name of peacekeeping. Although it became clear very early on that the attempted coup was a sheer invention, the regime did not budge. There was a blueprint, mainly devised by General António José Maria ‘Zé Maria’, head of the Military Intelligence and Security Service. Zé Maria was one of the old companions of dos Santos and was known for his ability to create conspiratorial ‘facts’ that forced the regime to be alert always, and who liked to involve himself in frequent purges inside its apparatus. In 1979, this extraordinary official wrote a letter accusing high officials of the General Staff and the Ministry of Defence of having celebrated at the death of Agostinho Neto and profaned his memory, while enjoying a brandy after a meeting. In his capacity as secretary for Military Affairs of the president of the Republic, he demanded punishment of the alleged defilers. He began his military career in the Portuguese colonial army, but rapidly changed sides and was known to be lavish in the execution of purges, the management of palace intrigues and the invention of coups. These acts were particularly useful in strengthening and consolidating the power of President dos Santos. With the economic crisis looming, he went to his magic box and resumed his old tricks. In 2014, for example, Zé Maria led an ideas laboratory in order to create a climate of instability within the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) justifying some purges. This strategy became known as ‘the

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purification of the FAA’. The initiative also aimed at implementing distracting manoeuvres in the face of the worsening socio-economic climate and the government’s notorious inability to respond. In 2015, at seventy-one years old, the general was the almighty head of the SISM, the military secret service. It is with reference to this methodology that we understand the 15 + 2 or the ‘revús’ case. It was the creation of this facade that would allow attention to be distracted from the existing crisis and for the state to exercise the muscles of its repressive apparatus. And the truth was Zé Maria’s machinations were successful since any thoughts of demonstrations or agitation against dos Santos’ policies were rapidly forgotten and never took place. The ‘revús’ were for a long time under observation of the SISM, as they were an easy target. From their arrest, to trial and conviction, General Zé Maria was the central figure in charge of operations. The judiciary only served as an accessory to his strategy. When they went to trial, SISM officers were hidden in a room in the court building near the courtroom. Some witnesses affirm that when the exchanges between the lawyers were heating up, they simply cut the power to the building to avoid embarrassments. Beyond this operetta-like behaviour from SISM, inside the courtroom the attitude was not dissimilar. The trial was set to begin in the last trimester of 2015; however, as the charges were so ridiculous and international pressure mounted, dos Santos’s regime was beginning to feel fazed, and was searching for a way round it, as happened in the Marques case. The international arena, so well and expensively cultivated by dos Santos over the last few years, was turning against him due to the total disarray in conducting this case. Especially relevant was Beirão’s situation, the detainee who carried out a thirty-six-day hunger strike protesting against his and his colleagues remand in custody. This act had widespread negative international repercussions for the regime. A martyr was emerging. Meanwhile, it became obvious that aside from the fact that the defendants were reading and discussing Sharp’s book, the other ‘proof ’ of the conspiracy to rebel was a list of names for a future government that was published on Facebook by a third person: the lawyer Albano Pedro. The ‘designated’ ministers were MPLA or UNITA deputies, journalists and a former MPLA prime minister. This was no secret and did not prove anything; none of them had any special relationship with the ‘revús’. So, increasingly, it became clear that the case was complete nonsense. There were postponements. At the end of December 2015, when the temperature was hot and the discredit of Angolan institutions was global news, the trial was postponed to January, creating a

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timely and significant decompression. The regime sighed with relief. World media would look out for other new crises and acts of repression elsewhere on the planet. Beirão and his companions began to be forgotten. In January 2016, the trial resumed. But it did not really resume: the sessions were systematically delayed due to the lack of attendance by the deponents who were part of the imaginary national salvation government, created on Facebook, as a joke by Albano Pedro and his followers on the social network. This lawyer who created an alternative ‘government’ was not arrested and had nothing to do with the ‘revús’. When the trial began, the most surreal fact, apart from the mentioned power cuts, was the judge, Januário Domingos’, harangue against the defendants telling them that they had to respect President dos Santos as he was a national symbol, showing at once an unlawful bias. It was also weird the way in which the prosecutor, Isabel Fançony Van-Dúnem, presented herself in court with a wig that covered her face and prevented her from being recognized on the streets. In Angola, there are no wigs at courts, and Fançony wore a fringe extension that covered her face, nothing like the white horse hair wigs of the English courts. In the end as expected, the ‘revús’ were condemned and thus began the process of appeal. However, in this case, as in the Marques case, the prevailing feeling was that there was an absolute instrumentalization of justice, and the proper minimums of the rule of law were not respected. Both in Angolan civil society, to the extent that it is possible to understand it, and internationally, the dominating sentiment was that there had been no fair trial. Consequently, these cases, due to the bad publicity they gave to Angola, greatly eroded dos Santos’s presidency.7 Judicial mystifications were taking their toll on Angola’s public image. The ineptitude of the courts was creating great discomfiture to a regime that liked to present itself internationally as law-abiding and modern. Michel Forst, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, classified the decision to imprison the fifteen ‘revús’ as arbitrary.8 And, in relation to the Marques case, the American Bar Association stated that the process was irregular and that there was no opportunity for a proper defence.9 These were two small samples of I worked as a legal adviser in both cases; therefore, most of the facts come from direct knowledge. United Nations Human Rights. Office of the High Commissioner, ‘UN Expert Urges Angola to Release Fourteen Rights Activists Detained for Criticizing the Government’, Office of the High Commissioner, 23 October 2015. Available online: https​://ww​w.ohc​hr.or​g/EN/​NewsE​vents​/Page​s/ Dis​playN​ews.a​spx?N​ewsID​=1664​4&Lan​gID=E​(accessed 9 January 2020). 9 American Bar Association, ‘Angolan Journalist Rafael Marques de Morais, Trial Report Released by ABA Center for Human Rights’, Center For Human Rights, 11 June 2015. Available online: https​:// 7 8

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the strong worldwide reaction to the judgements, which translated into public pronouncements, letters to dos Santos, vigils and various public ways of showing discontent. At this point, dos Santos had to appeal to all his known mastery to get out of the imbroglio in which his security services and hard-line generals had placed him. His wizardry worked again. From his sleeve came a new card: a general amnesty law. Consequently, an amnesty was approved at the Council of Ministers meeting on 29 June 2016 and went to the National Assembly for final consent in July. It would be the Law 11/16, 12 August. It was announced as part of the forty years of independence commemorations. All crimes committed prior to 11 November 2015 and punishable by imprisonment for up to twelve years would be included under the amnesty.10 This was presented as a magnificent gift of dos Santos, the eternal ‘architect of peace’. Nonetheless, although an amnesty should be something positive and contribute to peaceful living in the country, in this case it was too obvious what the intentions were. There was something suspicious about it. And the suspicion was not simply evident: that the amnesty served to politically resolve the judicial mess arranged with the ‘revús’, Marques and other cases – it was clear. Yet, this was a smoke screen. Naturally, it covered the cases of the ‘revús’, Marques and some others who found themselves in the courts. But also, and above all, it exempted regime dignitaries from any liability for potential economic criminal situations denounced publicly, within the strategy of legal confrontation outlined earlier. This was the case of dos Santos’s family, Vicente and Kopelipa, among others. As for the legal complaints recently made by Marques, they were all archived. The amnesty covered most of the economic and financial crimes committed by the leaders and the rest of the oligarchy. In the future, to cancel the amnesty in order to sue the elite would involve putting the ‘revús’ back on trial. It was a kind of trap. The amnesty forgiving the ‘revús’ and Marques would automatically and simultaneously pardon the possible crimes of dos Santos’s people. Consequently, the amnesty was decreed and came into effect solving the imbroglios. Yet, and until the end of his term, dos Santos would be confronted with growing problems, legal issues and the possible bankruptcy of Sonangol, in addition to his debilitating illness.

ww​w.ame​rican​bar.o​rg/ne​ws/ab​anews​/aba-​news-​archi​ves/2​015/0​6/ang​olan_​journ​alist​r/ (accessed 9 January 2020). 10 Article 1 of the Law. There were some exceptions.

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The fall of Manuel Vicente The suite of the vice president of the Republic is housed in a modern, but revivalist, rectangular palace, painted in colonial red, in front of the presidential palace complex. It seems a little out of place, as it lacks all the greenery and freshness that surrounds the Palácio da Cidade Alta. One day, perhaps in 2016, Vicente was working in his office and in came a furious Isabel dos Santos. She had recently taken over Sonangol and chastened him with accusations of uncontrolled and incompetent management of the oil company. Isabel dos Santos was harsh with her words, blaming Vicente of pushing Sonangol and Angola itself to the brink of bankruptcy. In Isabel dos Santos’s view, Vicente was primarily responsible for the plight into which her father and the country found themselves and she would not easily forgive him. She certainly wanted to prevent him from succeeding dos Santos as president of the Republic and developed a permanent siege against him. Ironically, Vicente, as CEO of Sonangol, had been one of the main sponsors of Isabel dos Santos’s businesses. But now everything had changed. Her enmity towards Vincent became apparent, and this would have devastating consequences for the vice president, showing how hollow his power was. It is in this context that the famous criminal case against Vicente should be understood. A case pursued in Portugal. Case number 333 / 14.9TELSB50 was a criminal case in which the Portuguese Public Prosecutor’s Office imputed to Vicente, at the time the Angolan vice president, the practice of crimes of active corruption in the aggravated forms, of money laundering and forgery of documents executed when he was Sonangol’s CEO. Specifically, the core of the prosecution described Vicente as a corrupter of Orlando Figueira, prosecutor of the Portuguese Republic. Figueira, a public prosecutor from September 1990 to September 2012, was charged with passive corruption, money laundering (co-authorship), violation of secrecy of justice and forgery (in co-authorship). Also accused were Vicente’s lawyer, Paulo Blanco, and Armindo Perpétuo Pires, a confidant. According to the Portuguese Prosecution Office, the three defendants (Vicente, Blanco and Pires) colluded to pay Figueira, who was at the time working at DCIAP (the main investigative body of the Portuguese Public Prosecution Service), about €760,000 euros, also providing him with other advantages, such as a professional position in a high-paying bank. In return, the prosecutor archived two criminal cases against Vicente. The prosecution took place in February 2017, and the case began trial in January 2018. Except for Pires, who was acquitted, the remaining defendants were condemned, and appealed. Interestingly, the case against Vicente was

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separated and sent to Luanda under a judicial agreement between Portugal and Angola. In Luanda today, the case remains stalled and is likely to be closed due to the above-mentioned amnesty law. The origin of the criminal case against Vicente, which took place in Portugal, was in fact in Luanda, more precisely it was a manoeuvre of various sectors that intended to remove Vicente from any intention to run for the office of president of the Republic of Angola, as well as withdraw his dominant influence on Sonangol. They brought documentation to the Portuguese Public Prosecution Service, which obeys the principle of legality, that obliges it to investigate everything that indicates criminality. Therefore, the Portuguese authorities did not have any other option than to investigate and accuse, since the evidence delivered was indisputable. As is well known, the Portuguese justice system has a long tradition of deference to political power and, in the case of Angola, this deference translated into the absence of investigation into any cases that concerned Angolan leaders.11 This can be confirmed by the decision taken by Cândida Almeida, then director of the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action, not to pursue the inquiry of tax fraud and money laundering that arose regarding Isabel dos Santos in 2007 during Operation Furacão (an investigation made into the financial sector for tax evasion). The Portuguese position was summarized at the time (2007) by Aníbal Cavaco Silva, then president of the Republic: Angola’s affairs should be dealt with in Angola. For years, the Portuguese judiciary has partnered with the government’s political pragmatism towards Luanda. This time it was going to be the same, it was just taking a longer route, as Luanda’s role was a conundrum. As mentioned previously, several indications and some information show that the triggering of the case was born in Luanda, specifically in sectors that wanted to prevent Vicente’s political career from extending as far as the presidency of the Republic. Before the criminal proceedings took place in Portugal, Vicente was one of the most credible candidates to succeed dos Santos. He was regarded as a technocrat who wanted to turn Angola into an African Singapore. Following the announcement of the lawsuit in Portugal, Vicente lost his credibility as well as any chance of becoming president of the Republic of Angola. At the same time, Sonangol, with Vicente’s fall from grace, escaped the orbit of his influence and was handed over to Isabel dos Santos. Thus, my argument is that the judicial process against Vicente in Portugal was the result of actions in Luanda with a twofold purpose: to prevent Vicente from Rui Verde, Angola e o Futuro (RCP Edições: Lisboa, 2018), 72–85.

11

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achieving the presidency, and to remove him from influencing Sonangol. The criminal case opened in Portugal while a profound restructuring of Sonangol was announced in Luanda, which would be carried out by a commission managed by Isabel dos Santos. The same Isabel dos Santos took over the presidency of Sonangol in June 2016, a few months after starting the process against Vicente in Portugal. And as Graça Campos, a renowned and veteran Angolan journalist, writes: ‘Isabel dos Santos – and this is well known – has in Manuel Vicente her pet enemy. When her father made her president of Sonangol, she suggested that Manuel Vicente and his successors constituted a gang that plundered the largest public company in the country.’12 In conclusion, throughout the nomination process for dos Santos’s successor, which culminated in February 2017, Vicente was never even considered. The criminal process in Portugal has achieved two major strategic objectives in Luanda: to remove Vicente from the presidential race and to remove his domination of Sonangol, allowing Isabel dos Santos to take control of the company.

Saviour or gravedigger? Isabel dos Santos at Sonangol During the 2009 crisis, Sonangol was considered a robust and well-managed company. Now, the perspective is rather different, the mammoth was part of the problem, not the solution. That came as a surprise, a shock for the public, used to the perception that portrayed the oil company as an oasis of competency and efficiency. It was not so, as very soon everyone was going to discover. The real history of Sonangol is easy to recount. Since 1978, Sonangol was the sole holder of the power to grant concessions for oil and gas exploration and production. Its image of prosperity therefore derived from the fact that it functioned as a state office to collect fixed rents, accompanied by high oil prices. In fact, it had transformed itself into a badly run company with no special technical or managerial skills and too much political interference. Disclosure of Sonangol’s woes took place on a warm day at the end of Spring 2015. On 20 June a reputed Portuguese weekly newspaper, linked to the establishment, published an alleged secret report by the then president of Sonangol, Francisco de Lemos, Vicente’s successor at the head of the company. Graça Campos, ‘Feche a matraca, dona!’ Correio Angolense. Available online: https​://ww​w.cor​reioa​ ngole​nse.c​om/ar​tigo/​polit​ica/f​eche-​a-mat​raca-​dona (accessed. 19 March 2020).

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This report revealed that without the support of the Angolan state, the company could hardly move on its own. It pointed out that only the oil exploration (upstream) made a profit. And added, that if all costs related to outsourcing services were included, the net result of the company would become negative. Relating to the purported technical expertise, the report gave a very negative picture of recent years, mentioning that the Sonangol management stopped learning how to do its job and leaped too fast into hiring and subcontracting, one reason that forced the state to inject money into the company. The article posited that Sonangol’s critical functions were no longer assumed by Sonangol officials; they were performed by foreign consultants. The oil company had a growing number of ghost contracts. The document emphasized the existence of company-wide service contracts, from finance, health and logistics chain management. De Lemos, faced with over-billing, tried to cut the value of service contracts by 40 per cent. Sonangol had 8,500 employees and over 4,500 hiring services. The real situation was that Sonangol’s activities were based on the mass-imported foreign consultants, and the private business inside drowned the company’s interests. The hiring and subcontracting business had provided astonishing illicit enrichment for some senior managers and officials. Additionally, the paper informed that in an internal meeting, de Lemos assumed that Sonangol’s operating model had failed and it was bankrupt. Between 2008 and 2014, oil daily production registered a negative differential of about 234,000 barrels.13 Again, as occurred in the criminal case of Vicente, it did not transpire who provided the information to the newspaper, but the source must have been part of the same circles of power in Luanda. This was the time which preluded the ascent of Isabel dos Santos to the chairmanship of the oil company. To prepare for such a scenario she was designated as head of a restructuring committee of Sonangol the following Autumn. Apparently, the plot set by Isabel dos Santos and by the presidential advisers was to uncover Sonangol’s desperate situation, blame it all on Vicente and his team, push them away and occupy the leadership of the company. There was no doubt that the situation of Sonangol had deteriorated and the state financier had become a state drain. The doubt that arose and that

Strangely the news published in the Portuguese weekly Expresso is not online. Nevertheless, a reference and summary can be found at ‘Sonangol: Risco de falência’, Esquerda, 20 June 2015. Available online: https​://ww​w.esq​uerda​.net/​artig​o/son​angol​-risc​o-de-​falen​cia/3​7453 (accessed 24 October 2019). The information about the report is taken from there.

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generated manifest dissatisfaction was whether Isabel dos Santos was the right person to fix the company. In June 2016, dos Santos appointed his daughter, Isabel dos Santos, as Sonangol’s chairman. She was at the height of power now with the country’s leading company under her control, as well as the diamond region and banking. Isabel dos Santos’s appointment was quite unwelcome and considered a case of pure nepotism.14 In general, while recognizing her capabilities as a manager, her oil industry skills were unknown. And the truth was that her actions raised even more outrage, as she surrounded herself with a wide range of foreign advisors, notably Portuguese, and outsourced a considerable amount of consultancy services. Her short tenure was always turbulent, and, in the end, one cannot really assess the role she played. Disinformation and obfuscation reigned. Perhaps the essential point was that Sonangol’s control was central to maintaining Isabel dos Santos’s ‘empire’, both in terms of her debts to Sonangol and for the permanent liquidity that the oil company guaranteed to her other business. Just as an example, it is important to remember the famous 2016 Christmas hampers. Graça Campos, at the time, wrote, ‘Isabel dos Santos decided that the Candando supermarket, which belongs to her, will be the exclusive supplier of hampers to Sonangol. Since July, the Candando supermarket has been exclusively supplying food and other goods to the company refectories.’ He added, ‘Between hampers, Christmas and New Year events, as well as other treats that oil officials gift to members of the Presidency of the Republic and the countless attachments and dependencies, Sonangol spends something like US $100 million annually.’15 The reaction of civil society was quite intense and translated into legal actions trying to nullify the presidential designation, as well as attempted public demonstrations against the delays in the decision for these legal actions. As always, the courts worked for the regime, and when confronted with hot topics, they opted for their preferred technique: stall the decision in order to tire the opponent. In the case of the actions proposed to challenge Isabel dos Santos’s appointment, the same happened. The delay was deliberate. Yet, there were some who defended her nomination, making two sets of arguments: strategic and managerial.16 The strategic set of arguments can be summarized in two parts. On the one hand, the appointment was a strategic Interview with members of the civil society and lawyers. Graça Campos, Candando from Isabel dos Santos supplies SONANGOL.Maka Angola, November 2016. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​6/11/​canda​ndo-d​e-isa​bel-d​os-sa​ntos-​suppl​ y-son​angol​/ (accessed 24 October 2019). 16 Interview with Angolan officials.

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move to better defend Angola’s interests abroad. On the other hand, defenders argued, it avoided the corruption that other nominated agents would tend to do. By choosing his own daughter, in whom he had full personal trust, the president avoided opening the way to new millionaires at the expense of the public purse. However, the relationship of this appointment with Angola’s strategic interests was difficult to discern. Strategically, the appointment protected Isabel dos Santos’s interests and not Angola’s. In fact, it was suspected at the time that her various private investments were under scrutiny by the European and possibly US authorities, due to the possible and alleged promiscuity of spending public funds, corruption and money laundering. Obviously, the easiest way to draw a curtain over these investigations was to get Isabel dos Santos into Sonangol, which was her financier, at least for the purchase of Galp and Nos, and the sale to her of a stake in BPI. Becoming a borrower and lender, a buyer and seller, a creditor and a debtor, everything gets more complicated. Therefore, a strategic interest existed for the protection of Isabel dos Santos’s interests but not Angola’s. The second argument – that it was a choice of trust from the father to avoid further theft – would make sense if Angola had been finally taking steps to end presidential family negotiations. But that was not what it was reported daily. At the time, Marques announced and denounced another deal, now with the Imob Business Tower, built for US$40 million and bought by the Ministry of Finance from José Filomeno, dos Santos elder son, and friends for triple the value of US$115 million. After the facts have been examined and the arguments analysed, what can be concluded was that Isabel dos Santos’s appointment followed a dual strategy of the president and his daughter. One aspect was the enhancement of the presidential family’s direct control of the country’s fundamental assets: oil, diamonds, banking, sovereign wealth. Everything was now in the hands of the family, predictably ensuring that any succession or illness of the president would not affect the permanent dominance of the Angolan economy by this family. Added to this is what has already been mentioned. By managing Sonangol, Isabel dos Santos accomplished the feat of controlling the sources that fed her businesses. By holding the source of many of her past financing, she was able to decide by herself what and when to pay. Furthermore, she had access to a new market for her products, Sonangol itself. This was a kind of business jackpot. This dubious context implied that Isabel dos Santos’s tenure was always controversial. Sources17 indicated that for nearly a year and a half as chairman of Interview with former Sonangol executives. Some results were also published by Maka Angola in articles authored by Rafael Marques and I. Afterwards, this was published with worldwide impact by the ICIJ-Luanda Leaks following an autonomous investigation.

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Sonangol’s board of directors, Isabel dos Santos transferred more than US$135 million from the national oil company to four of her own companies, using her bank in Portugal, EuroBIC. Under the management of Isabel dos Santos, Sonangol opened an account with EuroBIC, in Portugal, a bank where she was the main shareholder. Following her dismissal from Sonangol and the transfers to her companies, the bank account was terminated. The most impressive allegation, that she denies, states that after having been dismissed on 15 November 2017, Isabel dos Santos authorized a US$60 million payment order to Matter Business, a company based in Dubai. This payment order arrived at EuroBIC, Portugal, the following day, 16 November. The bank, reportedly, expressed reservations about making the transfer because Isabel dos Santos had already been dismissed. Bank management then suggested the retroactive signing of the payment order to 14 November and did so with the transfer. To this end, Isabel dos Santos and the then-financial director Sarju Raikundala re-signed the order without complying with the financial procedures used in Sonangol. As a justification, Matter informed the bank that the transfer was intended to settle invoices for Sonangol’s diagnostic and restructuring process. A source linked to Isabel dos Santos’s business network18 said Matter was created due to the difficulties Isabel dos Santos had in diverting funds from Sonangol to Wise Solutions, another of her probable companies. Wise Solutions provided consultancy services in connection with the restructuring of Sonangol and operational support in the administrative, financial, systems and information technology areas. Matter was created as a Wise substitute, with a clean record in the banks, to receive Sonangol transfers without raising any controversy. Another one of Isabel dos Santos’s companies that benefited from Sonangol to the tune of US$35 million was Ucall (responsible for human resources consulting and psychotechnical testing and talent identification). When these facts became available in the public sphere, some legal commentators advocated that they indicated the commission of various embezzlement crimes, and during Lourenço’s time as president of the Republic, a criminal investigation was launched. In 2020, these facts were indeed the object of famous world investigative work ‘Luanda Leaks’ reported by BBC19 and led to a renewal of an Angolan criminal inquiry against Isabel dos Santos. Apart from the squabbles about Isabel dos Santos’s transfers and purchases made by Sonangol to her companies, the evaluation of her management Idem, see previous note. BBC, ‘Isabel dos Santos: Africa’s Richest Woman “Ripped Off Angola”’, BBC Panorama, 19 January 2020. Available online: https​://ww​w.bbc​.co.u​k/new​s/wor​ld-af​rica-​51128​950 (accessed 3 February 2020).

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achievements is difficult. Some light could be shed by looking at the 2017 Sonangol report.20 The analysis should be cautious. Sonangol’s profits rose in 2017 due to higher oil prices, as a result of the concerted strategy of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). However, Angolan production decreased. This meant that in 2017 Sonangol produced less than in 2016. It was only due to fortuitous circumstance that there was an international strategy to raise the price of crude oil. Had it not been for the alliance between OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, and Putin’s Russia, Sonangol’s numbers might not have improved. Profits rose from 13 billion to 27 billion kwanzas. This signified that there was a gain of 107 per cent compared to 2016. However, as mentioned, these numbers are misleading. At the core of Sonangol’s operation, the increase was 23 per cent, not 107 per cent. This portended that it was not in Sonangol’s core operation that the explanation for the profit achieved could be found, although the value of this operation had increased. It took place due to the rise of oil prices rather than the increase in production. Production decreased by 5 per cent. It could be thought, then, that the secret had been in cost-cutting, so widely proclaimed by Isabel dos Santos. This was not the case. Costs increased by 18 per cent between 2016 and 2017. Interestingly enough, the great acceleration of profits came from an account given in the Financial Results and Results of Investments in Subsidiaries report. Essentially, it was these two areas that justified the substantial augmentation in Sonangol’s accounting profits. It is fundamental to examine these two areas, because what they tell us is surprising. Starting with the Financial Results: the main flows were in the subheadings of gains and losses. Earnings increased exponentially in 2017, while losses decreased enormously (see page 169 of the report). Between emerging losses and lost gains, there were more than 100 billion kwanzas unaccounted for. Perhaps Isabel dos Santos and her team had become experts in financial investments. This was not the case either. These extremely beneficial flows for Sonangol were due to changes in the value of the Millennium BCP bank shares in Portugal. In 2016, the Portuguese bank’s shares suffered major losses, while in 2017, as a result of the success of a restructuring plan and the effects of the entry of a Chinese shareholder, they appreciated. It is what the report calls ‘changes in the fair value of the investment’ in BCP that justifies the encouraging figures. However, it should be noted that this did not correspond to any actual gain for Sonangol as it did not sell any shares. This was what we might call a nominal or accounting profit that would Sonangol. Relatório e Contas 2017. Available online: http://www.sonangol.co.ao/ (accessed 25 October 2019).

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only be made real when and if one day there was a sale. The other item with significant gains was the Results of Investments in Subsidiaries (p. 170). There the company Esperaza stands out. It accounted for more than half of these gains. In 2016, the same company had not delivered any results to Sonangol. It now represented over 60 per cent of the results in affiliates. Esperaza is the company with which, associated with Isabel dos Santos, Sonangol indirectly participated in Galp, the Portuguese oil company. It seems that, having not delivered any results to Sonangol in 2016, it is now clear how Esperaza secured them in 2017, thus contributing to the improvement of the situation of the Angolan oil company. These were the two Sonangol investments in Portugal that contributed to the significant increase of its profit in 2017. A final note on the various reservations in the Account Certification that the Auditor Paulo Ascensão of KPMG made. These reservations have been repeated systematically and cast doubts on the credibility of value of the accounts. In short, Isabel dos Santos management did not advance or reverse Sonangol’s trends. The results were a direct consequence of exogenous factors, the rise in oil prices and investments in Portugal. In terms of the endogenous aspects: costs increased, and production diminished.

More Isabel dos Santos: The Efacec acquisition and other businesses It is no exaggeration to affirm that in Angola these years were the golden age of Isabel dos Santos. In the first decade of 2000, the president’s daughter started her business, but always in a discreet way. It was only after the 2012 elections that she lost her public inhibitions and started to appear everywhere, building and widening her ‘empire’. Isabel dos Santos almost became the synonym of Angola. In June 2015, it was announced that Isabel dos Santos was going to buy one of the proud jewels of the Portuguese engineering companies: Efacec. The selling price would be around €200 million. Also, in June 2015, news circulated that Efacec, once purchased, would become the supplier of electrical equipment for several dams under construction in Angola, namely Cambambe and Laúca. The acquisition would be made by a vehicle company named Winterfell Industries. By September 2015, the purchase had already been completed and Winterfell Industries, owned by Isabel dos Santos, already dominated 65 per cent of Efacec. Meanwhile, it became public that on 18 August 2015, her father had issued a presidential order instructing an Angolan public electricity company to buy

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40 per cent of Winterfell at an unknown price. Immediately, speculations arose insinuating that the Angolan state-owned company was the financial element of this operation. Or, to put it simply, it was the Angolan state that put the money in Isabel dos Santos’s hands to buy Efacec. She strongly denied the allegations, indicating that the source of the money was the result of loans obtained from the Portuguese state bank and other banks where she was a shareholder. This time, Isabel dos Santos’s actions did not go unnoticed by the authorities as in the recent past. A new awareness about her endeavours had been developed. Therefore, Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes, together with four MEPs from the Parliamentary Intergroup for Integrity and Transparency, endorsed communi­ cations to the European Commission, the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to ascertain, in the context of their competences, the legality of the purchase of the Portuguese company by Isabel dos Santos, under the European anti-money laundering legislation. In letters sent to the European authorities and the FATF, an intergovernmental body promoting anti-money laundering rules and standards, the MEPs expressed concern that the Angolan State was indirectly and illegally financing Isabel dos Santos’s private investments. The MEPs therefore asked the ECB, the European Commission and the EBA, as supervisors of the integrity of the European financial system, to inquire with the Bank of Portugal – national supervisory body – and other financial institutions whether the European regulation was effectively fulfilled in this acquisition, as well as in other significant holdings that Isabel dos Santos already had in Portugal. Subsequently, the European Commission questioned the Portuguese authorities about the Efacec sale referring to the existing European legislation to prevent and combat money laundering and terrorist financing. The European Commissioner Vera Jourova informed the MEPs of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on Integrity and Transparency, Corruption and Organized Crime, that the Commission had asked Portugal about the conformity of the purchase of the Portuguese company Efacec by Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angolan president dos Santos. The truth was, after these steps, all entities must have been satisfied since nothing else happened. Only in 2020, the matter was raised again within the criminal charges brought by Angola in Portugal against Isabel dos Santos: Efacec shares belonging to Isabel dos Santos were first ‘frozen’ by Portuguese judiciary, and then nationalized by the Portuguese government. Afterwards, this nationalization was contested in court by Isabel dos Santos. Back to 2016, Isabel dos Santos’s empire-building spree was set to continue. Apparently, in November of that year, she became one of the beneficiaries of a

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US$4.5 billion financing agreement signed in China by Angolan Finance Minister, Archer Mangueira, for the construction of the Caculo Cabaça Hydroelectric Dam in Kwanza-Norte. The agreement with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China would pay for the services of the consortium that would build the dam. Previously, in June 2015, dos Santos had issued Presidential Order No. 58/15, which approved the Caculo Cabaça Hydroelectric Project and authorized the conclusion of a contract to build it between the Ministry of Energy and Water, the China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC) and Niara Holding, Ltd Consortium. This presidential order was not preceded by any public tender or formal procedure for the award of the public works contract, as required by the Public Procurement Act. The chosen builders were a Chinese company and an offshore corporation belonging to Isabel dos Santos. Another presidential order was issued, several corrections to the initial model were made, although the end result was similar: the Caculo Cabaça Dam would be financed and built by China. In the midst of this Isabel dos Santos materialized without any proper assignment, except that it became clear that she would collect a significant percentage of the profits from the construction of the dam. Curiously, Caculo Cabaça did not represent Isabel dos Santos’s first involvement with the Chinese in pursuance to obtain lucrative contracts through her father’s presidential orders. On 27 September 2013, by Presidential Decree 90/13, the rehabilitation and capacity increase of the Luachimo Dam (from 8 to 34 MW) in Lunda Norte was awarded to the Chinese CGGC for more than $200 million. Three years later, on 13 October 2016, dos Santos’s government held the formal contract consignment ceremony for the CGGC, to start the work, then scheduled the start date for 2019. CGGC, in turn, subcontracted to the company Niara Power, which was a subsidiary of Niara Holding SA, belonging to Isabel dos Santos. And what did Niara Power do? In addition to the influence, it would subcontract to another company, the Portuguese Efacec Power Solutions. Efacec Power Solutions was also part of Isabel dos Santos’s universe of companies,21 as seen earlier. It would become monotonous to list all the investments of Isabel dos Santos. Most of all to follow the elaborate financial engineering that underlies them. Therefore, an impressionist conclusion must be drawn. Almost all relevant areas Rui Verde, ‘Isabel dos Santos, o pai e o branqueamento de capitais na Efacec’, Maka Angola, 9 October 2015. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​5/10/​isabe​l-dos​-sant​os-o-​pai-e​-o-br​anque​ ament​o-de-​capit​ais-n​a-efa​cec/ (accessed 28 October 2019) and Rafael Marques de Morais, ‘Até as barragens, Engenheira Isabel dos Santos’, MakaAngola, 11 April 2017. Available online: https​://ww​ w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​7/04/​ate-a​s-bar​ragen​s-eng​enhei​ra-is​abel-​dos-s​antos​/ (accessed 28 October 2019).

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of the Angolan economy were nursed by Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the president of the Republic: banking, oil, diamonds, hypermarkets, beer, cement, dams, land use and planning, and much more. A few more years and she would literally be the owner of Angola. Isabel dos Santos’s departure from her previous discretion and the hasty broadening of her economic interests made her the focus of all attention. If perhaps many began to admire her for what they considered to be her dynamic and entrepreneurial capacity, others sought to dismantle what they considered to be her false brilliance, demonstrating that she was merely a transmission belt for her father’s interests, using public funds on a permanent basis. Isabel dos Santos was attentive to these reactions and tried to cultivate the former, combating the latter. For instance, in 2016, in cooperation with her husband Sindika Dokolo, she launched a worldwide charm offensive to convince the planet of their kindness and their detachment from the falling regime in Luanda. Dokolo had been assigned the task of appeasing Portugal, the country where Isabel dos Santos was being ‘burned’ by the constant revelations of her dark businesses and those of her family, as well as the ‘war’ she had waged within the BPI bank. Dokolo disembarked in Porto and, with the connivance of the mayor of this city, rehearsed a blasé speech of soft attack on their enemies and in defence of his wife, stating that she was a victim of slander. Isabel dos Santos chose the Wall Street Journal to counteract the concrete accusations with which she had been targeted, both about Efacec and her other businesses in general, telling a slightly refreshed story for the origin of her fortune. Now, it would seem that everything was the result of some savings she had previously invested in the Miami Beach bar, on Ilha de Luanda, and then a vegetable, egg, beer and soft drink transport company for the restaurant. In the end, none of this did much good. Isabel dos Santos became the focus and target of those who fought the regime and her explanations were quickly contested on social media networks.

Dos Santos’s illness If Isabel dos Santos was shining, her father was fading. Since at least 2013, news of his illness percolated. In August that year, it was reported that the president had been absent from the country for over forty days, without an official explanation. Sources disclosed that dos Santos left the country on 26 June, bound for Barcelona, on a ‘private visit’. In almost thirty-nine years of power, this was the

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first time that dos Santos has been absent from the country uninterruptedly for over a month. Yet, it was not the first time he had gone to Barcelona. Apparently, he had been flying there since 2009. Luanda’s rumour machine found it astonishing that Barcelona was the only city where the president travelled to on a private trip. Rapidly, the rumours enhanced, suggesting that his trips to Spain were visits for medical examinations or treatment. Later that year, in December, Portuguese state television broadcasted the news that dos Santos had cancer, mentioning that in 2013 alone, the president had been abroad for two months. The Portuguese network went so far as to announce that the president of Angola was in a clinic in Barcelona, in an oncology unit. It also confirmed that dos Santos left Luanda on 9 November, exactly two days before the country’s most important date, Independence Day, and did not attend the celebrations of Angola’s thirty-eighth anniversary of independence on 11 November. There was a bizarre denial by the son-in-law Dokolo, justifying the absence of his father-in-law holidaying abroad, during which he had taken the opportunity to go to the dentist. After that, the absences and speculations about the president’s health became a constant in Angolan political life. At one point, I was even informed by credible sources that the president had died, and his body was in Cuba for a kind of damage control treatment that would allow it to be presented at a distance as being alive. Something that vaguely resembled a James Bond film. Obviously, this was one of the wildest rumours, but it did show that the question of dos Santos’s succession had become an imperative necessity. Again in 2017, sources close to the presidential palace reported that dos Santos had recently been unable to direct a meeting of the Council of Ministers because he had fainted. The same happened during the funeral of his brother Avelino dos Santos. Swoons had been recurrent during his recent exercise of state functions. This time, it was his daughter Tchizé who, using social media, denied such allegations. The official press officers from the palace stayed silent.22 The subject of the president’s illness became a matter of state, especially because of the secrecy it involved, and possibly it was one of the reasons why he chose to leave the presidency in 2017 after almost thirty-nine years in power. However, it was not the only reason, and probably not the main one, as economic issues and the resulting economic pressure that existed since 2014 had increased. In 2017, the financial crisis was so immense that the Ministry of the Economy had even stopped having cash to maintain the air conditioning. According to a Interviews with Angolan officials.

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source from the Ministry of Finance, there was no certainty that there would be funds to pay the public debt.23 Sometimes, there is a perfect storm! Starting in 2014, this kind of storm hit the MPLA government strongly, leading many to believe that it was definitely condemned. Not so, but bad news was abundant.

No more dollars and economic frailty Late in 2015, the Bank of America suspended the sale of dollars to Angolan banks, although no official justification for the decision was provided. The undisputable fact was that the news affected the reputation of Angolan banks and of Angola in general. This American bank was the major entity that supplied most US dollars to Angolan banks. In addition to the Bank of America, other banks followed suit, like the South African bank that also provided dollars to Angolan banks. Angola’s access to the US currency became extremely limited alongside the existence of foreign correspondent banks.24 Most probably the reason behind this decision was that apparently the Angolan banks were not able to justify the destiny of the banknotes that were coming into Angola and disappearing.25 Such an event had two main consequences. The kwanza lost value and was submitted to mounting pressures. Also, there was another effect, the rarefaction of dollars in Angola, creating true bottlenecks in the international exchanges in Angola. What appears to be the result of a private initiative of a bank, was in fact the consequence of Federal Reserve rules that are extremely strict concerning compliance with the use and justification of use of US dollars. The paucity of dollars in circulation was noticeable, as well as the shortage of some products in supermarkets, along with rising prices and difficulties in making timely payments abroad, meaning that many suppliers began to require payment upfront against the delivery of the goods. The kwanza’s weakness and lack of dollars became a permanent factor in Angola’s economic and financial Gustavo Costa, ‘Angola: doença de José Eduardo dos Santos abala regime’, Expresso, 20 May 2017. Available online: https​://ex​press​o.pt/​inter​nacio​nal/2​017-0​5-20-​Angol​a-doe​nca-d​e-Jos​e-Edu​ardo-​ dos-S​antos​-abal​a-reg​ime (accessed 28 October 2019). 24 Michaela Erbenova, Yan Liu, Nadim Kyriakos-Saad, Aledjandro Lopez Mejia, Jose Giancarlo Gasha, Emmanuel Mathias, Mohamed Norat, Francisca Fernando and Yasmin Almeida, The Withdrawal of Correspondent Banking Relationships: A Case for Policy Action (Washington: IMF, 2016), 15. 25 Guilherme Correia da Silva, ‘Bank of America suspende venda de dólares a bancos angolanos’, Deutsche Welle, 30 November 2015. Available online: https​://ww​w.dw.​com/p​t-002​/bank​-of-a​meric​ a-sus​pende​-vend​a-de-​d per centC3 per centB​3lare​s-a-b​ancos​-ango​lanos​/a-18​88548​5 (accessed 29 October 2019).

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landscape, contributing to a sense of suffocation that began to seize economic agents. These events forced the National Bank of Angola (BNA) to play a leading role in letting the currency devalue and acting as a regulator on the use of dollars by the banking system. The whole process was centralized by the BNA, which made foreign exchange available to banks through auctions. Yet, since the BNA had less dollars coming in due to the fall in oil prices as well the withdraw of American banks, it also freed less dollars for the other banks, thus creating a waiting list for banks to ask for the amount of US dollar liquidity they wanted. The BNA was quick to advise the other banks to limit customer withdrawals to US$1,000 per week. BIC (the largest in number of branches) and BAI (the largest in assets) were given more generous limits, despite the difficulties they too faced. In the end, a perception was created throughout the society and the economic agents that there was real scarcity, and people started to feel that certain products were no longer available. By the middle of 2016, there was chaos in the Angolan economy. Hospitals had no medicines and consumables, in Cabinda essential staple food was lacking, in the south the government was powerless to fight the drought, in Namibe, there was no rice (a staple) for sale, generally, supermarkets found themselves with empty shelves. If people’s daily life conditions were severe (microeconomics), in terms of large aggregates (macroeconomics) the situation was no better, with inflation rising to double digits. According to the National Institute of Statistics, just between September and October 2015, inflation in Luanda was 1.4 per cent. As seen, oil prices continued to fall. In 2015, it oscillated between US$48 and US$67 per barrel, and in 2016, it was as low as US$37.72 per barrel. It should be remembered that as recently as September 2014, a year earlier, the price was over US$100. Not unexpectedly, money started to run out. Moreover, national production was concentrated in a handful of pseudo-entrepreneurs, who, with few exceptions, were nothing more than rentiers to whom power attributed monopolist or oligopolist benefits and who were not used to efficiency and competition. There was a near catastrophic scenario facing the Angolan economy. Some remedies and plans were announced, and the term ‘diversification’ became the buzzword for solving the crisis. It seemed obvious that the second-most concentrated economy after Iraq needed diversification. As referred to earlier, the problem was that the handful of important Angolan economic activities were in the hands of the ruling oligarchy. Most likely, diversification would entail the bankruptcy of many generals and stooges, accustomed to running everything without dispute. Therefore, the issue of diversification was primarily political,

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and almost impossible to achieve with the present government. Consequently, ‘diversification’ was a word widely used at the time, but without any practical effect. The crisis had another face: the budgetary crisis. Faced with falling oil prices, the government announced sharp budget cuts in spending. Let us dwell only on one aspect to understand how this was also difficult. As it is well known, at the top of the state hierarchy there is the executive power, held by the president of the Republic, who is assisted by ministers. There were thirty-four ministers, and over fifty deputies. One fact could be registered: Angola had too many ministers. This profusion of ministers and ministries was a result of the dictatorships’ typical need to have many positions to assign, not defining their roles and competencies precisely, so that they would be constantly in dispute to gain the leader’s attention. The streamlining of government was to be the object of one of Lourenço’s 2020 reforms. In fact, for dos Santos, the expenditure of excessive sums within the upper echelons of the state was a matter of political control, not economic rationality. In the 2016 State Budget, central government consumed almost 77 per cent of the total budget. In theory, the eighteen provinces shared the rest. But the truth was that they rarely received the full amount allocated to them. How can a regime unable to decentralize the execution of the budget diversify the economy? The economic crisis in Angola was indelibly linked to the political regime, and it can be said that without its modification it was not possible to solve the basic economic problems. The outlook was dim, in 2015, GDP growth was a mere 0.9 per cent, and in 2016 it sustained a deacceleration of –2.6 per cent. In 2017, the last year of dos Santos’s presidency, it was again negative, –0.1 per cent.

Meanwhile . . . foreign policy, culture and other things It is not easy to draw a picture of Angola’s foreign policy at the sunset of dos Santos’s presidency, but some lines of force are possible to configure. Perhaps three aspects can be highlighted: a certain tendency towards whimsical policy; a strange relationship with rogue states; and the commitment to act as a regional power. Whimsical policy, which was not too pronounced but still evident, was most likely derived from a certain international offensive against corruption in Angola, as such a blatant phenomenon was impossible to hide. Consequently, Angola did not enhance relations with countries that it felt were not ‘behaving well’ as was the case with the United States, which, as we have just seen froze

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the access to dollars; with France, which let the Angolagate case go too far and too long; and with Portugal, which having a new and more independent attorney general, did not immediately dismiss criminal cases against Angolan personalities, as it had previously done. This attitude revealed the inability of the Angolan leaders to understand the existence of separation of powers in these countries conjointly with statutory independent bodies, and their unwillingness to accept political oversight, as seen in the case with both the French and Portuguese judiciaries at that time. In fact, as an old Russophile and an anticolonial fighter dos Santos had never been particularly comfortable with the United States and Portugal. In relation to the United States, perhaps the most significant moment was dos Santos’s absence from the Summit of Leaders of the United States and Africa held in August 2014. Dos Santos underscored his position as the great absentee of the America–Africa Summit, sponsored by US president Barack Obama, which attracted more than forty-five African heads of state and government. For alleged reasons of protocol, the Washington summit did not include bilateral meetings between Obama and the African heads of state. President dos Santos had long wished for a private meeting with Obama, and this would have been the perfect opportunity for repeating his 2010 visit. The American administration considered that such a meeting on the sidelines of the summit would not be possible, not without discriminating against other African statesmen. This was a big move: a meeting alone with Obama would show that President dos Santos was far more important than other African leaders. It failed, and dos Santos sent his powerless vice president to the summit, showing his displeasure. Some months later, Angola was without access to US dollars, and his act de grandeur was retrospectively useless. In 2016, a high-level delegation from Angola was in Washington with the aim of deepening relations between the countries in the areas of energy and water. But no presidential encounters took place and no warmth was developed in this visit. If the whimsical policy was patent in some aspects of Angolan relations with the United States, it was even clearer in relation to Portugal. The apex of this relationship was held during José Sócrates’s tenure, the now criminally charged Portuguese former prime minister. It was under him that Isabel dos Santos and Sonangol started their buying spree in Portugal, obtaining some of the known ‘crown jewels’ of the former colonial power. Sócrates developed a particularly good rapport with Angola. During his time as prime minister, in 2010, there was a bizarre trip of the Portuguese attorney general, Fernando Monteiro, to Luanda to whom dos Santos gave an audience. He was controversial, and a person considered politically subservient to the prime

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minister and to Angola’s interests. This attorney general was substituted later by a more autonomous-minded one. The new attorney general, Joana Vidal, did not put the usual ‘brakes’ on the investigations relating to the Angolan leadership’s businesses in Portugal. This had the consequence of a ‘freeze’ in relations between Angola and Portugal that obliged, as referred to earlier, the then Portuguese foreign minister Rui Machete to apologize for the inquests. Machete’s excuses were humiliating for Portugal and did not solve anything. On the contrary, some months after Machete’s words, during a speech about the state of nation, dos Santos announced the end of the strategic partnership with Portugal: ‘Only with Portugal, things are not well. There have been misunderstandings at a highlevel and the current political climate that pervades in this relationship does not support the construction of the strategic partnership previously announced.’26 With respect to France, the differences were also significative. Maussion writes that due to the fact that the judicial authorities went ahead with the trial of arms merchant Falcone, an ally of dos Santos, in the case that was to be known as Angolagate, the Angolan president also ‘froze’ relations with France, and despite subsequent attempts from both Sarkozy and Hollande to ingratiate themselves with dos Santos, only after his departure from power did it become possible to re-establish normal relations between Angola and France.27 While Angola conducted itself in this way, it cultivated weird friends. One great friendship was established with Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo from Equatorial Guinea. On 3 August 1979, Obiang, a young army lieutenant colonel, trained at the Military Academy of Zaragoza (Spain), and the then deputy defence minister, led a coup against his uncle, the then president Francisco Macías Nguema. Macías Nguema had been the first president of Equatorial Guinea in the postcolonial era, gaining power after Spain granted independence to the country it had colonized for nearly 200 years. Under Macías Nguema’s leadership, however, Equatorial Guinea sank, overwhelmed by the ‘terror’ unleashed against the president’s political opponents, which caused thousands of deaths. Obiang was not to be different and developed special measures to deal with attempted coups, creating fearsome security services under his direct authority. The pressure on political opponents led many to leave the country, exiling themselves in countries such as France or Spain. Others were arrested, and some were killed. Obiang’s personal fortune was also criticized by the international community, as happened with the Angolan presidential Free translation by the author. Maussion, La dos Santos Company, 102–3.

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family. Obiang was considered one of Africa’s richest presidents, a partner in dos Santos’s wealth club. Obiang and his family’s funds were exposed abroad by his son and Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, nicknamed ‘Teodorín’, known for his extravagant lifestyle. Teodorín has been the target of several international processes. In October 2017, a Paris court sentenced him to three years in prison with a suspended sentence and a fine of €30 million, also suspended, for embezzlement of public funds for the purchase of luxury goods in France. That decision was worsened by increased penalties in a 2020 appeal. The vice president was accused of spending more than a 1,000 times his official annual salary on a six-story mansion in a luxurious area of the French capital, as well as for the purchase of a fleet of luxury cars and artwork. Obiang’s son may be his successor in office, even though the country is not a monarchy. The country’s oil-rich per capita GDP is one of the highest in the world, but a large proportion of the population live in poverty. Corruption was and is also one of the main weaknesses of the country. It is with this country that dos Santos was establishing a close partnership, even pushing the limits when proposing that a Spanish-speaking country became a full member of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP). This happened in 2014, to the exasperation of Portugal, which did not have the courage to oppose the wishes of dos Santos. A good example of the friendship between Angola and Equatorial Guinea, closely followed by the author, was Obiang’s short visit to Angola to meet his counterpart dos Santos, at the end of the latter’s tenure, in 2017. It was a secretive visit as no head of state made any official statements. The meeting focused on various topics, from bilateral cooperation to problems in Central African countries and the Great Lakes region. It seemed a kind of ‘coalition of the weak’ as the two countries with long-held authoritarian presidents who were losing international support came together. At the same time as the president of Equatorial Guinea was meeting his Angolan counterpart, ministerial delegations from both countries discussed, in official talks, new mechanisms of cooperation. It was decided to hold a second Bilateral Cooperation Commission in 2019. They announced that the governments of Angola and Equatorial Guinea aimed to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the fields of staff training, transport, agriculture and fisheries. Perhaps, the most important practical aspects of the meeting were the commitment of Angola to train hundreds of officers of Equatorial Guinea’s security forces and the strengthening of cooperation, notably in the area of gas to be done by the oil companies of both countries. It was thought that in this collaboration with Angola, Equatorial Guinea was looking for international recognition, especially because it had been badly

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harassed by the United States. Angolans knew how to defend themselves from the United States better than Guinea.28 Another country with whom Angola established a discreet relationship was North Korea. Several sources of somewhat rarefied information show that Angola was on the list of countries that have collaborated with the Pyongyang regime despite UN sanctions. The United Nations banned the closing of any contracts for military or arms supply with North Korea due to its nuclear activities. But despite this UN embargo, the Pyongyang regime continued to maintain privileged relations with some African countries. A UN report published in February 2017 stated that several African countries kept relations with North Korea. In this regard, the United Nations decided to investigate possible violations by the Angolan government of the embargo and sanctions imposed on North Korea. The organization inquired whether the Angolan Presidential Guard and other units had been trained by people linked to North Korea’s government. North Korean diplomats, accredited in Angola, were also checked. Those diplomats, apparently, worked for Green Pine Corporation, a company that had been under sanction by the international community since 2012, and would account for nearly half of North Korea’s arms exports. As a result of these denunciations by UN experts, Angola informed that it had terminated all contracts with the mentioned North Korean company. Finally, it is fundamental to emphasize Angola’s role as a regional power. The great aim of dos Santos’s foreign policy was always to project Angola as the regional power in southern Africa, surpassing South Africa. Two small episodes demonstrate this intention. The first one, to which reference has already been made, is the absence of dos Santos at Mandela’s funeral in 2013. At the time, ninety heads of state and governments from around the world converged in Johannesburg, to pay their last tribute to Nelson Mandela. US president, Barack Obama, was joined by his predecessors George Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Most African leaders also accompanied the historic ceremony. On the European side, Angela Merkel and several other leaders attended. The Angolan president did not go. That was even more significant from Angola’s perspective, as one of the great achievements of dos Santos was the overthrowing of the apartheid regime in South Africa, which was made possible by MPLA’s victory in Cuito-Canavale in 1987 against combined apartheid South African forces and My point of view expressed in an interview for Deutsche Welle. Available online: https://www. dw.com/pt-002/alian per centC3 per centA7a-entre-angola-e-guin per centC3 per centA9equatorial- per centC3 per centA9-coliga per centC3 per centA7 per centC3 per centA​3o-de​-frac​ os-di​z-ana​lista​/a-38​17427​0 (accessed 29 October 2019).

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UNITA. Dos Santos saw himself as the leader who, by war triumph, opened the path to the end of the apartheid regime. Mandela’s role was possible due to dos Santos’s previous accomplishment. ANC and Mandela owed him their success. Following then the same trend of downplaying South Africa’s influence was the interview given in 2017 by his son-in-law, Dokolo who argued that a LuandaKinshasa axis could create a counterweight to South African supremacy.29Indeed, the policy pursued regarding Congo-Kinshasa over time is symbolic of Angola’s regional aspirations. Since the 1960s, much of the war in Angola involved Congo and vice versa. Mobutu supported his brother-in-law Holden Roberto and the FNLA, some say, to develop a Greater Congo, based on the Kinshasa-Luanda axis, where the former would predominate. Basically, the opposite of the policy Dokolo defended. There were also several Angolan interventions in Congo at the time such as dos Santos aiding the Kabilas, father and son, both former Congolese presidents. However, in more recent years, dos Santos’s position had changed, and he no longer supported Kabila. Many considered this a way of bolstering the political aspirations of his son-in-law, who wanted to run for the presidential election in Congo, although, the most plausible justification was that Joseph Kabila’s permanence in power was becoming a factor of instability for the region and for Angola, forcing dos Santos to withdraw his backing and find another solution. Of relevance was not the support or lack thereof for Kabila, but the referee role that Angola played in the region. In the same mould, Angola’s enhanced role in the Southern African Development Community could be seen.30 As important was Angola’s leadership of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region which took place after January 2014. During Angola’s tenure, the focus of the organization was the DRC where it aimed primarily at ending the presence of troublesome forces that fomented chaos in the east of that neighbouring country. Under the presidency of Angolan president dos Santos, a great deal of work was done to try to end the presence of the Democratic Forces of Rwanda in the DRC and to dismantle the Congolese militias. In the end, aside from various whims, Angolan foreign policy obeyed a mixture of principles that were well established by 2002: affirmation of sovereignty and avoidance of interference. The guiding line had always been to avoid foreign intervention in the country, especially from the West, and to Nicolas Michel and Pierre Boisselet, ‘Sindika Dokolo “The Next Oligarchs Will Be African”’, Jeune Afrique, 15 January 2017. 30 For a detailed analysis see Heitor Simão Afonso Ambrósio, Desenvolvimento Econômico, Integração e Desigualdades Regionais: Angola no contexto da África, SADC e intra-país (Brasília: Nova Edições Acadêmicas, 2017) and Miguel Lopes, Integração regional de Angola na SADC (Évora: Universidade Évora, 2014). 29

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ensure that Angola was a sovereign country that did what it wanted without any restrictions imposed from abroad. This, by the way, was the great bonus of the preferential relationship with China, right from the beginning of the century. Although Angola became a major debtor of China and China invested billions in the country, it did so without apparent political conditions, which allowed Angola to maintain its sovereign power. Moreover, as the relationship has always been maintained with discretion, the terms on which it occurred have never been well known. If foreign policy was an area where Angola asserted its role, other sectors of life benefited from that moment of apparent progress between 2010 and 2014. Culture was one of them. It is not necessary to look in depth into the work of a consecrated writer such as Pepetela, who wrote two novels between 2012 and 2017, O Tímido e as Mulheres, 2013, and Se o Passado Não Tivesse Asas, 2016, or that of the equally famous but younger, José Eduardo Agualusa, who attained a perfect literary maturity producing five splendid novels: Teoria Geral do Esquecimento, 2012; A educação sentimental dos pássaros, 2012; A vida no céu, 2013; A Rainha Ginga, 2014; and A Sociedade dos Sonhadores Involuntários, 2017. In 2012, a blossoming Ondjaki wrote his great work Os Transparentes and then offered us one beautiful volume of poetry: Os modos do mármore, 2015. One relevant detail is that both Agualusa and Ondjaki did not make their careers solely in Angola; Ondjaki lived in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro for a while, and Agualusa, especially after the 15 + 2 case almost auto-exiled himself in Lisbon. It is not possible to make a literary critique here, nor to evaluate whether it was a powerful time for Angolan literature or not, although it all points in that direction. However, it is possible to perceive when reading some of the most prominent authors that the theme of their works had been modified alongside time. From the construction of an Angolan state after independence, a new vision emerged: it was a more critical, more disillusioned, more distressing one. In music, it was even more evident that new strengths were achieved. In pop music, mostly names such as Anselmo Ralph or Matias Damásio sang ballads and entertaining rhythms that reached the top of music sales both in Angola and Portugal, creating true show-business stars. In addition to his success in Angola, in 2012, Anselmo Ralph sold out his concert at Campo Pequeno in Lisbon. In February 2014, he performed at footballer Cristiano Ronaldo’s birthday party in Madrid. Matias Damásio, in 2016, achieved a huge triumph in Portugal with the theme Loucos, a collaboration with a singer from the Portuguese band HMB, Héber Marques. Loucos reached number 3 in the charts for Portuguese singles and became the runner-up of the Portuguese top downloadable tracks. By early

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May 2017, the theme’s music video had amassed twenty-six million views on YouTube. In a different musical and ideological note, there was the huge attainment of MCK, a rapper-singer. MCK is one of the best-known Angolan rappers. The young man produced musique d’intervention and socially and politically engaged music, particularly about Angolan society. One of the most famous songs is ‘País do Pai Banana’. The lyrics are strong and brutal: Sempre sofri aqui desde o tempo da guerra Diferente de quem têm nacionalidade adquirida Aguentei a kitota quase perdi a vida Não imigrei pra Europa quando faltou comida Eu sou filho desta pátria, vi o país na lama (. . .) Condenados a sermos escravos de 3 famílias Tudo é deles de Talatona á ilha Os diamantes são deles O petróleo é deles A imobiliária é deles (. . .) Esse é o país do pai banana

I’ve always suffered here since the war Unlike those who ‘acquired’ nationality Survived the war, almost lost my life Didn’t immigrate to Europe when food was scarce I’m the son of this land, saw the country in the mud (. . .) Condemned to be slaves of 3 families It’s all theirs from Talatona to the Island The diamonds are theirs The oil is theirs The real estate is theirs (. . .) This is dad’s banana country

MCK’s vigorous music reached the young people throughout the country with great impact and functioned as a valve, sometimes with baleful consequences. The case of the twenty-seven-year-old car washer Arsénio Sebastião ‘Cherokee’ was particularly distressing, brutally murdered by soldiers of the Presidential Guard some years before (2003). The young man was humming MCK’s song A Téknika, as Kausas e as Konsekuências as he washed cars at the Mussulo dock when the guards heard him. They asked him to sing again, and then dragged him into the water and drowned him in the presence of countless bathers. Due to their combative lyrics, MCK and other rappers saw their performances banned. For instance, in late 2016, the Provincial Huíla government prohibited a musical show by rappers MCK, Kool Klever and DJ Pelé, scheduled in the city of Lubango. Show promoters had complied with the procedures required by law. The Department of Arts and Cultural Action of the Provincial Directorate of Culture of the Provincial Government authorized the event. The aforementioned department even issued the show authorization guide no. 57/2016, allowing the event to be held at the Benfica Pavilion. Meanwhile, the performance had to be postponed for logistical reasons, but the promoter received assurances from the

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police and cultural department, informing him that the same authorization would be valid for the new date. It was not to be so. Some days after, the departmental head urgently called the promoter to inform him that a new authorization was needed, but amiably said that he would help the organizers to solve the problem. In the end it was a ruse; the departmental head used the new request to ban the spectacle based on a presidential decree. Local organizers declared that they were visited by members allegedly assigned to the State Intelligence and Security Service (SINSE), who verbally transmitted the ban of the event. MCK believed that, as he explained to me, the ban was a retaliation for the critical posture he assumed when he appeared on the Portuguese television channel SIC, in a documentary. In the documentary, MCK circulated through the Margoso musseque (shanty town) showing the extreme misery in which thousands of Angolans lived just over a kilometre south of the Presidential Palace. This angered the regime. In another episode during the same year, National Police agents prevented a performance by MCK and Beirão at the Tivoli Cinema in Luanda, withdrawing the license for the room to operate. MCK noted that only the critical rappers were persecuted; these measures did not apply to singers in support of the regime. Presidential Decree No. 111/11 was evoked to prevent the various shows. It regulated the activity of public entertainment and was issued as a result of the after-effects of an MCK and Beirão show at Cine Atlântico. During that performance, Beirão used the stage to send a message to President dos Santos, through his son Danilo, who was in the audience. Beirão publicly criticized the longevity of the incumbent president. It was the effervescent year of the Arab Spring and of multiple small attempts to hold demonstrations in Luanda demanding the president’s resignation. Although this decree clearly contradicted the Constitution, it was nevertheless enforced. Dad’s banana country was deeply unsettled, and 2017 was to be the election year.

Succession: All very ‘tied up’ The year 2016 closed with a GDP growth in the negative, at -2.6 per cent and 2017 was not destined to be much better, at -0.1 per cent. As referred to previously, dos Santos was ill, the economy was in a slump and finances were tight. A difficult time for the president and his regime. In 1979, when dos Santos assumed power the political system was inspired by Soviet precepts and a kind

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of collective decision-making prevailed. That was to be discarded over the years, culminating in the MPLA’s IV Congress in 1998, called the ‘cheating congress’,31 in which dos Santos reinforced his powers and removed former prime ministers such as Marcolino Moco and Lopo do Nascimento from prominent positions. After 2002, a true propaganda cult was instituted hailing dos Santos as the ‘Architect of Peace’. But by 2016, the MPLA structures were worried, as the leader was looking tired and was not controlling events at large; his only apparent preoccupation was to give the fundamental economic and business posts to his family.32 In sum, by 2016, repression had increased, and its display became more visible. Social media networks were beginning to play a significant role in airing discontent. The regime was drifting. The growing middle and technocratic classes were dissatisfied. The levels of corruption were unbearable, and the situation started to get explosive. The sick president announced his departure and nominated a successor: Defence Minister General Lourenço. Notwithstanding the arduous situation, the very departure of dos Santos remains a mystery. It is not credible that thirty-seven years into his uninterrupted presidency, he decided to be democratic and give way to someone else. The most widely accepted rumour given as the reason for his departure was that he had cancer and it was supposedly developing very fast, and the doctors who were treating him in Barcelona advised him to stop any political activity in order to earn a few years of life. Added to this justification it seems that the accompanying acute malaise became increasingly repetitive, impeding the effective exercise of presidential function. Despite this being the most accepted version, the truth is that it did not fully justify the decision. Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika was eighty years old and had been reported to be very ill since 2005, had a stroke in 2013, and still in 2017 remained as president, only after strong public demonstrations did he step down in 2019. Robert Mugabe, clearly senile, just left the Zimbabwean presidency at ninety-three years old and after an ill-disguised coup d'état. Of course, those two examples can be looked at from the opposite side and, therefore, one could argue that dos Santos left the presidency to avoid the fate of both Bouteflika and Mugabe and effectively control the transition of power. Perhaps there were more reasons why dos Santos gave up power. There are several theories.33 One stated that his voluntary departure was due both to his Maussion, La dos Santos . . ., p. 42. Interviews with Angolan officials. 33 Interviews with Angolan officials and members of civil society. 31 32

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illness and to the fact that he felt imprisoned in his own palace by the schemes of those around him, notably his chief minister of security, General Kopelipa, who was portrayed as the real ‘grey eminence’ behind the throne. Thus, thinking that he had secured his future, and especially that of his children, dos Santos would leave the government to free himself from the ‘prison’ and enjoy the last days of his life in peace. This version is very dubious. It gives too much leverage to Kopelipa, who only had power because he spoke on behalf of the president and had his public political confidence. Incidentally, the ease with which Kopelipa was removed by President Lourenço contradicted this argument. Probably, the truth of dos Santos’s exit is more complex and involves both a personal decision and a sustained pressure from the apparatus that supported the regime. Dos Santos’s unpopularity would no longer allow the MPLA to mount a victorious campaign. It was too obvious that he had no support and would lose the elections, even using fraud and juggling the results. Or, even if he did not lose them on paper, he would not be able to reach the two-thirds majority needed to maintain the party’s overwhelming power. For this reason, the party’s various notables rehearsed a controlled transition, in which the president of the Republic continued to lead the party, after departing from the presidency. Given the Soviet background in which most of the MPLA leaders were formed, it meant that they would continue to run the country. At the same time, an accommodating candidate who would make the transition smooth, and who respected the party, would be found. Obviously, dos Santos’s disease and fragility always played an important role, but they were not the only reasons for his leaving. The popular contestation and the anticipated difficulty in fabricating a resounding electoral victory were the decisive factors in dos Santos’s removal. That there were external pressures on the president that led to his departure, almost an internal and discreet palace coup, is discernible by some hasty actions taken by him and his family after the retirement announcement, which we will see in detail ahead. These acts were the rushed operations set up for emptying both the state coffers and those of Sonangol, as well as the attempt to quickly pass legislation, which in some cases was elucidatorily stopped in the National Assembly where the president’s party had two-thirds majority. This was the case with a comprehensive new statute regarding the treatment, rights and honours owed to former presidents of the Republic. The approved version was minimalist and not the ambitious version envisaged by dos Santos. The indication, by the MPLA, of Lourenço as candidate for president of the Republic for the general elections of 23 August 2017 was unexpected and not foreseeable. It was thought that dos Santos, on leaving the presidency, would

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only do so by handing it over to one of his sons. For a long time, José Filomeno, then chairman of the Sovereign Fund’s board of directors, seemed to be the most suitable candidate. Later, his incompetence as leader of the Fund was publicly exposed, as well as some rumours, true or false, that were spread about his personal behaviour and a possible addiction. It became clear that he could not afford to be a candidate due to the public scrutiny that it would entail. There had been talks a few times about the possibility of Isabel dos Santos ascending to the presidency of the Republic after chairing Sonangol. But the enemies she created within the party and her disapprobation within the population killed such a hypothesis in its infancy. In the end, it fell to Lourenço. Why choose General Lourenço? There is no satisfactory response for the question. It is necessary to underline that the choice of candidate was less important than the creation of the conditions that controlled him and which would not allow him to drift. Using academic jargon, one would say that the purposed concept for the transition was that the structure would dominate the agency. Consequently, it was more important to establish mechanisms of controlling power, a kind of ‘back-seat driver’, than to have personal trust in the future candidate. The candidate should be so bound by the structure that he could not stray from the previously laid path. It is never too much to point out that the MPLA is a party that when it began its governance in Angola, adopted a Marxist–Leninist style of organization and ideology. The first constitutional law after Angola’s independence, published on Independence Day, 11 November 1975, declared in Article 2 that all sovereignty pertained to the people, but that the MPLA was the people’s legitimate representative and it was the sole party responsible for the nation’s political, economic and social direction. Only after defining the party’s role as the conductor of national policies, was space given to the state and its organs. This approach is quite different from Western pluralist democracies. In the Marxist view, the party is the conductor of the state, in fact confusing the two roles. The state is subject to the party, for it represents the vanguard that will lead to the construction of the perfect socialist society. The state is merely an instrument of the deeper force that is the party. Of course, this is not Western political theory, which only considers parties as associations that allow the best exercise of representative democracy, subject to the law and undoubtedly separate from the state. This state of affairs in Angola was maintained until 1991/1992 when a sweeping amendment of the Constitutional Act introduced pluralist democracy and market economy in law. Nevertheless, as mentioned, MPLA continued to be the sole party of power. Therefore, it is understandable that there was no reason to change its fundamental

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roots and ways. The party internally persisted in functioning as a Communist Party, obeying centralist decision-making and making the fundamental choices to be implemented by the government. Over time, the system shifted from this kind of centralist collectivism, in which the party dominated the state, to a Stalinist platform, in which the leader dominated the party that controlled the state; the leader being, of course, dos Santos. What he (or those who masterminded the transition) failed to grasp, as it will later be seen, was that they could not turn back the clock of the historical process and create the conditions that he had already overcome. That is, removing the personality cult and ensuring that the party would continue to determine politics. When dos Santos and his advisers designed the succession, they leaned on the Marxist party-state tradition, and forgot about the cult of the leader, promoted in the meantime. Consequently, dos Santos and his entourage thought that by dominating the MPLA party they could keep the reins of state and of politics. That is why, although Lourenço was nominated as a candidate for president of the Republic, he was elected ‘only’ vice president of the MPLA, with dos Santos remaining as president of the party. He would be the ‘back-seat driver’, to repeat the idea mentioned previously. In addition to the structural dimension of the MPLA as a state-dominated party, there are aspects of personal academic training to be considered as complementary to the interpretative construction then carried out. Both dos Santos and Lourenço were trained as qualified cadre in the former Soviet Union, so the Marxist precepts and organization of the socialist state were well rooted in both men and shaped their weltanschauung. Dos Santos was at the Baku Oil and Gas Institute, in the former Soviet Union, and graduated in Petroleum Engineering in June 1969, afterwards attending a military telecommunications course, also in the erstwhile USSR.34 Lourenço was in the Soviet Union from 1978 to 1982, at the Lenin High Academy from where, Dos Santos’s oil engineering course is the subject of some controversy. Zambian journalist Siyanga Malumu wrote in a report published in the Angolan digital newspaper Club-K that he had travelled to the Soviet Union, where he went to contact the Baku University Petroleum Faculty about student José Eduardo dos Santos. The university never had a student by this name (José Eduardo dos Santos). He adds: ‘In the USSR I contacted other higher education institutions, they replied that they had not known that there was an Angolan student of this name in the field of oil.’ The reality is that José Eduardo dos Santos excelled in his activity as a telecommunications expert and diplomat, but never as an oil engineer. Moreover, the Soviet Union’s accelerated cadre policy of the so-called Third World is now known, in which formal titling superseded substantive knowledge. There was a concern to rapidly prepare revolutionary cadres. One possible explanation is as follows: the school that José Eduardo dos Santos attended was called Azerbaijan Petroleum and Chemistry Institute (AzOCI), and was not a university, nor did it offer degrees or the equivalent. It had evening specialization courses in the area of petroleum of a practical technical nature. The purpose of this school was to train intermediate technicians for industry. So perhaps dos Santos had completed one of these courses and not a degree programme.

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in addition to his military training, he earned the title of Master of Historical Sciences. This deep Soviet involvement, both of structure and agency, led to the development of some conspiracy theories that pervaded high levels of the Angolan opposition.35 According to them the change of presidency from dos Santos to Lourenço was nothing more than a move determined by Moscow to ensure the survival of its ally, the MPLA. It is difficult to consider this hypothesis as valid, considering Russia’s disinterest in Africa after the Cold War. In fact, Russia’s role in Africa is just restarting to increase now, although not yet in Angola. Additionally, apart from this Soviet framework that allowed dos Santos to embark on a successional process, after the decision to step down was taken, he was not careless, and one month before the end of his term he took some legal initiatives to assure both his own and his family’s future and control. A body of legislation was signed and enforced. The mandates of the heads of the Armed Forces, National Police and Intelligence Services Act 2017 were one of the pieces of legislation then enacted. It was a short and simple Act with only four articles. However, after reading it, surprise seized even the most distracted observer. It was a manifestation of sheer legal ignorance. The outgoing president was trying to unconstitutionally limit the new president who was to be elected on 23 August 2017. Article 1 of the Law determined the term of office of the heads of the Armed Forces and Intelligence Services. It included in this article: the Chief and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Angolan Armed Forces, the Angolan Armed Forces Branch Commanders, the Commander General and Second Commander General of the National Police, the Director General of the External Intelligence Service, the Head of the State Intelligence and Security Service, and the Head of the Intelligence Service and Military Security. It defined the term of office for each of the mentioned positions of power, as four years. The first strange point was found in Article 1 (4), which gave the president the power to determine the beginning of the term of office of each of the aforementioned people. It was not the law that defined the tenured starting dates, but the president’s will. The main issue, however, which was manifestly bizarre and unconstitutional, arose from the interpretation of Article 2. Article 2 was entitled ‘Causes of Termination of Office’ and listed some motives to end the mandates. The problem with the article was that a dismissal by free presidential decision was not a cause for termination of office included in the list. It meant that the president of the Republic, after appointing these positions, could not dismiss them at will, except under the causes listed explicitly in Article 2. Interview with a member of UNITA leadership.

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If this interpretation was indeed correct, then the law was unconstitutional. Article 122 (c) and (d) of the Constitution is clear in conferring on the president, as Commander-in-Chief, the power to appoint and dismiss the Angolan Armed Forces Chief of Staff and the Chief of Staff, the Deputy General Staff of the Armed Forces, after hearing the National Security Council, as well as the ability to appoint and dismiss other positions of command and leadership of the Armed Forces. The Constitution posed no limits on the president of Republic in dismissing his generals, police and spy-chiefs, but, now, in the last day of his term, dos Santos approved a law that would prohibit his successor from doing so. In the end, it became abundantly clear that dos Santos was designating trusted heads for the military, police and security services and intended them to occupy their posts for at least four years, guaranteeing that the new president of the Republic was properly encircled. President dos Santos, on the last day of his job, also signed the Presidential Decree No. 222/17 of 27 September approving a new organic statute of Sonangol. This was a new by-law giving full and broad powers to Sonangol’s board of directors, mainly its chairman, Isabel dos Santos (cf. articles 13, 14, 15 of the by-law), as well as attributing a five-year term to its members (cf. Article 14 (2)). Apparently, at the departure of her father, Isabel dos Santos was given more powers and less dependence on the president of the Republic to run Sonangol, and her tenure was extended until 2022. It was totally obvious that dos Santos was following the steps of another authoritarian leader, Generalissimo Franco of Spain, who had affirmed close to his death that he would leave ‘everything tied up and well tied up’ (Todo está atado y bien atado) so that no deviations would occur in the future. The foreseen transition of power kept dos Santos as president of the party that was accustomed to commanding the state and surrounded the new president with generals, police and spies trusted by dos Santos. Finally, it left the dos Santos children at the head of the Sovereign Fund and Sonangol, in the latter case with enhanced powers. Most probably the new president of the Republic would oversee only the ambulances of the Ministry of Defence and nothing else. With the succession design drawn up, the question left was to choose the person to perform the role. A kind of puppet that convinced the population that something was going to change, but who in reality would change nothing. The role of the new president would be similar to that of Mikhail Kalinin, who, being chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union between 1938 and 1946, the equivalent to the head of state, could not even prevent Stalin from arresting his wife, but continued to sign all the decrees that Stalin put in front of him. In this case, the Angolan people would have a new face to vote

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for, facilitating any possible manipulation of the results, but the state would be submitted to the party, and its continuing president dos Santos. The chosen one was Lourenço, Minister of Defence since 2014. Educated in the Soviet Union, Lourenço’s career was made in the MPLA and in the Armed Forces, more specifically in the political branch of the military. The path that he followed upon return from the Soviet Union was sturdy, involving a mix of military and political experience. Lourenço was not strictly a military man or a politician; his background was combined. His rise was not swift; it was solid and consistent, but without haste. Nevertheless in 1998, sixteen years after his return from the Soviet Union, at forty-four years of age, he reached the position of MPLA’s Secretary General and Chairman of the Constitutional Commission. It would be the peak of his career so far, arrived to when dos Santos had just got rid of his most direct competitors. Notably, Lourenço’s ascent was done within the broad movement to tighten power made by dos Santos. However, if dos Santos thought he had simply appointed a yes-man, he was to be sorely disillusioned. In 2001 dos Santos, most probably imitating Mao Zedong’s ‘Hundred flowers campaign’ tactics, surprisingly announced that whether the presidential elections were to take place in 2002 or in 2003, the party would have a year and a half or two and a half years to prepare a new candidate for the electoral battle. It was clear that the candidate named this time was not to be dos Santos. This was the way dos Santos publicized that he would stand down from the presidency. At the time, Lourenço declared that he ‘understood’ dos Santos’s position and seemed to be presenting himself as a contender for the post. Posterior facts have shown that dos Santos did not leave power and was very annoyed with Lourenço. The man he thought would act to defend his interests as secretary general of the party after the 1998 purge, was the first to applaud his descent from the presidency and to step forward as a candidate. That was unacceptable, and Lourenço was rapidly demoted. Between 2003 and April of 2014, he only served as the first vice president of the National Assembly. It was a brutal demotion. A relegation that lasted eleven years. Dos Santos took Lourenço through a long desert crossing. Simultaneously with a touch of cruelty that most probably had the intention of humiliating Lourenço, he gave Lourenço’s wife, who held the position of minister of planning, ever-increasing attention. For instance, according to what I have been told by various sources, for a formal New Year’s party dos Santos invited Ana Dias Lourenço to attend and forbade her husband from entering the presidential palace. As it can be seen, Lourenço suffered at the hands of dos Santos. Only in 2014, when the country entered a period of crisis, was he reinstated as the minister of defence.

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Therefore, there was much surprise over the choice of Lourenço. He had only come back into prominence in April 2014, when he was reappointed minister of defence. It was strange that less than three years later he was designated as dos Santos’s successor. Three years is a short time. What made dos Santos choose him? Did he think Lourenço had learned the lesson and would be faithful? Perhaps, with his attitude during the ‘desert crossing’, Lourenço could be regarded as a ‘weak leader’,36 thus easily controlled by MPLA’s nomenklatura. Was it an imposition of the military, who wanted neither dos Santos family members nor anyone with too many business links? The question remains. But there is no doubt that the older president of Angola tried to surround Lourenço with an ‘iron ring’ that would prevent him from exercising the presidency to its fullest. Oil, diamonds, Sovereignty Fund, military intelligence, all the strategic sectors of the nation were in the hands of those faithful to dos Santos. The interesting point was that this was done in haste and without proper constitutional and legal safeguards. In order to answer the question over the choice of Lourenço, I conducted several interviews with members of the regime and the opposition such as deputies, military and security personnel. No straightforward response was provided. Some of the aforementioned defended conspiratorial theories of Russian interference. They argued that both men had links with the former Soviet security forces and were bound to obey their demands, the Russian leaders having decided that it was time for a change. This theory does not have any basis in fact. Others thought that it was a dual imposition from the party and military that did not want any member of the dos Santos family, nor any of the most famously corrupt generals or politicians. A candidate with a military personality that in the last fifteen years had been detached from power, was discreet as a minister, and not particularly stained by obscure dealings was the perfect profile. Nevertheless, beyond speculation, no one was able to provide a satisfactory response to the question. One fact was certain: after the decision was taken, the entire party-state regime started to work to elect Lourenço.

Electoral campaign and fraud again? The 2017 elections Apparently, some of the more orthodox sectors tried to avoid dos Santos’s retirement and were discontent with Lourenço’s candidature. There was some My thanks to Miles Tendi for this suggestion, as he was the one who highlighted to me that Lourenço’s behaviour after his fall from grace in 2003 could be indicative that he had a weak personality and without capacity to impose his own will: the weak leader.

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resistance towards Lourenço, but it was of little significance. Perhaps the most important voice came from the head of the Military Intelligence and Security Service, General Zé Maria, who increasingly expressed his displeasure at Lourenço’s appointment. At the time, Ministry of Defence officials explained that General Zé Maria had banned the publicizing of Lourenço’s campaign at the SISM. Whenever Angolan Public Television (TPA) broadcasted images of Lourenço’s campaign, or introduced him to talk, the general immediately turned off the televisions. Several testimonies acknowledged insults directed at the presidential candidate. General Zé Maria accused General Lourenço of doing a bad imitation of the promises of President dos Santos and, sometimes, sent for recordings or newspaper archives of those promises to prove that there was nothing new in the designs of Lourenço that dos Santos had not mentioned before.37 Although the MPLA was aware of the general’s conduct, the ruling party preferred to ignore him, recognizing he would be untouchable and protected by his president, dos Santos. The MPLA and its state operatives were engaged in delivering another staggering victory. The nominee for vice president was Minister Bornito de Sousa, who was the head of the Ministry of Territorial Administration, which was responsible for the electoral registration in the same elections. When confronted with this fact, he stated that there was no incompatibility between being the head of the electoral register and, at the same time, candidate for vice president of the Republic. In a further irony, he added that there was no legal or constitutional incompatibility for this fact, since if one wanted to be strict and have suspicions on such a situation, then at the least, all members of parliament would have to resign, because they were responsible for drafting and approving the electoral law that would be the future framework for their election. With a vice presidential candidate overseeing the electoral registration process, the initial phase of the election process was totally controlled. However, that was not enough. The National Electoral Commission (CNE) was, and still is, the fundamental public body to ensure the authenticity and legitimacy of the Angolan elections. The main trouble was that the CNE worked as a kind of mini parliament, where the MPLA ruled, being, in the end a mere conveyor belt of presidential palace power. In 2017, one of the issues that arose, among others, was the hiring of a company to collaborate technically in the electoral process. This company was called Sinfic. Both the opposition and civil society were dismayed by such a Interviews with army officials.

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contract, as Sinfic did not bring any credibility or guarantee of independence to the Angolan electoral process. Sinfic was basically an Angolan company, disguised as Portuguese, that at least since 2008 had participated in the electoral processes, having been accused several times of collaborating in the tampering of results in favour of the MPLA. For example, in 2013, UNITA filed a criminal report against the company’s administrators for various alleged crimes that had occurred during the 2012 electoral process. The case was swiftly dismissed. However, the possible actions that the company had committed or not were not the current issue. The issue was a matter of perception and of public confidence. The company was regarded as being dominated by the MPLA’s shareholders and as a fundamental piece in defrauding the electoral process, a reason why it was being contracted again raised suspicions; it would be better to look for a new entity. Moreover, at the time, the company’s financial situation was very shaky,38 and it was too heavily dependent on Angolan contracts, consequently extremely vulnerable to interference. The MPLA had the infrastructure prepared for a victorious election. Electoral registration directed by their candidate for vice president, the Electoral Commission dominated by the party and the technical aspects of the process in the hands of friendly companies. Meanwhile, on the terrain, candidate Lourenço advanced with a strong discourse against corruption, which at the time was faced with close-to-profound scepticism. Then, I wrote a fairly well-read article, characterizing Lourenço as the ‘crazy Inuit’.39 The meaning of such analogy was that a promise to end corruption within the MPLA and the government was akin to a crazy Inuit in the Arctic who promised to rid the North Pole of ice. In the same article a series of measures that would prove that Lourenço, after being elected, was genuinely fighting corruption were catalogued. It is interesting to look at them from a historical perspective, and then to make an assessment. The first item on the list would be to remove the then attorney general, João Maria de Sousa. The second measure that Lourenço would announce was the creation of a Special Unit to Combat Corruption: an autonomous, self-led, accountable department composed of experienced jurists and economists. Another step would be the practical implementation of criminal investigations in Angola, already being carried out or underway abroad, such as the case of Vicente in Portugal West Lisbon District Court – Sintra Trade Court – Judge 1, Sinfic was subject to a PER – Special Revitalization Process, which ran its terms in case 21250 / 15.0T8SNT. 39 Rui Verde, ‘João Lourenço contra a corrupção ou o esquimó louco’, Maka Angola, 17 May 2017. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​7/05/​joao-​loure​nco-c​ontra​-a-co​rrupc​ao-ou​-o-es​ quimo​-louc​o/ (accessed 5 November 2019). 38

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or Odebrecht in Brazil and the United States. Furthermore, Lourenço would undertake to review major economic projects and the participation of the former president’s children in them. Finally, and for symbolic reasons, the children of dos Santos would be removed from all non-elective public functions: in particular, Isabel dos Santos from Sonangol and José Filomeno from the Sovereign Fund. As will be detailed further, apart from Vicente’s dossier the rest of this ambitious list was systematically enforced by Lourenço after he became the president. This came as a surprise and in May 2017 was unforeseeable. At that time, the prevailing mood was unenthusiastic. Lourenço made his speeches. The MPLA party met the mobilization minimums, but no miracles were expected. The opposition, in turn, complained about the use of the state to promote the government’s candidate. Society was agitated. Judges are an example of the agitation from a class that was to be under great turbulence under Lourenço. In the very same month of May 2017, an application from the Angolan Judges Association, representing more than 80 per cent of Angolan judges, was filed at the Luanda Provincial Court, with a view to proceed with a ‘judicial notification’ to the government of the Republic of Angola. The request of the judges was crystal clear: that the law be fulfilled. They wanted the minister of finance and justice to comply with the law. Angolan judges claimed that various legally provided subsidies and other instruments necessary to carry out their work were not being made available by the political power. According to the judges’ description, it would not be long before they would be living in houses without electricity and water, and they would not be able to go to court because they had no car nor any other means of transport. The picture of illegalities that the judges outlined in relation to their treatment by the state was shocking. In addition to the various problems mentioned in the court application, there were others that starkly showed the lack of material conditions for the exercise of this constitutional function of sovereignty. The judges mentioned that, since 2013, they had been obliged to personally cover expenses for work materials. Specifically: paper, ink cartridges, photocopies of the processed sheets (with letterheads of various court models), bailiffs’ travels for summons and notifications, purchase of mobile phones and a monthly recharge plan to assist in summons/notifications, fuel for generators in the courtrooms where they presided. The Julgado de Menores (Children’s Court), located at Zango 3, in Viana, had been without regular electricity during daytime office hours, which made it impossible for judges to carry out their duties, forcing them to hand-write hearings, including interrogations, instructions, procedural instruction and social inquiries. The generator was out of order.

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The deplorable situation of the judges, although remarkable since they were one of the supposed state powers, was not unique. Strikes in other services of the judiciary, as well as in education and health, were a constant during that year, demonstrating a crumbling edifice of power. Most probably that was the reason for the absence of dos Santos in Lourenço’s electoral campaign. He was only present at the last mass gathering at the end of August, just a few days before the election. In that rally, in the suburbs of Luanda, the then president, looking tired, spoke monotonously for a few minutes, predicting and supporting Lourenço’s victory. Following this, he immediately left the podium, without listening to the candidate’s speech of thanks. There was no human relation between them. The review of the images of this rally demonstrates the total discomfort among the two men who were already avoiding each other, even though these details went unnoticed in the face of the intense propaganda of the MPLA and the preconceived notion of political analysts that Lourenço was ‘more of the same’. Several relevant happenings occurred during the electoral campaign, of which there are two that deserve mention. One was a thorough piece of research conducted by Expansão, an Angolan economics magazine, about the ‘antenna use’ of the different political parties.40 According to the study, the disparity of attention given by the Angolan media to the different political forces was absolutely shocking. Televisão Pública de Angola – TPA (State TV): MPLA : 190 min (61.9 per cent) UNITA : 41 min (13.1 per cent) CASA-CE : 38 min (12.2 per cent) PRS : 17 min (5.4 per cent) FNLA : 16 min (4.8 per cent) APN : 11 min (3.5 per cent) TV Zimbo (Private TV) : MPLA : 184 min (64.8 per cent) UNITA : 37 min (12.8 per cent) PRS : 28 min (9.7 per cent) FNLA : 16 min (5.5 per cent) CASA-CE : 12 min (4.1 per cent) APN : 11 min (3.9 per cent)

Expansão, 28 July 2017.

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Rádio Nacional de Angola – RNA (State radio): MPLA: 145 min (58 per cent) UNITA: 36 min (14.4 per cent) PRS: 28 min (11.2 per cent) FNLA: 17 min (6.8 per cent) CASA-CE: 13 min (5.2 per cent) APN: 11 min (4.4 per cent)

There was no doubt that these numbers were unconstitutional, and this practice represented a disrespect for fundamental Angolan law. Article 44 of the Constitution states that the State must ensure pluralism of expression and the existence of an independent functioning of public radio and television service. In turn, Article 45 confers airtime to political parties. In an election campaign, it was stated that there must be equal treatment for the contending political forces. Nevertheless, it was useless to complain to the Electoral Commission, as the MPLA’s majority assured that no remedy would be applied. The other significant fact was a poll. A forecast of the election results in August, allegedly commissioned by the president, revealed the projected victory of the MPLA, with only 38 per cent of the votes. UNITA obtained 32 per cent of the voting intentions, while CASA-CE followed UNITA with 26 per cent. An overwhelming 91 per cent of respondents considered that their leaders gave priority to their own personal interests over the well-being of the state and of the population. The survey was conducted by the Brazilian company Sensus, Research and Consulting, in the eighteen provinces of the country. In all, according to the results which I had access to, 9,155 registered individuals were included, classified as voters with different levels of education and from different social classes. Sensus was the company usually contracted by dos Santos, MPLA and by Sonangol since 2012. After the results of the poll were published by several social media entities, the government came out publicly to deny the poll’s existence, disavowing having commissioned it, and assuring the public that it had never happened. This was Angolan fake news. And the campaign continued with varying indications of preparation for manipulation, or at least, confusion created to allow for fraud if necessary. The opposition, to no avail, publicly denounced the government declaring that they were having difficulties in the accreditation process of their list of delegates; that the polling stations were distant from the electors’ place of residence in zones where opposition parties expected good results; the circuit of transmission of ballot data and election results was not clear and safe; access to the polling room was limited at all levels; the sleepy position of the CNE in the face of the lack of

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exemption from the public media, especially TPA and RNA, when broadcasting their news; and the lack of safety procedures in relation to sensitive material. On 23 August 2017, the elections took place. The first positive aspect to mention was that they ran in a peaceful and orderly manner, something that was becoming a constant in Angola. The second aspect, this one negative, was the widespread idea that another electoral fraud had been repeated. Electoral fraud is a sophisticated process that is not limited to stuffing ballot boxes with votes. At least in Angola, it is not such an obvious mechanism. There, electoral fraud has a long history of using sophisticated procedures involving different phases and strategies. A possible classification and analysis of the fraud process is as follows: The first strategy of electoral fraud is to control the framework. Control of the framework means that the governing party has effective dominion over all institutions participating in the electoral process: Constitutional Court; National Electoral Commission; Ministry of Territorial Administration; and media outlets. Therefore, legal dominance, operational control and discipline of freedom of expression depend on the governing party. The Constitutional Court, which has the last word in political-electoral disputes, is made up of eleven judges. Of these, four (including the president of the court) are appointed by the president of the Republic, and four by the National Assembly, where the MPLA permanently has always had two-thirds of the appointed deputies. Thus, at least eight out of eleven judges are appointed by the governing party, without any contradictory or, confirmatory hearing, or public scrutiny. Impartiality from the highest court in the country cannot be assured. The National Electoral Commission is responsible for organizing the electoral process and is made up of seventeen members, of whom sixteen are appointed by the National Assembly by an absolute majority of the deputies in office, following the principles of the majority and respect for parliamentary minorities. This means that the twothirds majority held by the ruling party in the Assembly is repeated in the CNE. The Ministry of Territorial Administration is an auxiliary organ of the president of the Republic; it does not have any autonomy. It oversees the electoral register. Finally, there is the media. Except for digital media, whose scope is limited to the population with internet access, all other media is dominated, directly or indirectly, by the government. Thus, it is clear that the ruling party has complete control over the electoral framework. Law enforcement, election organization of elections and electoral registration are all under MPLA’s control. The second aspect of electoral fraud is micro-obstruction. Microobstruction means raising small obstacles that prevent effective electoral

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scrutiny, demobilizing voters, creating laziness or demotivation, so that only the disciplined and ‘herded’ members of the ruling party go to polling stations. This category includes deliberate delays in circulating the electoral roll, certification difficulties for the list of opposition party delegates, and ‘errors’ in the lists, making people vote a 1,000 kilometres away from their homes, among other details. The third aspect is the control of the core action. The essential core of voting occurs at polling stations. And according to the Organic Law on General Elections, the key moment in the tabulation of results takes place at the polling stations themselves. It is here that the count is made, and the results verified. This is the basis of the electoral process. However, there is no credibility or reliability regarding this. For example, a particular political force may have ten votes at the polling station, but there is nothing to prevent it from coming up with twenty votes in the Municipal Processing Centre, where the audits and verification controls start. And that will be the result: twenty votes, not ten. The twenty votes will then be certified throughout the system until the end, but they are wrong, because the true account was ten, and there was no system in place to verify such incongruencies. The fourth and last essential aspect is the control of information technology (IT). By controlling IT systems – which the ruling party had done by hiring companies it trusted, already involved in previous election processes and suspected of past fraud (Indra and Sinfic) – the election process can be managed in the simplest way. In short, these are the four steps that exist to consummate sophisticated fraud in Angolan elections: 1) 2) 3) 4)

Control of the framework; Micro-obstruction; Control of the core voting base; Control of information technologies.

In 2017, initially the opposition contestation against the results was intense since the first numbers they received gave them a victory. However, the tone was tempered over the following days and, albeit always claiming fraud, the opposition parties decided to follow due process and appeal to the Constitutional Court. At the end of August, the Constitutional Court gave a series of decisions concerning the elections that were all contrary to the wishes of the plaintiffs and favourable to the MPLA. Consequently, the official results were published. Lourenço was the new president of the Republic. His MPLA party obtained

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60.5 per cent of the votes which corresponded to 150 seats in parliament. The main opposition party, UNITA, achieved, 26.72 per cent, meaning 51 seats in the 220 seat-parliament. It must be noted that despite not reaching the magical number of two-thirds of popular votes, in effect, the MPLA continued with twothirds of deputies in parliament, and that is what counts. The curtain fell over the presidency of José Eduardo dos Santos. But unlike Emperor Augustus on his deathbed, it was not yet time for dos Santos to say: Acta est fabula.

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Dos Santos’s ties How to cut the Gordian knot?

Inauguration The 2017 elections that brought dos Santos’s defence minister, Lourenço, to the presidency took place under various accusations of fraud. However, the winner quickly became popular making several promises that matched the yearnings of the population: combating corruption and promoting economic development. So, he began his term with good expectations because of his insistent rhetoric. With these policies, Lourenço sought simultaneously to gain political legitimacy and strengthen his power. Concurrently, he wanted to free the economy from the oligarchical constraints posed by the previous holders of power and to create a good image abroad. A simple, but ambitious vision. Inauguration day, 26 September 2017. The sky was grey. The first lady, Ana Dias, dressed in light blue, brightened the leaden colour. The Agostinho Neto memorial, erected in honour of former president Agostinho Neto, where the inauguration ceremony of Lourenço was to take place, was adorned in national colours and with a wide hollywoodesque red carpet. The setting was grand but not extravagant. Sober and restrained. The bands marched, the invitees arrived. Then Lourenço appeared, lingering over formal greetings with the host of the ceremony, the president of the Constitutional Court, dos Santos’s former lawyer, Rui Ferreira. Finally, dos Santos’s convoy entered the complex. He slowly exited the car, reviewed the troops, greeted dignitaries. He gradually walked to the podium, paused, a last imperial moment leaving the future president waiting. The ceremony proceeded with dignity. Lourenço took the presidential oath, received the presidential medal from dos Santos and observed the military parade. Interestingly, throughout the day, dos Santos, usually impenetrable, became more affable and relaxed. Whatever the reason and the political calculation for

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his departure, there was a visible sign of personal relief. This is noticeable as the images of the day can be seen, right up until the farewell in the presidential palace, when dos Santos’s smile is wide. What most marked the inauguration were the speeches. The speech of the host of the ceremony, the aforementioned Judge Rui Ferreira, was famous for his exhortation, ‘Do it, Mr. President, fight corruption!’1 In turn, Lourenço made it perfectly clear in his speech that his priorities were the fight against corruption and economic recovery. Despite these encouraging rhetorical pieces, the uncertainty was strong, mostly among the opposition parties, civil society, and even those in the MPLA that aimed for a reformist process. Everyone still remembered that this election had had too many incidents of possible fraud and the speech of then President dos Santos, at the opening ceremony of the 6th Ordinary MPLA Congress in December 2009, proclaiming, ‘We must not support the corruption or misappropriation of means from the public purse or party.’2 The story that then followed is well known. The 2009 speech was a kind of a starting shot for a rampant increase in corruption. Now, everyone in Luanda posed the same question: Are the promises of the new president to be taken seriously? The doubts were no mere Cartesian methodical doubts. In the same speech, where the new president extolled the virtues of the rule of law, of fighting against corruption, of freedom of expression, he decided to lambast Portugal by deliberating excluding its mention when enumerating the countries to which Angola would give primacy. The exclusion of Portugal from the inauguration speech was not a question of blaming the former colonial power for its horrible genocidal slavery crimes over the centuries but had a more contemporary and practical aspect. Lourenço wanted to protect Vicente, the former vice president and Sonangol CEO, and avoid his trial in a Portuguese court, as was the intention of the Portuguese judicial authorities. This stance created real cynicism about Lourenço’s true animus. If he really wanted to fight corruption, then he should be the first to promote Vicente’s trial, to set a real example of the fight against corruption. After all, according to several individuals in Angola, even Isabel dos Santos, it had been Vicente’s mischief that had driven Sonangol to bankruptcy. By penalizing a country with which he should cooperate in order to try to bring the corrupt to justice, Lourenço demonstrated that his speech was just that: a speech. The question of Vicente was to be a perturbation in the relationship between Angola and Portugal in the first months of the new presidency, and it Author’s free translation. Author’s free translation.

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has been a permanent ‘Achilles heel’ in any evaluation of Lourenço’s fight against corruption.

Angola 2017: Economic suffocation and the immense burden of corruption The main challenge confronting Lourenço was the vast economic crisis that had devastated the country since 2014. In 2017, the economy had stagnated, its growing ratio being negative, -0.1 per cent, inflation was threatening to reach 40 per cent per year, public debt was rising to nearly 65 per cent of GDP and climbing. The budget deficit was 5 per cent of GDP. Unemployment was exceedingly high, at least around 20 per cent. Worse, these statistics were not to be trusted, as the country did not have a very developed systematic methodology, and several expenses were excluded from the budget, consequently, debt, budget deficit and public expenses were higher than registered. The same happened with regard to unemployment. The country still had no access to dollars due to the ‘freeze’ imposed by the US banking system. Because it had no foreign currency, it had difficulties in importing the essential goods it did not produce. The price of oil helped a little, but not much. At the time of Lourenço’s inauguration, it was at US$56 per barrel and by the end of the year rose to US$66 per barrel. The beautiful buildings that framed the bay of Luanda were half empty, the construction boom had ended and left iron and glass towers that in the distance looked bright and resplendent, but close up, were skeletons of unfulfilled promises. Money was scarce. As Lourenço later stated, when he entered the palace, he found the coffers empty.3 A fact denied by the previous president – the only time he intervened forcefully and publicly to contradict his successor.4 And with Sonangol in near bankruptcy without giving the state any dividends, the country was almost bankrupt. Misery abounded. As an example, in September and October 2017, a serious outbreak of malaria affected the diamond region of Lunda Norte. The Cafunfo Regional Hospital, in the province, was unable to deal with the multitude of cases, as it did not even have syringes or medication to help the patients it João Lourenço, ‘Encontrámos os cofres vazios’, Jornal de Angola, 18 November 2018. Available online: http:​//jor​nalde​angol​a.sap​o.ao/​polit​ica/e​ncont​ramos​_os_c​ofres​_vazi​os (accessed 10 January 2020). 4 Dos Santos and José Eduardo, ‘Deixei 15 mil milhões nos cofres do BNA’, Lusa, 21 November 2020. Available online: https​://ww​w.pla​tafor​mamed​ia.co​m/pt-​pt/no​ticia​s/pol​itica​/deix​ei-15​-mil-​milho​ esnos​-cofr​es-do​-bna-​-1021​2337.​html (accessed 10 January 2020). 3

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received daily. The leading cause of child mortality was malaria. Even when family members brought their own medicines and syringes, there was no blood for transfusions. The hospital only had two permanent Angolan doctors, four North Korean expats and two collaborators from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Of these, only two were paediatricians (one North Korean and one Congolese). To make matters worse, and to add to the lack of essential means such as syringes and medication, from the beginning of October the hospital only had electricity – from a generator – between 5.00 pm and midnight. It had been months without electricity due to lack of fuel.5

The pungent reason to fight corruption At the same time, as described previously, embezzlement of public money and corruption were the most pervasive fact in Angola. The word ‘corruption’ had been used and abused, and to this extent, its mention often generated no more than a mere shrug. This should not be the case, relating to Angola, but it must also be explained exactly why corruption was (and is) considered a fundamental blockage in Angola’s development, and why the traditional means to combat it were ineffective. The traditional mechanism for combating corruption is based on the fact that corruption is considered a crime against the state. If anyone identifies a corrupt act, they are duty bound to report it and it is up to the judicial authorities to act. Inquiries are usually led by a state body that investigates these acts and charges the perpetrators of which will then be tried by a court of law. On paper this system seems very correct, and in many countries, it works. However, it did not function in Angola because often the corrupt were also those responsible for combating corruption. What to do when the corruption investigation depends on a corrupt attorney general? What can be done when the corruption trial depends on a corrupt judge? What can be done when a legislative assembly with corrupt deputies amnesties the corruption crimes that ruined a country? It is easily observable that corruption is not fought simply through its criminalization and its insertion in criminal proceedings. It is enough for the corrupt to control this system for nothing to work.

Rafael Marques de Morais, ‘Malária ceifa crianças em Cafunfo’, Maka Angola, 27 October 2017. Avai­ lable online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​7/10/​malar​ia-ce​ifa-c​rianc​as-em​-cafu​nfo/ (accessed 10 January 2020).

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The level of corruption in Angola because of its gigantism had become the main obstacle to development, and the leading cause of poverty and death in the country. The reasons are obvious. The resources of a country are always scarce. Making good use of those resources is called economics. At any given time, a country has a fixed number of resources that it will use. It is from this utilization of resources that either development or stagnation will result. There are options to be taken. Imagine that the wealth that a country produces in a year is equal to US$100. If US$100 is applied to schools, hospitals, education, roads, the country develops, and people live better. If the US$100 is applied to corruption, in private illicit negotiations, in illicit and obscure schemes, then there is no money for hospitals or schools, and the country languishes. The question is where to apply the US$100. In Angola, the answer has been to apply this to corrupt practices. Therefore, corruption is not innocent. Corruption kills. In Angola there is enormous corruption, the money that should have been channelled to hospitals or medicines was diverted into the pockets of the leadership. Consider the successive health crises that Angola has been going through. The 2016 yellow fever crisis was a national disaster. The campaign against malaria had to be funded by the United States. And even then, a good part of the funds was diverted by high-ranking officers in the Ministry of Health.6 The existential issue was that it was not a single episode, but a systemic practice, inspired by supreme leadership. Lourenço’s task was not an easy one, and time will tell if he is fit for the Herculean task he confronted.

The Vicente case: Lourenço’s ‘Achilles heel’ It is the immensity of Lourenço’s endeavours that make his initial obsession with the accusations against Vicente in Portugal somewhat peculiar. Or perhaps not. To recap this case, remember that it began publicly in February 2016, and the focal point was an accusation that Vicente, then vice president of Angola, when he was CEO of Sonangol had corrupted Portuguese prosecutor, Orlando Figueira, to terminate economic and financial investigations raised against him in Portugal.

Moiani Matondo, ‘O caso da malária e o Estado de Direito’, Maka Angola, 12 December 2017. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​7/12/​o-cas​o-da-​malar​ia-e-​o-est​ado-d​e- direito/ (accessed 5 November 2019).

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In the first phase, still in the time of dos Santos, the Angolan authorities were silent about the case. The Angolan ambassador in Lisbon even stated that it was good custom not to interfere in matters that were being dealt with by the proper organs of each country. In early 2017, the Portuguese prosecutors’ department accused Figueira, Vicente and two others. Vicente’s reputation was in tatters and the Angolan government began to change its position. The new Angolan reaction was made public by the Ministry of Foreign Relations, on 24 February 2017, in a statement distributed to Angolan and Portuguese press.7 In the statement, the Angolan ministry described the way the Portuguese authorities had disclosed the indictment of the vice president of Angola to the press as ‘unfriendly and unreasonable’, and warned that the charges threatened bilateral relations. The document stated that the Angolan authorities were informed ‘with great concern, through the Portuguese media’ of the accusation made by the Portuguese Public Prosecutor’s Office ‘for alleged criminal acts attributed to the engineer Manuel Vicente’. Furthermore, the ministry strongly protested against the indictment itself, declaring that it was made by ‘forces interested in disturbing or even destroying the friendly relations existing between the two States’. According to the Angolan government, the way the news was transmitted constituted a ‘serious attack on the Republic of Angola, which could disturb the relations between the two States’. As the statement said: ‘It is clear that whenever these relations stabilise and reach new heights, pseudo-facts are created that are prejudicial to the true interests of the two countries, menacing the sovereignty of Angola.’8 On top of the statement, the Angolan government immediately took two symbolic political steps. The first was to postpone sine die the visit to Angola of the then Portuguese minister of Justice, Francisca Van Dunem, which had been planned to start at the end of February. The importance of this visit exceeded the normal relationship, as Francisca Van Dunem was the first Portuguese minister of Justice with Angolan origins, being the sister of José Van Dunem, one of the people executed without trial in Luanda in May 1977 in a supposedly botched coup d’état against Agostinho Neto, Angola’s first president of the Republic. Thus, this trip represented a sheer moment of reconciliation between Angolans among themselves, and Angolans and Portuguese. At the same time, the official visit of the Portuguese prime minister António Costa to Angola scheduled for Agência Lusa, ‘Governo angolano: Acusação a Manuel Vicente ameaça relações com Portugal’, DW, 24 February 2017, http:​//www​.dw.c​om/pt​-002/​gover​no-an​golan​o-acu​sa per centC3 per centA7 per centC3 per centA3o-a-manuel-vicente-amea per centC3 per centA7a-rela per centC3 per centA7 per centC3 per centB5es-com-portugal/a-37708849 (accessed 26 September 2017). 8 Idem. 7

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April/May 2017 was also postponed. Second, Angola refused to comply with the rogatory letter sent by Portugal to announce the official notice of the indictment of the vice president. In February 2017, the Portuguese Attorney General’s Office sent the rogatory letter to request the assistance of its Angolan counterpart in giving Vicente the official notice of the charges brought against him in Portugal. The Angolan authorities found that Portugal’s request for assistance ‘offends the sovereignty’ of the country, since Angolan law granted Vicente, as vice president, the right to immunity ratione personae. Such status, the Angolans argued, was absolute. That is, it was equally valid in any international criminal jurisdiction.9 In their closing response, the Angolan judicial authorities suggested the Portuguese judiciary consider the possibility of transferring the lawsuit against Vicente to Angolan jurisdiction, so that it could be resolved in the country. Nevertheless, the criminal procedure continued its unflappable pace in Portuguese courts, and Vicente ceased to be vice president on 26 September 2017. At that time Angolan political pressure was raised to new heights. The Angolan government threatened to cut off diplomatic relations with Portugal and to file a complaint for breach of international law, all due to the referred case. Such threats were part of a note reputedly sent by Angola’s government to the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.10 In it the Angolan government warned that [T]he Portuguese authorities embark on a manifestly political route that translates into an unfriendly act incompatible with the spirit and the letter of equal relations, the only ones that can guide the development of friendship and cooperation between the two mutually respectful sovereign states.

The note from the Angolan Ministry of Foreign Affairs aimed to ‘vehemently protest and repudiate this procedure practised by Portuguese judicial bodies, which it considers to be an unfriendly act that damages Angolan sovereignty’. Again, it was claimed that the vice president of Angola ‘enjoys immunity under international law and the Angolan Constitution’ and can only respond to the Angolan justice system. The diplomatic note added: The Angolan State, to safeguard its sovereignty, national independence and dignity, reserves the right to adopt in its defence pertinent and necessary measures, either through direct negotiation with the Portuguese authorities or

This is not the dominant legal opinion. Note from the Mirex-Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Republic of Portugal leaked to press, Luís Claro, Angola. Luanda ameaça romper relações diplomáticas com Portugal, I (Lisboa, 26 September 2017), 2.

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through mechanisms of international responsibility, in view of the continuous illegal international act practised by the Portuguese Republic.11

What is interesting to highlight, was that it took an entire year, from February 2016 until February 2017, for the Angolan authorities to react properly. That was enough time to embarrass Vicente in Luanda and to ensure that he was not even considered as a possible candidate for president of the Republic, and also lost control of Sonangol. The closer it got to Lourenço’s inauguration, the more Angolan pressure against Portugal intensified. The peak of this tension was the, previously mentioned, omission of Portugal as a priority country in Lourenço’s first speech. Following that day, Angola’s insistence on this point was permanent and led to a kind of ‘freezing’ of relations with Portugal. Symptomatically, at the end of November 2017, the Angolan foreign minister warned that as long as the Vicente case remained unresolved, Angola would not make any move in cooperation with Portugal, always defending the transfer of the process involving Vicente to the Angolan justice system, assuring, altogether, that Angola would easily survive a crisis of relations with Portugal. In January 2018, Lourenço himself unambiguously classified the attitude of the Portuguese justice system as an offence to Angola and asserted that relations with Portugal would greatly depend on the resolution of the case around the former vice president. This was too much for the dependent former colonial power, and in May 2018, Portuguese judiciary obliged, having Lisbon Court of Appeal send the Vicente case to Angola, after it previously, in January, had been detached from the main file. And so, it went to Angola. What is particularly interesting is that it was Lourenço’s commitment to the case, even threatening to break relations with Portugal, that led to the outcome that was intended for the legal process, that is, it was sent to Luanda for possible adjudication. Here was a sheer situation of state and sovereign protection of Vicente. As an additional note it must be emphasized that the Portuguese prosecutor, Figueira, was sentenced to actual imprisonment in Portugal awaiting the outcome of the appeal, so it can be presumed with some certainty that if Vicente had been tried in Lisbon, he would have been convicted as well. In the end, this was a stark victory for Lourenço. Victory over Portugal. Angola had demonstrated its power and ability to bend Portugal to its will, a country increasingly dependent on Angola’s economic and financial interests.

Idem.

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By forcing Portugal to bow to his demands, Lourenço consolidated his power and popularity internally. After all, he was the man who put his foot down against the former colonial power and won. This made Lourenço a popular hero, a kind of Queen Nzinga of our times. But, at the same time, an uncomfortable question persisted – Why was Lourenço protecting one of the allegedly most corrupt people in the country? Maussion, in her recent book, contends that Vicente was a valuable ally, who had several files on dos Santos peoples’ past misdeeds and knew the intricacies of power very well. Furthermore, like Rockefeller in the old days, Vicente had a splendid foreign network. Therefore, it was important for Lourenço to be able to count on him.12 Whatever the motives for Lourenço’s support, the truth was that when opposing Lourenço’s policies and acts against corruption, people always posited that the prosecution was selective as some would be pursued, and others would benefit from clemency. Perhaps the truth is a little more complex. The fact is that Isabel dos Santos’s animosity towards Vicente was, and continues to be, very intense. This enmity pushed Vicente into the arms of Lourenço as an important initial ally. Yet, Vicente had already been dispossessed of some assets due to the direct policies of the new president, as in the case of his participation in Banco Económico and at media group Media Nova, and most likely if he did not proceed with an effective repatriation of capital he could also end up being criminally accused in Angola. In this sense, it seems more plausible to consider that the insistence upon bringing Vicente’s trial to Luanda obeyed strategic and not merely circumstantial objectives. First, conducting the case in Luanda gave a direct instrument of Angolan controlled pressure on Vicente to dismantle his alleged illicit businesses, and second, it constitutes a sheer affirmation of Angolan sovereignty. In any circumstance should a foreign country be judging Angola’s former high dignitaries? Such actions are the sole responsibility of the sovereign nation that is Angola. In fact, later, in late 2019, the same reasoning was at the basis of the recommendation that the government made to dos Santos, self-exiled in Barcelona, asking him to return to Luanda, since he was in danger of being arrested by order of a criminal investigation that was being carried out by the Monaco authorities.

The first cabinet and nominations: Delusional continuity After his inauguration, the first relevant appointments Lourenço made were obviously those of his executive. According to the Angolan constitution, Mausion, La Dos Santos Company, cit., 167.

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members of the government do not have powers of their own, nor do they constitute a collective like the British cabinet. They are mere assistants to the president. There was, of course, a positive surprise, the departure of General Kopelipa from the post of Minister of State and Security. In a stroke of a pen, the almighty Kopelipa was totally removed from power. However, apart from this indication, Lourenço’s other appointments seemed to indicate continuity. Reference will be made to just four important positions: ●●

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Minister of State and head of the Security House of the president of the Republic; Minister of State and Chief of Staff of the president of the Republic; Minister of the Interior; Minister of Finance.

With regard to the finance and interior ministers, there was nothing new to remark upon. The incumbents kept their positions. Nevertheless, as mentioned, one of the few significant changes was Kopelipa’s departure from the security services. His replacement was General Pedro Sebastião. But General Sebastião raised some eyebrows. Some years before, he was defence minister and governor of the Zaire Province. As a minister, he had gained a reputation for being heavyhanded, but worse, when governing the Zaire Province, he was associated with the infamous Escom and the Espírito Santo businesses in Angola (former owners of BESA). Apparently, Escom had made a partnership with the then Zaire governor general Sebastião in order to benefit from the billion-dollar natural liquefied gas project (LNG-Angola). The general held 52.5 per cent of the shares in each of the companies created in partnership with Escom, namely Soyo Investimentos, Imozaire and Turisoyo. Nonetheless, during the initial years, as Lourenço’s minister no wrongdoing was attributed to him and he was very discreet. Although, when COVID-19 erupted in Angola and the minister was part of a multi-sectoral commission to fight the pandemic, accusations of personal enrichment with the logistics regarding the combat against coronavirus emerged. As Minister of State and Chief of Staff of the president of the Republic, Frederico Manuel dos Santos e Silva Cardoso was appointed. Cardoso had previously served as dos Santos’s Chief of Staff from 2008 to 2010. In this position, he was tagged by his incompetence, and rapidly dismissed. Aside from this, he was a partner in some of the companies accused by the opposition of contributing to electoral fraud. In 2008, then as director of Valleysoft, Cardoso was one of the pivotal points of that year’s electoral fraud, having been seemingly

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rewarded with the post of Chief of Staff of the president of the Republic, as argued by opposition politicians at the time.13 Valleysoft, of which Cardoso was a partner and manager, formed a consortium with the infamous Spanish company Indra to provide technological solutions for the electoral process. The initial cost of the contract was US$61 million, but it was soon inflated to US$200 million. Cardoso did not last as a minister. Lourenço dismissed him in 2020; he was an extremely low-profile minister. The minister and cabinet director of President Lourenço, Edeltrudes Maurício Fernandes Gaspar da Costa, was another recycled former Chief of Staff under dos Santos. Da Costa ended his previous ministerial career after being involved in the land-grabbing scandal of a poor peasant – Helena Teka – in an ineffable situation. Da Costa was to be, generally, under attack from the media due to his past dealings. He was very unpopular and created a lot of trouble for Lourenço. The finance minister and interior minister were also kept from dos Santos’s previous government, albeit Lourenço dismissed both after a couple of years. All the fundamental posts in government were given to former dos Santos’s personnel, and mainly people that, in one way or another, were involved in corruption scandals. The first snapshot of the executive was of decaying continuity. Although a large part of the ministers were to be removed after a year or so, the fact is that Lourenço merely recycled former ministers from the existing cadre, being unable, with a few exceptions, to recruit capable technicians or notorious members from the civil society. This is still a problem, after several ministerial changes. Of more remark than the executive appointments were the appointments of the judiciary. The top tier of the judiciary has two courts, the Supreme Court that deals with all ordinary matters and the Constitutional Court, responsible for the compliance and application of the constitution. Each of these courts was chaired by a trusted ally of dos Santos, not career judges. In an absurd move, Lourenço changed them round. The president of the Supreme Court became the president of the Constitutional Court and the president of the Constitutional Court became president of the Supreme Court. Initially, Lourenço did not interfere with dos Santos’s nominations, namely his children, Isabel dos Santos at Sonangol and José Filomeno at the Sovereign Fund. Although not a month had passed when a rapid transformation began, it seemed that Lourenço had found Alexander’s sword and had begun to cut through the various Gordian knots he faced. Interview with UNITA politician.

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Breaking the mould Lourenço acts

Embarrassing surprises On the second day of his presidency, Lourenço was deeply humiliated by Isabel dos Santos and her father, and his authority over Sonangol was, apparently, put in check. On 28 September 2017, the media loudly announced a profound reshuffle of Sonangol’s board of directors. This refurbishment seemed to be one of Lourenço’s first steps, which was logical, since Sonangol was and is primarily responsible for financing the Angolan state, over which the newly inaugurated Lourenço would preside. And if so, it seemed that Lourenço’s policy towards Sonangol was to reinforce the power of Isabel dos Santos, given that the recent nominations were from either dos Santos’s faithful allies or from her circle of power. However, a careful reading of the presidential decrees1 that dismissed and then appointed the members of the new board of directors showed a singularity: the decrees were published on 26 September – that is, on the day of Lourenço’s inauguration – but were signed by the previous president, dos Santos, on 21 September. As a result, Lourenço had not defined the new management for Sonangol, nor had he reinforced Isabel dos Santos’s powers. It was, as always, dos Santos, caring for his daughter’s interests and reinforcing her role in Sonangol. As an example of Isabel dos Santos’s reinforcement of powers, Article 2 of the aforementioned decree gave her the power to define the responsibilities of the members of the company’s board of directors, a task previously performed by the president of the Republic. Consequently, she had absorbed anterior presidential powers. Days before his departure, dos Santos not only reinforced his daughter’s powers but also appointed another handful of his acolytes to the Sonangol board of directors, surreptitiously withdrawing powers from Lourenço and handing them over to Isabel dos Santos. Presidential Decree 220/17 of 26 September.

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The move had the mastery of a chess champion: Isabel dos Santos announced a reshuffle of Sonangol supposedly endorsed by Lourenço and serving to reinforce her powers. She now had the power to organize the board of directors as she saw fit, without requiring the authorization of the president of the Republic. And Lourenço was expected to stay silent. The alternative was to immediately disavow the former president and repeal his decree. And, although legally he could do so, politically that would mean clashing with his hierarchical superior in the party. Dos Santos was still president of MPLA. As vice president of MPLA, Lourenço was number two, therefore being a president of the Republic reporting to dos Santos who had decided to retreat to the backstage. Initially, Lourenço had to swallow his pride and accept Isabel dos Santos’s reinforcement of powers within Sonangol, pretending that he had not been deeply humiliated. Lourenço’s original strategy is not known. Appearances seemed to indicate an overly cautious approach to the exercise of power, with minor surgical changes but no unnecessary ruptures. In this manner, the composition of the new government can be evaluated, Kopelipa removed from security, balanced with a widespread reappointment of dos Santos’s faithful allies. In Sonangol’s case, it looked like the same principle was applied. Isabel dos Santos remained. A junior oil minister, Carlos Saturnino, previously sacked by her from Sonangol, was reappointed. It was he who would check her. This judicious approach was going to change swiftly. Most probably there were two reasons that led Lourenço to modify his initial stance. The first was the aforementioned strengthening of Isabel dos Santos’s powers in Sonangol, hastily decided by her father in the last days of his presidency. The other motive was also related to another last-minute decision of dos Santos, which was a financial operation that could be summarized as an emptying of public coffers before Lourenço’s inauguration. The story is amazingly simple. During the previous August, a transfer of US$500 million was made from the National Bank of Angola (BNA) to a London banking account, as a guarantee for an alleged financing of US$30 billion. Apparently, the operation was ordered by President dos Santos and involved his son, and chairman of the Sovereign Fund, José Filomeno, and the governor of the central bank, Valter Filipe. This would produce one of the first big criminal investigations into corruption under Lourenço’s term as president. Surely, with all these revelations, Lourenço understood, that unless he acted, his presidency would be an empty exercise; in the end, a total failure. And he acted expeditiously. Filipe, the hapless governor of the central bank, was dismissed at the end of October, and at the beginning of November, it was the turn of Isabel dos Santos. She was bluntly ousted from Sonangol. In less than a

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month, Lourenço, like a bulldozer, broke the ‘iron circle’ with which dos Santos had encircled him. Paradoxically, it was the tailor-made constitution that had given excessive powers to dos Santos, making him an imperial president, which permitted Lourenço, by using the same powers without limit, to break the mould in which he had been placed. These removals were received with broad applause and gave Lourenço the kind of popularity and substantive legitimacy that he did not have before. Everything was now deemed possible. A certain characteristic of Lourenço’s initial designations still prevailed. No new faces were picked. Saturnino, named to chair Sonangol, was Lourenço’s junior oil minister and had been dismissed by Isabel dos Santos some months before from a high-ranking post at Sonangol on serious charges: despite that they were never substantiated. He returned now without the accusations having been clarified one way or another. Isabel dos Santos dismissed Saturnino. Lourenço reinstated Saturnino. The question remained: Was Saturnino or was he not incompetent and corrupt? The role of Lourenço in the Vicente case, and the appointment of former senior regime officials to new positions, seemed like a game of musical chairs but not a marked substitution of the political personnel. From the outset, this led to two interpretations of Lourenço’s actions. One group believed that the new president was starting a process of reform and real transition, and that these appointments were tactical acts, intended to involve people acquainted with the dossiers for the transformation. Without a few reality-conscious cadre on his side, Lourenço would not have been able to wield power. Accordingly, it was necessary to rely on the old collaborators to build a new alternative. In the end Lourenço was attempting to create a new paradigm for Angola. Another perspective argued that Lourenço was merely in power to exercise it according to his personal interests, and that dismissals and appointments were mere processes of consolidation of power, nothing more. A raw view of power struggles. Despite several doubts, one conclusion can be reached. After just two months into his presidency Lourenço was displaying a surprising behaviour – he appeared to mean what he had said in the electoral campaign. The fight against corruption had begun.

The fight against corruption: Initial chapters The initial case against corruption, which defined the methods of the fight against corruption that Lourenço would use hereafter, was the one referred to earlier

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regarding the transfer, in August 2019, of US$500 million from the central bank in Luanda to a private account in London. As highlighted earlier, on 27 October 2017, such an act caused the resignation of the then governor of the National Bank, Valter Filipe. The operation turned out to be a scam inside the Angolan state, authorized by dos Santos, whose pivot was his son and president of the Sovereign Fund of Angola, José Filomeno. In the summer of 2017, Filipe, the then-BNA governor, and Finance Minister Archer Mangueira attended a meeting convened by dos Santos. The then president handed a dossier to each of them. He asked them to read it right there and confirm that they understood its contents. It was an international proposal to guarantee credit to Angola with a limit of up to US$30 billion. Afterwards, dos Santos called the bearer of the proposal to the room: his son José Filomeno. Dos Santos ordered the minister and the governor to accompany his son on that very same night to London in a chartered plane, to start negotiations with the proponents. José Filomeno was accompanied by his childhood friend and business partner Jorge Gaudens Pontes Sebastião. In London, they then contacted the proposing company. During the negotiations, José Filomeno and Jorge Sebastião took part in the meeting as members of the foreign team, while dos Santos’s subordinates represented, on the other side of the table, the Angolan state. Mangueira, to his credit, found it strange that the said group had the capacity to raise, in the international financial market, credit for Angola worth up to US$30 billion. This figure was far above Angola’s reserves and roughly corresponded to 25 per cent of the country’s GDP. In turn, Filipe said that he had read the proposal and that he would take it to the experts for a proper analysis, from which he could prepare an opinion and return it to dos Santos. Back in Luanda, Mangueira drafted his own negative report regarding the operation and called Filipe to support him with his signature, which was declined. Mangueira, alone, gave a negative opinion on the proposal without requiring technical analysis, and brought it directly to the president’s table. In opposition, Filipe gathered his experts and representatives of José Filomeno at BNA. They elaborated a favourable technical report and sent it to President dos Santos. With both reports in hand, dos Santos promptly chose the document signed by Filipe. A commission was then created to continue the negotiations. The ‘foreign’ side requested, as a guarantee of the financing, that BNA transfer US$500 million to its account. Filipe communicated the request to dos Santos, who gave the green light to the transfer. On 7 August, BNA’s Banking Operations department made the transfer. Zealous Filipe sent the proof of transfer to the president.

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Not even two months later, in his first audience with the new president, Mangueira described the precarious state of public finances and informed the new president about the negotiations to obtain credit involving José Filomeno and Filipe. He made it known that he did not believe in the proposal and that he had been removed from the negotiations. Lourenço acted rapidly, and designated Mangueira to lead the negotiations. A meeting was held on 23 October 2017, with the presence of Mangueira, Filipe, two advisors from the Ministry of Finance and two others from BNA. As before, at these meetings, José Filomeno and his friend Jorge Sebastião negotiated as members of the foreign party. This time, however, Mangueira had already received a notification sent by the British authorities to the Angolan Financial Intelligence Unit. In this notification, the British authorities inquired about the transfer made by the BNA. During the meeting, Mangueira spoke about the scrupulous rules of the new president and that his technicians had demonstrated how the proposed agreement was harmful to the Angolan state. Empowered, the finance minister made it known that the state would not continue such negotiations and that he would give his opinion to President Lourenço. The next day, on 24 October, Mangueira delivered his opinion to the president. Lourenço acted decisively. He summoned the governor, ordered the abortion of the operation for lack of seriousness and credibility of the foreign negotiators and initiated the immediate opening of procedures to return the US$500 million. Then, he invited the governor Filipe to resign.2 Once the political decisions were taken, the matter was handed over to the judicial authorities for criminal investigation. Therefore, some ten months later, on 29 August 2018, the prosecutor of the Republic João Luís de Freitas Coelho produced the prosecution in the so-called case of US$500 million. The charges involved José Filomeno for crimes of criminal association, falsification, influence peddling, fraud and money laundering; and Filipe (former governor of the central bank) for crimes of criminal association, embezzlement and money laundering. In addition to these two public figures, Jorge Sebastião, José Filomeno’s childhood friend and partner in various activities, and António Samalia Bule Manuel, director of the Reserve Management Department at BNA, were also charged with similar crimes. The essence of the accusation was clear and comprehensible. The accused colluded to deceive the president of the Republic and the Angolan state, with the aim of appropriating at least US$500 million belonging to the Angolan treasury, each playing a different but complementary This account is the result of the summary of court testimonies as well of interviews of people close to some of the main actors.

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role in achieving this objective.3 The text of the prosecution was short (eighteen pages and fifty-seven articles), and easily comprehended. The only flaw of the accusation is the omission of the role of the former President dos Santos. He acquiesced to the proposal and gave the orders. This absence was problematic. How can the subordinates be held accountable if the most important decisionmaker is not part of the trial? These events are very demonstrative of President Lourenço’s acting method. He was and is quick to make decisions, especially to lay people off. After removing them, he turned the matter over to the judicial authorities to be investigated and prosecuted. The case of the ‘US$500 million’ would be a blueprint for further accusations and behaviour in similar cases: first, dismiss, second, wait for the prosecutors to act. To enact this method, he did not make any new laws, nor establish any new service, he used the existent laws and structures, which is the reason why the range of this system is necessarily limited. Another case that was notorious at the time, and which was also presented as part of the anti-corruption drive, was the so-called Thai Swindle. In fact, this was a normal criminal case, where due to political circumstances and some excess zeal from the prosecutors, public figures were involved, to be later totally exempted and acquitted. On 15 June 2018, the prosecution brought the charge against the so-called Thai Swindle group. Several Thai, Angolan and other foreign nationals were indicted for crimes including criminal association, forgery and a frustrated swindle. The facts presented in the case file were somewhat peculiar, with no significant loss of wealth for the state or for third parties. In fact, it was a story of appearances and contacts, and a little more. This would be the first mega process against corruption and impunity of the new era announced by Lourenço. Two truly relevant Angolan personalities emerged. First, General Geraldo Nunda, a former chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, who was dismissed because of this process and is now the Angolan Ambassador in London. Second, the former director of the Private Investment Technical Unit of the presidency of the Republic, Norberto Garcia, who then held the position of MPLA spokesman and was a member of its Political Bureau. The facts and situation concerning General Nunda were easy to analyse. Given the Files of the case in my personal archive, Moiani Matondo, ‘Zenú e Valter Filipe arriscam 20 anos de prisão’, MakaAngola, 19 September 2018. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​8/09/​ zenu-​e-val​ter-f​ilipe​-arri​scam-​20-an​os-de​-pris​ao/ (accessed 8 November 2019) and Rafael Marques de Morais, ‘Ex-governador do bna sob investigação’, MakaAngola, 24 November 2017. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​7/11/​ex-go​verna​dor-d​o-bna​-sob-​inves​tigac​ao/ (accessed 8 November 2019).

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text of the prosecution, it was clear that he should not even be on the list of accused persons. And some time after, the Angolan equivalent of the Grand Jury in the United States decided that he should not go to trial, and so the case ended for him. It seemed that the investigation and the noise around it only served the purpose of substituting General Nunda from his role as Armed Forces Chief of Staff. The charges against Norberto Garcia were a bit more elaborated, but their consistency was not too great. Therefore, after trial, he was totally acquitted and today he works again in the presidential palace. The main defendants were some Thai businessmen that landed in Luanda with a fake billionaire cheque claiming they were going to invest it all in Angola, which consequently made them receive some benefits, such as free hotel stays and a car with a driver. What was supposed to be a big fraud was no more than a typical petty cheating scheme that mislead some high-ranking figures in Angola. Despite this case being, from the legal point of view, a non-event, it had two important consequences. It allowed Lourenço to weaken the military Chief of Staff, so that he could designate a new one, and to demoralize a former ambitious member of dos Santos’s cadre, Garcia. Concurrently, it gave the government the opportunity to boast about the new era of fighting corruption and the end of impunity and improper behaviours from public agents. In that sense it was a sheer victory, even if legally it was a mistake.

The Sovereign Fund imbroglio The Fundo Soberano de Angola (Sovereign Fund of Angola) case was probably the most far-reaching one in the first phase of Lourenço’s swipe against corruption. Throughout the criminal proceedings, José Filomeno and his close friend and Fund assets manager Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais ended up in custody on remand for a few months, creating a strong conviction that Lourenço was serious in his declarations against corruption. However, it was during this same case that the frailties of such a fight came to light, namely exposing the incapacity of the government to go beyond a certain point, and its predilection for informal arrangements not bound in law, as illustrated with the ‘plea bargain’ arranged with Morais. The idea of creating a sovereign wealth fund began in 2008, amid the euphoria of Angolan growth. Possibly, the 2009 crisis delayed its implementation and only in 2011 was a Petroleum Fund established to promote, foster and support investment in the development of energy and water projects in the Republic

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of Angola and abroad, and in other sectors considered strategic.4 The Fund began to operate in 2012, with an initial endowment of US$5 billion. Armando Manuel was designated CEO of the Fund. Later, in May 2013, he was appointed dos Santos’s finance minister, abandoning the post at the Fund. José Filomeno occupied the post of executive director. Manuel was a technocrat who had worked in the IMF and was well regarded at the time. It was normal after Manuel’s departure that José Filomeno would ascend to CEO of the Petroleum Fund, as he was already on the board. Contrary to the future designation of Isabel dos Santos to Sonangol, which was received with a public outcry and even anger, this first appointment was peaceful. In the month following José Filomeno’s appointment as CEO, the Petroleum Fund was transformed into Angola’s Sovereign Wealth Fund.5 José Filomeno endeavoured to surround his management with indicators of international credibility. The Fund was recognized by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute as a transparent sovereign wealth fund. It also adopted the standards known as the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Nevertheless, none of these international indicators were able to hide an incompetent management. The Fund accumulated losses for years. In 2013, they totalled more than US$26 million. In 2014, losses were at US$154 million, and in 2015, US$134 million. Therefore, in three years the Sovereign Fund had accrued more than US$300 million in losses. At that same time, the New York Stock Exchange’s Dow Jones Index rose from 13,412.55 points on 2 January 2013 to 17,603.87 points on 30 December 2015. Such a rise was not so accentuated in the FTSE 100 Index (London’s stock exchange), but the point is, if one had invested in either New York or London a profit would be attained. Of course, not all investments are made on the stock exchange and are often divided into several areas. But the reality is that stock exchanges represent the places where assets are most at risk, so other investments should have a lower but safer return. As a result, it is not clear how the Angolan Sovereign Fund had lost more than US$300 million in three years. However, by some miracle, the Fund’s deficit situation changed in September 2017. After the presidential elections, the Fund announced that it had obtained profits of US$44 million. Yet, these ‘profits’ were merely due to cosmetic accounting and just served to put pressure on the new president, Lourenço. José Filomeno invented a profit to prevent the president from removing him for incompetence. The profit was the result of an internal revaluation of an investment the Fund had made in the construction of the Law n 26/10, 28 December and Presidential Decree n 48/11, 28 February. Presidential Decree n 89/13, 13 June.

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harbour at Porto do Caio. The Fund assigned US$180 million to the Porto do Caio concession, owned by Morais, who also owns Quantum Global which manages the assets of the Sovereign Fund. It turned out that these US$180 million were revaluated at US$385 million, without any special reason or criteria given. In fact, the Fund’s auditor, Deloitte, issued a warning on the shaky foundations of such revaluation. There was no tangible foundation for this. If Isabel dos Santos was her own master, and people got into the habit of considering her a very capable person, the contrary happened to José Filomeno. His public image was of a useless individual, easily transformed as someone else’s puppet. Public image apart, the reality was that one of the main beneficiaries of the activities of the Sovereign Fund was Filomeno’s friend Morais. Morais is a Swiss-Angolan, born in Fribourg, Switzerland, in 1967, from a Swiss mother and an Angolan father. Educated in Switzerland, he began his professional life there, but the fairy lights of the Angolan reconstruction after 2002 brought his entrepreneurial drive to Luanda where he was to be found in 2007 or thereabouts, promoting several ventures. In the small social circles of Luanda he encountered José Filomeno with whom a good rapport was established. In 2008, they partnered to open a bank, the Banco Kwanza Invest (BKI). In June 2012, José Filomeno formally resigned as director of BKI, in which he was the majority shareholder, holding 45.33 per cent of the shares. These were sold to Morais who accumulated 85 per cent of the bank’s shares in his name. So, the two were financial partners before the Fund started its activities. And when the Fund did initiate its activities, even before José Filomeno assumed the chairmanship, but during his time as executive director, Morais’s firms were hired as the Fund’s asset managers. According to an extended investigation made by Marques, in which I collaborated, in less than four years, Morais’s companies charged the Angolan Sovereign Fund (FSDEA) about US$500 million in the form of fees and commissions for the management of the US$5 billion under their guard and management. Aside from that, part of the Fund’s money was devoted to several private projects of Morais. One of them was the previously referred to Porto do Caio. However, this was an obstacle that would defeat Lourenço, as detailed later; apparently all of Morais’s actions were well covered by impeccable legally binding contracts. For instance, on 29 November 2013, FSDEA signed an Investment Management Agreement with the Quantum Global Group, owned by Morais, handing over the management of US$5 billion for a minimum of three years, with an automatic extension. Under this agreement nearly US$3 billion were invested in seven funds created by Quantum Global Investment

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Management (QGIM), also owned by Morais. Consequently, Morais managed the money by transferring it into his entities and still charged fees for doing it, all under the auspices of perfectly drafted contracts. This was the panorama when Lourenço entered the Palácio da Cidade Alta. He did not act immediately. It was not until January 2018 that he fired José Filomeno. Afterwards, the government began to try to recover the amounts that were under Morais’s management. This was to prove difficult, as the SwissAngolan had the money outside Angola which was well locked under the aforementioned legally binding contracts, allowing him to keep and manage the money for ten to fifteen years. Consequently, Lourenço had a Fund without funds. Due to his refusal to transfer assets to the Fund, no alternative was left to the state than to go after Morais in court. Strategically while embarking on such venture the government committed two fundamental errors. It did not initiate a criminal lawsuit against Morais in Luanda and instead went to a commercial London court to obtain an order to freeze the funds. This showed the new team’s inexperience as the case turned into a legal dispute about contractual interpretation. Since the contracts agreed between the Fund and Morais’s companies were noticeably clear in granting him various rights and powers, Angola’s position was doomed. Initially, the process went well for the Angolan government, as the English court granted the order to freeze funds.6 The thrust of the Angolan argument that convinced the original court was that José Filomeno and Morais had made an agreement whereby the son of the former president handed over US$5 billion of the Sovereign Fund to the Swiss-Angolan and his companies, when neither of them had the experience nor qualifications to administer such a sum. What actually occurred, argued the government, was that most of the US$5 billion was not invested, but used by Morais’s Quantum companies to extract absurd and exaggerated fees. The small amount that was invested did not serve the interests of the Angolan state but was mainly channelled into projects belonging to Morais. In addition, alleged the Angolan government attorneys, as part of the same conspiracy, José Filomeno committed the Sovereign Fund to pay US$180 million to Quantum and other Morais-controlled companies, all under fictitious service contracts. In the meantime, the Sovereign Fund had regained control of about US$2 billion from the US$5 billion originally placed under the control of the defendants, therefore, the state wanted to track and recover the remaining I followed this legal case from a remarkably close perspective and wrote extensively about it in MakaAngola. Available online: www.makangola.org (accessed 13 November 2019).

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US$3 billion, as well as recovering additional fees paid to Morais and Quantum, totalling about US$170 million. As a result, on 27 April 2018, the Commercial Court in England and Wales issued an interdiction order prohibiting companies linked to the Swiss-Angolan businessman from moving the US$3 billion pertaining to the Sovereign Fund. This was a victory for Lourenço that was to prove short-lived. At the end of July 2018, at the London High Court of Justice, commercial section, in case CL-2018-000269, an order was given to end the US$3 billion freeze on Morais and his Quantum companies. This decision, which had public resonance, constituted an incredibly significant victory for Morais. The decision of the court was taken by British judge Sir Andrew Popplewell. Popplewell was fifty-nine years old, the son of another famous judge and the father of two actresses, Anna and Lulu Popplewell. He, therefore, represented the essence of the British establishment. Popplewell’s decision was characterized by the analytical formalities typical of English courts. He decided to annul the previous judgement concurring with the appeal of Morais and José Filomeno. In it, they argued that they were the victims of political changes in Angola and of a desire on the part of those who held power to appropriate themselves of the money that the previous president and his team had wisely invested on a long-term basis for the benefit of the people of Angola; classifying as completely false the allegations made by the current government of Angola. Politically, José Filomeno and Morais’s declarations in court were decimating for Lourenço. They accused him of wanting to take the money from the Sovereign Fund for his own benefit and labelled the case as political. The judge, obviously, did not discuss the political emphasis of the case, albeit declaring that José Filomeno and Morais were not alone, and could not bear all the responsibility. In fact, the FSDEA board of directors was, by presidential decree, overseen by two other bodies, an Advisory Board, and a Supervisory Board. Those boards included the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Economy, the Minister of Planning and Territorial Development and the Governor of the Bank of Angola. Consequently, posited the judge, so many illustrious individuals should have been watching what José Filomento and Morais were doing. Moreover, according to him, what José Filomeno and Morais paid and received derived from legally binding contracts. It was not even José Filomeno who chose Morais and Quantum but the original chairman of the FSDEA, Armando Manuel. And both were subject to the supervision of various Angolan authorities and the auditing company Deloitte. Therefore, in the construction of the contracts and having in mind these several supervisory mechanisms, the

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judge did not discover any illegality in the actions of either José Filomeno or Morais, and terminated the asset freezing. The judge did not question whether the contracts were favouritist or unbalanced and performed for the benefit of one of the parties. The judge did not analyse to whom Manuel, who signed the original contract between the Fund and Quantum, owed obedience. The judge did not question the reality of dos Santos’s political regime. In fact, this was simply not the role of a commercial court judge who had to read and interpret contracts. The fundamental mystery was why, in the first instance, were the contracts made, signed and posed under British jurisdiction? It is well known that the continental legal concepts that tend to be abstract and vague, mostly used in Angolan law due to Portuguese influence, are not part of the British system of law and jurisprudence. On the contrary, British adjudication is literal, pragmatic, based on the letter of the texts. Therefore, it was of no surprise that by having contracts with favourable clauses Morais and José Filomeno would win the case in a British commercial court. It was a bitter defeat for Lourenço. Again, Lourenço’s reaction was swift. At the end of September 2018, not two months after the London fiasco, the Angolan Attorney General’s Office announced the sudden arrest of José Filomeno and Morais charged with the crimes of criminal association, corruption and several other economic crimes. After having failed to obtain the money through the legal proceedings in London, the Angolan executive decided to press for a criminal indictment in Luanda. This was a watershed moment; a member of the former president’s family was arrested. The prison where José Filomeno was held immediately turned into a place of pilgrimage by the population who wanted to see with their own eyes the son of the powerful dos Santos imprisoned. Obviously, they saw nothing other than the reddish prison walls. Nevertheless, there was a great commotion in Luanda. The Angolans began to think that Lourenço was serious, he had moved from layoffs to prison. Although no formal poll was conducted, the intuitive idea which percolated in Angola attributed to Lourenço’s apex of popularity between November 2017 and September 2018, the time from when he dismissed Isabel dos Santos from Sonangol up until the decision to arrest José Filomeno. The summer of 2018 was prodigal in legal events. Apparently, the Attorney General’s Office then tried to notify Isabel dos Santos to go to the Attorney General’s department to face a criminal case concerning irregularities committed during her Sonangol chairmanship. Knowing this, Isabel dos Santos deliberately avoided receiving the notification and went from her house to her

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father’s mansion, from where she went straight to the airport, leaving Angola and opting for a kind of self-exile. Also, in September in a different case, albeit under the same drive against corruption, Augusto Tomás was arrested. Tomás was Minister of Transport between 2008 and 2018, participating in the first months of Lourenço’s government. Previously, he was finance minister, governor of Cabinda and occupied other relevant posts. He was considered to be close to Lourenço, but was removed from the executive in June 2018, following a controversy over a public–private partnership to create a domestic airline (Air Connection Express). Some months after, he was arrested and charged with several economic crimes. Tomás later on, in August 2019, was condemned in the first instance to fourteen years in jail, a penalty reduced to eight years by the Supreme Court in late 2019. Meanwhile, what was happening to José Filomeno and Morais? They were freed in March 2019, approximately six months after their detention. José Filomeno awaited his trial in Angola, while Morais saw all the charges removed and went to live abroad. After liberating Morais, a statement from the Attorney General’s Office was released announcing that US$3 billion which the SwissAngolan had under his guard were recovered. So, there was a kind of trade-off, Morais returned the money and in response obtained full freedom. Apparently, he immediately flew to Dubai and posted his smiling photo on Instagram with the word ‘free’, beside a picture on the wall of Lourenço. The liberation of Morais was badly received in Angola. The slow path that Lourenço was following in order to make justice more credible and maintaining a real fight against corruption was discredited in the few minutes that it took Morais to reach Luanda’s 4 de Fevereiro Airport, get into a plane and leave the country. The point regarding Morais was not his liberation, but the lack of any legal basis for it. In Angola, the law did not allow that the criminal proceedings for which Morais was being investigated could be extinguished by reimbursing of funds. The Angolan general rule was that the return of funds generated an attenuation of the penalty. This meant that the investigation should continue and that, if there was evidence, a prosecution should be brought forward, and Morais submitted to trial. If convicted, for returning the money he would have a special mitigation of the penalty. Another hypothesis would be to conclude that there was not enough evidence to bring him to trial and to file the case. In either scenario, there was a procedure that should have been followed. In strictly legal terms, there was no glimpse of the legal rules on which the attorney general had relied in order to make a settlement with a citizen who was the subject of a criminal investigation. They ascertained that it was a matter of a ‘plea bargain’, a system in vogue in

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the United States and Brazil, but inexistent in Angola.7 Furthermore, a credible ‘plea bargain’ involves the intervention of a judge to validate the agreement and generally does not exempt the person from any penalty or proceeding, in cases of this severity. In this case, there was no intervention of any judge. In fact, it was a political negotiation, in which the judicial authorities submitted themselves to political mandates. This kind of political entanglement began to transform itself into the main complaint against Lourenço’s anti-graft work.

Anti-corruption institutional framework and new legislation Alongside the judicial investigations mentioned earlier, the new government made some alterations regarding the institutional framework in place to combat corruption. Peculiarly, they were not wide-ranging modifications but mere adjustments. Such a move was open to criticism since, in the end, it provided for only a fragmentary collision with the immense magnitude of corruption. In December 2017, a few months after Lourenço’s inauguration, General João Maria de Sousa, attorney general for over ten years, was replaced by General Hélder Pitta Groz, the former vice-attorney general for the military sphere. The tenure of General de Sousa had been manifestly frustrating for those who wanted an impartial justice system and a resolute fight against corruption. He was totally subservient to President dos Santos. He was responsible for archiving all the criminal complaints entered by Marques which had resulted from the latter’s extensive investigations into corruption. Sousa permanently harassed Marques, several journalists and members of civil society. In addition to completely obliging dos Santos’s wishes, this prosecutor was involved in several murky dealings, which were duly denounced, including acting as a businessman while being a state prosecutor.8 However, the new attorney general did not raise expectations much, as he had been an adjunct of the former since 2007, and was another military man also belonging to an influential, elite Angolan family, namely that of General Kopelipa. Nevertheless, under Pitta Groz, the On the global spread of plea-bargain mechanisms, see Maximo Langer, ‘Plea Bargaining, TrialAvoiding Conviction Mechanisms, and the Global Administratization of Criminal Convictions (September 14, 2019)’, Annu. Rev. Criminol. UCLA School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 19–35. 8 See for example, Adão Pascoal da Silva, ‘Imexco pagava salários mensais ao PGR’, MakaAngola, 28 June 2018. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​8/06/​imexc​o-pag​ava-s​alari​os-me​nsais​ -ao-p​gr/ (accessed 18 November 2019). 7

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prosecution service did start a series of criminal cases against some influential figures of the recent past. During his service the relevant innovation was the creation of a new department, with indefinite legal boundaries, called Serviço Nacional de Recuperação de Activos (the National Asset Recovery Service), that was to be paramount in all the ‘extrajudicial agreements’ with defendants who were to return supposedly stolen assets to the state. The complications with these kinds of piecemeal arrangements were that they did not provide a systematic response to the evils of corruption that were diagnosed as being the fundamental hindrance to Angola’s development. Due to its atomistic nature, it was only possible to sue some people, to investigate some cases, to address some preoccupations. An overall swipe against corruption could not and did not materialize, just a case-by-case approach. And structurally, no improvements were immediately put in place. The attorney general kept complaining that he had no staff or means to combat major economic and financial crimes. In 2018, two pieces of legislation were added to this frail institutional outline. However, they contained several loopholes that hollowed any expectations of success. The legislation passed was the Law 9/18 of 17 May, Repatriation of Financial Resources Act, nicknamed the Voluntary Repatriation Act, and the Law 15/18 of 21 November, Coercive Repatriation and Loss Extended of Goods Act. The Voluntary Repatriation Law had several structural shortcomings, which became determinant in its complete failure. First, it granted a general amnesty to all financial misconduct in Angola. This amnesty made no sense at that moment in time. The science and practice of taxation teach that this type of amnesty must be accompanied by comprehensive measures, including the correction and enforcement of law-abusing behaviour. From political science, one learns that global amnesties are part of transitional processes agreed upon between the various political and social forces. None of this had occurred.9 The second structural deficiency of the new law resulted from the imbalance between its chapters II and III. Chapter II referred to voluntary repatriation, and was quite exhaustive, listing the various aspects of amnesty (Article 8), the procedures to be followed (Article 6) and the duty of secrecy (Article 7). Chapter III, on coercive repatriation, was a set of banalities and programmatic intentions without any specificity. There was a dangerous desynchronization here. An amnesty was given, but the negative consequences for those who Eric Le Borgne and Katherine Baer, Tax Amnesties: Theory, Trends, and Some Alternatives (Washington: IMF, 2008).

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did not take the opportunity to seize it were not clearly established. Thus, what reasons would force Angolan holders of capital in foreign countries to repatriate it to Angola? The criminal and tax amnesty? If Angola had engaged in an effective fight to uncover hidden fortunes and punish their owners, then, for fear of being caught and punished, the perpetrators could have taken the amnesty seriously, taken advantage of it, and avoided future criminal proceedings. However, in Angola at the time, the reality was that this battle did not fully take place, so most of the possible targets were fairly relaxed. This Act was short-lived, as it expired in December 2018 without any visible result. In reference to the Coercive Repatriation Law, it was a set of good intentions, but very confusing in its technical terms. It mixed three different matters: coercive repatriation (Articles 1 and 3), the seizure of incongruent assets (Articles 1 and 4) and the National Asset Recovery Service (Articles 12 and 13). The first point to note was that the law ruled out the possibility of objective confiscation and situations of non-conviction-based asset confiscation,10 the most advanced mechanisms for recovering assets. Repatriation or loss of property would only occur after conviction under criminal proceedings. Article 3 was written with very dubious wording. It stated that coercive repatriation concerned just financial assets. This standard was reductive because it left out a panoply of other assets. Apparently, shares or bonds may be repatriated, but not ownership of real estate. Of course, real estate cannot be repatriated but property ownership can, and the real estate itself can be put up for sale, and the resulting sale of which can be repatriated. Most likely, it would be in the enforcement of Articles 4 to 11 of the Act that made provisions for an extended possibility of asset seizure when these were found to be incongruent with earnings, that the force of this Act resided. Nonetheless, constitutional problems were likely to arise from these norms due to the inversion of the burden of proof and the lack of technical clarity. Finally, this legislation created the National Asset Recovery Service integrated into the Attorney General’s Office. Among its main duties, this service would deal with the tracing and freezing of goods and international cooperation (Article 13 (1) (a) and (b)). This seems to be an embryo of an efficient anti-corruption body, but it was very timid, as the law was too simplistic in setting up this office. It was not clear whether it had the power to directly order the freezes under money On the use of non-conviction-based asset recovery see M. Tromme, ‘Waging War Against Corruption in Developing Countries: How Asset Recovery Can Be Compliant with the Rule of Law’, Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law, 29 (2) (Spring 2019): 165–233.

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laundering laws and it was not known whether it was competent enough to go to court in any case to seek forfeiture for subsequent loss of property. Nevertheless, in a short time this service developed into an effective machine of asset seizure: from mansions to iconic buildings in Luanda owned by former ministers or by Vicente, Dino and Kopelipa to media groups such as Media Nova, property of Dino, Vicente and Kopelipa, it seized several patrimonies. However, it was not transparent in which legal cases and under which law these seizures took place. But step by step an impressive amount of real estate and companies were confiscated by the state.

The economy 2017–18: No improvements The new Angolan president hoped to establish his personal legitimacy to wield power on two subjects: corruption and the economy. Regarding corruption, his results over the first two years were mixed, but provoked great hope among the population. In relation to the economy the results were dismal. Concerning the economy, his fundamental slogan during the election campaign was that of economic development, an ‘economic miracle’, equivalent to that of Deng Xiaoping in China. However, after some time in power not even a slight recovery was to be seen. GDP growth in 2017 was negative again, –0.1 per cent, as already mentioned, and in 2018 it got worse instead of better, reaching a dismal –2.1 per cent. The following years were even poorer. Lourenço had counted on some ‘good tail wind’ from the oil price. As of 22 September 2017, the Brent price per barrel was US$56.86 and after six months it ranged from US$67 to US$70. Thus, it appreciated more than US$10 in six months, corresponding to an 18 per cent increase. Still, due to a number of reasons this was not enough. One was the deplorable state of Sonangol and its oil production. Although oil prices were gaining ground, the oil company’s capacity to produce was falling, and it was not able to benefit from the rise in price. Apparently, in the first two quarters of 2018, the rise in oil prices had coincided with a drop in production, so the gains were not as large as expected. Comparing the first quarters of 2017 and 2018, the oil extraction and refining sector fell by 7.3 per cent. Additionally – and this, as referred to earlier, produced the first public bone of contention between Lourenço and dos Santos – the former accused the latter of handing over the country with empty coffers. Lourenço was emphatic, ‘This is the situation we have found: the state coffers are already empty and there has

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been an attempt to empty them even more!’11 Lourenço was clearly aghast over the state in which he encountered the country’s public finances and economy. The economic picture was depressing: a treasury without money, an inefficient national oil company, GDP in negative growth. Anything worse seemed almost impossible. The pronouncements of President Lourenço were not noticeably clear in relation to the financial and economic policies that were necessary to adopt in order to overcome the crisis. They were little more than platitudes. Nevertheless, some trends were discernible. In a departure from dos Santos’s economic management practices, he asked for help from the IMF and the World Bank, both of whom were rapid and assertive in their support, anticipating GDP growth rates between 1.6 per cent and 2.2 per cent for 2018. This was out of touch with reality. Plainly, Lourenço, the IMF and the World Bank believed that this alliance would give credibility to Angola’s economy and would boost trust and captivate investment that would induce growth. But that did not materialize. The problems of Angola’s economy were (and are) much more profound, being structural and systemic in nature. Perhaps, the most important economic policy in which Lourenço engaged was the flexible exchange of the kwanza, the policy adopted by the central bank.12 This policy allowed, first, the national currency to fluctuate within a band and afterwards, completely freed up the exchange rate. Therefore, the kwanza had devalued by more than 30 per cent since January 2018 in just six months. This devaluation should have made Angolan exports more competitive and imports more difficult, also reducing the black currency market. Some movements in the decrease of imports, mainly of food stuffs, are occurring with the concomitant increase in national production, but it is still too early to assess the success of the policy. The flip side of devaluation could be inflation. The National Institute of Statistics reference for February 2018 revealed that ‘the Wholesale Price Index (IPG) recorded a monthly change in the period from January 2018 to February 2018 of 1.26 per cent, around 0.03 percentage points higher than in the previous period’.13 Interestingly, the same information also showed that the February 2018 figure was 13.28 percentage points lower than in the same month of February (i.e. February 2017). The same restraint and fluctuation was found in João Lourenço, ‘Encontrámos os cofres vazios’, Jornal de Angola, 18 November 2018. Available online: http:​//jor​nalde​angol​a.sap​o.ao/​polit​ica/e​ncont​ramos​_os_c​ofres​_vazi​os (accessed 19 November 2019). 12 The central bank does not have independence as it is usual nowadays in Western countries. 13 Instituto Nacional de Estatística de Angola. Available online: https://www.ine.gov.ao/ (accessed 4 February 2019). 11

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the consumer price index, ‘the Consumer Price Index (CPI) recorded a 1.12 per cent change from January 2018 to February 2018’. It thus seemed that inflation had not skyrocketed, as could have resulted, due to currency devaluation in a country too dependent on imports. Perhaps it was possible to decouple the policy against inflation from exchange policy, as Milton Friedman’s free exchange rate theory advocates.14 A fine-grain analysis demonstrates that inflation was averted due to a tight monetary policy by the central bank, which restricted the money in circulation, thus easing inflationary pressures. The complication was that reducing the money supply in circulation was an extremely recessive measure, so its shortterm effects were necessarily negative for economic growth. Lourenço found himself promising an ‘economic miracle’, whereas his economic managers were adopting recessive measures. Most probably they were necessary, but they should have been complemented by structural market reforms and explained to the population. Neither materialized. The truth was that the first economic policy Lourenço implemented, the free exchange of the kwanza accompanied by a reduction in the money supply in circulation, had profoundly recessive effects in 2018, dribbling away all optimistic economic outlooks for that year. According to Friedman, over a period of time the economy will respond to the kwanza’s liberation and a new prosperous equilibrium will be achieved. The problem is it is not clear when such a result will happen, which makes it hard to stick to the current path.

The IMF in Angola: Another recessive advice? In 2018, it was announced with great fanfare that the IMF would lend Angola about US$3.7 billion. This was proclaimed as a victory for President Lourenço, the result of his international journeys and sound domestic policies. This loan was intended as a certification of the quality of Lourenço’s economic policy. The question that arose had to do with the aptitude of IMF policies to solve the situation. That year the IMF had already begun to fail in its forecasts for the Angolan economy. In early 2018, it announced a bullish outlook regarding GDP growth, over-anticipating the positive effects of Lourenço’s policies, only to humbly revise the figures. It was evident that Angola was experiencing a Milton Friedman, ‘The Case for Flexible Exchange Rates’, Essays in Positive Economics, 157–203 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953).

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profound economic and financial crisis which could no longer be rescued by rising oil prices and which required a complete restructuring of the economy. The economy dragged on as the oil sector lost strength. The problem was that IMF ‘recipes’ hardly solved these issues. Generally, the conditions attached to IMF loans have recessive effects and often, for reasons of financial orthodoxy, end up devastating economies. Economic handbooks and macroeconomic intervention policies are designed for developed countries in the northern hemisphere. The Angolan economy obviously had some characteristics of a modern economy, but contained too many specificities – whether institutional, political, geographical or cultural – which did not allow for the application of the standard rules. IMF interventions in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland had demonstrated its great limitations in adapting to the local conditions in each country. Greater still would be the difficulty of adapting them to the reality in Angola. Hence the reason why some disclosed policies were looked at with discomfiture. The IMF intended that the government would adopt a set of surgical measures aimed at stopping spending, through a strict austerity policy. This was nonsense. Angola did not need austerity,15 on the contrary, it needed investment in infrastructure, roads, communications, ports, education and health. In terms of spending, what was imperative was to rationalize spending and to eradicate corruption. At the level of public spending, the imperative was not for austerity, it was to combat corruption and guarantee efficiency in spending. Another controversial aspect, which the IMF habitually imposes on countries under its watch, is the elimination of fuel-price subsidies. Eliminating this subsidy and doing nothing to the structure of the fuel market would mean that the population would pay the subsidy since prices would not fall. In Angola, the fuel distribution market is structured as an oligopoly; therefore, the prices are artificially kept high. The question is who will pay. In the present situation it was the public treasury, in the future it will be the population. Beyond the social risks of such a solution, the conundrum is that before cutting subsidies, it is fundamental to create a truly competitive, barrier-free fuel market that would allow subsidies to be withdrawn while letting prices fall as a result of competition. In Angola, true competition in fuel markets was non-existent, so to withdraw subsidies without reforming the market is merely modifying who is bearing the costs of wasteful monopolies or oligopolies. Modifying the subsidizer from the state budget to the people changes nothing. First, an absolutely free fuel market A particularly good discussion on austerity policies and their consequences can be found in Alberto Alesina, Carlo Favero and Gianfranco Giavazzi, Austerity. When It Works and When It Doesn’t (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019).

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must be created, and only then subsidies could be removed. IMF policies must be considered and adapted to the Angolan circumstance, and not taken as the result of a bureaucratic recipe that often destroys countries. At the end of 2018 it became clear what the IMF wanted, as the ‘Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility for Angola’16 was made public. The document was well prepared, technically consistent and with reasonable assumptions, but it raised the anticipated question: the suitability of such a programme for the political and economic moment in Angola. As described, Angola faced a twofold negative situation. In structural terms, it was (and is) in a situation of excessive oil self-dependence, which had not led to sustainable growth and liberation from the shackles of poverty. In conjunctural terms, the country was experiencing a time of economic stagnation and financial scarcity. There were, therefore, two types of problems that intersected with each other: problems of permanent economic fragility and problems of the existing crisis. The IMF programme consisted of a Letter of Intent and a Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies. According to the memorandum, the government should adopt certain measures, which translated as follows: a) At the fiscal policy level (taxes and other state revenues and expenses): −− Decrease public debt to 65 per cent in 2023 −− Reduction of fiscal deficit −− Tax reforms b) At monetary and exchange rate policy level (currency in circulation and value of foreign currency): −− Control of the monetary base −− Flexibility of the exchange rate Also mentioned were efforts in the area of financial sector policy, public debt management, structural reforms and governance. Needless to say, the major focus was on fiscal policy, monetary and exchange rate policy, and the proposed actions were recessive. In fiscal policy, the aim was a reduction in public debt and in the budget deficit. Under the IMF’s agreement, for the public debt to fall, it was proposed, as a first step, that ‘extraordinary oil revenues from above-budgeted IMF, ‘IMF Executive Board Approves US $3.7 Billion Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility for Angola’, 7 December 2018. Available online: https​://ww​w.imf​.org/​en/Ne​ws/Ar​ticle​ s/201​8/12/​07/pr​18463​imf-e​xecut​ive-b​oard-​appro​ves-e​xtend​ed-ar​range​ment-​under​-the-​exten​ded-f​ und-f​acili​ty-fo​r-ang​ola (accessed 20 November 2019). https​://ww​w.imf​.org/​en/Ne​ws/Ar​ticle​s/201​ 8/12/​07/pr​18463​imf-e​xecut​ive-b​oard-​appro​ves-e​xtend​ed-ar​range​ment-​under​-the-​exten​ded-f​und-f​ acili​ty-fo​r-ang​ola

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oil prices [should be] used to repay domestic public debt’. This first measure could have had a positive impact depending on who owned the domestic debt. If it were the national banks, this could activate the currency multiplier, making financial institutions lend more and as consequence stimulate the economy. It would be different if the national entities receiving the debt repayment kept the money hoarded or transferred it abroad. Therefore, this IMF policy would only be positive if it were properly monitored. Still in debt reduction, in 2019, the government proposed to adopt a value added tax (VAT). This was going to create several problems, and possibly, the introduction of VAT had restrictive effects on the economy. Under the budget deficit heading it was promised that the payroll of civil servants would be contained. Under the same heading, there was a reduction in expenditure on goods and services, as well as a decrease in transfers and subsidies. This would include ‘imposing efficiency requirements on public utilities and implementing a privatisation programme, water tariff adjustment, electricity and transport tariffs, and gradual adjustment of domestic fuel prices’. This meant that wages would not rise, and could even be reduced, while the prices of essential goods such as water, electricity or fuels would rise. Consequently, in terms of fiscal policy, the signal that was given was highly restrictive. The state wanted to spend less, and prices would probably rise. The truth is that in a weak economy like Angola, these measures could be a mistake. The essential problem of the state was corruption and the poor organization of institutions. There was waste everywhere, as each leader had been encouraged to act as a ‘big bandit’17 with public officials enlisted as ‘little bandits’, moving in accordance to their private interests to secure their own benefits. When a state has lived within a corrupting paradigm and has been organized according to a logic of privatization of sovereignty, it becomes almost surreal to apply an economic recipe that makes sense in a rich UK or prosperous Ireland. There was no point in raising prices and taxes in a non-functioning economy and within a disorganized state. It was a recipe sure to unleash chaos and revolt. In the end, the announced IMF intervention did not raise excitement in the domestic markets but created fear in the economic agents. Perhaps it was itself a vehicle for the pervasiveness of a climate of restraint and recession, contrarily to what might be expected.

Marcur Olson, ‘Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development’, The American Political Science Review, 87 (3) (September 1993): 567–76.

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Sonangol and privatizations Sonangol continued fraught with problems. In 2016, Isabel dos Santos assumed the company’s presidency alleging that it was technically bankrupt, that it needed restructuring and the termination of uncontrolled spending. Isabel dos Santos left the company at the end of 2017, and the same mantra was again repeated. There was a necessity to restructure the company and end uncontrolled spending. At a press conference at the end of February 2018, Saturnino, who replaced Isabel dos Santos, depicted a troubled picture of the company’s situation, stating that Sonangol had a debt close to US$5 billion dollars and that Isabel dos Santos, not keeping to her promises, had spent on consultations, in just a year, the astronomical amount of US$135 million. Saturnino also said that when he arrived at the company, he was greeted by a workers’ demonstration who had wages overdue. During 2018, Sonangol gained a certain breathing space due to the reasonable, although not determinant, rise of the oil price. Yet, even if this rise in oil prices eased the situation, it did not solve the company’s problems. Sonangol’s difficulties, above all, were structural rather than cyclical. To focus on the ease that rising oil prices allowed and doing nothing more only added to the problems. In fact, Sonangol suffered from three issues. First, a great lack of focus. It wanted to do everything. Second, an extraordinarily complex and bureaucratic organizational and management structure, which removed flexibility and adaptability. Still, in terms of operation the worst factor was that Sonangol no longer functioned as the school of technicians and professionals that it had started as, becoming unhealthily dependent on consultants, especially foreigners, who lacked knowhow and dissolved the company’s culture. The third problem was a lack of investment money. Regarding the absence of focus, the fact that Sonangol was responsible for all the oil concessions and bids in Angola removed the incentive to be an efficient company. It did not have an enticement to organize itself with effectiveness and productivity, as it had guaranteed revenues. A company with guaranteed revenues becomes lazy, slow and uninventive. At the same time, the merging of all functions within the same entity made the concession process unclear, everything got mixed up, and a real understanding of what each part of the oil activity contributed to the country’s revenues did not become clear. Thus, in the name of Sonangol’s effectiveness and transparency in obtaining and allocating oil revenues, the task of oil regulation should have been entrusted to a different entity that would have this sole function. That was to be the Agência Nacional do

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Petróleo, Gás e Biocombustíveis (Oil, Gas and Biofuels National Agency) which according to Presidential Decree 49/19, 6 February 2019, assumed the function of regulator of oil and gas exploration activities. Now tenders, bids and block assignments were under the remit of someone other than Sonangol, which could begin to focus on its core business and preparing for energy transition. However, the most advisable action to be taken would be the privatization of Sonangol. Not in full, but 33.3 per cent of its capital in order to bring in international investment, involvement of Angolan capital and motivate its workers. Of this, 10 per cent would be for foreign investors and would be subject to an initial public offering in an international stock exchange, perhaps London, a further 10 per cent would be for national investors and would be the object of a public offer in Luanda, and finally the remaining would go to Sonangol employees. This model was proposed in 2018 in a study I developed.18 Sonangol could tap liquidity from the international markets to obtain money together with experienced investors and consequently would stimulate the financial market in Luanda. And, all things considered, 66 per cent would still belong to the state. Carefully designed and implemented, to avoid the usual ‘scams’ in these situations, this phased privatization would have the great advantage of reopening Angola and its people to the world of finance and international money, setting the company again on a path of progress. To date (July 2020), the government has not yet advanced a partial privatization programme, although it now admits that it is studying this in order to establish the percentages to be sold. The company’s management has announced the sale of more than sixty assets of the oil company, from the areas of finance, telecommunications, real estate and industry. At the same time, it has also announced that it intends to focus on its own corporate objective. The sale of assets has thus two advantages: it allows a raise in revenues making Sonangol more robust, allowing it to return to its core business – activities associated with exploration, production, distribution and trading of crude oil and natural gas. Meanwhile, the government announced an enormous privatization programme. It wants to privatize 195 state-owned enterprises by 2022. Of these, 175 are to be sold through the public tender system, 11 by public auction and 9 by initial public offering. This project was determined by Presidential Decree n 250/19, 5 August 2019. It established the PROPRIV-Privatisation Programme for 2019–22. The list of companies is extensive and includes major ones. It is not a vague programme but an unbelievably detailed and ambitious one, See Verde, Angola e Futuro, pp. 115–16.

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which lists companies, holdings and assets that are to be sold, setting dates and methodologies. The sectors of activity to which privatizations refer are diverse: mineral and oil resources, telecommunications and information technologies, finance, transport, economics and planning, hotels and tourism, industries, agriculture, fisheries. In the list of companies to be privatized we have the most important in the country such as Sonangol (oil), Endiama (diamonds), Unitel (telecommunications), TAAG (aviation), Banco Económico (ex-Besa, bank), ENSA (insurance company), CUCA (beer manufacturer), and also another type of more modest entities such as Centro Infantil 1 de Junho (a nursery), Fazenda Pungo-Andongo (a farm) and INDUPLAS (manufacturer of plastic bags). It is, therefore, a vast and comprehensive programme. This privatization programme is very innovative for Angola and several advantages are visible. It has the International Finance Corporation/World Bank Quality Assurance. The privatization programme is being carried out within the framework of the International Finance Corporation, an entity which guarantees the global projection of the project and the World Bank seal guarantees the legitimacy of the procedures followed, in addition to it being an experienced partner and knowledgeable of the global rules. In this way, the Angolan privatization process comes with an appreciable quality certification that can reassure foreign investors. It takes place in a political–legal environment of institutional strengthening and property protection is in progress. Companies up for privatization are those with great worldwide attraction such as Sonangol, Endiama or Unitel. They are what can be called the ‘Blue Chips’ of Angola that will offer remarkably high growth potential to the investor once they are submitted to a strict management discipline, rationalized investment and optimization of values. Nevertheless, despite the attractiveness of the initiative, as of February 2020, just a small number of nondescript companies have been privatized, apparently, the bureaucratic machine of the state was incapable of delivering what was announced. That will be one of the problems of Lourenço’s tenure. He has a good vision for the country, he is courageous, but executory capacity is almost absent.

More power, more openness: Contradictory trends? The aforementioned theory according to which party control determined power over the state was quickly removed by Lourenço. Using the presidential powers that the Constitution conferred upon him, he quickly undid the bonds the

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former president had left. Nevertheless, the bicephalic creation of dos Santos was still there: he was MPLA’s president, while Lourenço, despite being president of the Republic, was ‘only’ MPLA’s vice president. Apparently, this created tension even in the smallest details. Like, for example, in the first meeting of an important organ of the party, where dos Santos and Lourenço both intended to attend. There was a big backstage discussion to decide who was going to enter the room first, the president of the MPLA or the president of the Republic.19 This small example clearly shows the wear and tear that the existence of two power centres introduced. Undoubtedly, Lourenço did not feel comfortable in having a surveillant dos Santos looking over his shoulder, and therefore initiated a campaign designed to end the bicephalic power. Those who imagined that dos Santos would maintain power after leaving, by imposing the bicephalic regime, were quickly corrected, as they had forgotten one small detail: the Constitution of the Republic of Angola. This Constitution, tailored for dos Santos,20 created the figure of the imperial president. It was this overreaching power, without control, that allowed Lourenço to enhance his popularity through speedy removals and designations. Faced with Lourenço’s popularity, dos Santos tried to maintain his power and then, when it proved impossible, to delay his departure in various party meetings, resorting to his old Maoist tactics, first to announce that he was leaving, then backing off and wanting to set a date at a distant time. None of this worked this time. Surprisingly, in these meetings he was even attacked by his former faithful allies, who demanded no less than dos Santos’s immediate abandonment of party functions. This proves that dos Santos’s removal was not a self-willed act but resulted from external pressure. Consequently, in September 2018, he abandoned MPLA’s leadership and Lourenço was duly elected. It was the end of the bicephalic leadership that in practice never functioned. Lourenço acted as a bulldozer and did not give any space to dos Santos. In any case, this quick and sudden victory for Lourenço is still astonishing. In less than a year, he confronted and politically destroyed the former president’s apparatus and family without facing visible opposition. Of course, as mentioned several times, the Constitution gave the president of the Republic adequate legal powers, but this cannot be the only explanation, not even the main one for such swift triumph. Respecting the law was not a fundamental feature of the Angolan reality. The justification for this sudden victory may lie in the fatigue of the population and party members receiving constant abuse at the hands of Interview with a former minister of state and member of the MPLA’s leadership. Although the main drafter of the Constitution assured me that dos Santos had not had any interference in the constitutional process.

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the presidential family. Lourenço was opening a door of hope. His determined politics brought hope to the country, a feeling long removed from political life. At the same time, the forces surrounding dos Santos must have been taken by surprise. They did not expect their former defence minister to turn so swiftly and resolutely against the former president as they thought they had everything under control. The awe therefore prevented a coordinated and prompt reaction from the dos Santos family. In September 2018, one year after his inauguration, Lourenço had amassed absolute power leading both the country and the party. After that date, Lourenço had no more excuses, he would act, or he would perish. While Lourenço increased his power, he also fostered openness in civil society and state structures. Perhaps the most impactful example was the new criminal case that involved Angola’s best-known activist, who was permanently dragged into court: Rafael Marques. In dos Santos’s time, Marques’s online publication Maka Angola had denounced the attorney general of the Republic, General João Maria de Sousa, who was involved in another real estate business, this time as a real estate developer of a condominium in Porto Aboim, by the beach, in the Kwanza Sul province. Although Marques’s investigation was exhaustively documented, the attorney general prosecuted the journalist criminally. His services dutifully followed his boss’s orders and charged Marques. The trial took place in the first semester of 2018, already under Lourenço’s presidency. It was a test to evaluate the judicial positioning and the real intentions of the political power, since up to that date there had not been any show of independence from the judiciary. The judge in charge of the trial was Josina Falcão, a smiling and incisive young lady. She was impenetrable during the hearings. Nevertheless, by the end of the trial, more than enough evidence had been provided to support the valid grounds for Marques’s accusations and the attorney general’s errant position. In June 2018, the decision was announced. The public interest raised by case No 592/17-B, which ran its term in Section 6 of the Common Crimes Room of the Luanda Provincial Court, was enormous. The judgement itself marked a standard in Angolan case law by defining very precisely the content of freedom of expression and information, its limits, and the rules that journalists must observe in order to be protected by the Constitution. In this sense, the judge considered that ‘we would hardly exist as a free society, which wants to be advanced and of the first world, if we decided to punish the messenger of bad news’.21 In addition, the judge stated that there was a special duty of conduct on P. 29 Acórdão file n 592/17-B.

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the part of public officials which places them under more demanding public scrutiny than ordinary citizens. Thus, it was written in the judgement that ‘The control of public figures is the indispensable foundation of free political life.’22 And finally, she concluded that the former Angolan attorney general violated the Constitution by participating in various commercial companies, ‘The restrictions imposed by the principle of exclusive dedication also apply to the possibility of any magistrate holding shares in companies.’23 Delving a bit into this legal piece it is important to note that the judge established a series of legal criteria that may constitute legal tests for the resolution of future cases. The first principle laid down in the judgement refers to a quote by US president Harry Truman, who is credited with the metaphor ‘those who cannot stand the heat should not work in the kitchen’.24 This means that the exercise of public duties puts the public official under more rigorous and incisive scrutiny by the population, and the public persona must get used to it. Therefore, it became settled case law that criticism and the free expression of opinions towards public figures was part of democratic life. This was not to say that any insults are worthy and allowed, particularly in terms of private honour. For example, if Marques had insulted the mother of the former attorney general he would hardly deserve any protection from constitutional commands about freedom of expression and information. The existence of this right to criticize has consequences for the actions of politicians and public figures, which were mirrored in the judgement.25 One consequence is that public officials cannot respond silently to complaints, denunciations and questions from the public. Silence is understood as complicity and a motivation for criticism. It follows that there is a fundamental duty of action for public officials in the face of allegations of inappropriate conduct. The flip side of this duty is that whistleblowers, especially journalists, have a duty to act in accordance with appropriate procedures when investigating and making their complaints. These processes are based on the imperative of truth-seeking, contradiction and objectivity. The judgement very precisely set the limits on the right to criticize exercised by journalists. There was no ‘anything goes’, but it recognized that there would always be a constitutional tension between fundamental rights, which must be resolved according to standards of equilibrium. This tension would exist between the right to honour and privacy, on the one hand, and the freedom of expression, 24 25 22 23

P. 28. P. 21. P. 30. pp. 39 ff.

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on the other. For freedom of expression to prevail when confronted with the honour of the public figure, the journalist must rely on the criterion of seeking the truth in their publications. This would mean that if they seek the truth objectively, the journalist’s actions would be criminally justified. Objectively seeking the truth means gathering documents, listening to witnesses, trying to hear the other party’s version, and handling all the information they receive in a methodical manner. In doing so, and by convincing themselves, after this procedure, that there is a subject that can be denounced, the journalist will be protected by the Constitution when making a public denunciation. In addition to the legal aspects that underpin the decision, there were the facts. The main fact was the highly objectionable behaviour of the former attorney general. According to the judgement, the acquisition of the land in Porto Aboim was riddled with illegality. The judge wrote, ‘This was an unhappy acquisition on the part of the Offended [João Maria de Sousa], because the proceedings that followed [. . .] were wounded by illegalities, which in common sense would lead to the annulment of the entire process.’ And the judge blamed the former attorney general for failing as a law enforcement agent to control the legality of his own activities. ‘Admittedly, if he had fulfilled the minimum duties of legal due diligence in that operation, he would have avoided the criticism to which he was subject.’26 In this judgement, the standard for defining the constitutional limits of the relationship between freedom of expression and the rights of an individual personality was set, and the legally protected right of criticism of public authorities reinforced. An appropriate process for journalists to conduct their investigations was constructed in compliance with the Constitution. Obviously, Marques and his co-defendant Mariano Brás were totally acquitted.27 The important point of this judgement, besides representing the first time Marques had been acquitted, is that it stipulated, from the legal point of view, a very insightful and determined content of freedom of information and expression, placing its legal threshold at the same level of any free Western society. Falcão’s judgement had the merit of ensuring that from a legal point of view both the press and speech became free. However, this was not the only area in which civil society began to feel liberated and encouraged by the president. He himself at the end of 2018 hosted a meeting with members of civil society, pp. 37 and 38. See Acórdão processo n. 592/17-B, commented by Rui Verde. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​ aango​la.or​g/fil​es/ac​ordao​_comp​leto_​proce​sso.p​df (accessed 2 December 2019).

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activists and alleged revolutionaries. Beirão, a member of the 15 + 2 group, Alexandra Simeão, from the NGO, Handeca and representatives of about a dozen institutions dealing with human rights, rural development, law and youth promotion met with the president. Also present were Fernando Macedo, from the Justice, Peace and Development Association (AJPD); Salvador Freire, from the Hands-Free Association; and José Patrocínio, from the NGO OMUNGA. Those proscribed or ignored by the former president were now meeting Lourenço and discussing the country’s immense problems. Marques was also invited but barred from entering the palace on the same day, showing signs of sabotage from inside the presidential palace. He was to be received afterwards, following a coarse intervention from President Lourenço. What Marques said about the meeting was revealing, ‘Today, President Lourenço encouraged me to continue my investigations into corruption and to refer the cases to the Attorney General’s Office. The fight against corruption, including the repatriation of capital, is one of our government’s priorities’, adding, ‘The president expressed his view on the relationship between the state and the citizens, regretting that they often vandalize public assets and reflecting on what must be done to change mindsets.’ For his own part, Marques mentioned, I have to say that this struggle must be accompanied by the regeneration of the economy, so that it can generate jobs, decent wages, and relieve social pressure. Economic growth is fundamental to improve citizens’ living conditions, as well as to promote investments in quality education and health, which are essential for development. During the hearing, we also talked about zungueiras, the mothers who fight daily for their families as street vendors. Operation ‘Rescue’, which began last month, has hit the zungueiras hard, closing down precarious markets, banning street vendors, and confiscating their goods without adequate alternatives. I have taken good note of the presidential explanation of the corrective measures being taken by the Luanda Administrative Commission.28

Moreover, Marques emphasized that, The president’s concern about human rights is also to be highlighted. I informed him about the case of the Adventist pastors unjustly sentenced to heavy penalties for a ‘kidnapping’ of the former pastor Daniel Cem.29 This alleged servant of God, his relatives and senior officers of the police tortured the citizen João Dala, VISITA AO PALÁCIO. 5 December 2018 Rafael Marques de Morais Maka Angola (accessed 22 March 2020). https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​8/12/​visit​a-ao-​palac​io/ 29 Meanwhile, the pastors have been acquitted in a lapidary decision of the Supreme Court. 28

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so that he confessed a crime that never happened. Last May, President Lourenço promoted the senior officers of SIC who tortured João Dala – Fernando Receado and Lourenço Ngola Kina – to police commissary and deputy commissary for criminal investigation. Both were appointed to the positions of provincial directors of SIC, respectively in Luanda and Uige. With this case, I wanted to illustrate the state of justice in the country. The president expressed his lack of knowledge about the role that the SIC officials had in such an act and indicated that the case would be investigated. He patiently explained the procedures for appointing these officers in the Defence and Security Council, where none objected to the nomination proposals or shared any negative elements about them. In short, I spoke to a frank and open president who was receptive to dialogue and criticism.30

What stands out from this intervention by the public authorities, whether by Judge Falcão’s decision or President Lourenço’s meeting with members of civil society, is the desire to open the institutions to the population and to the basic principles of freedom. The most interesting aspect to note is that during his first year in office, Lourenço followed a policy that could be seen as contradictory. On the one hand, he increased his personal power. Lourenço dominated the party, the government, the armed forces, intelligence and security services, the police, Sonangol, diamonds, major public companies and the media. Even at Agostinho Neto University he implemented changes. On the other hand, he proceeded to effectively pursue political freedom, increasing freedom of expression and encouraging dialogue and social discussion. This apparent contradiction would serve many of his critics, who, despite benefiting from the new freedoms they did not have in the past, aggressively confronted the president, demanding a democracy as perfect as that of the UK, an honest state such as Finland, and a rule of law as agile as the German, knowing perfectly well that this was impossible the previous year or two, seeking to wear out presidential popularity.

The carousel of power: New roles for Isabel dos Santos and Rafael Marques Lourenço’s accelerated changes in the individual geography of politics caught the former holders of power by surprise. Consequently, they did not react Testimony of Rafael Marques’s visit to the president of the Republic on 5 December 2018. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​8/12/​visit​a-ao-​palac​io/ (accessed 2 December 2019).

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promptly. Regarding the principal members of dos Santos’s family, their fate was different. Isabel dos Santos, after avoiding judicial notification, left the country auto-exiling herself, allegedly in London. Tchizé dos Santos, another of dos Santos’s daughters, known for her open and blunt language, also settled herself in London, losing her deputy mandate to the Angolan National Assembly due to prolonged absence. The eldest son José Filomeno was arrested and then released, being submitted to trial in one of the embezzlement cases. Of the remaining children of President dos Santos, and at least ten31 have been identified altogether, there is no information, either in terms of prosecution, freezing of assets or exile.32 Apparently, they are continuing their quiet lives wherever they are. Of the three most well-known children of President dos Santos, José Filomeno went into complete silence after his arrest, not proffering a single public statement, except in court hearings. The same was not true of Tchizé or Isabel dos Santos. Tchizé uses WhatsApp to frequently criticize Lourenço, saying she is being persecuted, threatened, stripped of her fundamental rights and prevented from returning to the country. However, the illogical way in which she presents her arguments, as well as the confusion of her discourse, means that she is not taken seriously, even by her digital confrères, becoming essentially a clumsy, comedy figure.

José Eduardo dos Santos has ten children from different relationships: José Eduardo dos Santos first married Azerbaijan-born Tatiana Kukanova, whom he later divorced. From this marriage he has only one daughter: Isabel dos Santos. From Filomena de Sousa he has one son:

31

−− José

Filomeno dos Santos Maria Luísa Perdigão Abrantes he has a son and a daughter: −− Welwitschia José (Tchizé) dos Santos, −− José Eduardo Paulino dos Santos −− From Maria Bernarda Gourgel he has one son: −− José Avelino Gourgel dos Santos −− From

He was married for the second time on 17 May 1991 to Ana Paula Cristóvão Lemos. A former flight attendant on the Angolan presidential plane, Ana Paula met José Eduardo dos Santos while working on presidential flights. From this marriage he has three sons and one daughter: −− Eduane

Danilo Lemos dos Santos Lemos dos Santos −− Eduardo Breno Lemos dos Santos −− Houston Lulendo Lemos dos Santos −− From a relationship with Eduarda, known as ‘Dadinha’ he has one son: −− Josiah dos Santos 32 Nevertheless, Banco Postal, an Angolan bank was closed due to insufficient capitalization. One of the shareholders of the bank was Danilo dos Santos, a son of dos Santos. −− Joseana

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Isabel dos Santos is quite different from Tchizé and poses as a real menace to Lourenço. She has devised a comprehensive strategy aiming to surreptitiously combat Lourenço and to move herself forward as a presidential contender in the near future, helped by several well-established London firms. She utilizes digital media very well, with short but feline sentences about the dismaying state of the economy and Lourenço’s incompetence to deal with it. At the same time, she presents herself as a proto statesman, often travelling to the same countries as Lourenço and meeting with heads of state or attending international conferences as a special guest, almost shadowing Lourenço. Her speech, unlike her sister’s, is articulate and focused on job creation and economic progress, addressing the questions Angolans want to see solved. Due to that, some media influencers have started to declare their support for her candidature for president of Angola in 2022.33 Lourenço won his presidential spurs precisely with the dismissal of Isabel dos Santos from the position as chair of Sonangol. Since then, it is easy to see that she has become his main enemy. Only she had the financial capacity, network and international articulation to face the president. And that is exactly what she has done, smoothly and discreetly, but with exhausting effects. In Angola, Isabel dos Santos shrewdly takes avail of the various economic blows that Lourenço has suffered, sending the message that she is the largest private employer in the country, so she is the best equipped to create jobs. The same argument is referred to in order to defend herself from governmental procedures against her interests. According to her admirers, by attacking her the government is undermining Angolan private economic development. This argument has percolated in the country. I have heard several supporters of Lourenço speaking out that it is necessary to spare Isabel dos Santos, since she is the largest employer in the country.34 With this argument, Isabel dos Santos has earned a capital of sympathy that she did not have at the end of her father’s term in September 2017. At the same time, through her communication agencies, Isabel dos Santos created a huge anti-Lourenço barrage on social media networks. From the president’s golf swing failures in the Mangais golf course to the dissemination of technical reports critical of Lourenço’s policy, everything found its way Victor Hugo Mendes declara apoio à Isabel dos Santos caso seja candidata à presidência de Angola, Angonotícias, 7 June 2019. Available online: http:​//www​.ango​notic​ias.c​om/Ar​tigos​/item​/6135​2/vic​ tor-h​ugo-m​endes​-decl​ara-a​poio-​a-isa​bel-d​os-sa​ntos-​caso-​seja-​candi​data-​a-pre​siden​cia-d​e-ang​ola (accessed 2 December 2019). 34 Interview with an adviser of the presidential staff.

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online. For example, Isabel dos Santos stated in the Portuguese newspapers that instability in Angola makes it unreliable for investors and that it was necessary to ensure that the rule of law with separation of powers prevails in the country, insinuating that this is not the case.35 Still, regarding Angola, there are several critical ‘international’ consultants, who, after being properly investigated, always have links to a company from the circle of collaborators of former president dos Santos. To this national strategy, Isabel dos Santos added an international strategy, which was essentially based on appearing with an air of statesmanship in prestigious places speaking on behalf of the future of Angola. Most recently, she was at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum rehearsing a patriotic speech promoting investment in education for Angola. The same happened in China. Isabel dos Santos has not stopped moving around the globe and promoting herself as a brilliant and innovative entrepreneur who has the key to the future of Angola, portraying Lourenço and his entourage as out of touch with modernity and vindictive. Her husband, Sindika Dokolo, has helped by creating an image of himself as an African art collector of impeccable reputation. He envisaged a way to return to Africa as an influential figure in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by approaching the new president, Felix Tshisekedi. With these assets, he has created an idea of cosmopolitan pan-Africanism that continues to serve Isabel dos Santos’s interests. In short, during 2018 and 2019, Isabel dos Santos transformed herself into the Leader of the Opposition in Angola. This was going to have serious consequences by the end of 2019. The final irony of history is that the former great opponent of the regime, Marques, seems to be greatly appreciated by Lourenço, who besides having personally received him and talked with him at length at the end of 2018, in November 2019, on the occasion of Angola’s independence festivities, decorated Marques at a public ceremony. Lourenço vowed to make Marques, the veteran freedom and anti-corruption fighter, a symbol of the new Angola. The former political and civic opponent was now embraced by the powers that be. This is a challenging situation that also raises expectations concerning Lourenço’s policies.

‘Isabel dos Santos: Angola vive em “instabilidade” e precisa de mostrar que é um Estado de Direito’, Lusa, 14 October 2019. Available online: https​://ww​w.jor​nalde​negoc​ios.p​t/eco​nomia​/mund​o/afr​ ica/a​ngola​/deta​lhe/i​sabel​-dos-​santo​s-ang​ola-v​ive-e​m-ins​tabil​idade​-e-pr​ecisa​-de-m​ostra​r-que​-e-um​ -esta​do-de​-dire​ito (accessed 3 December 2019).

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New active foreign policy As seen, dos Santos’s foreign policy was somehow dormant, and had a specific aim – that of guaranteeing the full sovereignty of his regime and avoiding international interferences. Dos Santos preferred that Angola lay low. Lourenço embarked on a contrasting policy, being active and travelling a lot. In September 2019, a review made by a Portuguese news agency36 revealed that in two years of governance, President Lourenço visited twenty-three countries, on trips made officially or privately, apart from attending various international summits. Lourenço’s travel routine began in 2017 with his trip to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where he attended the summit between the European Union and the African Union. In Africa, his trips have been to South Africa, DRC, Congo, Rwanda, Cape Verde, Namibia, Zambia, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania and Namibia, on official visits and for international summits. In Europe, he has travelled to Portugal, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Russia, both on official visits and participating in international summits. In Asia, Lourenço has visited China, Japan and Qatar. In North America, the last continent the president has visited, he went twice to Cuba and once to the United States, where he made an official and a private visit, respectively. What seems to stand out from Lourenço’s travels is a triple perspective. First, he wants to put Angola on the global map and give it credibility. He wants to show that Angola is not a forgotten country transformed into a paradise for kleptocratic dictators in the confines of Africa. Lourenço aims to present a new Angola, a law-abiding country that is no longer a place for theft and money laundering. And, this is the second aspect, to announce to the world the existence of this new Angola. As he said in his speech at the European Parliament in July 2018, ‘Today, when the country is experiencing a natural phase of political transition, the Angolan Executive continues to be committed to deepening the democratic process and to improve the conditions that allow for an environment favourable to diversity of opinion, freedom of expression and, in general, respect for the fundamental rights of citizens’, adding that he ‘sought to implement policies that directly benefit the population’. He also said that his government ‘has focused its attention on implementing macroeconomic stabilisation and fiscal consolidation programmes to reduce the effects of inflation and normalise the foreign exchange market’. Lourenço stressed that his government has been carrying out ‘a real crusade against corruption and Agência Lusa.

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impunity throughout society, highlighting the so-called white-collar crimes’, promising that soon everyone would see the positive results.37 Lourenço’s speech at the European Parliament presented the epitome of his policies, recognizing that the country is transitioning into a democracy with respect for fundamental rights, a modern, free market economy, relentlessly fighting corruption. This is the message that Lourenço wants to leave about his government’s programme and his vision for Angola in the various capitals. It is especially important to note that the president emphasizes that this is not just about fighting corruption, but about making a political and economic transition. The third reason for Lourenço’s foreign travels – apart from placing a credible Angola on the world map, displaying a new Angola that is transitioning to democracy, has a free market and in the process of combating corruption – is to garner support for his new policies from foreign countries. He sought effective support, whether in terms of financial support, investment, or the lifting of the hidden sanctions that exist in relation to Angola, the grey compliance memoranda, the non-access to foreign exchange and correspondent banks. In this mission, Lourenço has, perhaps, somewhat overreached himself – for instance, in his dealing with the UK, he asked to be accepted into the Commonwealth, and in France, he said that he planned to join La Francophonie. In fact, in June 2018, in an interview given exclusively to Euronews38 Lourenço declared that the country’s geopolitical strategy was in this direction, stating, ‘no wonder we are thinking of asking now to join the Francophonie and in a few days we will also be asking to join the Commonwealth’. At the time, Lourenço explained the reasons for this decision, ‘as is the case with Mozambique, which is stuck there among the Anglophone countries, – there is Malawi, Tanzania, and South Africa itself – and eventually joined the Commonwealth itself, Angola is also surrounded, not by Lusophone countries, but by Francophone and Anglophone countries.’ Boris Johnson, then foreign secretary, swiftly responded on Twitter declaring ‘Splendid that Angola AO wants to join the Commonwealth family. V much welcome President Lourenço’s commitment to long-term reform, tackling corruption and improving human rights. Hope to welcome him to UK soon.’39 João Lourenço speech to the European Parliament on 4 July 2018. Michel Santos, ‘Exclusivo – João Lourenço: “Estamos preparados e vamos derrotar o gigante da corrupção”’, Euronews, 1 June 2018. Available online: https​://pt​.euro​news.​com/2​018/0​6/01/​exclu​ sivo-​joao-​loure​nco-e​stamo​s-pre​parad​os-e-​vamos​-derr​otar-​o-gig​ante-​da-co​rrupc​ao- (accessed 3 December 2019). 39 Boris Johnson, Twitter, 5 June 2018. Available online: https​://tw​itter​.com/​Boris​Johns​on/st​atus/​10040​ 39780​07674​8802?​ref_s​rc=tw​src per cent5Etfw per cent7Ctwcamp per cent5Etweetembed&ref_ url=https per cent3A per cent2F per cent2Fpt.euronews.com per cent2F2018 per cent2F06 per cent2F06 per cent2Fangola-pede-adesao-a-commonwealth (accessed 3 December 2019). 37 38

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However, beyond the good intentions, those proclamations did not advance as swiftly as expected. Lourenço’s enthusiasm was met with warm words in the Western capitals, but without specific promises these Western countries chose to adopt a ‘wait-andsee’ policy, and not overly engage with the president. Regarding traditional allies such as China and Russia, relationships were maintained, but there were some weird facts. In early September 2018, Lourenço flew to China to attend the Forum on China–African Cooperation (FOCAC) summit40 and allegedly to obtain a US$11 billion loan. At the time of this trip, the Angolan press assumed that Lourenço would secure this US$11 billion Chinese loan, information echoed across several media outlets. However, quietly, during Lourenço’s trip it was announced that the signing of the financial contracts had been postponed for technical reasons. Apparently, the reason for such a delay was that the Chinese authorities required more accurate information from their Angolan counterparts on the projects in which the US$11 billion were to be invested. One month later, Lourenço returned to China: apparently to sign documentation for receipt of the loan, as the technical issues were resolved. Perplexing journalists and observers alike, on 11 October 2018, it was announced as a great triumph of Lourenço’s statesmanship that a financial agreement was reached and signed. A small detail: the amount was US$2 billion and not the craved US$11 billion. Suddenly, US$9 billion evaporated without a proper explanation. To add to the puzzlement, Angolan finance minister, Mangueira, immediately disclosed that part of this loan would be used to pay debts to China. Most probably, this loan would not add any liquidity to Angola’s depauperate public finances. China once considered a ‘safe haven’ for Angolan financing, was apparently so no longer. Several reasons were advanced as an explanation for this fiasco. The first reason was merely technical: Angola was overly indebted to China and had difficulty repaying its commitments, while China itself no longer had the liquidity of the past. Therefore, a phase of financial restraint between China and Angola was necessary to review bilateral commitments and prepare the future of relations between the two countries. The second reason had a more political nature. A part of the previous Chinese money was used by various corrupt investments, including Sam Pa, Vicente and many other senior Angolan leaders. The current moment was that of a fight against corruption, both in China and Angola. Thus, it made no sense to make large loans until investment systems without corrupt interference and spurious intermediaries were well FOCAC is a kind of an organization created by China to systematize its influence in Africa.

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defined. One way or another, financial flows between China and Angola were at a critical point. Angola must prove that it is able to receive money and invest in its economy without diverting large sums into the private accounts of its leaders. It is not yet clear if this would represent a change in the model that had been underlying China–Angola relations since 2002.41 For many years, the Chinese– Angolan model had functioned and been extended into other parts of Africa. This current contraction of the Chinese attitude may have represented a shift of paradigm, indicating that Angola no longer had an open door to China. Perhaps this was the reason for negotiating a loan with the IMF. If with China, some doubts arose, at least from the point of view of an external observer, the same can be inferred for relations with Russia. As in the case of China, Lourenço had travelled several times to the country and had been hosted with all due pomp and circumstance. Again, the disconnect lies in the details. In October 2019, President Lourenço attended the Russia–Africa summit in Sochi. Bewilderingly, Isabel dos Santos was also present at the same event, attending the summit as a businesswoman. Without a doubt this was a nuisance for the Angolan head of state, as at the time the feud between the two and the exchange of words between the dos Santos family and Lourenço’s government had been made public, Lourenço attempted to downplay Isabel dos Santos’s attendance positing that she had gone on her own free will, and not due to any formal invitation from the Russian state, adding that as a daughter of a Russian citizen this was the most natural thing in Russia. Lourenço’s explanation is unconvincing when it comes to a country like Russia that has a centralizing and controlling culture. The presence of Isabel dos Santos was not a coincidence and likely materialized for one of the following three reasons, or all the three together. It may be that Russia was not particularly pleased that one of its fruits, such as Lourenço, could seek to develop such proximity to the West, wanting to cultivate warm ties with the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. And in this manner, Russia discreetly warned that it could bet on Isabel dos Santos as a future alternative. It may also be that there was some secret negotiation going on between Russia and Angola and Isabel dos Santos’s presence would be an added pressure on these negotiations. Finally, and at the same time, the Russians may have felt that Lourenço’s position was weak and sought to maintain ties with the new leader of the dos Santos family. Similarly to China the information coming from Russia is thin and only from official sources, since it is not possible to have access to other internal Burgis, The Looting Machine, pp. 86–7.

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sources. The best that can be done is an educated guess. These apparent setbacks in Lourenço’s diplomacy with old Angolan allies would force the president to evaluate his options. Beyond the amiable rhetoric, the West had been slow to open up to Angolan wishes, and to allow the country to fully benefit from the freedoms of the international financial system. On the other side China still had a deep interest in Africa, and Russia has re-ignited its old interest. Consequently, everything was open-ended, and Lourenço would have to engage in a delicate balance between West and East, promises and realities. Where Lourenço had shown himself to have a vigorous approach and had demonstrated his growing statesmanship was in his dealings with CentralSouthern Africa. As early as November 2017, Angolan troops departed for the Kingdom of Lesotho with the mission to help stabilize the southern African country. The Angolan contingent was made up of 164 military personnel, and the mission was expected to last six months. Angolan intervention derived from its position as chairman of the SADC Policy, Defence and Security Agency to guarantee political and security tranquillity in Lesotho. This constituted the first peacekeeping mission within a regional organization in which Angola participated, thus respecting the United Nations Charter. At the time Lesotho was going through a situation of political–military instability, which worsened in September 2017, when Army Chief of Staff General Khoantle Motsomotso was killed during a shoot-out in his barracks. In the same incident two other officers were murdered, General Bulane Sechele and Colonel Tefo Hashatsi. This action embodied Lourenço’s first external military intervention and created the roadmap for future actions and interventions. Angola would be both robust but moving within a multilateral approach. The same robust and multilateral stance was taken regarding the 2018 DRC elections. Joseph Kabila was the son of Laurent-Desiré Kabila, Mobutu’s successor, after the war that ousted the infamous dictator in 1997. With Angolan support, Laurent-Desiré Kabila was inaugurated as president of the Republic of the DRC on 31 May 1997, and continued in that role until 2001, when he was murdered. Initially Angola did not intervene in this process of regime-change. But, in 1997, claiming that its foe UNITA was supporting Mobutu, the Angolan government decided to interfere in the conflict, either by supporting already fighting forces, or by deploying regular troops.42 Sommerville43 argues that Angola, beyond the aforementioned strategic reasons, also opted to support Kabila and fight Mobutu F. Reyntjens, The Great African War: Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996–2006 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 43 Keith Sommerville, Africa’s Long Road Since Independence (London: Penguin, 2017). 42

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in order to have access to valuable minerals such as coltan, gold and diamonds. The fact was that Laurent-Desiré Kabila counted on Angolan support to achieve power and to maintain it. Angola ‘again militarily intervened in the DRC in 1998, this time to protect the new, post-Mobutu administration, now facing a new Rwandan- and Ugandan-backed rebellion. Angola was concerned that if these rebels won power, they would give aid to the rebel UNITA movement in Angola but also concerned with protecting their sphere of influence against Rwandan encroachment.’44 When Kabila was killed, some African experts insinuated that Angola had had an indirect or even direct role in the assassination.45 Apparently, Kabila was selling diamonds through a Lebanese middleman, and somehow this business was benefiting UNITA, the eternal enemy of the Angolan government.46 Kabila was succeeded by his son Joseph Kabila who occupied the presidency from 2001. After that, Angola provided fundamental support for Kabila and was a strong ally of the DRC leadership. For example, in 2006, the Angolan army was dispatched to Kinshasa to help Kabila’s bodyguards in their fight against forces loyal to the ex-rebel Jean-Pierre Bemba. By the end of dos Santos’s tenure, as mentioned earlier, a policy change appeared to be on the horizon. Angola was becoming worried about the disarray that Kabila’s refusal to stand down from the presidency was creating, encouraging a conflict in their common border across which refugees poured into Angola. The second presidential term of Joseph Kabila ended officially in December 2016, but he refused to step down, alleging that the country was not prepared to have elections. This led to several protests with a high death toll. Initially, the Catholic Church had brokered a deal between Kabila and the opposition, allowing him to remain in power in 2017 provided that presidential elections were held that year. On 23 September 2017, at the General Assembly of the UN, Kabila announced that the route to elections was practically complete and very soon an electoral calendar would be published. In fact, he continued to procrastinate, and no concrete steps were taken to satisfy either the agreement with the Church, its term now exceeded, or the UN announcement. In doing this, Kabila arranged a series of problems for Angola. First, the troubles in the Kasai region (DRC) magnified a refugee problem on the border with Angola. The Angolan army had been trying to contain this, Alex Vine, The DRC Will Be the First Foreign Policy Priority for Angola’s New President https​:// ww​w.cha​thamh​ouse.​org/e​xpert​/comm​ent/d​rc-wi​ll-be​-firs​t-for​eign-​polic​y-pri​ority​-ango​la-s-​new-p​ resid​ent#,​2017, p. 3. 45 P. Bamurangirwa, Rwanda Yesterday (Leicester: Troubador Publishing Ltd, 2013) T. Turner, The Death of Laurent Kabila http:​//fpi​f.org​/the_​death​_of_l​auren​t_kab​ila/ 2001. 46 René Lemarchand, ‘Democratic Republic of Congo’, in R. Rotberg (ed.), State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror (New York: Brookings Institution Press, 2004). 44

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but it was resulting in bursts of violence and conflict. This had made Angola regard Kabila as a destabilizing force, the reason why the Angolan ambassador to Kinshasa was summoned to Luanda for consultations, and Angolan authorities had launched a call for aid to the international community to help the country efficiently manage the approximately 30,000 Congolese refugees on Angolan soil. The situation was creating tension between the two neighbours. Additionally, Angola had withdrawn the military advisors it had in Congo. This was the dangerous situation inherited by Lourenço. Kabila refusing to stand down, DRC on the verge of civil war, and refugees fleeing to Angola. In fact, Lourenço in his first big interview for an international audience with the Spanish news agency, Agencia EFE, in August 2017,47 affirmed that his major preoccupation regarding defence matters was the protection of Angola’s northern border with Congo. This scenario led to a decisive and vigorous performance by Lourenço. Backed by the major Western powers, Lourenço entered into bilateral talks with Kabila. From these conversations, and obviously as a result of other pressures, came Kabila’s decision to hold general elections (presidential and legislative) in Congo. Apparently, while pressing Kabila, Lourenço promised him sanctuary in Angola if something went wrong for the Congolese president.48 Thus, Lourenço’s firm but friendly position was instrumental in unlocking the situation and effectively booking a date for the elections, which took place in December 2018. Angola’s foreign policy in relation to DRC comprised three features: Congo’s political stability, the security of the common border and increased trade. From a practical perspective, in the DRC elections the goal of Angola was to see Joseph Kabila leave quietly. A victory by Emmanuel Shadary, who would continue Kabila’s reign of political and border instability, was also undesirable.49 But, beyond the firm opinion that Kabila should leave, there was no news of Angola’s interference in the electoral process. As known, the elections were won by Felix Tshisekedi, although another contender, Martin Fayulu, claimed fraud, and declared himself the winner. In fact, it was argued that Tshisekedi was elected only because he signed a Faustian agreement with Kabila, as he turned out to be the outgoing president’s preferred choice for succession. Several sources have confirmed the EFE (2017). João Lourenço’s Interview Spanish Agency EFE-30th August 2017. Available online: http:​//www​.emba​ixada​deang​ola.c​om.br​/v2/i​ndex.​php?o​ption​=com_​conte​nt&vi​ew=ar​ticle​&id=8​ 58:en​trevi​sta-c​omple​ta-do​-pres​ident​e-ele​ito-d​e-ang​ola-j​oao-m​anuel​-gonc​alves​-lour​enco-​dada-​ a-age​ncia-​espan​hola-​de-no​ticia​s-efe​&cati​d=1:u​ltima​snoti​cias&​Itemi​d=18 (accessed 4 December 2019). 48 Interview with a member of presidential staff. 49 Interview with a member of presidential staff and interview with a former member of Tshisekedi’s entourage, meanwhile disgusted. 47

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existence of an agreement between the former president and the new president, with the hope that the latter would form a coalition government with Kabila himself, which in practice would maintain a monopoly of government policy. The same source claimed that Kabila has framed and manipulated Tshisekedi, leaving him with a limited leeway.50 Despite all these limitations, world chancelleries thought it was better to have a new president than an endless dispute that could radicalize the situation in the country. Accordingly, they hastened to recognize Tshisekedi’s legitimacy. Tshisekedi was sworn in as president of the Republic of the DRC, a peaceful electoral transition, a first in the country’s history. Not a small feat, in which the role of Lourenço was pivotal. Not surprisingly, Tshisekedi’s first trip as the new president of the DRC was to Angola, where he met with President Lourenço on 5 February 2019. Congolese public opinion was increasingly convinced that the new president has been ‘taken hostage’ by Kabila.51 It seemed that the country was striding towards a joint government between Kabila’s party and that of Tshisekedi. The weight of the current president’s party in this coalition would likely determine his leeway to implement the true reforms that all Congolese hoped for. That is where Angola’s determining act would come in. The Angolan objective was to seek to dissociate the new president from the previous one and to promote the necessary reforms, as Lourenço intended to do in Angola. In this way, a reformist dynamic would be created in this region of Africa, possibly combined with what would happen in South Africa, giving strength to Mozambique to develop an anti-corruption movement, and perhaps even leading Zimbabwe’s new leader to join this reformist and progressive block. Therefore, not only was Congo’s stability at stake, but a whole trend that could become exemplary in southern Africa may be developed. It is in this context that Angolan foreign and defence policy could act in a forceful and relevant way for the future. In the light of the earlier revelation, it was becoming essential for Angola to discreetly support Tshisekedi’s empowerment process vis-à-vis Kabila, as the new president was key to ensuring stability in Congo and the creation of the reformist block in Africa. This is a process in the making. Lourenço also played a crucial part with additional actors in the same region. His new international leadership resulted in the signing, in Luanda, of a MoU by the presidents of Uganda and Rwanda, in August 2019, ending mutual accusations between the two countries. Ugandan Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan Paul Interview with a member of presidential staff and interview with a former member of Tshisekedi’s entourage, meanwhile disgusted. 51 Interview with a former member of Tshisekedi’s entourage, meanwhile disgusted. 50

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Kagame pledged to comply with the MoU aimed at solving security problems in the region of the Great Lakes. It was the Angolan president Lourenço who hosted this Great Lakes Summit, and emerged as the great regional peacemaker. Kagame gave assurances that the Luanda memorandum had definitively ended the conflict between the two countries, as did Museveni. Ironically, the Great Lakes region is a well-known zone of great tensions. The main victim has been DRC due to the huge natural resources that the country has in its soil. So, this agreement was important not only for Rwanda and Uganda, but also to fix DRC woes. This was the reason why DRC president Tshisekedi who was also present stated, clearly thrilled, I am the most satisfied President of all of us here, because as long as peace reigns in our subregion it is always an exceptional occasion for me. Now is the time for us, the leaders of Africa, to realize that we no longer have time to make wars. Today we talk about free trade zones, so we must break all customary barriers and make the African continent like a single country, and then we will see that there will be no more room for ethnic conflict, and turn to building and bringing welfare to our respective peoples.52

Reinforcing Angola’s commitment to Africa and crowning Lourenço’s active foreign policy, last December (2019) the country took the rotating presidency of the African Union Peace and Security Council. What assessment can be made of Lourenço’s new active foreign policy? Although too early for a comprehensive appraisal, some trends have already emerged. Regarding the Western powers, the new president of Angola was welcomed, though with caution, prompting him to make the ‘faux pas’ of announcing the desired membership of the Commonwealth and La Francophonie without apparent prior preparation. But there is now greater receptivity towards Angola. Ultimately, however, this policy will be considered a success only if it unlocks the financial constraints to which Angola has been subjected and opens markets for the country. It is still a case in progress. What is certain is that it may have already created some doubts in Russia and in China, although it is not obvious what is coming, concerning the strong relationship with these two countries. In the Great Lakes region, Lourenço’s active policy seems to be producing results and casting Angola as the centre stage catalyst for peace, with a reformist Borralho Ndomba, ‘Uganda e Ruanda assinam acordo que põe fim a acusações mútuas’, DW, 21 August 2019. Available online: https​://ww​w.dw.​com/p​t-002​/ugan​da-e-​ruand​a-ass​inam-​acord​o-que​ -p per centC3 per centB5e-fim-a-acusa per centC3 per centA7 per centC3 per centB5es-m per centC3 per centBAtuas/a-50118848 (accessed 4 December 2019).

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common front visible in the region. Of course, in such a troubled region, nothing is certain, so far there is just Lourenço’s apparent ability to meet with the rest of Africa’s leaders and try to create some common ground.

2019 In 2019, one of Lourenço’s objectives was on the way to being accomplished, placing Angola on the world map. Both the British Prince Harry and the former prime minister, Tony Blair visited Angola amid much media attention. Tony Blair claimed he was attracted to Angola by the existence of the current leader with a new vision of the country. ‘We had this first meeting with the President of the Republic to talk about the important steps being taken towards economic growth’, mentioned Tony Blair, adding that he wanted to ‘hear for himself ’ about what was happening in Angola from a developmental point of view. ‘The President is very ambitious, and, with this, a lot of interest in Angola is created amongst the international community’ he finalized.53 Still in 2019, in Vienna, Austria, the Angolan minister of mineral resources and oil, Diamantino Azevedo, was elected as vice president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), an institution that would be chaired by the Minister of Energy from Algeria, Mohamed Arkab. The two ministers will lead OPEC for the duration of 2020. In the same week, the Ambassador Georges Chikoti, former Angolan foreign minister, was elected secretary general of the African group of African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries for a five-year term. Chikoti’s main task was described as assisting the European Council and the Council of the European Union and to help organize and ensure the coherence of the Council’s work and the implementation of the programmes these institutions develop. Also, finally, the important question of having correspondent banks in the United States seemed in hand after several meetings and a visit to Luanda of a delegation of senior officials from the US Federal Reserve in June 2019, when the issue was discussed. As referred to previously, the relationship between the Federal Reserve and the correspondent banks had been interrupted in 2016, a situation that aggravated the currency crisis that Angola had been experiencing since 2014. The delegation from the US Federal Reserve was highlevel. Consequently, in November 2019, the governor of Angola’s central bank Portal Oficial do Governo da República de Angola, ‘Antigo Primeiro-Ministro britânico destaca nova imagem de Angola’, 3 December 2019. Available online: https​://ww​w.gov​erno.​gov.a​o/Ver​Notic​ iaPre​s.asp​x?id=​47644​(accessed 5 December 2019).

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declared that some commercial banks already had correspondent banks in the US market, reinforcing the idea that meetings between officials of the BNA and the US Federal Reserve had been held in order to strengthen relations and recover the US currency in banking operations. However, this process has yet to be completely accomplished. If these achievements represent the silver lining of Lourenço’s governance, the truth is that the setbacks, difficulties and incongruities are greater and represent unavoidable challenges. In the fight against corruption, accusations of selectivity and persecution of only specific targets became commonplace. The reality is that the state has been unable to bring together a consistent strategy against corruption. The most widely reported case, before that of Isabel dos Santos, namely the one involving José Filomeno and his business partner and friend, Morais, ended up with the release of both men before trial, and an extrajudicial agreement, for which there was no legal basis, with Morais, leaving the country smiling. The only major case that went to trial was that of former transport minister Augusto Tomás. In this situation, despite culminating in the condemnation of Tomás, there were so many procedural irregularities that in the end the justice system was partially discredited and seemed to be only doing Lourenço a favour. It was not until December 2019 that another trial, that of the former central bank governor, Valter Filipe, and the same José Filomeno dos Santos, started. This case was about the aborted attempt to transfer US$500 million to London. The situation was weird, as it appeared that this transfer was the result of an express order from President dos Santos, who was not put on trial, so the decision of the court will be, by default, an incomplete ruling. The other two people being investigated, as far as the public were aware, were General Higino Carneiro, a former Minister of Public Works and provincial governor and Manuel Rabelais, dos Santos’s media man. Of relevant people, they are just a small example. Their cases appear to be proceeding slowly. Important personages such as Tchizé dos Santos, the former President dos Santos, Generals Kopelipa and Dino, the former vice president Vicente, several ministers of finance and important members of the MPLA were not under any formal inquiry until 2019. Afterwards, some first signs of criminal inquests and measures took place in 2020, although a systemic treatment of the matters was absent. In the case of Generals Kopelipa and Dino, as well as Vicente, there have been multiple seizures of their assets: important and iconic buildings, television

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stations, factories. So, it turns out to be wrong to say that the anti-corruption policy does not cover them. However, the problem is not just about people, it is the actual justice system itself. The Angolan justice system was built on the rubble of colonial structures. In reality, a good part of the penal legislation still dates from the Portuguese time, although the approval and entry into force of new Codes is an ongoing process. The Penal Code is the Portuguese legislation passed at the time of the monarchy in the late nineteenth century, while the Penal Procedure Code is the one adopted by Portugal’s nationalist dictatorship in the 1920s. Although the National Assembly has recently approved new Codes, they were not enforced in 2019. Interestingly, the ancient Portuguese norms are still in force in Angola, but not in Portugal, which is no longer either a monarchy or a dictatorship. This anachronistic criminal legislation has been followed by some sparse legislation, mainly enacted after 2010 in an effort to modernize the legal system after the adoption of the Constitution. However, the result is a confused and overlapping amalgam of norms, difficult to interpret, with a backward functioning of justice that is unprepared for the speed and challenges of the twenty-first century. Indubitably worse than the backdated and amalgamated norms, is the performance of the justice system. Most judicial posts were filled by individuals whose main merit was loyalty and adherence to President dos Santos. The creation of an autonomous body of prosecutors or independent judges was never a concern. From this it is easy to deduct that a spirit and doctrine that seek to apply punitive norms against corruption were never created. On the contrary, the judiciary looked the other way whenever there were allegations of corruption and specialized in persecuting the complainants for the practice of defamation and similar crimes. What was punished by the Angolan judicial system was the denunciation of corruption and not the corruption itself. Hence, Angola had a perfectly deferred judicial system vis-à-vis the political, an uncritical and instrumental power with which to pursue executive decisions. This should not come as a surprise. In fact, a Chicagoan model on the behaviour of the judiciary54 explains that judges’ subservience is causally linked to political alternation. A country in which the same party remains in power, even if it has J. Mark Ramseyer, ‘The Puzzling (In)Dependence of Courts: A Comparative Approach’, The Journal of Legal Studies, 23 (2) (June 1994): 721–47.

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appropriate legislation, tends to produce a deferential judicial system vis-à-vis the political power, while alternating ruling parties promote the independence of judges. In the case of Angola, beyond the structural constraints or inducements there was also a problem of agency. As described earlier, at least in the top tier of judges, choices were made according to political expediency, and judges enmeshed themselves in several businesses and political interactions. The most famous case was that of Rui Ferreira. Ferreira was a famous lawyer working for dos Santos before having been appointed president of the constitutional court in 2008. He held the position until 2017. Soon after leaving the post, in March 2018, he was selected by Lourenço as president of the Supreme Court. The problem was that Ferreira brought a long shadow with him, and there was instantly a reaction against his new position as head of the Supreme Court in a time of the supposed fight against corruption. Ferreira was accused of nepotism and illegal interference in judicial placements, but worse was the resurrection of an old story of his involvement in a murky business involving terrorists, seizing assets for personal profit and illegal exercise of lawyering, while being a judge. Brothers Artur de Almeida e Silva and Francisco Mateus Dias dos Santos, calling themselves the owners of Arosfran, a trading company, came out publicly to denounce Ferreira’s illegal practices. They explained that in the mid-1990s, they were employees of Comerang Ltd., having extensive experience in the field of import-export and customs clearance. In this context, they met a Lebanese citizen named Kassim Tajideen, a businessman based in Angola, who anxiously asked them to intervene in the rescue of his merchandise that had been seized by the National police during a legal enforcement operation. They established a strong bond with Kassim Tajideen. After such a successful initial endeavour, the two Angolans and Tajideen created a partnership established within the Arosfran company, that turned out to be a large trader in Angola. In 2011, following accusations by the US government that Tajideen was associated with Hezbollah terrorism, he was expelled from the country. However, before this expulsion, in June of the same year, the then president dos Santos, after assessing the consequences of this decision on Tajideen’s food distribution throughout the country, ordered the then Minister of State and head of his Civil House, Carlos Maria Feijó, and General Kopelipa to elaborate a plan for adequate compensation to the companies in which Tajideen participated. The owners of Arosfran were summoned by Minister Feijó for successive meetings in order to fully clarify the partnership between Tajideen and Arosfran. In these meetings, the compensation due to the Lebanese businessman as a financier of the goods,

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as well as to the legal owners of the company, who controlled the structure that stored and sold them, were considered. In practice, the governments’ idea was to shut Arosfran and any business dealings in which Tajideen had been involved, to compensate the owners and to build a new commercial structure. In fact, the new structure was conceived and started to operate, but the former owners of Arosfran did not receive any compensation whatsoever. And here is where Ferreira appears. He was Arosfran’s attorney from 1995. Knowing this fact, Minister Feijó informed Arosfran’s owners that he would deal directly with the then judge (not lawyer anymore) and that they would receive the feedback later. The brothers were removed from the negotiations and it was such that, they alleged, Ferreira already vested with the duties of president of the Constitutional Court, who decided on the sale of Arosfran to a new company and gave the approval to pay US$150 million in compensation to Tajideen. Ferreira decided everything using his position as a judge and without consulting his clients. Also, in the minutiae of the deal Ferreira and his family absorbed some of Tajideen’s assets into their patrimony. According to the brothers, part of the money from the sales of Arosfran, owned by them, as well as from the sale of Afribelg and Golfrate, groups owned by Tajideen, had circulated in the accounts of a company controlled by Judge Ferreira’s son.55 The explosive mixture of money for terrorism, illicit practice of the legal profession and appropriation of third parties’ assets inundated public opinion on social media, and after April 2019 the pressure mounted to oust Ferreira. There were six months of constant pressure, especially on social media networks, while President Lourenço assigned himself officially to a neutral position, saying only that he continued to place his trust in Ferreira. The uneasiness did not relent, and in early October Ferreira eventually resigned from his position as president of the Supreme Court. Behind the scenes, there was another reason for wanting to push Ferreira out, and for considering him as incompatible with the decision to fight corruption. Apparently, when José Filomeno was arrested, there was a sort of conspiracy of judges, led by Ferreira, to release him. Everything was ready. Ferreira, and Joel Leonardo, president-judge of the Common Crimes Chamber of the same court, had the legal justifications ready and the release warrant prepared: José Filomeno was to be released on Thursday, 4 October 2018. The documentation was ready, but there was no court decision supporting the release, it was a purely political move from the judges. It was by a close shave Francisco Dias dos Santos ‘Kito’ and Artur de Almeida e Silva, ‘Open Letter of Arosfran Group Owners’, MakaAngola, 3 April 2019. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​9/04/​carta​ -aber​ta-do​s-pro​priet​arios​-do-g​rupo-​arosf​ran1/​(accessed 9 December 2019).

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that the release of the son of the former president did not occur, supposedly due to an early interception from the security services that aborted the scheme.56 The mysterious conclusion is that after Ferreira’s resignation, Lourenço designated Joel Leonardo, supposedly involved in the same ruse to liberate José Filomeno, as the next president of the Supreme Court. The ousting of Ferreira represented just one of the aspects of the turbulence at the top of the judiciary. The attempt to implement a second tier of appeal courts between ordinary courts and the Supreme Court was likewise embroiled in controversy and postponed several times. In order to fill freshly created posts in the newly established courts of appeal in Luanda and Benguela, a public tender was opened for the judges. They strongly contested this, because of the unclear procedures which took place and the questionable results. Without going into details, it is sufficient to say that several judges revolted against the provisional lists of nominations. They filed lawsuits seeking the annulment of the proceedings, publicly challenged the judicial organs, and firmly stated that this was another manoeuvre by Ferreira to promote his faithful allies. This upheaval would have been impossible at the time of dos Santos. It serves as a symbol of the new times, where a space of liberty is in creation, when judges confront each other judicially without any presidential intervention. Lourenço let it run without interference. The bottom line is that the judiciary has neither a normative and functional structure nor the agency that allows people to believe that it can make an effective contribution both to the fight against corruption and to guarantee a balanced and swift justice, not submitted to obscure interests, both of which are so necessary for economic development.

Interview with a member of presidential staff.

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Conclusions Is this time different?

An appraisal of the initial two years fighting corruption: Asymmetries and ambiguities After his inauguration in September 2017, during his first two years in office, Lourenço’s fight against corruption combined a mixture of speeches, legislation and action. The speeches were compelling and authoritative, the legislation was feeble and ill-conceived, the actions were forcible, but meagre. The president’s agency spread into two fronts: the dismissal of former leaders linked to dos Santos, including his daughter, Isabel dos Santos’s dismissal from the leadership of oil company Sonangol, and of his eldest son José Filomeno from his position as CEO of the Sovereign Fund. These are just examples. The sweep was wide and general. In all areas of state intervention, old leaders were removed, and new ones appointed, all under the remit of the fight against corruption, although most of them were simply recycled from one public job to another. Also, in the same vein was the abolition of monopolies, such as that of Isabel dos Santos in the diamond trade or the annulment of public contracts portrayed as illegal, as in the case of the construction of the Caculo Cabaça dam that had been attributed to a company of the same Isabel dos Santos. The second front was the commencement of a series of legal cases, mostly described earlier. Regarding an initial evaluation of the effectiveness of the legal cases, the first aspect to highlight is that they were announced with an expectation of great impact, but they really did not produce any thorough or standardized consequences. The reality is that there was only one criminal case with visibility that went to trial and was broadly concluded in 2019, that of the former Minister of transport, August Tomás. This can hardly be considered as representing an intense fight against corruption. Other cases were stalled or dismissed based on some extrajudicial arrangements that were not transparent or bound by any law. The judicial authorities fought with a lack of technical expertise and tended

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to pursue oral agreements to facilitate the recovery of assets, thus creating a framework of uncertainty and irregularity in the fight against corruption. This made many critics, in this context, speak of selectivity and political persecution.1 While in South Africa, President Ramaphosa had established a new directorate to combat corruption and promoted a commission of inquiry regarding ‘State Capture’; in Angola a similar systemic approach took time. For a long time, the whole job was given to a sub-department within the Attorney General’s Office, which had only three magistrates and a director. This sub-department had no officers with the necessary expertise in economic–financial affairs. Concurrently, Lourenço did not raise the allocated budget nor did he take any robust initiative to create a broad mechanism to prevent and repress corruption. Due to all these contradictions, after two years, it was not possible to have a clear view of Lourenço’s strategy with regard to corruption. It is true that several dismissals had taken place, new legislation had been enforced and some legal actions had been pursued, but at the same time too many obstacles remained, the legislation had not been sufficiently modernized, and no apt structures had been created. This led to questioning the role performed by the president, to what extent the fight against corruption could be simply the result of the will of a man, when the structures were not prepared to accompany such an endeavour.

Historical antecedents to Lourenço’s role The role that Lourenço envisaged for himself, as a reformer within the system, was a tremendously difficult one, where the failures overwhelm the successes. Even now, it is not clear if the president is a true reformer or is simply amassing power under the disguise of a reformist path. These doubts open several interesting possibilities, particularly when confronted with history and past political events. In a way, Lourenço may end up like Marcelo Caetano in Portugal. Caetano was the former president of the Portuguese Council of Ministers at the end of the corporatist regime (1968–74).2 In 1968, when dictator Salazar (in power from 1932 to 1968) fell from his chair and was unable to govern, Caetano was called to replace the dictator. Caetano was a very prestigious professor of Isaías Samakuva, ‘Presidente não deve ser selectivo no combate à corrupção’, Nova Gazeta, 25 October 2018. Available online: https://www.novagazeta.co.ao/artigo/588 (accessed on 18 November 2019). 2 For an overview of Portuguese history, see David Birmingham, A Concise History of Portugal (Cambridge Concise Histories) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). Relatively to the Corporatist regime p. 161 ff. 1

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administrative law and former rector of the University of Lisbon who had been a faithful collaborator of Salazar, and a minister during the dictatorship several times. He had stepped back at the end of the 1950s, becoming a kind of discreet and gentle alternative within Salazar’s regime, also making his ‘desert crossing’ just like Lourenço. An insider who wanted to crack open the regime. Caetano took office and went on to speak the words that the people wanted to hear, announcing a political distension that became known as the ‘Marcelist Spring’. The population reacted enthusiastically to these announcements. However, they soon realized that the promises were mere cosmetic changes. The secretive political police changed its name but continued exerting the same repressive force. Some deputies were elected under a so-called Liberal Wing, but promptly realized that they would not be able to do anything more than deliver wellmeaning speeches. In short: as was said at the time, Caetano opened the signal to the left and then turned right. In fact, it took the military coup of 25 April 1974 to change the political situation in Portugal and to establish a democracy. Due to this coup, Caetano was exiled to Brazil where he died, embittered, unwilling to return to Portugal. In 2017, the situation in Angola was – in relation to politics rather than economics – like the Portugal of the late 1960s. The population had already gained the critical capacity to realize that the rulers had led the country into an abyss and could not offer anything new with the proposed solutions. They wanted change. Lourenço, like Caetano, addressed the matter by indicating that he too desired change and was prepared to lead it. The problem being that even if Lourenço sincerely thought that he could embody this change and fight corruption, he may be unable to do that, just like Caetano could not do it in Portugal. The structures of the regime that held the keys to power would never let him ‘shake’ the situation and effectively confront the vested interests. Lourenço may have made some modifications, but they too have been cosmetic. One or another medium-sized figure could be arrested on corruption charges, but not a really important one. The apparatus would not effectively support reform. And in the end, Lourenço would either be forced to settle or run. Even more dramatic is the example of Mikhail Gorbachev. In the 1980s, the leader of the Soviet Union, a superpower vying for the dominance of the world together with the United States, realized the inexorable decline of his country and of the Communist Party that ran it. He too attempted a transition based on political and economic overtures, the so-called Glasnost and Perestroika. This was met with great enthusiasm. The West raved about the refreshing new wind blowing from Moscow. However, the hard-line Communist Party and the KGB reacted with a coup d’état, which, although it failed, weakened Gorbachev, who

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was eventually ousted approximately six years after taking power (the same six years that Marcelo Caetano had lasted). The rest of the story is well known. The Soviet Union was broken up and Gorbachev ended up making advertisements for the multinational French luggage company, Louis Vuitton. And now Russia has Putin, the determined and shrewd former KGB officer. Both stories are cases of failed internal transitions, where inside reformist efforts failed to break with the past and domestic opposition. Perhaps, there is another way to view the situation, which will resemble what is happening in China today. President Xi Jinping has made the fight against toptier corruption a cornerstone of his tenure as leader of China’s destiny. Judging by the figures released to the public, the campaign has had impressive results: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has disciplined well over one million officials since 2012, the year when Xi took office. The anti-corruption campaign has embraced hundreds of high-level leaders – including former Chongqing Communist Party secretary general and Politburo member, Sun Zhengcai. Previously, several prominent Chinese leaders, such as one of Xi Jinping’s possible opponents, Bo Xilai, or former Chinese security chief, Zhou Yongkang, have already been arrested on corruption charges. Not to mention the Angolan business intermediary Sam Pa, who also found in prison his destination. The fight against corruption has made Xi Jinping popular among the Chinese, as in the case of Lourenço among Angolans. However, it can be argued that his enthusiasm for eradicating corrupt officials is a classic situation of centralization and control of power.3 And if this is deemed valid for Xi Jinping, the same can be affirmed regarding Lourenço. His acts can be interpreted as a situation of rapid seizure of power with popular support. Lourenço likes to compare himself to Deng Xiaoping, China’s successful reformer who laid the foundation for accelerated Chinese development. Immediately, after winning the elections, during a private visit on 30 August 2017, Lourenço gave a comprehensive interview to the Spanish news agency, Agencia EFE, in Madrid,4

Timothy R. Heath, ‘The Consolidation of Political Power in China under Xi Jinping’, Rand Corporation, 7 February 2019. Available online: https​://ww​w.ran​d.org​/pubs​/test​imoni​es/CT​503.h​ tml (accessed 19 November 2019); Fung Chan and Biyang Sun, ‘The Centralisation of the Chinese Communist Party’s Campaign against Corruption and Its Implications’, China Report, 54 (4) (2018): 403–20. 4 EFE (2017). João Lourenço’s Interview Spanish Agency EFE-30th August 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2017 from http:​//www​.emba​ixada​deang​ola.c​om.br​/v2/i​ndex.​php?o​ption​=com_​conte​nt&vi​ew=ar​ ticle​&id=8​58:en​trevi​sta-c​omple​ta-do​-pres​ident​e-ele​ito-d​e-ang​ola-j​oao-m​anuel​-gonc​alves​-lour​ enco-​dada-​a-age​ncia-​espan​hola-​de-no​ticia​s-efe​&cati​d=1:u​ltima​snoti​cias&​Itemi​d=18.​ 3

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Q: You were military trained in the Soviet Union and are a chess player. You have the Army on your side, which is very valuable. Those who know you say that you are calm and discreet. Tell me, in short, who is Joao Lourenço? Is it too bold to call you the Angolan Gorbachev? Are you a reformer? JL: I think you said it all. It’s hard to talk about myself. I’d rather have someone else talk about me. Reformer? Let’s work towards this, but certainly not like Gorbachev, Deng Xiaoping, yes.

The point was that Deng Xiaoping did not want to reform everything. He focused on one point: the elastic liberalization of economics, adopting a heterodox development model, not a recipe from an American textbook. However, at the same time, he maintained an iron grip on the Communist Party of China. He was not a regime reformer, nor did he make any political transition. He was a pragmatist of the economy. By purporting that narrative, Lourenço made a liaison between the fight against corruption and economic development but not of any political détente.

Dismal economic results If in the fight against corruption there have been some advances, and at least a symbol of power has been created that affirms the priority in eradicating this scourge, as far as the economy is concerned, despite Lourenço’s voluntarist rhetoric, it is not possible to show any short-term positive results. The situation worsened. In 2018, GDP growth was negative at 2.1 per cent, and the forecasts made by the World Bank for 2019 predicted, ‘Angola is expected to emerge from three years of contraction in 2019, with recent growth in the non-oil sector reflecting business environment reforms. Still, a decline in oil production has led to weaker-than-expected growth this year.’5 Although in June the World Bank was mildly optimistic, considering that in 2019 Angola would be out of the recession, in late September, the South African Standard Bank’s economic studies department estimated that Angola in that year was experiencing a new economic recession of 1 per cent. In December 2019, the United Nations announced that Angola had fallen two places in the 2019 Human Development Index. It was the Lusophone country that fell the most in this assessment, going from 147th to 149th place. World Bank, Global Economic Prospects: Heightened Tensions, Subdued Investment (Washington: World Bank, 2019), 123.

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On the streets of Luanda, when contacting small-scale salespeople, shopkeepers, housewives, secretaries, restaurant and bar employees, and the general population – those that do not belong to the elites or to the official organs of the state – I have always encountered negative and dissatisfied accounts concerning the economic situation: higher prices, lack of products and uncertainty were the criticisms most widely reported. The prestige Lourenço acquired through his fight against corruption started to wane due to poor economic results. As a result, Lourenço’s aspiration to be the great reformer of the Angolan economy has yet to be fulfilled. Deng Xiaoping’s has not yet arrived at Luanda’s harbour. It is obvious that Angola is facing a cycle of economic recession and stagnation. It has been going on since 2014, and ultimately led to the abandonment of dos Santos. However, this cycle has a structural explanation beyond the quotidian economic woes. The reality is that Angola’s model for growth was chosen in 2002, and produced a rapid expansion based on oil. The disaster was that the gains of this rise were appropriated by very few people, and there was no real effect on the economy, nor the creation of a strong national economy; only personal fortunes were amassed which quickly got invested abroad or spent on consumerist nonsenses. It is not in a mere two years that a decade-old problem gets resolved. The structural transformation of an economy takes time and is painful. In general, there is always a first phase when the situation gets worse, people suffer more, sacrifices are greater. Two examples can be discussed. In the late 1970s, the UK was considered a country in decline; the treasury did not fail only due to an intervention by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1976. In the 1980s, UK started a major economic recovery led by Margaret Thatcher. Nonetheless, the situation declined further before it improved; unemployment reached exorbitant numbers in the millions, and growth remained stagnant. This led 364 of the most famous economists in the UK to publish a letter in The Times newspaper stating that Thatcher’s economic policy was totally wrong. Interestingly, it was just when that letter came out, that the economy started to improve and to relaunch the UK to a new level of prosperity. The economists were wrong, but the recovery was not without severe unemployment and various bankruptcies, and not without a lot of sacrifice.6 Similarly, this was partially what occurred in The literature on Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies is immense. A good explanation can be found online at Kent Matthews, Patrick Minford, ‘Mrs Thatcher’s Economic Policies 1979–1987’, Economic Policy, 2 (5) (1 October 1987): 57–101. https://doi.org/10.2307/1344621.

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Portugal during the 2011 financial crisis. Centre-right government policy was not much different from Thatcher’s precepts, now turned into IMF orthodoxy, although not enforced with Thatcher’s stamina and political cunning. Portugal also went through some bitter times, and then, apparently, recovered,7 although with shaky foundations that have come to be apparent with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. This illustrates that any structural adaptation of the economy is painful and takes time. The structural conception of the Angolan model made it extremely dependent on oil, the price of which has been falling since 2014. Looking at the figures, on 20 June 2014, the price per barrel/Brent was at US$114.81. In August of that year, the price commenced its abrupt decline, and never again approached US$100. The closest it got to this was on 3 October 2018, at US$86.26, but it declined rapidly from there. It is thus easy to see that a country dependent on excess oil (according to the latest World Bank data, 90 per cent of exports and 33 per cent of total national production derived from oil) is trapped by this dependence. Oil rises, the country gets a cash injection. Oil goes down, bread is scarce. To cope with these problems which derive from the structure of the Angolan economy, are the structural economic reforms taken by Lourenço. From the positive side there has been important new private investment legislation ending the main restrictions on investment and business activity. The Angolan government took several measures to stimulate investment, and above all, remove the main obstacles regarding private investment: weak protection of property rights, mandatory local partners and difficulty in transferring profits. The measures taken were of a legal and administrative nature. In legislative terms, the New Private Investment Act (Law no. 10/18, 26 June) was enacted. The norm no longer requires partnerships with Angolan citizens or companies with Angolan capital. This is of fundamental importance. From now on, there is no longer the prior danger in which the Angolan partner, at a certain point, would appropriate everything for themselves. In addition, the Act in its Article 14 guarantees that the state respects and protects the private property rights of private investors; Article 15 establishes that the Angolan State assures all private investors access to Angolan courts for the defence of their interests, with due process, protection and security being ensured. Similarly, the new legislation pledges to respect the right to repatriate dividends and related amounts without weighing objective criteria or time constraints. And as an additional advantage, On Portugal’s economic policies in 2011–15, see Martin Eichenbaum, Sergio Rebelo, and Carlos de Resende, ‘The Portuguese Crisis and the IMF’, Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund, June 2016.

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there is no provision for a supplementary capital tax rate on dividends and profits. In administrative terms, it should be noted that in 2018, all requests for the transfer of dividends in excess of US$5 million were granted to foreign companies operating in the country. And, most importantly, since 2020, the importation of capital from foreign investors who want to invest in the country in companies or projects in the private sector, as well as the exportation of the income associated with these investments, has been exempted from licensing by the Angolan central bank. There is a visible action by the government to create more attractive conditions for foreign investment: this effort is reflected in the attempt to create a more favourable social and political climate in the new legislation on private investment. The dangers of absorption by the local partner or the impossibility of transferring profits are thus mitigated. Nevertheless, in the short term, this law does not seem to have brought in any results or any new companies. The basic elements for investment are not yet verified: a functioning judicial system, the existence of a simplified administration, the end of bureaucratization, and a favourable social climate and security. Investors are still afraid that any political whim or element of corruption will make them lose all their investment, as was often the case in the past. Neither the Private Investment Act nor the Asset Recovery Acts have been enough to bring financial funds and investments into Angola to boost the economy. And the difficulty is that, besides these actions, most of Lourenço’s economic policies have been recessive. In what concerns fiscal policy, they aimed at diminishing public debt and budget deficit, as orientated by the IMF. Regarding the monetary policy too, because of the liberalization of the exchange rate, the central bank has been forced to impose a restrictive policy subtracting the monetary mass in circulation to avoid inflation. Consequently, from whichever side one looks, the economic policies adopted have been recessive. Therefore, it would be exceedingly difficult not to have a recession. The government strategy was to count on the fact that the application of harsh and recessive policies would demonstrate Lourenço’s determination to ensure a stable economic environment, which would attract new investors. Having made such a show of setting the stage and guaranteeing that the fundamentals of the economy were under control, the curtain would open for investment and the private economy would emerge robust. So far, none of this has happened. The fundamentals are far from being controlled and Angola risks going into an

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economic downturn. An economy still in a very precarious stage of development such as Angola’s, may not endure intense recessive shocks; rather, they will promote the conditions for popular uprisings and social upheavals. Possibly, Lourenço is reading the IMF booklet too diligently, forgetting to look at his successful neighbours and Asian economies, and especially his inspirational Deng Xiaoping. The truth is that, usually, economic success combines markets’ liberalization with a pragmatic view in which the state also develops a proper role. In a country without productive capital, not used to competitive business, a free market cannot be established in just a couple of years. A mixed approach is required. This is the real challenge. The demand is that Lourenço will find the right blend of policies for the economic recovery.

Epilogue

On the evening of 30 December 2019, when the public were getting ready for the New Year festivities, an unexpected event invaded everyone’s leisure: Luanda’s Court had frozen the main assets of Isabel dos Santos in Angola. Her shares at Unitel, the country’s largest telecom company, her participation in banks, her bank accounts and several other assets, as well some company shares and bank accounts owned by her husband Sindika Dokolo and by her Portuguese righthand man, Mário Silva, were seized. In an instant, the Angolan fortune of Isabel dos Santos was controlled by the State. At least, provisionally she lost it.1 Isabel dos Santos reacted swiftly, claiming that such a move was illegal, as she had not been heard on the matter, and it was a process conducted in secrecy against the law. Rapidly, it emerged that this was not the case. Angola’s prosecution service used a civil norm that was part of the ordinary Civil Procedure Code which corresponds in kind to the British freezing injunctions. Therefore, there was nothing new or unusual about it. Then, Isabel dos Santos alleged that her companies would be bankrupt within a short time. Again, this argument did not penetrate public opinion, as it was easily established that the companies and their management were not affected by the freezing order, only Isabel dos Santos’s private assets. The event was still being discussed when on 19 January 2020, a consortium of investigative journalists published the results of an analysis of more than 715,000 files under the name ‘Luanda Leaks’, which detailed financial schemes of Isabel dos Santos and her husband, Dokolo, revealing that the origin of their vast fortune was the result of a permanent siphoning of funds from the Angolan state. The International Investigative Journalism Consortium (ICIJ), which integrated several media bodies, including the BBC and The Guardian, claimed that after several months pouring over 356 gigabytes of data related to Isabel dos Santos’s business affairs between 1980 and 2018, they were able to reconstruct the path that had allowed the daughter of the former Angolan president to become the richest woman in Africa. During the investigation, Communiqué of the Attorney General of the Republic of 30 December 2019, pertaining to my personal files.

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more than 400 companies (and their subsidiaries) to which Isabel dos Santos had been linked in the last three decades, including 155 from Portugal and 99 from Angola, were identified. The information contained details, they alleged, of a concealment scheme set up by Isabel dos Santos in the Angolan State oil company Sonangol, which enabled her to divert more than US$100 million (€90 million) to Dubai. ICIJ also asserted that, in less than twenty-four hours, Sonangol’s account at EuroBIC Lisbon, a bank where Isabel dos Santos was the main shareholder, was emptied and left with a negative balance. That had happened the day after her dismissal from Sonangol.2 In fact, most of these ‘revelations’ were already being published for some time in Angola by Marques’s Maka Angola and in other media outlets. The relevance of ‘Luanda Leaks’ was that they make the case known worldwide. Isabel dos Santos entered into total combat mode, declaring that she was a victim of political persecution.3 But this time she was overwhelmed by events. On 23 January, four days after the ICIJ news, Angola’s attorney general declared Isabel dos Santos a formal suspect of criminal activities and indicted her on several counts, starting a kind of global prosecution against her. He even went to Lisbon asking for the freezing of Isabel dos Santos’s assets in Portugal, which was granted after some hidden procrastination by the Portuguese authorities. In less than two months, Isabel dos Santos was cornered, lost her reputation, her credibility, access to part of her fortune, and was fighting to maintain her innocence and freedom. The change was abysmal. Now, Lourenço had the two most influential children of the former president under criminal charges. Lourenço’s anti-corruption drive started to seem genuine to foreign observers such as Jessica Hand, UK ambassador who declared, ‘What you have is a president who recognises that corruption is a stigma and a disincentive for foreigners to come here. He’s tackling that . . . and his actions have demonstrated that in spades.’4 José Agualusa, the famous Angolan writer, critical of the former regime, also affirmed the persecution on Isabel dos Santos, It is an act of justice, without a doubt. And by the way in which the process was started, you can’t talk about revenge. This process was triggered by a group Will Fitzgibbon and Mago Torres, ‘Luanda Leaks’, ICIJ, 19 January 2020. Available online: https​:// ww​w.ici​j.org​/inve​stiga​tions​/luan​da-le​aks/r​ead-t​he-lu​anda-​leaks​-docu​ments​/ (accessed 27 January 2020). 3 For a summary of facts and Isabel dos Santos’s reaction, see: Andrew Harding, ‘Angola’s Joao Lourenço – The Man Taking on Isabel dos Santos’, BBC, 27 January 2020. Available online: https​:// ww​w.bbc​.co.u​k/new​s/wor​ld-af​rica-​51221​737 (accessed 27 January 2020). 4 Quoted in Andrew Harding, ‘Angola’s Joao Lourenço – The Man Taking on Isabel dos Santos’, BBC, 27 January 2020. Available online: https​://ww​w.bbc​.co.u​k/new​s/wor​ld-af​rica-​51221​737 (accessed 27 January 2020). 2

188

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of journalists. There is nothing here that looks like revenge. It is a work of investigation, of a type of journalism that is urgent, at this moment, not only here in Angola, but in the world. Because it is a journalism capable of changing things for the better. What is going on is a kind of mental revolution. (. . .) I think it will make anyone here in Angola think better when they want to do obscure business. Because, as I said before, if a person like Isabel dos Santos falls, and she can fall, then anyone can. This really is (. . .) a revolution. In terms of our mentality it changes a lot. It shows that it is possible to fight corruption. That was something which seemed inconceivable a long time ago, come on (. . .) two years ago.5

Nevertheless, despite a certain optimism, some doubts remain. Ricardo Soares de Oliveira clearly expounded such qualms by considering that it is too early to ascertain whether Lourenço is truly enforcing a ‘structural cleaning of corruption’ in the country. He asserts that the conflict is political and goes beyond the rule of law.6 In fact, beyond the strong rhetoric and some legal indictments, the ‘fight against corruption’, as seen previously, has not challenged the installed system, only a few prevaricators. There is the permanent accusation that the other big magnate in Angola, Manuel Vicente, is being protected by Lourenço (although this is not quite so, as the former has already lost some assets), so what has already materialized is more a contest between oligarchs than an extirpation of corruption. For the time being the argument is never ending. Though it is true that Lourenço and the judicial apparatus, initially, focused on a few personalities and mainly on two of dos Santos’s children, slowly but steadily, the legal encirclement has started to expand to include several former ministers, provincial governors, civil servants and other relevant personalities. The list of indictments is becoming extensive. Those legal cases are (July 2020) at early stages, so it is not possible to make any plain inferences, but there is a clear tendency to enlarge the scope of the fight against corruption. Most probably the indictment of Isabel dos Santos marks a watershed moment, when it was established that everyone could be and will be charged. In that way, Isabel dos Santos’s legal woes are a symbol of the new stage everybody was looking for. José Eduardo Agualusa, ‘Está a acontecer no país uma revolução de mentalidades. (interview with Catarina Carvalho)’, Journal de Angola, 27 January 2020. Available online: http:​//jor​nalde​angol​a.sap​ o.ao/​entre​vista​/esta​-a-ac​ontec​er-no​-pais​-uma-​revol​ucao-​de-me​ntali​dades​(accessed 27 January 2020). 6 Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, ‘Luanda Leaks. Conflito é político e ultrapassa funcionamento do Estado de direito, defende investigador (Interview to Lusa Agency)’, Observador, 26 January 2020. Avai­ lable online: https​://ob​serva​dor.p​t/202​0/01/​26/lu​anda-​leaks​-conf​lito-​e-pol​itico​-e-ul​trapa​ssa-f​uncio​ namen​to-do​-esta​do-de​-dire​ito-d​efend​e-inv​estig​ador/​(accessed 28 January 2020). 5

Epilogue

189

One thing is certain and indisputable. With Lourenço, freedom of expression reached a level never before attained, and therein, released the energies of a population that previously was amorphous, especially the young people. Today, youth is extremely active and rebellious on social media, demanding results from the political powers. The weight of youth in Angola cannot be ignored. Mainly of urban youngsters who use social media networks. Some numbers are significant: 66.4 per cent of the population is between zero and twenty-four years old and 66 per cent of the population is urban. In the urban population, the unemployment rate is 39.3 per cent, while among young people aged twentyfour and under, unemployment reaches 53.8 per cent.7 It is easy to see that we are facing a volcano that will not be stopped. This young urban population with access (better or worse) to social media networks has become extremely active and requires a real transformation. Any retreat or failure on Lourenço’s part will meet this wall of urban youth who are likely to react impulsively. I had the splendid opportunity to get to know some of this energetic youth up close at the launch of the institute for good governance promoted by Rafael Marques in January 2020. It was an inaugural colloquium of the institution that welcomed more than 500 young people. All of whom were extremely engaged in discussions about the future of Angola and did not budge for the entire day. I glimpsed two groups, those who believe that Lourenço is bringing about change and should be given strength, and those who argue that he does not have the capacity to change, and for this reason, other more radical means outside the remit of the government are needed. But in a sense, they are unanimous. Change is necessary and must arrive soon. This is the strength of the Angola of the future. The genie came out of the bottle, and it will be awfully hard to put him back inside; that may be possible only through a violent and widespread bloodshed. Consequently, the truth is that a dynamic surge has taken over Angolan society beyond the will of the political power, and it is in this renewed stamina that hope to the country could be encountered. Hope that it will no longer represent an example of corruption and bad government but a place where a demanding civil society has awakened and will not fail to exact the country’s development towards freedom and prosperity. This is a time for hope in Angola.

All numbers retrieved from Angola’s National Statistics Institute (https://www.ine.gov.ao/)

7

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Pearce, Justin. A Guerra Civil em Angola.1975-2002, Pref. R. Marques, Trans. S. Silva (Lisboa: Tinta da China, 2017). English edition: Political Identity and Conflict in Central Angola: 1975–2002 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Pimenta, Fernando Tavares. Angola, os Brancos e a Independência (Lisboa: Afrontamento, 2016). René Lemarchand, René. Democratic Republic of Congo in Rotberg, R. (ed.), State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror (New York: Brookings Institution Press, 2004). Reuters. ‘China Hails Angola as Largest African Trade Partner’, 19 January 2009. Available at https​://ww​w.reu​ters.​com/a​rticl​e/oza​bs-ch​ina-a​ngola​-idAF​JOE50​I0202​ 00901​19 (accessed 4 September 2019). Reyntjens, Filip. The Great African War: Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996–2006 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Roque, Paula Cristina. ‘Segundas eleições pós-guerra em Angola. A alquimia da mudança’, Relatório da Situação (Lisboa: Instituto para Estudos de Segurança, 2013). Rose-Ackerman, Susan and Bonnie Palifka. Corruption and Government. Causes, Consequences, and Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Samakuva, Isaías. ‘Presidente não deve ser selectivo no combate à corrupção’, Nova Gazeta, 25 October 2018. Available online: https://www.novagazeta.co.ao/artigo/588 (accessed on 18 November 2019). Santos, Isabel. ‘Angola vive em “instabilidade” e precisa de mostrar que é um Estado de Direito’, Lusa, 14 October 2019. Available online: https​://ww​w.jor​nalde​negoc​ios. p​t/eco​nomia​/mund​o/afr​ica/a​ngola​/deta​lhe/i​sabel​-dos-​santo​s-ang​ola-v​ive-e​m-ins​ tabil​idade​-e-pr​ecisa​-de-m​ostra​r-que​-e-um​-esta​do-de​-dire​ito (accessed 3 December 2019). Santos, Michel. ‘Exclusivo - João Lourenço: “Estamos preparados e vamos derrotar o gigante da corrupção’, Euronews, 1 June 2018. Available online: https​://pt​.euro​news.​ com/2​018/0​6/01/​exclu​sivo-​joao-​loure​nco-e​stamo​s-pre​parad​os-e-​vamos​-derr​otar-​ o-gig​ante-​da-co​rrupc​ao- (accessed 3 December 2019). Santos, Nicolau. ‘José Eduardo dos Santos: O Rei Sol angolano’, Expresso, 2 January 2016. Available online: https​://ex​press​o.pt/​inter​nacio​nal/2​016-0​1-02-​Jose-​Eduar​ do-do​s-San​tos-O​-Rei-​Sol-a​ngola​no (accessed 8 October 2019). Schuerch, Res. The International Criminal Court at the Mercy of Powerful States: An Assessment of the Neo-Colonialism Claim Made by African Stakeholders (Berlin: Springer, 2017). Schwartz, Stuart. ‘Os Escravos: “Remédios de todas as outras coisas”’, in Francisco Bethencourt e Kirti Chaudhuri, História da Expansão Portuguesa, Vol. 2 (Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores, 1998), 232. Soares de Oliveira, Ricardo. ‘Luanda Leaks. Conflito é político e ultrapassa funcionamento do Estado de direito, defende investigador’(Interview to Lusa Agency), Observador, 26 January 2020. Available online: https​://ob​serva​dor.p​t/202​ 0/01/​26/lu​anda-​leaks​-conf​l ito-​e-pol​itico​-e-ul​trapa​ssa-f​uncio​namen​to-do​-esta​do-de​ -dire​ito-d​efend​e-inv​estig​ador/​(accessed 28 January 2020).

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Soares de Oliveira, Ricardo. Magnificent and Beggar Land. Angola Since the Civil War (London: Hurst & Company, 2015). Soares de Oliveira, Ricardo. Business success, ‘Angola-Style: Postcolonial Politics and the Rise and Rise of Sonangol’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 45 (4) (2007): 595–619. Soares de Oliveira, Ricardo and Manuel Ennes Ferreira, ‘The Political Economy of Banking in Angola’, African Affairs, 118 (470) (January 2019): 49–74. Sommerville, Keith. Africa’s Long Road Since Independence (London: Penguin, 2017). Tromme M., Spring. ‘Waging War Against Corruption in Developing Countries: How Asset Recovery Can Be Compliant with the Rule of Law’, Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law, 29 (2) (2019): 165–233. United Nations Human Rights. Office of the High Commissioner. ‘UN Expert Urges Angola to Release Fourteen Rights Activists Detained for Criticizing the Government’. Office of the High Commissioner, 23 October 2015. Available online: https​://ww​w.ohc​hr.or​g/EN/​NewsE​vents​/Page​s/Dis​playN​ews.a​spx?N​ewsID​=1664​ 4&Lan​gID=E​(accessed 9 January 2020). Verde, Rui. ‘Isabel dos Santos, o pai e o branqueamento de capitais na Efacec’, MakaAngola, 9 October 2015. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​ 5/10/​isabe​l-dos​-sant​os-o-​pai-e​-o-br​anque​ament​o-de-​capit​ais-n​a-efa​cec/ (accessed 28 October 2019). Verde, Rui. ‘João Lourenço contra a corrupção ou o esquimó louco’, MakaAngola, 17 May 2017. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​7/05/​joao-​loure​ nco-c​ontra​-a-co​rrupc​ao-ou​-o-es​quimo​-louc​o/ (accessed 5 November 2019). Verde, Rui. Angola e Dinheiro (Cascais: RCP Edições, 2016). Verde, Rui. Angola e o Futuro (Cascais: RCP Edições, 2018). Verde, Rui. ‘O caso da malária e o Estado de Direito’, MakaAngola, 12 December 2017. Available online: https://www.makaangola.org/2017/12/o -caso- da -malaria -e- o -estado- de- direito/ (accessed 5 November 2019). Verde, Rui. ‘Opinião legal sobre a fazenda do Juiz Rui Ferreira’, MakaAngola, 10 November 2014. Available online: https​://ww​w.mak​aango​la.or​g/201​4/11/​opini​ ao-le​gal-s​obre-​a-faz​enda-​do-ju​iz-ru​i-fer​reira​/ (accessed 2 October 2014). Verde, Rui. Os Três Magníficos (Cascais: RCP Edições, 2016). Vine, Alex. The DRC Will Be the First Foreign Policy Priority for Angola’s New President, 2017. https​://ww​w.cha​thamh​ouse.​org/e​xpert​/comm​ent/d​rc-wi​ll-be​-firs​t-for​eign-​ polic​y-pri​ority​-ango​la-s-​new-p​resid​ent#. Weiss, Michel. ‘The 750 Million Dollar Man’, Foreign Policy, 13 February 2014. Available online: https​://fo​reign​polic​y.com​/2014​/02/1​3/the​-750-​milli​on-do​llar-​man/ (accessed 2 October 2019). Wheeler, Douglas and René Pélissier. História de Angola (Lisboa: Tinta da China, 2013). World Bank. Global Economic Prospects. Heightened Tensions, Subdued Investment (Washington: World Bank, 2019).

Index African Union  162, 170 Agência Nacional do Petróleo, Gás e Biocombustíveis  150 Agostinho Neto  18, 70, 117, 122, 158 Álvaro Sobrinho  55–6 Alves Kamulingue  29, 41 America-Africa summit  59, 90 American Bar Association  72 amnesty  73, 75, 142, 143 Ana Dias Lourenço  104, 117 Ana Gomes  83 Andrew Popplewell  138 Angola and Brazil  1, 3, 19, 34, 59, 108 and Civil War  7, 10, 18, 21, 22, 24, 25, 34, 65, 66, 168 and Cold War  1, 2, 102 and Colonial history and Portuguese colonization  1, 2, 8, 9, 12, 13, 17, 33, 35, 37, 59, 70, 90, 125, 173 and Human Development  13, 26, 181 liberation War  2 and reconstruction  4, 10, 13, 18–21, 23, 24, 136, 186 and slavery  2, 34, 66, 118 Angolagate  90, 91 Angolan armed forces  10, 18, 47, 67, 70, 102–4, 133, 134, 158 Angolan economy  4, 6, 18, 26, 47, 48, 50, 64, 65, 79, 85, 88, 146, 147, 182, 183 Angolan spending in Portugal  61–3 Anselmo Ralph  95 anti-money laundering rules  83 António Costa  122 António José Maria “Zé Maria”  70, 71, 106 António Salazar  178, 179 Arab Spring  39, 42, 97 Archer Mangueira  84, 131 Arkady Gaydamak  14–16, 19 Arosfran  174, 175 Ascorp  15, 16, 52, 55

Attorney General (Angola)  5, 6, 55, 69, 90, 107, 120, 139–43, 154–7, 178, 187 Augusto Tomás  140, 172 austerity  35, 147 BAI  20, 88 Banco Económico  57, 125, 152 Banco Efisa  37 Barack Obama  90, 93 Barcelona  85, 86, 98, 125 BBC  1, 66, 80, 186 Benguela  39, 176 Banco Espírito Santo (BES)  55–7 Banco Espírito Santo Angola (BESA)  55–8, 126, 152 Banco Nacional de Angola (BNA)  57, 88, 129, 131, 132, 172 Banco Português de Investimento (BPI)  35, 53, 79, 85 Bicesse Accords  25 Bonapartism  4, 28 Boris Johnson  13, 163 Bornito de Sousa  106 budgetary crisis/deficit  89, 119, 148, 149, 184 Cable News Network (CNN)  38, 39 Carlos Feijó  174, 175 Carlos Saturnino  129, 130, 150 CASA-CE  109, 110 CGGC-China Gezhouba Corporation  84 cheating congress  98 Chicagoan model of judicial behaviour  173 China and Angola  4, 9, 18, 21, 22, 95, 164, 166 and Deng Xiaoping  144, 180, 181 and dubious businesses  23, 24, 70, 84 and Xi Jinping  180 China Sonangol  23, 24

198

Index

Christmas hampers  78 civil society  6, 29, 64, 66, 72, 78, 106, 118, 127, 141, 154, 156, 158, 189 Coercive Repatriation Law  142, 143 collectivism  58, 101 Comissão Nacional Eleitoral (CNE)  25, 106, 110, 111 Commonwealth  9, 163, 170 competition (economy)  46, 65, 88, 147 Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa (CPLP)  9, 92 constitution  3, 4, 23, 25, 27–9, 38, 43, 44, 58, 97, 100, 103, 110, 123, 125, 130, 152, 156, 173 constitutional court (Angola)  29, 40, 42, 44, 111, 112, 117, 127, 174, 175 consumption (economy)  19 Correio da Manhã  61 correspondent banks  87, 163, 171, 172 corruption and China  22–4, 164, 180 fight against  3–6, 65, 107, 118, 120, 129, 130, 133, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144, 147, 157, 161–3, 172, 176–8, 181, 182, 187 and Manuel Vicente  74, 119, 173, 188 systemic  33, 35, 36, 42, 47, 48, 92, 98, 121 courts  5, 14, 15, 29, 37, 43–6, 58, 67, 72, 73, 78, 123, 127, 138, 176, 183 crazy Inuit  107 Dam  5, 82, 84, 85, 177 David Renous  55 decolonization  34, 35 DeGrisogono  54, 55 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)  3, 54, 94, 161, 162, 166–70 democratization  2, 21, 28 Deng Xiaoping  21, 144, 180–2, 185 diamonds  1, 5, 13–16, 19, 20, 26, 52, 54, 55, 66, 67, 78, 79, 85, 96, 105, 119, 152, 158, 167, 177 Diogo Cão  1, 34 diversification  46, 48, 88, 89 Domingos da Cruz  43, 69, 72 economic growth  3, 6, 18, 26, 28, 33, 38, 45, 61, 64, 146, 158, 171 economic miracle  144, 146

Edeltrudes Costa  127 Efacec  82–5 elections 1992  24, 28 2008  25, 28 2012  3, 38–40 2017  4, 97, 99, 105–7, 109–12, 117, 118 electoral fraud  4, 40, 111, 126 empty coffers  64, 144 Endiama  15, 152 Ernst & Young  49 Esperaza  82 Espírito Santo family/business  55, 56, 126 Estelle Maussion  59 Estoril  36 EuroBIC  80, 187 European Parliament  55, 83, 162 Exem  53, 54 Expansão magazine  109 fake visas  47, 48 Fawaz Gruosi  54 Felix Thsisekedi  161, 168 Fernando Miala  21 Fernando Monteiro  90 financial crisis  3, 35, 38, 86, 147, 183 Financial Times  50 “500 million USD case”  50, 129, 131–3, 136, 172 Forbes  51 Forum on China-African Cooperation  164 Francisca Van Dúnem  122 Francisco de Lemos Maria  76 Francophonie  9, 163, 170 Frederico Cardoso  126, 127 freedom of expression  25, 67, 111, 118, 154–6, 158, 162, 184 state subsidies  108, 147–9 free market  22, 46, 163, 185 Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA)  22, 94, 109, 110 Futungo de Belas  41 Galp  35, 53, 54, 79, 82 Gene Sharp  69 Geoffrey Voss  15, 16 Georges Chikoti  171

Index George Soros  65–7 Geraldo Nunda  133, 134 golden years/age  18, 21, 26, 82 Governo de Unidade e Reconstrução Nacional (GURN)  13, 14 Great Lakes  3, 92, 94, 170 Green Pine Corporation  93 Guinea Equatorial  91–3 Gustavo Costa  20 Hélder Pitta Groz  141 Helsinki Charter  29 Higino Carneiro  172 Hotel Ritz (Lisbon)  35, 62 Hotel Trópico (Luanda)  18 Huambo  39 immunity(ies)  11, 123 imperial presidency  27, 28, 117, 130, 153 inauguration (João Lourenço)  117–19, 124, 125, 128, 129, 141, 154, 177 Indra  40, 112, 127 inflation  63, 65, 88, 119, 145, 146, 162, 184 infrastructure  12, 19, 22, 41, 45–7, 53, 107, 147 International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ)  186, 187 International Monetary Fund (IMF)  3, 4, 21, 24, 27, 28, 34, 35, 135, 145–9, 165, 182–5 Isabel Fançony Van-Dúnem  72 Isaias Cassule  29, 41, 42 Januário Domingos  72 Joana Vidal  91 João Lourenço as a chosen candidate  99–105 and dos Santos/breaking the “iron circle”  127–30, 152–4 and economy  119, 144–52, 181–5 fight against corruption  3–5, 80, 107, 118, 131–44, 177, 178, 188 and foreign policy  162–71 and Isabel dos Santos  160–1 life  104 and Manuel Vicente  118, 119, 124, 125 and Rafael Marques  157–8, 161

199

João Maria de Sousa  107, 141, 154, 156 Jonas Savimbi  10, 40 Jorge Gaudens Pontes Sebastião  131 José Eduardo Agualusa  95, 187 José Eduardo dos Santos  3, 10, 17–19, 58, 113 José Filomeno dos Santos  5, 58, 79, 100, 108, 127, 129, 131, 132, 134–40, 159, 172, 175–7 Joseph Kabila  94, 166–8 José Sócrates  90 Josina Falcão  154, 158 judges  15, 16, 43–5, 63, 68, 72, 108, 109, 118, 120, 127, 138, 141, 154–6, 158, 173–6 judicial independence  29 judicial power  43 Kassim Tajideen  174 Kero  47 Kerry Dolan  51 Laurent Kabila  166, 167 Leopoldino do Nascimento (Dino)  33, 36, 47, 55–7, 144, 172 Lesotho  166 liberalization  3, 181, 184, 185 London High Court of Justice  138 Luanda  7, 12, 19, 33, 35, 50, 60, 94, 119, 144, 182 Luanda Leaks  80, 186, 187 Luaty Beirão  69 Luena Memorandum  10 Lundas e Lunda Norte  54, 66, 84, 119 Maka Angola  7, 29, 66, 154, 187 Manuel da Costa Aragão  44 Manuel Rabelais  172 Manuel Vicente  20, 23, 33, 36, 53, 74, 76, 122, 188 Manuel Vieira Dias (Kopelipa)  23, 33, 36, 40, 55–7, 67, 73, 99, 126, 129, 141, 144, 172, 174 Marcelo Caetano  178–80 Margaret Thatcher  182, 183 Mário Palhares  37 Marta Santos  56, 58 Marxism/Marxist system  11, 24, 100, 101 Matias Damásio  95

200 Matter Business  80 MCK (rapper)  96, 97 Medianova group  47 Miami Beach restaurant  51, 52, 85 Michel Weiss  47 middle classes  61, 63 Miguel Relvas  37 Mikhail Gorbachov  179–81 military intelligence  70, 105, 106 Millennium Bank  36, 53, 81 Ministry of Territorial Administration  106, 111 misery  12, 97, 119 Mobutu Sese Seko  54, 94, 166, 167 MPLA (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola) and China  22, 43 and civil war  10, 11 and José Eduardo dos Santos  17, 18, 28, 58, 98, 99, 153 and João Lourenço  99, 101, 104, 105, 108, 112, 129, 153 and power  13, 14, 16, 19–21, 24, 25, 39, 40, 87, 100, 106, 107, 109, 111 National Assembly  27, 40, 73, 99, 104, 111, 154, 173 national production  46, 55, 88, 145, 183 Nelson Mandela  1, 59, 93 Niara Holding/Niara Power  84 Norberto Garcia  133 North Korea  93, 120 Odebrecht  19, 108 oil price  3, 7, 26, 45, 46, 49, 65, 76, 81, 82, 88, 89, 144, 147, 149, 150 Ondjaki  95 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)  81, 171 Orlando Figueira  36, 74, 122 Palácio da Cidade Alta  41, 59, 74, 137 Paulo de Carvalho  67 Paulo Kassoma  56 Pedro Rosa Mendes  37 Pedro Sebastião  126 Penal Code  173 Penal Procedure Code  173 Pepetela  95 personality cult  101

Index Pierre Falcone  24 plea bargain  134, 140, 141 Porto Aboim  154 Private Investment Act  183, 184 privatization  17, 37, 149–52 privatization of sovereignty  4, 10, 49 PROPRIV (privatization programme  151 public debt  87, 119, 148, 149, 184 Puma Energy  47 Rádio Difusão Portuguesa (RDP)  37 Rádio Televisão Portuguesa (RTP)  36 Rafael Marques  6, 7, 20, 23, 29, 33, 34, 52, 79, 136, 141, 187, 189 and courts  65–73, 154–6 and João Lourenço  157, 158, 161 Ramaphosa, Cyril  5, 178 regional power  89, 93 Rentier class  46, 47, 50, 88 repression  4, 41, 42, 70, 72, 98 Revús/15+2  43, 68, 69, 71–3, 95, 157 Roberto de Almeida  56 Rui Ferreira  44, 45, 117, 118, 174 Rui Machete  36, 91 Russian interference  105 Rwanda  94, 162, 167, 169, 170 SADC-South African Development Community  166 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum  161 Sam Pa  23, 164, 180 security services  16, 21, 40, 73, 91, 103, 126, 158, 176 separation of powers  43, 90, 161 Serviço Nacional de Recuperação de Activos/National Asset Recovery Service  142, 143 Sham constitutionalism  28 SIC (Criminal Investigation Service) (police)  97 SIC-TV (Independent Society of Communication; TV Portugal)  158 Sindika Dokolo  54, 55, 60, 85, 161, 186 Sinfic  106, 107, 112 Singapore and Singaporean model  23, 60, 75

Index social media  4, 7, 85, 86, 98, 110, 160, 175, 189 Sodiam  55 Sonangol and dubious businesses  20, 23, 24, 34 and the economy  48, 49, 144 efficiency and inefficiency  4, 39, 46, 70, 73, 119 and Isabel dos Santos  5, 53–5, 76–81, 103, 139, 187 and João Lourenço  128–30, 160, 177 and Manuel Vicente  36, 50, 57, 60, 74, 75, 118, 124 and privatization  150–2 and real power  14, 28, 33 Sovereign Fund  5, 58, 64, 100, 103, 108, 127, 129, 131, 134–8, 177 sovereign guarantee  56, 57 Soviet influence and Soviet Union  2, 11, 17, 18, 24, 29, 51, 58, 97, 99, 101–5, 179–81 state budget  34, 38, 64, 89, 119, 147–9, 178, 184 state capture  5, 178 submissive society  41 succession  79, 86, 97, 101–3, 168 Supreme Court  44, 68, 127, 140, 174–6 tax  19, 23, 46, 49, 55, 57, 75, 142, 143, 148, 149, 184 Tchizé dos Santos  86, 159, 160, 172 Televisão Pública de Angola (TPA)  106, 109, 111 Teodoro Obiang  91, 92 “Thai Swindle case”  133 Tom Burgis  19, 50, 51

201

Tony Blair  171 tourism  46, 47, 152 Trafigura  47 TVI- (Independent Television; TV Portugal)  37, 38 TV Zimbo  47, 109 Uganda  167, 169, 170 unemployment  119, 182, 189 União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA)  10, 11, 16, 22, 24 n.45, 25, 35, 39, 40, 71, 94, 107, 109, 110, 113, 127, 166, 167 United Kingdom  165 United Nations  7, 46, 72, 93, 166, 181 United States  2, 4, 59, 67, 68, 89, 90, 93, 108, 121, 134, 141, 162, 165, 171, 179 Unitel  20, 47, 52, 53, 152, 186 US Federal Reserve  171, 172 Valleysoft  126, 127 Valter Filipe  129, 131, 172 Vítor Bandarra  37 Voluntary Repatriation Act  142 Winterfell  82, 83 Wise Solutions  80 World bank  6, 7, 145, 152, 181, 183 Xi Jinping  23, 180 youth  17, 69, 157, 189 Zimbabwe  98, 162, 169 Zungueiras  159

202

203

204