Angola hosts international conference on tourism

The World Tourism Organisation's Commission for Africa held its 39th conference in Luanda from 27 to 30 May.

It was attended by 120 delegates from 23 African countries.

In a message, President José Eduardo dos Santos said: 'We want tourism to be a development factor, therefore one that sustains fairer and more humane social relations, preserving our people from possible conflicts stemming from situations of social injustice or violations of their most basic rights.'

Therefore, the President's message continued, this meeting of the World Tourism Organisation's Commission for Africa should promote the values of so-called ecotourism, where economic and commercial advantages are harmonised with the conservation of ecosystems and a country's material and cultural heritage.

In his address to the opening session, Prime Minister Fernando dos Santos da Piedade 'Nandó' stressed that 'the holding of this meeting is an unequivocal sign that peace represents a new era in Angola'.

As from now, he said, better conditions for developing tourism could start to be created in Angola.

PM - 'Government wants more Angolans in oil industry'

Prime Minister Fernando Dias dos Santos 'Nandó' has called for the establishment of partnerships in the oil industry to boost development, and more participation by Angolan companies in providing services for the sector.

'We know that while in Brazil 80 percent of services for oil companies are provided by national companies, in Malaysia the figure is 70 percent and in Norway it is 50 percent, in Africa such participation barely exists,' he said, adding that only in Nigeria was it between five and 15 percent.

Addressing a conference on African oil, gas, finance and development that opened in Luanda on 21 May, he appealed to international investors to help to ensure that the development of the oil industry in Angola boosted growth in vital sectors.

'We cannot forget that the industrial sector offers new business opportunities. Apart from the industries associated with gas and crude oil refining, like petrochemicals and fertilisers, mention must also be made of the metallurgical industry, using minerals that exist in the country, and agriculture and the food industry,' he said.

Organised by the UN Conference on Trade and Development, Unctad, the Oil Ministry, Sonangol, the national oil company and the ITE Group plc, the conference, attended by around 500 delegates from Africa, Europe and the United States, discussed the development of the oil and gas industry, exploration, financing of large-scale projects and marketing, among other things.

Also addressing the opening session, Rubens Ricupero, secretary-general of Unctad, stressed the need to ensure that oil and gas served the development policy of Angola, in particular, and Africa in general.

Quoting a former Venezuelan minister who had said that oil should be used like a seed from which new wealth grows, he said this principle had not always been followed by Africans. In Angola's case, he said, there could be many causes, and he spoke of the wars that had destroyed many facilities, weakened the economy and, for decades, resulted in the loss of many development opportunities.

Angola's problems, he continued, were no different to those of other countries of the continent. Africa, he said, now provided 15 percent of US oil imports, and by 2015 this figure was expected to rise to 25 percent. Yet Africa gained few benefits from its resources.

Speaking earlier at a press conference, Lamon Rutten, also representing Unctad, said the conference would propose ending the current situation where the oil multinationals dominated the industry and usurped most of the earnings from Africa's crude oil.

It would also examine mechanisms to help African companies to keep most of their production for the benefit of their countries, as well as ways of ending the inefficiency, from the phase of production to that of consumption, that had such negative repercussions on all sectors of life in African oil producing countries, he said.

Basic agreement reached with IMF

Gonzalo Pastor, head of an International Monetary Fund delegation to Angola, has stressed the need to do more to reduce inflation. Speaking in Luanda on 15 May, at the end of a two week visit to discuss mainly oil revenue, he said that pressure on the budget in 2002 was not making itself felt in the economy, which is why redoubled efforts were needed to stop inflationary trends.

Aguinaldo Jaime, coordinator of the government team at the talks, said that while there might be some differences in the details, the Angolan government's assessment of the situation coincided in the main with that of the IMF. He spoke of the speech made the previous day by President José Eduardo dos Santos - which the IMF delegation had welcomed - in which the causes of Angola's weak economic performance had been identified.

'The question of the fiscal deficit, the extent of public expenditure in state accounts, the question of a better prices and incomes policy, together with the great transparency we intend to ensure in state transactions, particularly the way we are managing public funds, was all warmly welcomed by the IMF,' he said.

Referring to the issue of transparency, Gonzalo Pastor said that during their stay they had been given abundant information on oil earnings, mainly by Sonangol, the state oil company.

British MP says he will encourage investment in Angola

Labour MP Tony Colman said in Luanda on 10 May that he would encourage businessmen in Britain to invest in Angola, mainly in the areas of construction, mining, electricity, telecommunications, transport and water.

Speaking to the press at the end of the visit by a British parliamentary delegation, he said it was important that partnership between Britain and Angola should be not only at government level but also involve businesses. He would tell British businesses and people about the reality of peace in Angola, he said.

Andrew Rowbotham from the Conservative Party said that as MPs they would lobby for Angola's development in their constituencies. 'We cannot guarantee anything, but we're going to work hard for Angola's development, because the country needs it,' he said.

Other members of the delegation were Labour MP Hilson Dawson and the Earl of Listowel, an independent member of parliament. The visit was organised by the British Angola Forum.

Cultural cooperation with Brazil discussed

Following a meeting in Luanda on 26 May with his Angolan counterpart Boaventura Cardoso, Gilberto Gil, Brazil's Minister of Culture, said one of the things they had discussed was cooperation in film making and related areas.

'Because of the war, film production in Angola virtually stoppped,' he said, and Brazil had some experience in this area.

Angolan music needed to be better represented in Brazil, he said, with artists visiting Brazil more often, and he proposed that a group of Angolan musicians go to Brazil next year to perform in some cities there.

Later that day the Minister visited the museums of anthropology and natural history and talks were started between delegations of the two ministries. Agreements were signed on cooperation in specific areas of culture, including books, cinema and audio-visual material.

Gilberto Gil also had a meeting with President José Eduardo dos Santos. Speaking to the press afterwards, he said they had discussed a planned visit to Angola by the Brazilian President next August, and the possibility of establishing a Brazilian cultural centre in Angola.

Gilberto Gil was in Angola on a two-day official visit within the framework of a strategy of President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva to strengthen relations with Africa, particularly Angola. A well known singer, as the second part of the programme of his stay, Gilberto Gil put on three shows in Luanda.

PM visits provinces

Speaking at a public rally in Mbanza Congo on 26 May, Prime Minister Fernando da Piedade dos Santos 'Nandó' promised to work to revive economic life in Zaire Province, which he described as a 'heroic fighting province experiencing many difficulties'.

'We need to find solutions, which is why we have brought with us ministers from important areas of our government to find out the real problems of the population,' he said.

He was accompanied by the ministers of Finance, Oil, Agriculture and Rural development, Transport, Health and Information.

Promising to discuss with local government ways of solving the problems of health, education, water and electric power, he said: 'We are not going to achieve miracles, but we are going to work to make things better in every municipality in this province.'

He appealed to business people in the province to help to combat unemployment and provide goods and services for the population, while stressing that they should be honest and not greedy for big profits.

The government's first priority, Nandó said, was to combat hunger and poverty, 'which is why we need to produce enough for ourselves and sell the surplus'. 'Peace has come to stay,' he continued. 'Proof of this is the fact that we are all here, from different political parties and religions. We must rebuild the country through the work and sacrifices of everyone. The government has to build bridges and roads to permit the movement of people and goods between towns and localities.'

During his stay in the province, the Prime Minister visited oil bases in Soyo, a local water treatment station, the radio station, a hospital, the Museum of the Congo Kingdom and a housing scheme.

In Huambo Province, now that the war has ended, there are important projects aimed at restoring agriculture, industry and services. In order to see these projects, the Prime Minister went to Huambo on 8 May, also accompanied by a number of ministers.

The projects include the rehabilitation of the Cuca brewery, the Kulimahala water treatment plant and a flour mill, as well as a vast infrastructure reconstruction programme already underway, and rebuilding all the roads linking the province with neighbouring provincial capitals.

The Prime Minister also re-inaugurated the Faculty of Agricultural Science of Agostinho Neto University, destroyed during the war, and opened an internet café, the first in the province.

In an address to a public rally in Caála, he stressed the need for continued efforts to increase production. Huambo, he said could once again be the bread basket of Angola.
'We have difficulties of all kinds, mainly economic and social ones,' he said. 'There is still a crisis, but we have the strength to overcome it and we must rely primarily on our own efforts.

Most of our labour force is unspecialised. We must train people. We need a lot of research workers, scientists and also people to work on the land, so that we can be self-sufficient in food, and soon the country will have surpluses to export.'

Contract signed with Alrosa on building hydro-electric scheme

The Russian diamond company Alrosa and the Institute of Foreign Investment signed a US$46 million contract on 21 May on the building of a hydro-electric scheme on the Chicapa River.

The scheme, which will reduce operational costs at the Catoca diamond mining project, was drawn up by the specialised Russian institute Hidroproject, which is also involved in work on the Capanda dam in Malanje Province.

Coffee situation to be surveyed

Gilberto Buta Lutucuta, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, has said that this year it will be possible to complete a survey of the state of coffee growing in Angola. Speaking to Angop on 17 May, he said that the lack of government monitoring of some areas made it impossible to know the real situation, but now that there was peace a national survey was possible.

He said the government would continue to support small and big producers, though there had been some constraints on granting them soft loans.

With regard to abandoned estates and privately owned ones that were not being worked, they would be handed over to interested people such as demobilised Unita and FAA soldiers. This would require prior meetings with the current owners of uncultivated estates.

As for the big coffee companies, the Minister said, they would be transformed into public companies and, subsequently, public or private commercial companies. This process had already started in respect of Encafé and Procafé.

Although it was difficult to obtain figures on coffee production this year, he said, it would appear to have increased, judging by the number of peasants wanting to go to coffee growing areas.

Aguinaldo Jaime speaks of new era of transparency

Addressing a meeting on budgeting and public finance management on 8 May, Aguinaldo Jaime, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, said: 'The Angolan government wants to show the entire national and international community that we are at the start of a new era of government management, rigour, transparency and efficiency.'

He said that all income and expenditure should be reflected in the general state budget, ensuring efficiency in macro-economic management. He stressed the need for realistic forecasts and for political and economic decisions guided by an overall view.

The Minister said it was imperative for managers to ensure verification, monitoring and supervision of resource use. 'If we all fulfil our obligations, especially in respect of the management of resources, I am convinced that we will be able to put an end to high inflation rates and macro-economic instability,' he said.

Angola to participate in oil exploration in São Tomé

Angola wishes to establish a strategic partnership with São Tomé and Príncipe for the exploration of oil deposits on the coast of the archipelago. This was revealed to the press on 7 May by Mário Cabral, head of an Angolan technical commission in São Tomé to prepare for the 5th meeting of the Angola-São Tomé and Príncipe joint commission.

He said the Angolan authorities were prepared to provide technical, legal and institutional assistance to São Tomé, as well as to train oil personnel. Angola's involvement, he said, would be through Sonangol, the state oil company.

'Sonangol also intends to participate in the whole process of oil exploration, production and marketing in São Tomé,' he added.

In addition, he continued, the joint commission was expected to approve new bilateral cooperation in the areas of trade, including the supply of fuel by Sonangol, and education, the media and culture.

A letter to Paulo Lukamba 'Gato'

The following letter was written to Paulo Lukamba 'Gato', secretary-general of Unita, by Bela Malaquias, the wife of Eugénio Manuvacola, a former Unita secretary-general.

She wrote it in response to an invitation he sent her to attend a meeting to mark the first anniversary of Savimbi's death. Bela Malaquias has been living in Luanda since 1998, after fleeing from Bailundo, where Savimbi had put all the Manuvacola family under house arrest.

A journalist by profession, she also attends classes at the university, where she is in her third year of law studies.

I would have expected anything from you except such provocation: the invitation I received on 20 February 2003 at around 20.30. You invite me to pay a tribute to the memory of Savimbi!

Despite everything, I have tried to contain my indignation. But I wonder whether you can possibly have forgotten what Savimbi represented to me and all my close and distant family? I can't believe that you have!

If it's a problem of amnesia, I would be glad to refresh your memory. Savimbi persecuted me for twenty years, through exile, imprisonment, sexual harassment and all kinds of psychological torture.

Savimbi locked up my already elderly father in an underground cell for months, for the sole crime of having told his companions the news of the attempt on the life of Mr Reagan, then president of the United States. Do you remember?

Savimbi beat to death my family members Eduardo Jonatão Chingunji and his wife Violeta Jamba. Nor did their children and their families escape the murderous rage of the late Savimbi.

Despite the pain I feel every time I think of them, here are their names, to jog your memory: Tito Chingunji, his wife Raquel and their three beautiful children. The two youngest were twins. I'm sure you still remember. Lena Chingunji, Tito's twin sister, and her husband Wilson dos Santos.

Koly, Lena's eldest son, who was then twelve, Rady was eight, Paizinho was nearly three, and the two adorable little twins were babies.

Dino Chingunji and his wife Aida Henda, their daughter Vande and the youngest, who was, I think, called Eduardo after his grandfather. And the last of the Chingunjis, Alice, affectionately known as Lulu. Only a daughter of hers, who lives in Luanda and whose father is Mr Isaias Chitombi, a member of your party's leadership, survived as if by some miracle.

The list is long. But my intention is to help you to remember people whose memory should be honoured for the simple reason that Unita owes its existence to them (in the colonial period the Chingunji couple were a pillar of Unita in Moxico, resulting in the husband being imprisoned at Tarrafal and his wife at São Nicolão), though a very different Unita to that of today.

I have therefore made it my mission to perform that task.

And what can one say about the many people, women and children, who were burnt alive? I remember it as if it were yesterday, but it was twenty years ago. It happened precisely on 7 September 1983. I shudder and can't hold back my tears when I again see in my mind that tragic scene in which the protagonist, Jonas Malheiro Savimbi, looking vicious, with his red beret and a red scarf round his neck, his pistol drawn like the gangster he was, personally supervised the terrible operation of burning people alive. His aim was to ensure the submission of educated women, so that none of them would dare to refuse his bestial whims. Can you have already forgotten all that?

In the line of women who were going to be thrown on to the pyre was my cousin Judite Bonga. I cannot imagine that her brother Jeronimo Bonga, or her husband Sabino Sandele, who are close to you, could today want to pay a tribute to the executioner.

Especially now, after the disappearance of the coercive mechanisms that, in my view, were the reason for certain attitudes and behaviour of Unita personnel.

Also in that line of women was my aunt Aurora and her seven-year-old son Michel. I can still see little Michel's despair as he clung to his mother's skirt. His mother, supremely brave and calm, looked straight into the bully's eyes saying: 'Savimbi, you'll never win and you'll come to a tragic end!'

Then she went proudly to the fire with the aplomb of a queen walking to her throne. All honour to her memory.

Also in the same line was my sister Tita Malaquias who, with a few others you know well, only just managed to get out of it and was sent to an underground cell.

It was as if I had been struck by lightning, shattered. My daughter Ly, who was then only six months old, was deprived of mother's milk. My milk dried up, so intense and brutal was the psychological shock.

There were lots of people in that line, including your brother's mother-in-law Catarina, who was also Bock's mother. And many many similar cases.

And the extreme misogyny of your 'hero' did not stop there. He even organised sessions during which women were grouped together, naked, to be brutally 'examined' by his sorcerers, who jabbed their genitals with rusty needles, forced them to drink pestilential brews, etc. etc. etc.

Also to jog your memory, I am the person you kidnapped in 1992, taking me from Luanda to Jamba, forcing me to leave my children for a long exile. Do you remember the meeting where Savimbi pronounced my death sentence? I still have in my possession the hundreds of signatures of people and international organisations that put pressure on Savimbi, asking him to spare me.

And don't feel tempted to confuse crimes committed in cold blood in a village far from the war,which Jamba was at that time, with the rest. Nor should you think that it is still possible, in totalitarian style, to control people's minds and reconstitute that eternal herd of sheep that never said a word and acquiesced.

We are now in a democratic state governed by the rule of law, and international institutions are working to ensure that the concept of the law becomes an ever more palpable requirement. We have very instructive examples in that respect.

It is important to feel the spirit of the times and to re-set the clocks, because no undertaking, no success, if success there is, can be imposed at the cost of thousands of lives destroyed.

Permit me to ask you a question. Don't you think it incongruous to talk about apologising for mistakes committed while exalting the action that caused so much damage that has not yet been repaired? Are apologies sufficient for so much infamy?

After recalling some of Savimbi's many atrocities, do you still think I am one of the people who should honour his memory? I prefer to turn that bloody page and to build a statue to the memory of the men, women and children who were the victims of Savimbi's sanguinary fury. None of them had graves or proper burials, not Ana Isabel Kambanjela, Vinona or Eunice Sapassa, the former president of Lima (Unita's women's organisation), to mention only them.

Thank you for the invitation, but I decline it, and I also request that in future you refrain from disturbing my peace and tranquillity.

Bela Malaquias

TotalFinaElf to invest US$3.4 million in Dalia field

TotalFinaElf is to invest US$3.4 million in the development of the Dalia oilfield, as part of the US$7 million it plans to invest by 2007 to attain an output of 500,000 barrels a day. This follows authorisation by Sonangol, the state oil company, for TotalFinaElf Elf, as operator in Block 17, to award the main development contracts related to Dalia.

The oilfield, in which production will start in the second half of 2006, will have 34 exploration wells, 30 water injection wells and three gas injection wells. The Dalia field, which was discovered in 1997, is in Block 17, 135 km off the Angolan coast.

After the Girassol field, which started production in late 2001, and Jasmin, from which the first oil is expected in late 2003, the launching of Dalia is a very important stage in the development of Block 17, where 15 strikes have already been made.

Sonangol is the concessionaire in Block 17 and TotalFinaElf, as operator, has a 40 percent interest. Other partners are Esso Exploration Angola Block 17 Ltd (20 percent), BP Exploration Angola Ltd (16.67 percent), Statoil Angola Block 17 AS (13.33 percent) and Norsk Hydro (10 percent).

Meeting discusses street children

More than 3,000 children and adolescents are living on the streets of Luanda. This was stated on 29 May by Simão Paulo, governor of Luanda, at the opening of a provincial meeting on street children. He said it was a result of the large numbers of displaced people in the capital because of the war. Now that there was peace, he went on to say, through the efforts of central government and its partners, it would be possible to end this situation and seek to ensure that every child had a family.

He said that services had to be provided for many of these young people to reduce the risks to which they were exposed, like sexual abuse and child labour.

Eufrazina Maiato, director of the National Children's Institute, spoke of the problems that led to child prostitution, often leading to unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmissible diseases.

Meanwhile, a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance said there were approximately 100,000 children in Angola separated from their families as a result of the armed conflict.

During the first quarter of this year, it said, the Ministry of Assistance and Social Reintegration's family tracing programme had located 60 percent of those children.

The provinces with the highest numbers of separated children were Bié, Huambo, Kuando Kubango, Malanje and Moxico.

It said work was continuing in reception areas for the families of former Unita soldiers and in areas recently open to the free movement of people.

The programme, the report continued, was part of the child protection strategy adopted by the government in May 2002. Since then more than 6,000 children had been registered as separated from their families, including most of those living in reception areas.

Under the programme, more than 2,000 children had been returned to their families and work had continued to strengthen provincial networks, plans and resources to continue that process.

Strategy to combat violations of children's rights

The Ministry of Assistance and Social Reintegration, in cooperation with other government institutions, is drawing up a strategy against violations of the rights of children. This was announced in Luanda on 21 May by the Minister, João Baptista Kussumua, at the start of a workshop organised by the National Children's Institute.

He said they had been drafting the strategy 'since the advent of peace makes it possible to have more information and review methods of intervention, so as to eliminate the main causes of the violation of children's rights in Angola'.

A policy on separated children was being finalised and there were plans for research, training and action in respect of child labour, street children, sexual abuse and physical violence.

The purpose of the workshop was to gather contributions to enhance a draft report on the implementation of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Angola ratified in 1990.

Among the issues discussed were civil rights and liberties, the family environment and alternative protection, health and well-being, education, leisure and cultural activities and special protection measures.

Gurpeet Samrow, a Unicef official, expressed satisfaction at progress achieved in Angola in assisting child war victims, reducing infant mortality, programmes to increase access to education and efforts to ensure a home for every child and citizenship through the registration of births.

The meeting was attended by officials from different ministries and representatives of churches and NGOs.

Five million children immunised against measles

During the second phase of the anti-measles campaign, from 3 to 9 May, 2.9 million children were immunised. The number achieved in the first phase was 2.2 million, so that more than five million had already been protected. The target is seven million children aged from nine months to 15 years.

Those responsible for the programme spoke highly of the support of the public and the media and the availability of material and human resources, though there had been some shortcomings in the distribution of equipment and in communications.

The next challenge will be vaccinating in rural areas, especially ones to which access is difficult in Moxico, Malanje, Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul, Uíge and Bengo.

Resettlement kits for demobilised soldiers

The Jornal de Angola reported on 13 May that resettlement kits for 6,968 former Unita soldiers had been handed over by the provincial authorities in Sumbe, capital of Kwanza Sul Province, the previous weekend. They were given blankets, agricultural tools, cooking utensils, cleaning products and other essential articles.

Serafim do Prado, governor of Kwanza Sul and coordinator of the local reintegration commission, stressed the importance of having achieved peace and the need for everyone to contribute to social and economic progress, working to achieve self-sufficiency.

The governor acknowledged the many difficulties in transporting demobilised soldiers back to their home areas and said that society should help in this respect. Once back in their home areas, he added, the former soldiers should address themselves to the municipal authorities to help solve problems that might arise and take part in local projects.

There were currently 2,545 former Unita soldiers in Kwanza Sul from the provinces of Huambo, Kwanza Norte, Bengo and Malanje.

FAO announces funds for resettlement and seed improvement programmes

The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation has announced a grant to Angola of US$1,285,500 for a project in support of Angolan families being resettled and a programme to produce quality seeds.

According to an FAO statement, the aim of the grant, financed by the Japanese government, is to assist the Angolan government in its efforts to provide agricultural inputs for displaced families that are being settled.

Angola may produce anti-retrovirals

The possibility of Angola having a laboratory to produce anti-retrovirals, through tripartite cooperation between Angola, Brazil and Germany, is current being examined. This was announced by Alice Abreu, coordinator of the Brazilian Cooperation Agency, who was commenting on the recent visit to Angola of Celso Amorim, Brazil's Foreign Minister.

'An important area on the cooperation agenda is combating and preventing HIV/Aids,' she said, adding that Brazil was prepared to transfer its anti-retroviral technology to all African countries and the Angolans were very interesting in this. Cooperation in this area already agreed on was the transfer of anti-Aids technology at no cost to Angola.

The detailing of the Angolan programme is already in an advanced stage. Priority is to be given to a national survey of the prevalence of HIV and a national safe blood campaign. Last February Brazilian scientists were in Luanda, where they were received by President José Eduardo dos Santos and Deputy Minister of health José Van-Dúnem. And eleven Angolan technicians are to go to Brazil to undergo training at a centre in Bahia.

The methods of combating Aids used in Bahia, where population characteristics are most similar to Angola, are thought to be most appropriate.

José Van-Dúnem said the Brazilian government had promised Angola the best anti-Aids programme in the world, which would facilitate the entry into the country of more of the resources needed for it. He added that the Microsoft Foundation, the World Health Organisation and the World Bank had already expressed an interest in financing the programme in Angola.

It was during a meeting in Brasilia with the Angolan Deputy Minister that Humberto Costa, the Brazilian Minister of Health, said the anti-Aids technology would be transferred at no cost to Angola.

Former Unita soldiers continue to arrive at reception areas

More than 3,500 people have arrived in reception areas for former Unita soldiers, despite the fact that they had been formally closed. This was announced on 7 May by João Baptista Kussumua, Minister of Assistance and Social Reintegration, at a meeting of the standing committee of the Council of Ministers.

He said that 1,252 of them were former Unita soldiers who had turned up in reception areas in Lunda Norte and Kwanza Sul provinces. 'They must have felt some uncertainty and lack of confidence in the process started last year and only now have they gained confidence in the way they are being received,' he said. The number of such late arrivals, he added, would probably be around 10,000.

There were still two of the 35 reception areas to be closed, Mutungo in Kuando Kubango and Galangue in Huíla, which had not been closed because of difficult access to them. Mutungo was 500 km from Menongue and, owing to rain and the bad state of roads, it was difficult to transport the demobilised soldiers.

The standing committee was informed of the current situation in respect of reception areas and logistical support for them, the repatriation of foreign soldiers who had fought with Unita and Angolan refugees abroad.

The Minister said contacts had been made with the Ministry of External Relations and the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding the repatriation of 667 former soldiers from Rwanda and DR Congo who were in already closed reception areas in Uíge and Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul provinces.

With regard to the repatriation of Angolans in the two Congos, Zambia and Namibia, the Minister said the number of those returning this year was expected to be around 170,000. Kuando Kubango and Moxico provinces were expected to absorb more than 70 percent of them. The Ministry, he said, was coordinating this process with the provincial governments of Moxico, Kuando Kubango, Uíge, Zaire, the Lundas and Cabinda, and with the Ministries of Territorial Administration, Education, Health and Finance. The estimated numbers, he said, were based on interviews with the refugees.

EU pledges  10.5 million for food security

This year the European Union is to provide  10.5 million for food security projects in Angola, according to Renato Sangiuliano, the EU representative in Luanda. Speaking to the press on 6 May, during a seminar on seed multiplication, he said  1.5 million of this would be spent on seed multiplication projects.

'With the new situation in the country, conditions need to be created for peasants to receive seeds to ensure their self-sufficiency,' he said. 'The government and non-governmental organisations are importing quantities of seeds to assist the people who are returning to their home areas, which is why seed multiplication projects are necessary.'

Stressing that such projects would reduce imports and increase the quantities of seeds produced in the country, he said the EU was working with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and with Angolan and foreign NGOs to achieve this.

The seminar, sponsored by the EU and the Ministry of Agriculture, was attended by representatives of NGOs working in the area of seeds and by Angolan specialists.

Red Cross promotes blood donor campaign

The office of the Angolan Red Cross in Bengo Province carried out a blood donor campaign from 5 to 8 May, as one of the events to mark the 40th anniversary of the international Red Cross movement.

The provincial office of the Red Cross appealed in a press statement for volunteer donors from government institutions, NGOs, youth organisations, the police and the population in general.

Schooling restored in villages in Kikulungo

The school system in all the villages in the municipality of Kikulungo, 138km from Ndalatando, capital of Kwanza Norte Province, has been restored this year, following eleven years of intermittent activity because of the war.

Speaking to Angop on 6 May, Amadeu José Kuhola, head of the municipal education services, said stability in the country had made it possible to re-open 24 general education schools there.

This school year, he said, 2,215 pupils were enrolled in regular and adult education, while another 720 were on waiting lists, owing to a shortage of class rooms and teachers.

He said the municipality needed another 30 classrooms and 70 teachers. There was also a shortage of school materials, especially textbooks.

The Ministry of Education has been making efforts to reduce the number of children outside the schooling system. This has included the training of teachers and building of schools. Previously this had been confined essentially to the main urban areas but, with the advent of peace, the effects were making themselves felt in rural municipalities and communes.

Demined area handed over to Caála authorities

An area of 4,825 square metres around the water reservoir in the commune of Calenga, about 40km west of the city of Huambo, was handed over in early May to the Caála municipal authorities by the British NGO Halo Trust. The area had been mined by government forces to prevent sabotage by Unita's forces during the armed conflict.

Raimundo Pinto António, a Halo Trust supervisor, said the area had been cleared in 54 days and that more than 16 anti-personnel mines were destroyed.

Life Kialanda, an official responsible for the water department of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the ICRC would start work on rehabilitating the water facility, so as to improve the quality of life of the local population. This would involve upgrading the wells, modernising the system and repairing the reservoir, he said, since no improvements had been made to them for more than 40 years.

Internet equipment sent to provinces

Seven of the country's eighteen provinces have received computers and solar panels to mount local internet centres, as part of the government's programme to popularise information and communication technology.

The distribution of the equipment started in April and was to have ended at the end of the month, but so far only the provinces of Uíge, Zaire, Moxico, Namibe, Kwanza Norte, Bengo and Huambo had arranged for it to be picked up from the National Commission for Information and Communication Technology, CNTIC, in Luanda.

The CNTIC had asked provincial governments in January to create conditions for establishing internet centres in provincial capitals, but some had not yet done so.

Each provincial government is entitled to 15 computers, ten new ones and five used ones donated by oil companies. The new terminals are part of a batch of 200 from South Africa.
Within the framework of the project, the government has already set up an internet centre in Cabinda Province.

National meeting on museums

The third national meeting on museums was held in the Museum of Anthropology in Luanda from 13 to 16 May. Among the major items on the agenda were gathering information on the illegal traffic in cultural artefacts and assessing personnel training needs.

The meeting, attended by technicians and specialists in the field, also reviewed the activity of the National Cultural Heritage Institute, which had organised the meeting in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture.

As part of the programme, there were exhibitions by Angolan artists at the Agostinho Neto Cultural Centre and the Museum of Anthropology.