Changes in government

President José Eduardo dos Santos appointed Manuel António Rabelais, former director of National Radio of Angola, to the post of Minister of Information on 27 January. He replaced Pedro Hendrick Vaal Neto. Manuel Miguel de Carvalho ‘Wadijimbi’, former director of Angop, was appointed Deputy Minister of Information, replacing Manuel Augusto.

The President also abolished the Luanda Management Commission. Job Castelo Capapinha was relieved of his post as Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports and appointed governor of Luanda Province with Francisca do Espirito Santos as deputy governor.

Irene Alexandra da Silva Neto was made Deputy Minister of External Relations for Cooperation, Ângelo e Barros Veiga Tavares and Adão Gaspar Ferreira do Nascimento were appointed, respectively, Deputy Ministers of the Interior and Education, while Gonçalves Manuel Muandumba became Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports.

In an earlier government reshuffle, on 3 December, President dos Santos replaced Unita members with new appointees indicated by that party.

Minister of Health Albertina Hamukwaya was replaced by Sebastião Sapuile Veloso and Minister of the Hotel Industry and Tourism Jorge Aliceres Valentim by Eduardo Jonatão ‘Dinho’ Chingunji. The new Deputy Minister of Assistance and Social Reintegration is Clarise Matilde Munga Kaputu, replacing Júnior João.

Jorge Marcelino Sanguende, permanent representative to Unesco, was also relieved of his post and replaced by Almerindo Jaka Jamba.

The governor of Uíje Province, Lázaro Xixima, was removed from his post. Other changes affected the assistant governors of Huambo and Huíla provinces, Américo Chimina and Domingos Ndala, those posts now being held by Mateus Forma Fredérico and Firmino Silipuleny.

Minister of Justice Paulo Tjipilica was relieved of his post a few days later and replaced by Manuel da Costa Aragão, until then Deputy Minister.

Later in the month, the President removed Américo Maria de Morais Garcia from the post of Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and appointed him as his adviser on regional and local affairs. He appointed three new Deputy Ministers: Edeltrudes Maurício Fernandes Gaspar da Costa for Territorial Administration, Guilhermina Contreira da Costa Prata for Justice, and Carla Leitão Ribeiro de Sousa for Town Planning and the Environment.

Portugal guarantees support for donor conference

Portugal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, António Monteiro, said in Luanda on 26 January that Angola could always count on Portugal in respect of a donor conference and all other aspects of its reconstruction.

He went on to say that in addition to firm support, his country would indicate to other institutions how best the international community could help Angola on the road to progress. Portugal, he said, would always stand by Angola.

The Minister was in Angola for a three-day visit during which he signed the annual cooperation programme for 2005, amounting to €16 million.

A Ministry source said the money would be spent on projects in the areas of health, education and personnel training.

British aid to Angola

John Thompson, the British Ambassador to Angola, revealed on 22 January that British aid to Angola in 2005 will amount to US$17 million. This will be spent on a number of projects supported by the UK: urban development in Luanda, mine clearance and combating HIV/Aids.

Speaking to the Jornal de Angola, he said Angola’s debt to Britain was not commercial and was small compared with the debt to private banks.

With regard to the holding of a donor conference, John Thompson said his country had always supported this, since ‘the task Angola faces is too big for a country to face on its own’. He added, however, that this meant that the strategy to combat poverty should be completed and an agreement signed with the IMF.

The agreement with the IMF would ensure that Angola’s microeconomic and financial policies were on the right track and the anti-poverty strategy would be the plan on which the donor conference would be based.

Funds in Switzerland to be released

The Genevese press reported on 5 January that attorney general Daniel Zapelli had ordered the closure of the inquiry into Angolan funds deposited in Swiss banks. The decision taken on 21 December put a definitive end to proceedings started more than two years ago against French businessman Pierre Falcone.

Daniel Zapelli said his decision was taken because, contrary to what the investigation had indicated, the payment of Angola’s debt to Russia ‘did not give rise to any irregularity’.

Pierre Falcone had been suspected of setting up an alleged criminal organisation to misappropriate sums resulting from the settlement of Angola’s debt to Russia.

One of Pierre Falcone’s lawyers in Geneva cited by the press said that the decision showed that the operation to restructure Angola’s debt was legal and took place in an ‘impeccable’ manner.

According to the Swiss press, Russia had expressed its satisfaction with the repayments made and a World Bank expert considered that Angola and Russia had done well to use the services of Pierre Falcone.

With regard to accusations of corruption, the Swiss attorney general said the money deposited in private Angolan accounts was intended for use by the Angolan government as a strategic fund, since it was, at the time, faced with a devastating war launched by the Unita rebels.

Another defence lawyer said: ‘If there had been corruption, the proceedings would not now have been closed. The people who received these funds did not do so as individuals, but within the framework of a public purpose.’

Aguinaldo Jaime, assistant Minister in the office of the Prime Minister, told National Radio of Angola on 26 January that the money released, which was not as much as had been speculated, would be used to finance mine clearance operations in Angola.

Minister Kussumua reaffirms urgent need for donor conference

Speaking at traditional end of year greetings ceremonies, ministers reviewed work over the past year and prospects for 2005. In his address, João Baptista Kussumua, Minister of Assistance and Social Reintegration, reaffirmed the urgent need for an international donor conference to raise funds to enable all Angolans to enjoy the benefits of peace.

‘The government needs assistance in order to be able to give greater momentum to national reconstruction and progress,’ he said, adding that the social and development challenges faced by Angola should warrant a different approach from the international community.

The Minister went on describe the work done by the Ministry in 2004 as positive, saying there were new opportunities for 2005 that were ‘only possible with the selfless participation of state and religious institutions, UN agencies and NGOs’.

He said the humanitarian situation had improved considerably in 2004. though there were still more than 170 localities to which access was difficult, owing to the bad state of roads and bridges, which made it hard to assist more than two million people.

The repatriation of Angolan refugees abroad, the social and vocational reintegration of former soldiers, following the Luena agreement, the distribution of food, seeds and implements and mine clearance had been some of the activities to which priority was given in 2004.

The Minister went on to say that only 52,000 of the initially planned 90,000 refugees had returned through the organised repatriation process in 2004.

A total of 290,000 refugees had returned – 192,00 of them spontaneously, by their own means – since 2003.

With regard to former soldiers, this had involved the distribution of tools and implements, contingency allowances and vocational training for 38,495 people.

The government had distributed 23,399 tonnes of food, 2,715 tonnes of non-food goods and 985 tents to needy people. It had also donated US$4 million to the World Food Programme for the purchase of locally produced food to meet some of the needs of communities.

Prospects for 2005 included the continued repatriation of Angolans, contributing to the active battle against HIV/Aids and guaranteeing the reintegration of demobilised soldiers, the Minister concluded.

Relations with World Bank strengthened in 2004

Proper coordination of economic development programmes had enabled the government in 2004 to present four projects worth US$126 million to the World Bank for its assessment. They were all approved, and US$54 million of this sum is in the form of a donation.

Speaking to the staff at her Ministry, Minister of Planning Ana Dias Lourenço said the four essential projects were the demobilisation and reintegration of former soldiers, the technical assistance and macro-economic management plan, the Social Support Fund, FAS, and combating HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis.

The biggest tranche of the money, US$55 million, was for the FAS, she said, with US$33 million for demobilisation and reintegration, US$17 million for technical assistance and US$21 million for combating diseases.

Ana Dias Lourenço stressed the commitment, professionalism and dedication shown by Ministry staff and called for further commitment, perseverance and selflessness, with a view to economic growth, improved living conditions for the population and development.

Oil revenue in 2004

Oil earnings amounted to more than US$8 billion from the export of 246.5 million barrels in 2004. This was stated by Oil Minister Desidério da Costa in his address at his Ministry.

Only about US$3 billion of this sum went to the state, with the remainder retained by the oil companies.

The Minister spoke of the extensive geophysical prospecting carried out during the year, covering 70,000 km, and also of new oil strikes and building work in progress.

Regarding the internal market, he said that by October about 1.5 million tonnes of oil had been delivered to the Luanda refinery for processing. There had, however, been constraints on the distribution of petroleum derivatives everywhere in the country, he said, and this was a matter of great concern to the government.

‘We are determined to take petroleum derivatives to every corner of the country, so that they may serve as a catalyst for the social development we seek,’ Desidério da Costa said.

During the year, the Minister continued, the National Assembly had passed laws regulating oil activity, taxation and the customs system applicable to the sector. Decree No. 122 of 9 November had set out the taxes to be levied for issuing licences for the processing, distribution, transport, storage and marketing of petroleum derivates, he added.

Diamond exports

Angola exported 6,630,732 carats of diamonds in 2004, worth an estimated US$763,665,177. This represented a 0.04 percent increase in output and a 3.1 percent fall in revenue in relation to 2003.

Makenda Ambroise, Deputy Minister of Geology and Mines, said the fall was ‘due especially to the decrease in output on the informal market, which was not compensated for by a sufficient increase on the formal market’.

He said tax revenue from the diamond industry was an estimated US$69,493,523, but that this was not yet a definitive figure and could be readjusted following approval of the accounts for the fiscal year of each of the associated companies.

The Minister said 2004 had also been marked by the establishment of the second treatment centre in Catoca, Lunda Sul, which would double current output in the biggest mining project in the country, and by the resumption of mining operations in the Yetwene and Chimbondo alluvial projects in Lunda Norte.

He said that kimberlite extraction would soon start in Camútue, once the reserves had been re-evaluated, and spoke of other projects in which production would soon start.

The Minister also spoke of new granite projects in Huíla.

‘During the year, granite exports attained 15,000 cubic metres, marketed for US$4 million and earned US$600,000 in tax revenue. This is still insignificant and we plan to relaunch work in this sector,’ he said.

Railway reaches Cubal thirteen years later

Hundreds of people welcomed the arrival of a Benguela Railway, CFB, train at Cubal on 17 December, thirteen years after traffic stopped. The event marked the end of a rehabilitation programme to restore traffic between the coastal city of Lobito and Cubal, and was seen as the start of a new era for the CFB.

Minister of Transport André Luís Brandão, accompanied by the provincial governor, Dumilde Rangel, and Minister of Industry Joaquim David, had travelled in the train on the 154-km route.

The rehabilitation of the stretch had cost the Ministry of Transport US$10.6 million in materials, equipment and personnel.

André Luís Brandão said this was a new stage in the programme started in December 2001, when the Santa Iria-Caála line was re-opened.

‘We are going to ensure the constant presence of our inspectors on the CFB,’ he said, ‘so as to guarantee people’s safety.’

Daniel Kipaxi, director general of the CFB, said that the company was rehabilitating the line and bridges from Huambo, in the central highlands, and that the team had already reached the Lépi area. He added that negotiations were in progress with Chinese contractors for restoring traffic on the line to the border with DR Congo.

Meanwhile, the private passenger transport company SGO announced that two inter-province buses would be covering the Lobito, Benguela, Cubal and Luanda routes.

South Africans and Namibians to invest in Matala

A group of business people from South Africa and Namibia are to invest in agriculture and industry in Matala in the southern province of Huíla.

Speaking in Lubango, the provincial capital, Jean Megreft, representative of a consortium of South African companies, said the delegation of twelve people, five of them Namibians, were impressed by the agro-industrial potential of the area.

Local business people welcomed the prospect of new partners, pointing out that now that the Matala irrigation canal and the hydro-electric plant had been restored, there were favourable conditions for international operators and that access routes needed to be repaired.

Provincial governor Ramos da Cruz had officially opened a branch of the Development Bank of Angola, BFA, in Matala a few days earlier, and Fernandes Teles, administrator of the bank, announced that branches would be opened in Quipingo, Caconda and Chicoma (Huíla) in 2005.

Government support for agriculture

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development distributed 612 tonnes of seeds – beans, sorghum, rice and soya - to peasants in Bié Province in early January, to boost subsistence farming. Also distributed were 355 tonnes of compost, 700 of ammonia, 106,500 hoes and 50 carts with oxen.

Apart from combating hunger, the aim is to ensure food security and restore the economy devastated by the armed conflict.

In the southern province of Cunene, the Ministry allocated US$450,000 for the purchase of agricultural implements, seeds and fertilisers for the current agricultural year.

Speaking to farmers in Ondjiva on 6 December, Rafael Albino, provincial director of the Ministry, said the aim was to enable peasants to eliminate poverty and to provide better services for them.

The current agricultural year involves 92,665 peasant families in an area of 137,549 hectares in Cunene Province.

Chinese to fund housing in Lobito

Benguela governor Dumilde das Chagas Rangel announced on 17 January that 200 economic homes would be built this year in Zone 8 on the outskirts of Lobito, under an agreement between the local authorities and the Chinese government.

This, he said, would be followed by the building of another 400 economic homes in the same area. This was aimed at putting an end to anarchic building and guaranteeing housing for people living in difficult circumstances., he said.

Other action to be carried out in the same area as part of the programme to improve basic services, was to build a primary school, expand other schools and install electricity supply lines.

Zone 8, the most populous in Lobito, with about 72,000 inhabitants, would also have public water fountains in the next three months and existing reservoirs would be repaired.

Global Fund provides US$25 million to combat malaria

Under an agreement signed in Luanda on 14 January by the Ministry of Health, the United Nations Development Fund and the network of Angolan organisations involved in combating Aids, Anaso, the Global Health Fund is to provide US$25 million to support the programme to eradicate malaria in Angola.

The money will be managed by the UNDP.

‘Malaria is still the major cause of deaths in the country,’ said Deputy Minister of Health José Van-Dúnem, ‘with children and women the main targets of the disease, and we have a particular responsibility for those two groups.’

Pierre-François Pirlot, the UNDP representative in Angola, said it would only be possible to reduce the number of cases of malaria if at least 80 percent of the population uses mosquito nets, which meant that every family should have three mosquito nets treated with insecticide in the home.

Malaria is endemic in all the country’s provinces.

Statistical data for the year 2003 show that there were 1.779 million cases of malaria and more than 20,000 deaths.

Child registration in Huambo

A total of 4,600 children in the eleven municipalities of Huambo Province have been given birth certificates since the start of the campaign for the free registration of minors in November 2001. The campaign officially ended on 31 December 2004 and, according to its coordinator, Dino Tchipilica, it exceeded the initially planned figures.

He said the greatest numbers - 149,751 - were registered in 2004, because of the extension of the campaign to some places that were previously inaccessible, owing to the destruction of bridges. One hundred and twenty brigade members had contributed to the success of the campaign, to which Unicef had contributed US$80,000.

Dino Tchipilica said that although the campaign had ended, the registration of babies would continue in local maternity wards, to ease the crowding in registration offices and ensure that the certificates of new-born babies were guaranteed.

Difficulties encountered, Dino Tchipilica said, had been a shortage of transport and of some material requirements.

Returnees to receive micro-credit

Vitória da Conceição, provincial director of the Ministry of Assistance and Social Reintegration in Huíla, said that 2,408 Angolan returnees from Zambia, DR Congo and Namibia will be benefiting from a micro-credit programme starting in February, with 677 families resettled in Caconda, Caluquembe, Chicomba and Matala receiving US$200 each.

She added that the loans, an initiative of her Ministry, in partnership with Unicef and the Ministry of the Family, were to enable the returnees to work in agriculture and trade.

Through the resettlement programme, she said, the government planned to reintegrate another 196 families currently in Namibia and Zambia.

Vitória da Conceição appealed to civil society, churches and political bodies to support the government’s efforts, and she stressed that those being resettled needed everyone’s help.

Life improving in Bié Province

Programmes for the period 2004-2005 to improve the economic and social life of the people of Bié Province are to continue this year, with the aim of completing projects underway and starting new ones.

João Marques Bango, director of public works, said in Kuito, the provincial capital, that there were three programmes being carried out by his Ministry: improving and expanding basic social services, rehabilitating the city of Kuito and exhuming and re-burying the bodies of people killed during the post-election war.

He said more than 30 buildings had been built from scratch, while schools, health posts and administrative buildings were being restored and some had already been completed. This year, the programme to improve services was being extended to 30 rural communes.

Among the tasks were repairing secondary and tertiary roads, as well as bridges and water treatment plants, electricity supply systems and street lighting.

With regard to Kuito, João Marques Bango said that buildings still in ruins would be repaired, traffic signals replaced, pavements restored and Joaquim Kapango Airport would be rehabilitated, among other activities.

Referring to the exhumation of bodies buried in back yards, gardens, patios and other unsuitable places, he said that more than 6,000 of an estimated 7,000 had been re-buried. Work would continue on building a chapel, providing gravestones, repairing the road to the monument cemetery and planting trees along it, he concluded.

Social investment in Kwanza Sul Province

The Social Support Fund, FAS, is to spend about US$2.99 million in Kwanza Sul in 2005 on 52 social projects. Neto Sacongo, provincial FAS director, said the money would be spent on schools, health posts and housing for teachers and nurses.

He said that because of the experience of local builders, work had already started on many of the projects, and he appealed for the participation of the beneficiary communities to ensure that it went faster.

FAS spent US$1.847 million on 46 social projects in Kwanza Sul in 2004, and has carried out more than 160 projects since the Fund was created in 1994.

More than five million square metres demined in 2004

Speaking to staff at the National Demining Institute, Inad, during a reception to exchange end of year greetings, Leonardo Sapalo, director general of the institute, said that 5,508,285 square metres were cleared of mines in 2004 by seven Inad sapper brigades. During the same period, he said, 208 anti-personnel mines, 220 anti-tank mines and 697 unexploded ordinance were destroyed.

Despite scant resources, he continued, positive results were achieved.

With regard to mine danger education, 351 awareness activists had been trained and 9,042 people – both children and adults - had been mobilised.

Plans for 2005 included the second phase of demining the Benguela Railway, the Namibe Railway the Luanda Railway, electricity pylons, dams, agricultural areas and access paths.

There were also plans to acquire more personnel and demining equipment, to complete the survey on the impact of mines in Lunda Norte Province, and to carry out similar programmes in Cabinda and Luanda.

Government donates US$4 million to World Food Programme

The Angolan government donated US$4 million to the World Food Programme on 16 December for assistance to about one million needy people, most of them displaced persons and refugees.

Rick Corsino, the WFP director in Angola, said the contribution showed the government’s commitment to working in partnership with the WFP in the fight against hunger and put it among the ten biggest donors in the period 2004-2005. He said he hoped it would encourage other donors to support the WFP’s efforts to assist needy people in Angola.

He went on to say that the money was enough to buy about 6,000 tonnes of food to assist about 400,000 returnees for a month in the provinces of Benguela, Bié, Huambo, Kwanza Sul and Moxico.

The Angolan donation came at a time when the UN agency faced a critical lack of resources, owing to the poor response of donors to support its programme for the return and resettlement of Angolan refugees.

A UN report stated in early January that the WFP needed US$77 million to carry out its two-year humanitarian operations until the end of 2005. It also needed an additional US$1.2 million to meet the needs of its passenger air service until the middle of this year, when it plans to end it.

The WFP had received a little more than US$80 million shortly before the end of last year, as against the original request for 2004 of US$136 million.

Meanwhile, the WFP closed its office in Ndalatando, Kwanza Norte, owing to significant improvements in food security in the province. The WFP had found no signs of food insecurity in Kwanza Norte Province, despite the fact that 75 percent of social assistance was for recent returnees, who are assisted for one year.

Inclusion of national languages in school curricula

The Ministry of Education has allocated US$528,000 for two projects for the inclusion of national languages in school curricula as from the 2006-2007 school year. This was announced by Adão do Nascimento, Deputy Minister of Education, who said contracts had been signed with the educational books publishing firms Maskew Miller Longman of South Africa and EBA of the USA.

He said US$241,000 of this would be spent on teaching materials for teachers and pupils and the remainder on training teachers to teach in national languages.

Priority would be given to six national languages - Chokwe, Kimbundu, Kikongo, Nganguela, Oshikwanhama and Umbundu, he said, and teaching methods would be adapted to the characteristics of each region. He added that teaching these languages in the first year of schooling was a good thing, since it meant that knowledge acquired at home could be brought into school.

The introduction of national languages as a normal subject in the school curriculum is part of the education reform programme.

Ministry trains more than 5,000 people in six months

The Ministry of Public Administration, Employment and Social Security provided training for 5,130 people throughout the country during the first six months of 2004. Through courses in 28 vocational training centres, they acquired the knowledge and abilities to work in the areas of carpentry, metalwork, plumbing, electricity, electronics, dressmaking and services.

This was revealed on 9 December by Mateus Lemos, assistant director of the National Employment and Vocational Training Institute, at the end of a forum on vocational training held in Luanda.

The participants, all specialists in this field, concluded that vocational training for the economically active population was one of the major preconditions for eliminating the poverty affecting 68 percent of the population. They also stressed the need to identify training needs and said that universities should play an essential research and identification role.

João Baptista Tchindandi, governor of the south-eastern province of Kuando Kubango, opened a vocational training centre in Menongue, the provincial capital, on 7 December. The US$725,000 project has seven classrooms and an administrative centre, and was built by the Socoang construction company in 25 months.

It will provide courses in dressmaking, metalwork, plumbing, accountancy, electricity, computers and carpentry.

The inauguration was attended by António Domingos Pitra da Costa Neto, vice-president of the MPLA and Minister of Public Administration, Employment and Social Security, who was in Menongue for party work. Pitra Neto also donated clothing, blankets, cooking oil and maize meal to war-displaced people in the Savipanda neighbourhood.

Angola in first place in education growth rate

According to Unicef’s State of the World’s Children 2005 report, Angola came in first place in per capita growth in education in 2004. This was due to the Back to School campaign launched in 2003 and other related programmes carried out by the government in cooperation with Unicef.

The Unicef report describes the Back to School campaign as a success, with the government recruiting about 30,000 teachers and enrolling a million pupils.

It also says that Angola successfully organised a national vaccination campaign against measles, immunising more than seven million children, and refers to the government’s strategic plan to combat HIV/Aids.

However, as regards infant mortality rates, Angola came in third place. The report says Angola needs more investment in the social sector, especially public health and education. Another area that warrants attention is the registration of births, there being more than four million children still requiring registration.

The report goes on to say that Angolan children also need more investment in water, in both urban and rural areas, to help combat water-borne diseases, and rapid progress in mine clearance.

Workshop on solar energy

A workshop on solar energy was held in the Hotel Continental in Luanda on 7 December, aimed at promoting a national rural electrification programme.

Organised by the Ministry of Energy and Water and BP Solar and chaired by Deputy Minister Rui Tito, among the issues discussed were the government investment programme for the period 2003-2007, electrification successes in Angola, world power programmes, the challenges and the contribution solar energy could make to combating poverty.

The British oil and gas company BP has already funded the installation of solar power in several schools in Luanda.

With a view to demonstrating the potential of solar energy as a viable alternative for electrification and rural development, BP Angola and the British Embassy in Angola, in partnership with the Ministry of Energy and Water and the Ministry of Territorial Administration, have co-funded the first community solar project in the small town of Paranhos, Bengo Province. The project will benefit about 60 families and provide power for a school, a medical post, 57 houses and three administrative blocks, twelve street lights and a public drinking fountain.

More than 200,000 refugees have returned

According to a statement issued by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, in early December, 267,850 refugees have returned to Angola since the signing of the peace agreement in 2002. This figure included 184,051 who returned of their own accord.

The UNHCR estimated that there were still 173,150 registered refugees in neighbouring countries like DR Congo, Zambia, Namibia and Congo Brazzaville.

The statement said there were still some difficulties for some refugees to return to their home areas, owing to bad road conditions, damaged bridges and mines. Even so, it had been possible to expand operations to some previously inaccessible areas, and work was continuing to rehabilitate roads, bridges, schools, health posts and water points.

The returnees received food and farm tools in their home areas and Portuguese language classes. They were also given talks on national reconciliation, HIV/Aids and the danger of mines.

Rehabilitation of water harnessing centre in Huíla

Abel João da Costa, director of water and energy in the southern province of Huíla, said that a programme to rehabilitate the Tundavala water harnessing centre on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Lubango, had cost the local government US$586,000 last year. The money, he said, had been spent on pipes, electric pumps, disinfecting equipment and a conduit to the Senhora do Monte treatment centre.

The city’s water supply system was more than 50 years old, he continued, and the local authorities needed another US$70 million to rehabilitate it completely, so that even those living in the poorest conditions in Lubango could be supplied with clean water.

Abel João da Costa also announced that US$336,000 had been spent in 2004 on building fourteen systems for tapping underground water in the municipality of Chibia, 42 km from Lubango.

He said the money had also been used to acquire manual pumps, solar radiation panels, sanitation equipment and a filter to improve water quality.

Law faculty has trained 767 lawyers

The law faculty at Agostinho Neto University has educated 767 lawyers since it was founded on 25 August 1979. This was stated by Fernando Oliveira, dean of the faculty, during a press conference on 6 January at which he spoke of the commemoration of its 25th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of the first graduations.

The programme included a tribute by the faculty and the local student association to the first 38 graduates, tributes to lecturers Grandão Ramos, Maria do Carmo Medina, Teixeira Martins and Avelãs Nunes and a proposal to make Cardinal Alexandre do Nascimento a doctor honoris causa.

Fernando Oliveira said he felt proud to see former students playing a leading role in the country’s political, social and economic life, which showed the strategic importance of having established an institution of higher learning to train lawyers during the troubled post-independence period.

He said it was President Agostinho Neto who had first stressed the need for a law faculty to provide lawyers who would be able to play a crucial role in the building of a new state.

Fernando Oliveira welcomed the establishment of private universities, owing to the demand for places. He added, however, that his faculty was having to introduce organisational changes, since private institutions had to some extent deprived the public university of teaching staff.

Sculptor Rui de Matos dies

The sculptor and reserve general Rui de Matos died of cancer on 1 January.

Born on 26 May 1943, Rui Guilherme Cardoso de Matos, whose nom de guerre was Maio, studied at the former Escola Industrial de Luanda and Escola António Arroio, the Perpignan Ecole des Beaux Arts and the Petite Académie de Paris.

He joined the MPLA in Brazzaville, Congo, in 1966 and, after military training in Cuba, joined the Ferraz Bomboko column which tried to reach the MPLA’s first region in northern Angola, but whose members were imprisoned in Zaire. After their release, through the intervention of the OAU, he was transferred to Lusaka and carried out missions on the eastern front. On the eve of independence, he took part in all the battles of Kifangondo. He was head of the Presidential Guard on the eastern front and in Luanda and chief of operations of the 9th Motorised Infantry Brigade.

Rui de Matos was a founding member of the Artists’ Union and took part in the Guerrilla Artists Exhibition on the first anniversary of independence.

Among his best known works are a bust of President Agostinho Neto and the bas reliefs in the former President’s mausoleum. Other works include the monument to the martyrs of Kifangondo and busts of Hoji ya Henda, former Congolese President Marien Ngouabi and, more recently, Amilcar Cabral. Most of his works are now regarded as part of the national cultural heritage.

He leaves his wife Ligia and four children.

Minister of Culture calls for restoration of monuments and sites

Minister of Culture Boaventura Cardoso said in Luanda on 6 January that special attention should be paid to the restoration of monuments and historic sites in the country.

‘Everywhere in the country there are places that have been declared protected monuments and sites which, if work is not done on them soon, may disappear from the historical and cultural map of Angola,’ he said, adding that fresh impetus would be given to conservation this year. In some cases, he said, only small-scale intervention was needed, so provincial governments should not simply wait for action by central institutions.

Announcing that the National Cultural Heritage Institute and the Slavery Museum would be re-opened this year, he said conditions were being created to start to restore these buildings.

With regard to steps taken to recover pieces stolen from cultural institutions by thieves, the Minister said that this would take time and continued negotiations with international institutions.

Concert in aid of children with Aids

A musical show entitled ‘Brazil-Angola united against Aids’ was put on in Rio de Janeiro on 26 January.

The performers included some of the best known Angolan and Brazilian singers and musicians.

The proceeds were for the purchase of medicines and equipment for children with Aids in the Paediatric Hospital in Luanda.

There were also plans to produce a CD and DVD for sale on behalf of the Friends of the Children of Angola organisation, to be used for anti-Aids programmes.

Mintadi stone sculptures displayed

Twenty-four stone sculptures from northern Angola, known in Kikongo as mitadi (watchers), were put on display in the National Anthropology Museum in Luanda on 6 January. The sculptures, from the Bakongo ethnic group, represent the watchers or guardians who closely follow what happens in the community.

The special function of the mintadi - ntadi in the singular - is to protect the family and community from evil-doers, so as to ensure social stability. They are found especially among the Solongo and Bambona groups, from the commune of Noki to the Mponzo River, in Zaire Province, where there is an abundance of matadi mafumu, the weather-resistant stone used to make them.

Speaking at the opening of the exhibition, Xavier Yambo, cultural heritage director, said the sculptures displayed to mark National Culture Day on 8 January should encourage young people to do research into important aspects of the philosophical world of Angolan communities.

‘Mintadi sculptures live with the community,’ he said. ‘For example, the ntadi was put on the throne of the king when he was absent, and everyone had to behave as if he were present.’

He said the twenty-four carvings shown were part of a collection of more than 2,000 that were being catalogued.

Elephants may soon return to the country

Angolan elephants that took refuge in Botswana during the war could soon return, following mine clearance in the area.

According to the Ecological Youth of Angola, JEA, this was announced during the Nairobi UN summit in December on the theme a world free from mines.

A million dollar project, an initiative supported by the Californian organisation Roots of Peace, is aimed at clearing mines laid during the war in Angola, to help to restore the old elephant migration route between Botswana, Zambia and Angola. Work will start in an area of 150 square kilometres in the Luiana Reserve in southeast Angola.

An estimated 120,000 elephants are now holed up in Botswana and their numbers increase by 5 percent a year.

If they do not return, Botswana will face the difficult situation of having to cull about 60,000 elephants in the next few years.

Roots of Peace works with the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Mine Action Service and the British NGO Mines Advisory Group.

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