In Luanda the previous day, President José Eduardo dos Santos awarded decorations to more than 60 people for the part they played in the liberation struggle, the peace process and other areas of activity. The decorations included the orders of independence, the freedom fight, peace and concord, military merit, political merit and civic merit. 

The ceremony was attended by the heads of state of Portugal, Jorge Sampaio, São Tomé and Príncipe, Fradique de Menezes, and Congo Brazzaville, Denis Sassou Nguesso, and other foreign delegations. 

President dos Santos, in his address, spoke of the courage of those decorated and their contribution to a shared cause that should continue to be defended until, in addition to peace and democracy, wellbeing, social progress and happiness were guaranteed for everyone.

‘Thousands of citizens, both known and anonymous, lost their lives in order that we might today celebrate on the day that marks the Angolan people’s most  important gain, their own freedom,’ he said.  ‘We all fought for national independence, together we made peace, we share the same destiny and we should build our future together, a better future for all,’ he continued, and referred to the different political and party origins of those decorated.

The President also stressed that three and a half years after achieving definitive peace, the country was in a phase of reconciliation among all Angolans, improving social conditions, consolidating political institutions and relaunching economic and productive activity, with a view to the complete normalisation of Angolan society. 

He welcomed the foreign delegations and thanked them for accepting the invitation to share the celebration of 30 years of independence with the Angolan people. Their company, he said, ‘reflects the continuation of firm and old friendship and reinforces the solidarity you never failed to show us, whatever the difficulties and vicissitudes we had to face.’ 

The Angolan people, he said, were aware that they had supported the victories so far achieved.

The Capanda hydroelectric dam in Malanje Province, which was inaugurated by President José Eduardo dos Santos on 8 November, will boost economic growth, since the electricity generated by the biggest construction work undertaken in the past thirty years will permit greater investment in industry, agriculture and tourism.

After pressing the button that started the turbines, the President said:  ‘Thus starts the building of our future.’

The four-turbine scheme, built at a cost of US$2.6 million, will generate electric power for six million people in the provinces of Luanda, Malanje, Kwanza Norte, Kwanza Sul and Bengo. The final phase of the project will be completed in the second half of 2007. The government approved financing in June this year for acquiring material for completing it, to be provided by US$113 million from the Russian Unified Bank and another US$130 million from a credit line granted by Brazil.

The dam started to produce electricity in January 2004, when the first turbine started to operate, followed by the second turbine later that year.

When all four turbines are functioning, output is expected to attain 520 megawatts, supplying the electricity system of northern Angola and also reinforcing the systems in the centre and south, with which the supply system is linked.

The government signed a contract on the building of the dam in September 1982 with a consortium formed by the companies Technopromexport of Russia and Odebrecht of Brazil.  The work was started in February 1987, with the clearing of bush and the building of access roads, a landing strip, a hospital, housing for workers, and offices, among other facilities.

All work was stopped in November 1992, owing to the worsening military situation in the area, and nothing was done for about five years. The site was completely abandoned and all the facilities and equipment were destroyed.   Work was resumed in July 1997, but again suspended in January 1999 for about a year.  However, this time a group of workers remained on the site, protected by the government army.   Work was started again in January 2000.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Minister of Energy and Water, José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos dedicated the project to all those who had to leave their families to build an undertaking that ‘honours the country’.

Minister of Industry Joaquim David said that when the scheme was fully functioning, the prices of industrial products would fall.

Most industries, he said, now used generators, which increased production costs and, therefore, market prices.

‘With power from Capanda,’ he said, ‘there will be more investment, more jobs and more revenue for the state.’

The dam is expected to transform the region into an agricultural and livestock development area over the next two years and to permit the coming into being of food processing industries, according to Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Gilberto Buta Lutucuta, who added that the agriculture and livestock project will create 5,000 new jobs.

Water from the 164-square-kilometer lake will initially irrigate 10,000 hectares of land and, subsequently, 30,000 hectares. 

During a visit to Bié

Province on 25 November, President José Eduardo dos Santos inaugurated the Kuito municipal administration building, a school, the government headquarters and the premises of his support office. The projects, buildings destroyed during the armed conflict, were part of the special basic reconstruction programme for Bié and cost US$12 million.

The second phase of the project will include the gymnastics and sports centre, the regional administration and the local radio building, at an estimated cost of US$27 million.  The final phase, to include a housing complex with 200 homes, three schools, the basic services building and the water distribution system is expected to cost US$30 million.

In an impromptu address to thousands of people gathered in Kuito, the President called for a great effort to ensure that trains on the Benguela Railway, CFB, return to the city by 2007 at the latest. 

‘Only with a means of transport as important as this one will we be able to speed up the reconstruction of all the provinces served by the CFB,’ he said, stressing that the rehabilitation of the line could radically change the situation in all the provinces it passes through. 

The CFB runs from the coastal province of Benguela to Moxico in the east, passing through Huambo and Bié.

New Law on Political Parties published

According to the new Law on Political Parties passed last April and published in the Diário da República, the official gazette, applications for registration must be made to the Supreme Court with a minimum of 7,500 signatures of citizens aged over 18.  These signatures must include 150 residents in each of the country’s 18 provinces.

The law supercedes the law passed in 1992, which required 1,500 signatures and 100 residents in each province.

It states that all parties must be national and prohibits the establishment of parties whose activities are of a local or regional nature or which foment tribalism, racism, regionalism or any other forms of discrimination liable to affect national unity and territorial integrity.

Article 9 of the law states that political parties must pursue their aims publicly and must publish their statutes and programmes in the Diário da República. 

Under the law, membership of political parties is open to all Angolan citizens aged over 18 with full civic and political rights, with the exception of members of the armed forces and police and magistrates. 

Political parties may support the presidential candidate of their choice and work with other organisations, such as youth, women’s or professional associations, without prejudice to the independence or autonomy of such organisations. 

Article 32 of the law states that Angolan political parties can become affiliates of other international political organisations that are democratically structured and run, provided they do not pursue objectives that are contrary to the country’s constitution.

Zero tolerance for domestic violence

The campaign, the message said, stressed the link between violence against women and the HIV/Aids pandemic, because violence limits women’s possibilities of protecting themselves against infection and jeopardises their access to vital information on preventive health services, as well as testing and treatment.

The Minister said that Angola was taking important steps to increase public awareness of the danger to the country of domestic violence, the main victims of which were usually women.  She added that the government, supported by civil society organisations, NGOs and churches, was carrying out campaigns against violence, ‘thanks to which work we now see more women denouncing cases of violence against them’.

She went on to say that legislation was being prepared which, in addition to preventive aspects, also included punitive action.   Visible progress had also been made in ensuring that women had access to information on testing and treatment for HIV/Aids, she said. 

Finally, she appealed to everyone, especially the media, to show strong commitment to this cause, which was that of all women. 

The National Assembly approved the general budget estimates for 2006 on 15 November. The budget, with revenue and expenditure amounting to the equivalent of US$23.9 billion dollars, was approved by 106 votes in favour, none against and 46 abstentions.

Most of the opposition deputies abstained but, according to Alcides Sakala, leader of the Unita parliamentary group, this might change when specific parts of the budget were discussed.

Discusion was due to start in the parliamentary commissions the following day and continue until 23 November.

The budget will then go to the economic and finance commission, which will submit it to plenary session of the National Assembly for a final assessment of the discussion process.

According to the National Assembly regulations, the 2006 budget must be approved by 15 December.

Diamond polishing and treatment plants opened

President José Eduardo dos Santos inaugurated the first diamond polishing plant in Angola on 3 November. Representing an investment of US$10 million by the national diamond company, Endiama, it will substantially increase diamond industry revenue.  It employs 600 workers, most of them women and physically handicapped people.

The new plant is a result of a partnership between Sodiam, the national diamond marketing company, with a 48 percent interest, and LLD Diamonds of the Lev Leviev group, the biggest diamond polisher in the world, with 47 percent.  The remaining five percent is held by the Projem consortium formed by a number of Angolan companies.

The plant, in the south of Luanda, has a capacity to process about US$240 million worth of diamonds a year, and is especially important in that it will enable Angola to stop exporting only rough diamonds and to sell polished gemstones abroad.  According to official estimates, after polishing the stones, foreign buyers have made US$56 million dollars out of every US$9 million worth of rough diamonds exported by Angola.

The volume of Endiama’s exports in 2004 amounted to more than 6.63 million carats, worth an estimated US$763.66 million.  

Observers noted that the plant would help to increase the diamond industry’s contribution to Gross Domestic Product, as well as encouraging the coming into being of new companies to provide services for the diamond industry.

In Saurimo, Lunda Sul Province, on 18 November, the start button was pushed at the new Sociedade Mineira de Catoca treatment centre, in the presence of President dos Santos.  The new centre can treat four million tonnes of diamonds a year, producing between 1.2 and three million carats.   It was built in 18 months at a cost of about US$90 million.

He said there was currently a 35 percent tax on profits in the diamond industry and Catoca would contribute US$100 million in tax to the state budget.

João Reis, head of the Catoca human resources department, said that expatriate technicians were gradually being replaced by Angolans.  He said 90 percent of the workers were now Angolans and only 10 percent foreigners, Russians and Brazilians. There was continuous training taking place and while there were only two Angolan department heads two years ago, now there were six.

The Sociedade Mineira de Catoca employs 3,200 workers, 2,900 of whom are Angolans and 300 foreigners. The Catoca mining town, which is 35 km from Saurimo, the provincial capital, has housing, an industrial kitchen, a general laundry, a church, stores, a swimming pool, recreation rooms, playing fields and a medical post which also serves the population in the surrounding area.  There is an agriculture and livestock project aimed at ensuring food self-sufficiency.

Angola is one of the countries with the greatest mining potential in Southern Africa.  The first diamonds were found in Catoca in the 16^th century.

The Ministry of Finance has authorised the African Investment Bank, BAI, to broker a US$200 million financial agreement for the purchase of six Boeing aeroplanes to renew the Angola Airlines, Taag, fleet. 

According to a BAI press release, a syndicate was formed between the BAI, the Banco de Fomento Angola and the Banco Espírito Santo Angola, which agreed to subscribe US$150 million, 75 percent of the total.  The remainder will be open to subscription by other banks.

The press release said this was the largest sum ever in a syndicated financial operation in the country by the three biggest banks in Angola. 

It was also the first financial operation in which public treasury bonds in foreign exchange could be freely negotiated on the capital market.

‘This is a notable success and will greatly help the national banking system to assert itself, also internationally, as well as being further evidence of its willingness to make the investments needed for national reconstruction, sustained economic growth and the development of Angola,’ it said. 

Cubal, which is 171 km from the city of Benguela, has an estimated population of about 230,000 people, most of them engaged in agriculture.  It has six agricultural and livestock cooperatives and 119 peasant associations.

A programme to increase banana growing, costing an estimated US$426,300, has been in progress in Kwanza Sul Province since October.  Fernando Sito, a member of the technical team from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development involved in the project, said the programme, to be carried out over the next five years, was based on introducing into rural communities improved varieties and species resistant to the major diseases.

He said the acquisition of equipment, materials and other requirements would cost US$253,300, while US$18,300 would be spent on fuel and lubricants and US$134,500 on training, and the remainder would be for direct operational costs.

The programme, he said, involved 500 peasant families, as well as farmers and NGOs.  The Institute of Agricultural Research will provide technical assistance, following research work at the Quilombo experimental station in Ndalatando, the provincial capital, he said.

Peasants in the commune of Kutato, municipality of Chinguar, Bié Province, plan to cultivate 50 hectares of land during the current agricultural year.  Felisberto Huambo, the local administrator, said they had been given seeds and fertiliser to ensure a good harvest, but that the bad state of roads had made it difficult to transport the crops they grew. 

In the communes of Cuima, Catata and Calenga, municipality of Caála, Huambo Province, 38,002 selected families have been provided with maize and bean seeds and fertilisers, as part of the programme to combat hunger and poverty.  The local administrator, Loty Notika, said most of them were newly resettled people and very vulnerable. The Huambo provincial agriculture department is supporting 436,619 families who will grow crops on approximately 635,929 hectares of land.

António Paposseco, municipal administrator in Quela, 115 km from the city of Malanje, revealed on 16 November that cotton was being grown in Quela for the first time in 31 years. He said peasants were already working on enormous fields, on an experimental basis, to test the quality of the cotton.  For the future transportation of the cotton, he said, they had already rehabilitated 30 km of roads.

Quela used to be one of the major cotton growing areas, with an estimated workforce of 20,000 working for the Belgian company Cotonang.  All work was stopped there in 1974, on the eve of independence.  Though resumed, work stopped again in 1982, when Malanje Province started to be affected by the war.

The Malanje provincial government started a project in mid-November to introduce draught animals, so as to reduce manual labour and increase agricultural production. The project was started in Mandele, where nineteen pairs of oxen and ploughs were given to seven peasant associations. This will be followed by the phased distribution of oxen and ploughs to all municipalities in the province.  The recipients will later make a symbolic repayment for the oxen, while the ploughs were free.

It was meanwhile reported that 5,106 farm animals had been distributed in late November to peasant associations and small livestock breeders in Kachiungo, Huambo Province by the municipal agriculture department.

Alcino Pinto, head of the department, said they included cattle, goats, pigs and sheep.  The aim, he said, was to encourage the production of fresh meat and milk for the local people and to make Kachiungo a major livestock area in the province. 

Sofia Lobo Gil, director of education and culture in Malanje Province, said that 1,976 people in the province were attending literacy classes this year, 1,269 of them women. The aim, she said, was to eradicate illiteracy and make sure that all citizens joined the regular education system.  She went on to say that the work was being done in partnership with the ninth region military commands, the national police, Caritas, churches, NGOs and the provincial office of the Ministry of the Family and the Advancement of Women. Her office, she said, had 57 literacy classrooms in municipalities, where the programme was being carried out.

The national literacy campaign was launched in 1976 by Agostinho Neto, Angola’s first President.

The special needs school complex on the outskirts of the city of Lubango, capital of Huíla Province, has been undergoing expansion work since early November, funded by the Social Support Fund.

Fátima Mahapia, director of special education in Huíla, said that in February next year, the scheduled completion date, the complex will have 28 classrooms instead of 20 and places for 634 pupils.   She said the shortage of teaching materials, especially for the deaf and dumb, was the major constraint experienced at the school. 

The school, which was opened in 1999, has 34 specialised teachers. 

An institution for the protection of vulnerable and handicapped children was opened in Caála, Huambo Province, on 2 November, by the National Children’s Institute, Inac.   Júlia Nanjesse Katinda, provincial director of Inac, said it would also care for children currently in reception centres, churches and families and assess their social and economic problems. There were, she said, families that refused to care for vulnerable and handicapped children, which had serious psychological affects on them.

Minister of Education António Burity da Silva laid the foundation stone of a vocational agricultural institute in Huambo Province on 15 November.   The institute is to be built in Belem, 9 km from the city of Huambo, at a cost of US$22.27 million from the Chinese credit line.

It will have 22 classrooms, a hostel for 260 students, six laboratories, workshops, administrative areas, bathrooms and sports and leisure areas. The building work, by Chinese contractors, is scheduled to take fifteen months.

The Minister, who was in Huambo with a delegation that included Pinda Simão, the Deputy Minister for education reform and national directors, also laid the foundation stones of two technical administration and management institutes and two secondary schools that will start to be built in 2006. These institutions will make it possible to increase the number of students studying agriculture, administration and management in the central highlands. 

There is currently a vocational course in agriculture and livestock production given in rented premises. 

João Berão, director of the National Telecommunications Institute, has said that an estimated US$113 million was invested in telecommunications in 2004, 95 percent of which came from the private sector.  As a result, more than 3,000 jobs had been created.  Speaking at the inauguration of the messaging service between the Movicel and Unitel mobile phone companies, he said that telecommunications had contributed 1.3 percent to GDP in 2004.

There are currently 1.3 million mobile phone users in the country and two operators.  João Berão thought this number would increase if there were more operators and that with more competition there would be services for everyone. Telephone costs were not high, he said, considering the high cost of producing the services.

The electric power supply in the city of Lubango, capital of the southern province of Huíla, has substantially improved following the total rehabilitation of the system at a cost of US$15 million.

The six-month project was funded by the Chinese loan and carried out by technicians from China and the National Energy Company, ENE.  The system now supplies most parts of the city.

Justino João, ENE director in the southern region, said the work would not stop when the Chinese left and that they would eliminate all faults caused by overloading.

‘We have a duty to take electric power to every part of the city without exception,’ he said.

He also spoke of the experience gained by Angolans working with the Chinese and said ENE staff could now solve any possible breakdown.

João Baptista Kussumua, Minister of Assistance and Social Reintegration, said in Rome on 8 November that 700,000 people in Angola were affected by food insecurity. Speaking at a meeting of the World Food Programme, he said that in 2004 and 2005 Angola had received only 50 percent of the resources forecast for food aid programmes.

With the achievement of peace in 2002, he continued, about four million internally displaced people returned to their home areas and 330,000 Angolan refugees in neighbouring countries were voluntarily repatriated, which had required substantial help from the WFP.

The Minister explained that the government was implementing 50 projects in 12 provinces for the reintegration of former Unita soldiers and their families. This programme was supported by the World Bank and the multi-donor trust fund for the Great Lakes region.

In addition, he said, the government was going to give priority to allocating resources for the reintegration of 300,000 ex-combatants from earlier periods.

Minister Kussumua asked for help from the WFP in implementing the government’s programme for 2006, 2007 and 2008, concentrating on the areas of education and health. 

In health, the programme was to ensure proper nutrition for children from early childhood to school age, to do HIV/Aids awareness work and train new health workers.

With regard to education, he continued, the government wanted to increase the number of school and health facilities, ensuring places for the more than 1.1 million children outside the school system, as well as training teachers and encouraging children to go to school by providing school meals.

‘For this new programme,’ the Minister said, ‘the government has approved an allocation of US$10 million, which represents 12 percent of the total cost.’ 

He added that there were still 2,000 minefields and substantial funds were needed to clear them.

Meanwhile, the WFP announced in Luanda on 16 November that the work of the international humanitarian community could be seriously jeopardised if it did not receive US$2 million from donors.  Richard Corsino, the WFP representative in Angola, said this sum was urgently needed to finance the WFP air transport service used by 200 humanitarian agencies operating in Angola.  He said US$500 was needed immediately to fund relief flight in the next three months, and another US$1.5 million to keep the service going until the end of 2006.  Otherwise, the WFP would have to suspend its air passenger service in December.

‘If this service is suspended, many NGOs and UN agencies will have no way of getting to areas still inaccessible by road, leaving a large number of people who depend on the humanitarian community to their fate,’ he said.

The WFP has been transporting humanitarian workers to the most remote parts of the country since 1991.  In addition to passenger flights, it has made cargo flights to transport non-food items like vaccines, agricultural implements, seeds and blankets to many parts of the country.  WFP flights are used by nearly 1,200 relief workers a month.

Corsino went on to say that during the recent Marburg virus haemorrhagic fever epidemic, the WFP had provided air transport for health specialists and their equipment, helping to ensure that the disease was wiped out. 

Pedro Luís de Fonseca, head of the studies and planning office of the Ministry of Planning, has said that in two years of implementing a poverty reduction strategy, significant progress had been made. For example, GDP per capita had grown from about US$806 in 2002 to US$1,265 in 2004. 

In the area of health, whereas there had been 14,000 cases of measles in 2002, the figure was only 3,000 in 2003. The figures for sleeping sickness had fallen from 3,621 to 2,209 during the same period.

He went on to say that a total of 26 health posts, 15 health centres and six regional and municipal hospitals had been rehabilitated or built in 2003.  The percentage of the population with better health care and access to safe water had increased from 51 percent to 68 percent and 62 percent to 68 percent, respectively, between 2001 and 2005. 

With regard to education, there was a great increase in the school intake in 2003, following the building or rehabilitation of 2,500 classrooms.  Another 30,000 teachers were taken on, a 52 percent increase over 2002.

Action in respect of the most vulnerable groups had resulted in the resettlement and reintegration in economic and social life of four million displaced persons and 400,000 demobilised soldiers and their family members.

During the same period, 49,921 ex-servicemen received subsidies, 745 were given vocational training, 8,532 were employed by the health services and 5,877 by the education system, 12,575 were employed in other public and private departments and 1,000 had been helped to become self-employed through micro-credits provided by the government.

Pedro Luis de Fonseca went on to say that in the course of 2003 a total of 4,710,000 square metres of land was demined and 47,000 explosive devices were destroyed. 

During the 2003-2004 agricultural year, 38,852 families were reintegrated into productive work.  In addition, seven definitive bridges, 18 provisional bridges and 1,415 kilometres of roadway were built or rehabilitated in 2004 and 2005.

He said that not all the data had been gathered, which was why the figures had not been made public before.  Estimations of poverty, he said, had been based on a survey of families made in 2001, on their income and expenditure, at which time it was concluded that the incidence was 68 percent.  Conditions were being created for a new survey next year, he said.  

WHO and armed forces ready to work together

The World Health Organisation representative in Angola, Dr Fatoumata Diallo, speaking at a methodological meeting of the health services of the Angolan Armed Forces, FAA, held from 15 to 17 November, said that more cooperation in the areas of organisation and management could produce better results.

She spoke of improvement of the system of registration and data collection, rapid response to epidemics, fighting malaria, HIV/Aids and tuberculosis, and child vaccination as areas in which WHO partnership with the FAA health services could be strengthened in coming years.

FAA, she said, had ‘done marvellous work in controlling the Marburg epidemic’. The military medical services, she continued, ‘showed great commitment, which was decisive to ending the Marburg epidemic in Angola, coordinating activities in the field and sending soldiers to work in epidemiological vigilance and controlling hospital infection’.

General Agostinho Nelumba ‘Sanjar’, chief of general staff, stressed that the armed forces would continue to support the health sector, especially in respect of personnel training and scientific research.  Praising the work done by soldiers in helping to control the Marburg epidemic, he said FAA was ready to respond to other challenges like avian flu or any recurrent epidemic.

The meeting, the first held in peacetime, was attended by health officials from all the military regions in the country.

Meeting discusses data on impact of HIV/Aids on children

The Minars study, for which it also has technical help from the studies and research centre of the Catholic University of Angola, involves collecting, analysing and synthesising all existing data, reports and information, both in the country and abroad.

The meeting was attended by members of the government, officials and specialists from various state institutions and representatives of national and foreign NGOs, grassroots community organisations and churches.

Meanwhile, a school theatre festival took place in the amphitheatre of the Nzinga Mbandi school in Luanda, as part of the national campaign to fight HIV/Aids in schools.  Nine theatrical groups from schools in nine municipalities of the capital took part.  

Ramiro João, an official from the Luanda education department, said the campaign, which also included educating teachers on HIV/Aids, had so far involved 173,154 pupils from 227 primary and secondary schools.  He said that since the start of the campaign in September, 1,138 teachers had been trained to talk to children about the disease and give them information to help to combat it.

The theatrical group that was judged best, he said, would represent Luanda at a national competition to be held in December.

The work was organised by the Ministry of Education in cooperation with Unicef.

João Ernesto dos Santos ‘Liberdade’, governor of Moxico Province in eastern Angola, revealed on 9 November that the provincial government had spent US$10 million this year on building and rehabilitating social and economic facilities. He said the money was part of US$20 million allocated by central government for 2005 and 2006.

The projects, he said, included two primary and secondary schools, a hospital, a maternity clinic and 50 homes for public sector employees and ex-combatants.

As part of the programme to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of independence, other projects to be inaugurated were the administrative centre in the municipality of Luchazes, the residence of the administrator and assistant administrator, the Angop news agency office and a municipal police station.

Other projects inaugurated by the governor the previous week were a safe water harnessing and distribution system in the small town of Luau and a primary school and health centre in Luacano.

Álvaro Boavida Neto, governor of Namibe Province, inaugurated a health centre, a market and a cattle vaccination station in Camucuio on 8 November.  The 60-bed health centre, which cost US$180,000, was financed by the Social Support Fund.

The Benguela provincial government has built 519 schools since independence, according to Dumilde Rangel, the provincial governor, who said that despite the armed conflict the government had carried out programmes involving thousands of school-age children.

Addressing a public rally to mark the 30^th anniversary of independence on 11 November, he said that 385,562 children had been enrolled in schools this year.

In respect of higher education, the Higher Education Science Institute established in 1994 had already trained 320 specialists.

With regard to health, he said 125 facilities had been built, including health posts, medical centres and hospitals.  The government had a programme to expand action against malaria, which had been the major cause of deaths in urban and suburban areas.

João Baptista Tchindandi, governor of the south-eastern province of Kuando Kubango, also speaking at a rally to mark Independence Day, said that during the three years since peace was restored 51 primary and secondary schools had been built, as well as three hospitals and 17 medical posts.

Medical consultations for rural parts of Viana

People in rural parts of the municipality of Viana, Luanda Province, were able to consult doctors during the month of November.

Isabel Pedro, secretary of the local committee of the Organisation of Angolan Women, OMA, said that, in cooperation with the NGO Causa Solidária, OMA had arranged for a mobile clinic to go to all the rural areas where there were no doctors.

The mobile clinic has a laboratory, pharmaceutical products and clinical staff specialised in different fields.

Red Cross assistance in Bié Province

The Angolan Red Cross, CVA, has been regularly providing 63,670 people in Bié Province – returnees and former displaced people – with food and other goods.  The beneficiaries are mostly resettled returnees from Zambia, DR Congo and Namibia.

Ângelo Sassongo, the CVA secretary in Bié, said they were receiving maize meal, beans, cooking oil, soap, salt and other essentials, but that the bad state of roads had hampered distribution.  Improving their lives, he said, depended on the distribution of farm tools, seeds, fertilisers and other agricultural inputs, to encourage subsistence farming and combat hunger, poverty and disease.  Many, he said, were suffering from pellagra or tuberculosis. 

The work of the CVA in Bié is supported by the World Food Programme, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Ministry of Assistance and Social Reintegration and national and foreign NGOs based in the region. 

Art exhibition to mark 30^th anniversary of independence

The National Union of Angolan Artists, Unap, opened an exhibition at the International Exhibition Hall in Luanda on 9 November, to mark thirty years of national independence.

The exhibits included paintings, sculptures, ceramics, tapestries and cartoons, among other art forms.

Unap member Don Sebas Cassule said before the opening that they represented different periods in the history of Angolan art over the past thirty years and would help to assess the themes and styles of national artists, as well as their influence on society. 

Unap is a cultural association founded in 1977 to promote the work of Angolan artists.    

Ministry of Culture to hold colloquium on Mbanza Congo

The Ministry of Culture is preparing to hold an international colloquium on Mbanza Congo (Zaire Province) in August 2006, as part of the programme to preserve and promote the country’s cultural heritage. 

The colloquium on the capital of the old Congo Kingdom, to be held under the auspices of the National Cultural Heritage Institute, will cover such issues as the history from its origins until the 19^th century, archaeology, migrations, the meeting of cultures, economy, urbanisation, demography and the environment.

Among the aims are identifying research workers involved in the Congo cultural area, informing the public and encouraging exchanges between research workers in neighbouring countries that have historical and cultural links with Congo.