Embassy of Angola UK - Press Office, Newsletter No. 96

President José Eduardo dos Santos paid a three-day official visit to the United States in mid-May.

He had a meeting with President George W Bush in the White House Oval Office, as well as meetings with Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Andrew Young, officials from the US Congress, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, USAID and the business community.

An IMF source told the press that their meeting was good because President José Eduardo dos Santos had given a clear sighted view of the economic situation in Angola.

The source said the IMF had appreciated what he told them and ‘relations between the Angolan government and the Fund will be consolidated’.

During a meeting with African ambassadors to the US, President dos Santos spoke of the efforts that had been made to solve the problems resulting from the armed conflict, like the partial integration of former Unita soldiers in the national army and the demobilisation of the others, as well as the material support given to the families of those soldiers and the return of more than three million displaced persons to their home areas.

Facilities destroyed during the war were being repaired and more than 300,000 people had been reintegrated in society.

He said the movement of people and goods everywhere in the country was now greatly improved, because peace was being consolidated and there was political stability.

The President said the government was preparing conditions for holding the next legislative and presidential elections, and as soon as the parliament had approved the necessary legislation, he would be able to call the elections.

Addressing a press conference on the last day of his visit, President dos Santos said that contrary to claims made in some circles, there was no war in Angola’s northern enclave of Cabinda.

Asked if a referendum would be held there, he said that this would be against the constitution.

‘We maintain a spirit of dialogue and openness,’ he said. ‘There are talks with all the representatives of all communities and a programme of economic stabilisation for the population is being implemented.’

The situation in the region was calm, the President said, and Cabindans ‘should consider themselves an integral part of Angola and participate in the great project of rebuilding the country.’

President dos Santos described his meeting with President Bush had as ‘very cordial’. The United States, he had been told, wished to develop partnerships with African countries to promote good governance and transparency, so as to achieve acceptable levels of development.

At a meeting in Beijing attended by Chinese business people representing the public and private sectors in the areas of construction, telecommunications, engineering, industrial machinery and pharmaceuticals, among others, he said that a draft agreement was being prepared on the reciprocal protection of investments to be submitted to the Chinese authorities, with a view to giving fresh impetus to bilateral cooperation.

The Minister said there had been progress in cooperation between the two countries, particularly in the areas of telecommunications, railways, ship building and electric power.

Priority areas for national and foreign private investment to ensure rapid economic recovery, he said, were the construction and reconstruction of facilities, agriculture and livestock production, transport, power and water, personnel training and the mining and processing industries.

He said that the presence of Angolan business people in his delegation was aimed at diversifying imports and exports, and that many goods of Chinese origin came to Angola through third parties and at very high prices.

Angola

, he said, wished to benefit from the attractive Chinese market, which had goods of good quality at acceptable prices and technology easily adapted to Angola ’s economic realities.

João Bernardo Miranda was received by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who spoke highly of Angola’s efforts to promote friendship and cooperation with China and of the national reconciliation process in Angola.

Miranda renewed the invitation for Chinese entrepreneurs to take part in the reconstruction of Angola and expressed thanks for China’s non-reimbursable financial support for social programmes and loans for national reconstruction.

During the visit, João Manuel Bernardo, the Angolan Ambassador to China, and Wei Jianguo, China’s Deputy Minister of Trade, signed an agreement under which China will grant the Angolan government US$1,829,268 in free aid.

During a two-day visit to Vietnam, issues discussed included the possibilities of signing agreements on trade, investment promotion and protection and the elimination of visas for diplomatic and official passports.

João Bernardo Miranda had meetings with leading political figures aimed at strengthening friendship and cooperation and encouraging Vietnam to assist in the reconstruction and development of Angola.

There are currently 160 Vietnamese doctors and 71 Vietnamese teachers working in Angola.

A Vietnamese source said that existing economic relations were not in keeping with the level of political relations, while trade was very modest, given the potential of both countries.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established on 12 November 1975, the day after the proclamation of

Angola

’s independence.

During a meeting at the Ministry of Defence on 24 May, delegations headed by General Agostinho Nelumba ‘Sanjar’, chief of general staff of FAA, and Teresa Whelan, assistant under-secretary of state in the US Department of Defence for African affairs, discussed how the two countries could cooperate in peacekeeping missions.

Speaking to the press afterwards, Teresa Whelan described the meeting as very fruitful, adding that the foundations had been laid for positive cooperation.

She said her government had given priority to mine clearing in Angola since 1991 and would ‘continue to work to support the destruction of all kinds of obsolete material’.

During their five-day stay in Angola, Teresa Whelan and her delegation visited Cabo Ledo, near Luanda, where they saw the first peacekeeping battalion in training and the commando barracks. They also visited the general staff headquarters of the army.

An agreement on cooperation has been signed by Paulo Tjipilica, Minister of Justice, and his Portuguese counterpart Maria Celeste Cardona.

During a four-day visit to Angola by the Portuguese Minister in May, they had evaluated bilateral cooperation over the past few years and identified as areas warranting particular attention legislative reform, personnel training, legal documentation and the exchange of information.

With regard to legislative reform, the Portuguese Minister promised assistance through the participation of Portuguese specialists in the reforms underway in Angola in the areas of penal and civil law and registry and notary regulations.

Portugal also wishes to help with personnel training, and the Portuguese Centre of Legal Studies will continue to train Angolans and provide lecturers for Angola’s National Institute of Legal Studies (INEJ).

She also promised to provide the INEJ with a basic legal library and to ensure the sending of documents.

The two ministries are to exchange information on the fight against organised crime, corruption and trafficking in people and drugs.

Amnesty International opened an office in Luanda on 10 May. The staff of the office, all of whom are Angolans, were presented by Father João Domingos of the Catholic Church during a ceremony attended by representatives of the government, political parties and the diplomatic corps.

Gaspar Cosme, president of Amnesty International Angola, spoke of the origins of the organisation and its international action.

In respect of Angola, he said that because of the war there was a need to establish a culture of respecting, protecting and promoting human rights.

He called on the government to ensure that violators of human rights should not go unpunished and to abide by its commitment to protect human rights and ensure that offenders are brought to justice.

Amnesty International has been in Angola since 1999, though it spent time training people before starting the legal registration process and opening an office. It has 59 members in Angola.

Syanga Abilio, vice-chairman of the board of directors of Sonangol Holding, revealed on 22 May that Angola could produce two million barrels of oil a day by 2008. Current output is 950,000 barrels a day.

Syanga Abilio was speaking on the contribution of the oil industry to industry and services at a meeting of the Ministry of Industry’s advisory board held in Benguela.

He said that doubling oil production, which accounts for 80 percent of the country’s revenue, would require heavy investment in projects in the sector. He went on to say that production had increased by about 25 percent and there was an imperative need to refine more oil.

Angola

now refines 40,000 barrels a day.

Addressing the theme of the meeting, the challenges and opportunities of relaunching national industry, he said that the interaction between oil and industry could contribute significantly to sustainable economic development.

‘Oil, as a non-renewable energy resource, must serve as a support for the national economy, creating countless benefits for the Angolan people in the near future,’ Abilio said.

Oil companies operating in Angola will now be able to acquire equipment and services from General Electric Oil and Gas, which opened an office in Luanda on 20 May.

Nani Beccali, chairman and executive director of General Electric Oil and Gas for Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Mexico, said at the opening that expansion in the world, especially in Africa, was now one of the major goals of the company.

Paolo Marra, the company’s director for West Africa, said that staff would now ensure constant maintenance of the equipment. Previously staff had to come from abroad, which was much more expensive for the oil companies.

The África Textil factory in the city of Benguela needs a minimum of US$100 million to buy new equipment if it is to operate at full capacity.

This was stated on 20 May by João Baltazar, chief mechanical engineer, during a visit to the factory by Prime Minister Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos ‘Nandó’.

África Textil, said to be one of the biggest textile factories on the continent, has been shut down since October 2000, leaving its more than 400 former workers unemployed.

The obsolete equipment, which was installed more than twenty years ago, and the lack of raw materials, essentially cotton previously imported from

Baltazar said this depended on central government, since all the efforts made in the province to replace the obsolete equipment had failed to produce results.

The Angolan and South Korean governments signed an agreement in Luanda on 17 May expressing their intention to strengthen bilateral and business cooperation.

The memorandum of intent was signed by Higino Carneiro, Minister of Public Works, and Hwang Doo-Yun,

Korea

’s Minister of Trade.

Higino Carneiro said the two governments would be exchanging delegations and an Angolan technical team would go to Seoul to prepare for a meeting there of a bilateral commission in 2005.

Victor Lima, the Angolan Ambassador to South Korea, said important documents had been signed for the strengthening of cooperation at all levels. The Koreans, he said, had expressed an interest in contributing to Angola’s development through investments and loans.

The 24-member South Korean delegation included representatives of both state and private companies, including Hyundai and Samsung.

Relations between Angola and South Korea date back to 1993 and so far cooperation has been in the areas of fisheries and the oil industry.

Speaking to the press in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on 15 May, Prime Minister Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos ‘Nandó’ stressed the need for making greater use of the water resources in the region and allocating more funds for agriculture.

Representing President José Eduardo dos Santos at a special SADC summit meeting on agriculture and food security, he also spoke of the need to use draught animals to ease the work of peasants, as well as the planting of improved seeds.

Self-sufficiency, he said, meant using more modern agricultural methods, in order to guarantee greater agricultural productivity.

Agriculture, he added, was an area in which investments could achieve immediate positive results.

The Prime Minister was received the previous day by President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, to whom he gave a message from President dos Santos.

The summit reaffirmed the commitment to guarantee the urgent and rapid development of agriculture and sustainable food security, ensuring the availability of essential agricultural inputs and support for vulnerable farmers.

Among the many recommendations made by the meeting was that member countries increase budget allocations for agriculture by at least 10 percent.

An agreement on extending the Block 0 concession was signed in Washington by Sonangol, the national oil company, and ChevronTexaco on 13 May by Manuel Vicente, chairman of Sonangol’s board of directors, and Dave O’Reilly, ChevronTexaco’s chairman and chief executive officer.

The concession, which is held by Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco, was extended beyond 2010 to 2030 by the government and Sonangol.

Comprising 36 major oil fields, including Takula and Malongo, the 2,155-square-mile concession lies off the coast of Cabinda Province.

Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, with a 39.2 percent interest, is the operator in partnership with Sonangol (41 percent), Total (10 percent) and Agip (9.8 percent). Current average production from Block 0 is approximately 400,000 barrels of oil a day.

According to the National Coffee Institute, Inca, coffee production in Kwanza Sul Province in the 2003/2004 agricultural year is expected to amount to 1,640 tonnes.

The estimate was made for an area of about 23,000 hectares in the municipalities of Amboim, Conda, Seles and Libolo cultivated by private farmers, families and peasant cooperatives.

They had been given technical assistance and agricultural inputs from the Coffee Development Fund.

An Inca report said that the lack of commercial facilities in rural areas made coffee marketing difficult, delaying profit making and affecting the livelihood of the producers.

It said Inca was encouraging the establishment of peasant cooperatives for coffee growers, to give them a legal status enabling them to secure bank loans.

Over the next four years, it continued, Seles would be the main coffee growing area. There were plant nurseries there being cared for by about 800 families and a future harvest of 24,000 tonnes of commercial arabica coffee is expected.

Kwanza Sul produced 81,000 tonnes of coffee a year in the 1970s. The fall in production over the years is ascribed to the war, the lack of incentives and scientific research, and the low prices on the national and international markets.

Daniel Quipaxe, director of the Benguela Railway Company, CFB, stated in Lobito on 21 May that the rail link between Benguela and Huambo provinces could be operating again before the end of the year. If there were no unforeseen circumstances, trains could reach Huambo by December, he said during a visit to the CFB general repair workshops by Prime Minister Fernando Da Piedade Dias dos Santos.

He said that rehabilitation work on the line was going well and that 120 km of the line from Lobito to Huambo had already been rehabilitated, as had 45 km of the line from the Lobito end.

Bridges and other support structures had been rehabilitated, as had locomotives and carriages.

Asked whether the old rolling stock would be replaced, Quipaxe said that contracts were now being signed with the Zimbabwean railways to rehabilitate five engines.

This work was expected to be completed within five months, which would boost activity in the port of Lobito and links between the seaboard and the central highlands.

In another development, the Democratic Republic of Congo is shortly to provide sleepers for the CFB, with a view to speeding up its rehabilitation, owing to its strategic importance to the development of the Central African region.

This was revealed on 6 May in Lobito by Abusa Nyamwisa, the Congolese Minister of Regional Cooperation, after a visit to the CFB installations.

Stressing the urgency of restoring the line, he said it was the key to the development of Angola as well as the DR Congo, which spent billions of dollars a year on importing goods from Europe and vice versa.

He said his government would do its utmost to restore traffic on the line as soon as possible.

Daniel Quipaxe said this would greatly help to complete the repair of the stretch from Cubal (Benguela Province) to Luau (Moxico Province) within two years, as planned. He went on to say that the high cost of importing metal sleepers from Argentina and the time they took to arrive had caused delays in replenishing stocks.

He said he would be going to DR Congo within the next few days to discuss the arrangements further.

Meanwhile, General Agostinho Nelumba ‘Sanjar’, chief of general staff of the Angolan Armed Forces, FAA, announced in Lobito on 14 May that the numbers of men engaged in mine clearance along the CFB would be increased.

‘The Benguela Railway has an important role to play in the strategy to relaunch the country’s economy in which FAA is called upon to contribute,’ he said.

In Huambo in mid-May, Leonardo Severino Sapalo, director general of the national de-mining institute, accompanied by two South African experts, examined the 202-km stretch of the CFB from Huambo to Bié to identify mined areas.

He said this was to ensure that teams working to repair the line could work in safety and local inhabitants could move about and grow their crops without risking their lives. He said the equipment needed to start mine clearance would arrive later in the month.

António Burity da Silva, Minister of Education, has said that 29,000 new teachers have been taken on in the past two years and more than 1.3 million children have started schooling.

He was speaking during a meeting on 26 May in the Brazilian state of Ceara of Ministers of Education of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries, CPLP.

The meeting discussed cooperation between member states and reviewed activities since the last ministerial meeting held in Mozambique in 2002.

Six thousand former Unita soldiers are to be reintegrated in economic activity in Huambo Province by the end of this year in the areas of agriculture, self-employment, micro companies, services and community work.

Luis Garcia, provincial director of the institute for the social and vocational reintegration of former soldiers, said they had 26,000 former Unita soldiers on their lists and more than 1,000 had already been given work in metal working, carpentry, building and electricity, after undergoing training.

The entire programme was part of the general demobilisation and reintegration plan, he said, supported by national and foreign NGOs.

Financed by the World Bank and other donors, it would benefit about 105,000 former Unita soldiers and their family members and 33,000 former government soldiers over the next four years.

Bié Province could be free from landmines in less than seven years if UN mine action donors increase funding for the de-mining programme being carried out there by Halo Trust, in partnership with the local government.

This was stated by João Baptista, national head of operations of the British NGO, during a visit to Cunhinga in Bié Province by a group of mine action donors.

‘Funding would strengthen working capacity and reduce the time,’ he said. ‘If it is maintained, it will take us eight years at the most.’

He said there were 378 known minefields in the province, 88 of which had been cleared and 46 disabled.

At the national level, Halo Trust, in partnership with local governments, had drawn up a national mine clearance plan of action which had a been given to central government, he said.

Halo trust had already removed 16,534 mines and 6,431 unexploded ordnance in the country. In the municipality of Cunhinga, one of the most mined in Bié, it had removed 271 mines and handed over 239,260 metres of previously mined land to the population for cultivation.

The sappers, he said, used the methods of excavation and mechanical mine clearance.

Representatives from Portugal, Switzerland, the United States,

Canada

Italy

, Japan and the Netherlands, the group of donors who support mine action in the UN, spent two days in Bié.

Accompanied by members of the National Inter-ministerial Commission for De-mining and Humanitarian Assistance, headed by Santana André Pitra ‘Petroff’, they visited the Chivanda minefield on the outskirts of Cunhinga, the Caterno neighbourhood of Kuito and the Bié orthopaedic centre, which produces 60 artificial limbs a month.

Rui Tito, Deputy Minister of Energy and Water, presented a master plan for water supplies and waste water disposal to local government officials in Kuito, capital of Bié Province, on 20 May.

He said the programme, to be carried out by the Coba and Cônsul Projectos companies, would start to be implemented next year and should be completed by 2025.

During the first phase of the work, the water harnessing and treatment centre will be rehabilitated, after which a new centre will be built between the Kuito and Kangalo rivers, while the third phase will involve contracting a company to ensure maintenance and water distribution.

The project was designed to solve current water supply problems in Kuito, where the water supply system has completely deteriorated.

The population are using water from wells and bore holes drilled by the British NGO Oxfam. Coba and Cônsul Projectos are to carry out similar projects in the provinces of Luanda, Kwanza Norte, Malanje and Cunene.

An architectural scheme for a new town in Benguela was presented to the authorities and representatives of civil society on 20 May.

The project, to be built in the northeast of Benguela city, covers an area of 1,200 hectares and includes a university city, an industrial area with waste disposal units and more than 500 hectares for housing.

Zacarias Camuenho, an architect and a member of the Benguela government technical team, said the project was being presented to the public in order to gather opinions and proposals to enhance it.

The aim of was to reduce the current anarchic building of housing and to stem the population exodus from coastal cities in the province.

A meeting on the voluntary and organised repatriation of Angolan refugees abroad was held in Luanda on 21 and 22 May, attended by experts from the Ministry of Assistance and Social Reintegration and the International Organisation for Migration and representatives of provincial governments and NGOs.

Maria da Luz, Deputy Minister of Assistance and Social Reintegration, said 90,000 Angolans refugees would be returning to the country this year.

Since June 2003, she said, 43,345 Angolans had returned in an organised manner from DR Congo, Zambia, Congo Brazzaville, Botswana and South Africa.

She said that 219,000 people had so far returned spontaneously, and there were still more than 400,000 Angolans in neighbouring countries.

Speaking in Cazombo, Moxico Province, on 25 April, Saihou Saydi, representative in Angola of the UNHCR, said he was satisfied with accommodation conditions in the transit centre for 40,000 Angolans returning during the second phase of repatriation.

He said he had seen that it was habitable and had food and transport, and it would be improved in June with more goods and services.

The Angolan government has signed an agreement with South Africa aimed at promoting and developing cooperation in the area of health.

It provides,among other things, for the exchange of health workers, information sharing, technical cooperation, training, twinning hospitals, research and development, disease control and management, clinical and pharmaceutical support and the sending of Angolan patients to South Africa.

The local government in the southern province of Huíla has spent US$800,000 on high tension electrical transformers to improve the electricity supply in the city of Lubango. The equipment, imported with funds from the 2003/2004 Public Investment Programme, was being installed in neighbourhoods where there had been no electricity for three months.

Four new medical posts were built by the municipal health department in Chongorói, 150 km from the city of Benguela, during the first quarter of this year.

Orlando Ngongo, head of the department, said they were in villages where there had been no health services for the past thirty years, owing to the war. He added that now that there was a clinical analysis laborator in the municipal hospital, many patients would be treated there.

During the third phase of the Social Support Fund, FAS, US$12 million is to be spent in Huíla Province on 150 social projects in the areas of education, health, water and sanitation, and economic, production and environmental projects, during the period 2004/2008.

This was announced by Augusto Bagalho, provincial director of FAS, during the official launching of FAS III, which has the financial support of the World Bank, the European Community Fund and other partners.

Pontes Pereiras, a Huíla government official, said that during the first two phases, FAS had built more than 150 classrooms, ten medical posts, vaccination stations and wells and had created more than 400 permanent jobs.

David Tunga, director of the food security office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said in mid-May that Angola needs 600,000 tonnes of grain.

He described the situation as worrying, saying that this year there had been too much rain in parts of the central highlands and drought in some of the southern provinces, especially Cunene and Kuando Kubango.

However, this should not affect population survival, since yields in Huíla, Benguela and Kwanza Sul had been very encouraging. Moreover, there would be a surplus of root crops and tubers, which were resistant to drought.

In 2002/2003, he said, there had been an estimated three million-tonne surplus of cassava. David Tunga was speaking in Dar es Salaam, where SADC experts on food security were meeting to prepare for a ministerial meeting.

The WFP needs at least US$136 million to assist 1.4 million Angolans in 2004. This was stated in a WFP press release in Luanda in early May, which said funds were urgently needed for the repatriation of thousands of Angolan refugees in Namibia, Zambia and DR Congo, who could face difficulties unless the WFP received funds.

The WFP needed US$253 million to finance its operations in Angola, but had received only US$35 million from the United States.

In a press release issued on 27 May, the WFP said that in June it would have to make even more drastic cuts in food distribution, owing to the critical lack of resources, and that ‘under current conditions, there will be no grain distributed for at least three months’.

In April and May, it said, grain distribution to about 1.3 million Angolans in the programme of assistance to repatriation and resettlement had been reduced by half, it said.

Pedro Wallipi Calenga, director of the humanitarian aid technical unit, stressed that the government’s distribution of food would continue to support the neediest people in the country.