Angola activist in fight to highlight alleged corruption

Just inside the entrance to Rafael Marques de Morais's house a stack of freshly published books sits atop a stool, all bearing the same striking title: Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola.

The book, written by Mr Marques de Morais, a prominent Angolan anti-corruption activist and investigative journalist, is a surprise bestseller in Portugal. Yet for the regime of Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Angola's veteran president, the tome has proved to be anything but popular.

Mr Marques de Morais is being sued for more than $1.2m for defamation by a number of Mr dos Santos's generals whom the book alleges bore some responsibility for the death, torture and forced displacement of impoverished Angolans in the country's diamond regions.

The trial, which resumed briefly last week and was then postponed until May 14, has shone a spotlight on allegations of human rights abuses, as well as rampant, high-level corruption, that have cast a dark shadow over Mr dos Santos's 36-year presidency.

Angola, which is still rebuilding after the devastating 1975-2002 civil war, is Africa's second-biggest oil producer, the world's sixth-largest diamond producer, and has been one of the fastest-growing economies of the past decade. Yet poverty abounds, with yawning gaps between the haves and have-nots. Some 37 per cent of the 24m population survives on less than a dollar a day.

The government argues that it has deployed tens of billions of petrodollars to develop the country. But activists allege there have been massive levels of corruption and cronyism involving politically connected officials from military chiefs to business tycoons.

They point out that while the masses remain poor, a tiny elite has grown rich.

Among the wealthiest is Mr dos Santos's daughter, Isabel dos Santos, who was picked by Forbes magazine as Africa's first female billionaire. The president's son, Jose Filomeno dos Santos, was appointed to chair the country's fledgling $5bn sovereign wealth fund in 2013, provoking criticism over perceived nepotism.

Meanwhile, the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which has been in power since independence from Portugal in 1975, is accused by critics of displaying autocratic tendencies.

Mr Marques de Morais, 43, has made it his business to expose alleged wrongdoing in a country where media freedom is limited.

"You don't have corruption now: what you have now is looting," he says. "People just steal galore - and you can see by the lifestyles of the Angolan elite. What you have now is serious."

His book, which is based on research between 2009 and 2011, alleges that abuses were carried out by soldiers and private security guards employed by companies in which the generals have stakes. Mr Marques de Morais believes the generals could have done more to prevent the abuses. "Lots of people died there," he says.

If found guilty in the defamation trial, he says he could face up to 14 years in jail. It would not be his first time in prison: in 1999, he was jailed for calling Mr dos Santos a dictator, and he sees the latest trial as an attempt to intimidate him and other activists.

"It's a big effort to silence me, which is going south, as the authorities are realising now, that in the end they are just providing me with the best platform possible to highlight the issues that have always concerned me," he says.

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Between court appearances, he published a piece on his website, Maka Angola, that raised questions about the allocation of $100m from the sovereign wealth fund into a vehicle called Kijinga SA, with the funds held at Banco Kwanza, an investment bank in which Jose Filomeno dos Santos was previously a shareholder. Mr Marques de Morais alleged that Kijinga was "nothing more than a shell company set up as a front for shady transactions".

Mr dos Santos, the fund's chairman, dismissed the claims, saying there was nothing untoward about the investment, and that Kijinga was set up to help incubate Angolan businesses.

Banco Kwanza released a statement citing what it said were factual errors in Mr Marques de Morais's article. It also strongly refuted "the allegations that the bank is used as an inappropriate channel by politically exposed persons".

Still, Mr Marques de Morais is not alone in expressing concerns about corruption in the country.

"It's endemic. But to beat that we need to moralise, and this needs to come from the top," says an Angolan executive. "Until we have somebody from the top paying, it's very difficult."

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