Angola: Can the politics of disorder become the politics of democratisation & development?

Abstract

Postwar Angola seems at first look to be in a triple transition from war to peace, devastation to reconstruction and from a state/elite patronage system to democratisation and transparency. In fact it is argued here that the ‘politics of disorder’ stemming from war suit the purposes of the Angolan elite whilst it simultaneously proclaims transition for outside cosmetic purposes. The Angolan elite comprising in David Sogge's words ‘a constellation of politician-rentiers, petroleum sector technocrats and military officials’² can run the state in their own interest, largely ignoring any demands from the citizenry given that the accumulation basis and the orientation of the elite is to the outside. Chinese loans, high oil prices, further oilfield expansion and the warm alliance with the USA ensure that Angolan civil society – despite its efforts – is unable to adequately counter the elite's ability to control events. Promised elections – without a date having been announced – are unlikely to change this structural framework.

Notes

1. Revised version following a short trip to Angola of a talk to the Africa Business Group at SOAS16 March 2006 and based on a chapter on Angola for Africa Yearbook 2005 to be published by Brill on behalf of Africa Institute in Hamburg, Afrikacentrum, Leiden and Nordic Afrika Instituut Uppsala. A shorter version was published by Pambazuka electronic newsletter 251 on 27 April 2006 and is available on the Progressio website.

2. Sogge, D. (2006), ‘Angola: Global Good Governance Also Needed’, Working Paper No. 23, June,Madrid: FRIDE, p.8.

3. Ibid. page 7

4. Although reconciliation here largely means (six) blanket amnesties, no truth commissions andinviting selected opposition elements into the elite.

5. Between 1997 and 2001, $8.45 billion of public money was unaccounted for (an average of 23 percent of GDP): IMF.

6. There is an extensive literature building up on China's role in Africa. For more immediatesummaries see IRINs 24 March and 17 April, on the Sino-Africa relationship including the deal between China's state oil company Sinopec and Angolan state oil company Sonangol to build a 240,000 barrel a day (BPD) refinery at Lobito in Angola. See also Angola News 2006 (June) and The Guardian, 22 June 2006, for details of the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jibao's visit to seven African countries including Angola.

7. ‘Revista Energia’, a publication that monitors the country's energy sector, puts yearly governmentoil revenues at between US $4 and $5 billion

8. Nearly all of Angola's production is offshore and for every million invested in the industry, only$100,000 is spent onshore.

9. A new round of signature bonuses has just been completed with some oil companies offering areported $1 billion per bloc.

10. In the words of a civil society activist in Luanda ‘oil money is going to explode with $30 to $50billion going to the government over the next seven to 15 years’. Interview, 1 June 2006.

11. IMF, 2005, Staff Report for the 2004 Article IV Consultation, IMF Country Report No. 05/228,Washington, DC: IMF, July. See also www.imf.org/external/np/ms/2006/032906.htm for report from IMF visit to Angola in March 2006.

12. They may also be considering lessons from the Brussels donor conference of 1995 (attended bythe author) at which Savimbi promised never to return to war and the government appeared to have few ideas on how it would handle funding.

13. Two reports in October from Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada questionedAngola's compliance with the Kimberley Process on controlling conflict (‘blood’) diamonds.

14. There are reports that another Chinese loan is on the horizon since much of the original $2 billionhas been spent. This one would be for a reported $1 billion.

15. Compared to Zimbabwe there also appeared to be little hostility towards the Chinese.Diplomatic sources described them as being in large numbers in Benguela rebuilding the infrastructure at a fast rate. A current joke in Luanda is that human rights organisations should set up a programme to combat how the Chinese are exploited through hard labour and very short lunchbreaks. Rumours that some are prison labour abound.

16. In January 2006, the National Statistics Institute estimated it as averaging 18.5 per cent over theyear whilst the EIU country report thought 23.4 per cent more likely (EIU, Angola Country Report December 2005, p.11).

17. The papers from the conference are now publicly available via the government website.According to reports, Paul Collier's paper offered the Angolan elite a future that was either Malaysian or Nigerian and said he would return in a few years to see what the choice had been.

18. Angola News, June 2006.

19. A law on political parties allows government funding of parties not represented in the NationalAssembly during the election period (Diário da República, 1 July 2005).

20. See Southscan 2006, Vol. 21, 24 March 2006 for details of why Miala was sacked in relation to events in France and the DRC.

21. At a recent meeting UNITA made the interesting observation that ‘they would work out whattheir policies were once they knew the date of elections’.

22. See Economist Intelligence Unit, Angola Country Report December 2005, pp.14-15 for details.

23. Private Communication from David Sogge.

24. President Dos Santos said in April that they would occur ‘before 2008’. The government onlyhas to provide 90 days notice of elections; voter registration has belatedly begun.

25. The UN is the channel for various electoral offers, none of which according to diplomatic sourceshave been taken up which a source believed was due to Luanda's desire and undoubted financial ability to control the electoral process.

26. Although a Supreme Court ruling suggests that the President could serve up to three moremandates.

27. And UNITA alleging that much of this recruitment was forcible.

28. See Michael Comerford (2005), ‘The Peaceful Face of Angola: Biography of a Peace Process(1991 to 2002)’; P. Robson and S. Roque (2002), ‘Here in the City there is Nothing left over for Lending a Hand: In search of Solidarity and Collective Action in Peri-Urban Areas in Angola’, Development Workshop Canada; P. Robson and S. Roque (2002), ‘In search of community and collective action in Angola’ in Malyn Newitt, Patrick Chabal and Norrie Macqueen (eds.), Community and the state in Lusophone Africa, London: Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, Kings College.

29. As so often, I am indebted to David Sogge for these insights.

30. The government's mindset is shown according to local activists by its plans due to supposedhealth concerns to move the massive Roque Santeiro market (named after a Brazilian soap opera) away from its current popular location to an out of town site where no one can service it. Angolans see the move as more likely linked to providing building space for housing for the rich.

31. Personal communication from David Sogge.

32. Although only 6 per cent of Angolans who needed it received anti-retroviral treatment accordingto WHO report Progress on Global Access to HIV Antiretroviral Therapy (www.who.int/hiv/fullreport_en_highres.pdf).

33. UN Commission On Human Rights, 2005, Mission to Angola. Promotion and Protection ofHuman Rights Human Rights Defenders. Report submitted by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani, New York: United Nations, E/Cn.4/2005/101/Add.2 21 February 2005

34. It appears more likely however that urban drift is irreversible as is so often the case in Africancities.

35. Average fertility rate is 7.2 for women.

36. It has a self-ascribed observer status.

37. Possibly over $3 billion according to French press reports.

38. EIU, 2005, Angola Country Report December, p.19

39. Thought unsustainable without continuing high oil prices.

40. Local contacts believe Dos Santos was keen to blame others for the failure to mobilise foreigndonors rather than the unwillingness to come to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund on transparent accounting for oil revenues. Equally, the IMF and World Bank were well aware of their lessened ability to provide pressure because of the large Chinese loan.