Angolan veteran soldiers flashing their MPLA membership cards during a demonstration demanding compensation for military service. Angola has been the focus of substantial economic investment in recent years., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Angola: Demobilized Soldiers Protest in the Ministry of Defense
By Rafael Marques De Morais, 7 June 2012
analysis
Soldiers display their MPLA membership cards to show that there were no opposition parties behind their protest. Up to 3,000 demobilized soldiers staged a surprising march today, in the capital Luanda, towards the presidential palace. They went to claim the dues owed to them for years of military service, and disability pensions.
Initially, the group departed from the general headquarters of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA), at around 9 AM, and walked almost three kilometers to the gates of the Ministry of Defense, which is just a few hundred meters from the presidential palace. With remarkable organizational and tactical skills, the former soldiers punched through three strongly manned presidential guard and anti-riot police barriers, and fought off the police batons and the canine brigade with kicks. At least two protesters were reported as injured by the dogs.
For up to an hour, a standoff ensued in front of the Ministry of Defense, where the presidential guard, the anti-riot police, the canine brigade, strongly armed military police and water cannons had cordoned off the last stretch to the palace. On the ground, generals and top police commanders personally commanded the operations, as the protesters grew louder and fearless.
As the anti-riot police tried to push them back with shields that emit electric shocks and the water cannons were readying to fire, the former demobilized soldiers showed defiance by chanting against their former comrade in arms: "Kill us! Kills us! Kill us!"
They alternated such a foretelling song with another one the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) had imposed in primary schools to indoctrinate children from as young as five years of age. "I will die in Angola, with the weapons of war in my hands/ A grenade will be my casket/ and my burial will be in a patrol," the former soldiers sang along, the majority of them past 50 years of age.
"We have halted our march here, because we pity them [the president and the generals]. We can also punch through this barrier, and reach the presidency. We just wanted to send a message that we are coming if they do not pay us," said Domingos Frederico, 52, a disabled veteran, discharged in 1992 without a pension.
On May 31, the former government soldiers sent a delegation of 70 members to the National Assembly to request their intervention in addressing their lack of pensions, but were sent back the General Headquarters of FAA, where no senior official was available to see them. Since 1992, most of these soldiers have been spinning in and out of several military and civilian institutions to address their concerns, but unsuccessfully. "If the government does not resolve our problem in the coming weeks, we will intervene during the elections. They will no longer be able to lie to us or calm us down," warned António Bernardo. The war veteran pulled his shirt and pants to show several war scars . He also had tucked in his pants a folder with several documents, from many military institutions, on how his claims to receive a pension were being addressed since 1988, which he is yet to see.
To defuse the tension, the General Chief of Staff of FAA, four-star general Geraldo Sachipengo Nunda, briefly met with a commission of the protesters, in the Ministry, while the standoff continued. Then, the military provided a speaker and a microphone for a member of the commission to convey the message of the top military commander. The general said the Ministry did not have a safe with money in hand to pay the protesters, and payments required consultation and authorization from the government. According to the messenger, the general asked for a moratorium of a month, for the military to effectively address their complaints.
To this message, the protesters replied with jeers. "The generals steal away all of our money. Angola has so much money from oil, and how come they [government] never have anything for us?" Retired sergeant Afonso Malembe, 51, questioned. He lost a limb on a landmine in 1985, and is currently finishing high school at night to become a teacher.
The demobilized decided, by their own volition, to retreat in an orderly fashion after their representative explained to them the outcome of the meeting. "We have turned the heat on them [the authorities], now we can go home in peace, and if by Thursday next week, they do not address our concerns, and lie to us again, we will come back in larger numbers and with greater resolve," warned Tony Bumba, 47.
In a remarkable display of arrogance, as the former soldiers peacefully turned their backs to the anti-riot police blockade and started walking way, the commanding generals and senior police officers on the ground ordered the special police to chase away the protesters. This set in motion a melee, with the former soldiers scrapping stones from the pavements and objects to throw at the police, one of which could be seen bleeding profusely in the head.
The order showed how the situation is volatile in the relationship between president Dos Santos's regime, which has been in power for nearly 37 years, and the disenfranchised sectors of society. During the protest, one former soldier, Nascimento Pedro, 58, pointed out that "here we are all 100 percent militants of MPLA, but it is this very same MPLA that is sucking all the blood out of us. Now it is time to address this problem." While he was talking, several of the protesters pulled out their MPLA membership cards to show that there were no opposition parties behind the protest. Another group criticized the colleagues who were displaying the MPLA membership cards as "shameless" for, in their view, the party "has done nothing for the demobilized soldiers."
One former soldier stood his ground while the police advanced and screamed that he lost his fear when a landmine blew his limb away during the war. "We defended your power, thieves!"
Less than two months away from the elections, the protests keep mounting, and the authorities seem to have little capacity to address discontent, except with the use of force and empty promises.
A botched protest on May 27, in which former presidential guards were supposed to march towards the presidential palace to demand pensions, resulted in the kidnapping, by the authorities, of two organizers. Alves Kamulingue and Isaías Cassule are still missing to date. The presidency promised to address the concerns of its former guards, which it had turned into garbage collectors, and then fired them without compensation.
Since March 2011, street protests have been focusing on the president, who has been in power for nearly 33 years and is at the center of the government's misrule, corruption, violence and the plunder of the country's assets by his cronies, generals and members of his MPLA party.
Angola: War Veterans Protest in Menongue
By Rafael Marques De Morais
2 April 2012
IRIN
Four thousand Angolan war veterans took to the streets of the city of the south-eastern city of Menongue, Kuando-Kubango province, on Saturday, March 31, in protest at delays in the payment of their pensions.
The demonstrators eventually received the money owed to them, but only after two were injured in a confrontation with police and firemen.
According to Maka Angola's sources in the city, the veterans of the former liberation army and government defense forces, FAPLA (People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola), marched down Rua 1º de Maio to the local branch of the Banco de Poupança e Crédito in order to demand their pension arrears. The marchers gave no prior notice to the local authorities.
The authorities summoned the police who failed to stop the demonstration, and in turn called on the fire brigade to use water to disperse the protesters as they attempted to break into the bank.
Local eyewitnesses say the demonstration quickly took on an anti-government character with former soldiers chanting "down with the MPLA," "down with the thieves" and "down with the bandits." In an attempt to calm the situation, the authorities ordered the bank to be opened and the payments to be processed the same day.
Two demonstrators were taken to hospital with injuries sustained during their confrontation with police and firemen at the door of the bank. Maka Angola's sources report that no one was detained.
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