Angola - Lives in ruins: forced evictions continue

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GLOSSARY

ACHPR - African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights
CESCR - Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
FAA - Forças Armadas de Angola (Armed Forces of Angola)
ICCPR - International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
ICESCR - International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
PIR – Polícia de Intervenção Rápida

Between September 2004 and July 2006 hundreds of families in several neighbourhoods of Luanda were forcibly evicted and had their homes demolished repeatedly. Having nowhere else to go they erected temporary shelters and continued to live their lives in the ruins.

1. Introduction

In April 2002 the former Portuguese colony of Angola emerged from a 27-year-long civil war. With peace came an increased potential for business and foreign direct investment in the country and attendant pressure on urban land. Since the end of the war the government of Angola has increasingly applied its energies towards urban reconstruction. In 2003 the government established a new Ministry of Urban Development and Environment. This was followed by a National Reconstruction Office (Gabinete de Reconstrução Nacional) which was set up in 2005 to oversee post-war rebuilding. In 2006 it was reported that the government was planning ‘the biggest urban project ever attempted in Africa.’(1) This urban project aims to construct a mega-city dubbed the Nova Cidade de Luanda (the New City of Luanda) to house four million people. The government has also implemented other construction projects with the aid of the Chinese government, including the building of roads and other infrastructure. It is within this context of competing claims and increased pressure for urban land that forced evictions have occurred in Luanda.

Between 2001 and 2006 thousands of families were forcibly evicted from various neighbourhoods in the Angolan capital of Luanda. These forced evictions(2) were typically carried out without prior notification or consultation, without due process and with recourse to excessive use of force. The forced evictions left tens of thousands without shelter. In most cases armed members of the National Police or Armed Forces of Angola (Forças Armadas de Angola, FAA), who carried out the evictions, shot indiscriminately at those being evicted, beat them, and arrested those who tried to resist the evictions. Houses were demolished and property destroyed or stolen by those carrying out the forced evictions. In almost all the incidents of forced evictions police arrested human rights defenders, especially members of the local housing rights organization, SOS-Habitat.

The forced evictions have targeted the poorest families who have least access to the means of securing their tenure and for whom the state has done little to provide affordable adequate housing. Hundreds of those forcibly evicted remain without shelter and have not received compensation. Some were forcibly relocated to other areas, which were almost invariably far away from schools and places of work, and which often lacked services such as sanitation and amenities. Furthermore, they were not given security of tenure to the land making them vulnerable to further forced evictions. The evictions have had the effect of driving people deeper into poverty. In this context Amnesty International echoes the words of the “Basic principles and guidelines on development-based evictions and displacement” prepared by United Nations Special Rapporteur Miloon Kothari, which include the recognition that “forced evictions intensify inequality, social conflict, segregation and ‘ghettoization’, and invariably affect the poorest, most socially and economically vulnerable and marginalized sectors of society”.(3)

In November 2003 Amnesty International published a report entitled, Angola: Mass Forced Evictions in Luanda – a call for a human-rights based housing policy.(4) The report documented the forced evictions which took place between 2001 and June 2003 in the musseques (slums) of Luanda, specifically in the neighbourhoods of Boavista, Soba Kapassa and Benfíca. In the report, Amnesty International showed how the forced evictions violated the right to adequate housing and other human rights, as guaranteed in international and regional human rights instruments to which Angola is a State Party. These include the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter).(5) The report also showed how the forced evictions contravened Angola’s national laws.

The report examined the Angolan government’s obligations under international human rights law as well as Angolan national law and appended extensive extracts of the human rights instruments relating to the right to adequate housing and not to be forcibly evicted. Amnesty International called upon the Angolan government to stop all forced evictions and place a moratorium on all mass evictions pending the development of a comprehensive human rights-based housing policy and a legal framework providing effective remedies for those evicted; and to provide assistance to victims of forced eviction who remained without shelter. The organization further called on the authorities to set up a commission of inquiry to review the role of the police and other forces in assisting in evictions. The commission of inquiry was to further look into the allegations of excessive use of force during the evictions with a view to bringing to justice those suspected of human rights violations.

Between June and September 2001 more than 4,000 families who had reportedly lived near a dangerous cliff were forcibly and violently evicted from the neighbourhood of Boavista in Luanda. These families were relocated to Zango and Terra Nova in the municipality of Viana, where they lived in tents for several years. Half of them were re-housed in 2003. Amnesty International has since learned that all the families evicted from this area have now been re-housed in permanent houses. However as late as 2004 some families were still living in tents. Apparently some of the houses built for them had instead been given to others by government officials. On 11 July 2006 the Angola Press Agency reported that the Luanda Provincial Government had transferred 167 families from Boavista to Zango ward in Viana, where they were reportedly accommodated in three bedroom houses with bathroom facilities and a garden. The same article also indicated that another 100 families from Boavista were to be moved to Zango and Sapu wards on 15 July 2006. Apparently the place where these families were evicted from was fenced off to hinder the construction of new houses.(6)

In Soba Kapassa, Kilamba Kiaxi municipality, the residents’ initiative to turn their neighbourhood into a carefully planned housing estate was thwarted by the government. Between October 2001 and February 2003 the authorities demolished a total of 1,167 houses and forcibly evicted residents from Soba Kapassa.(7) On 22 November 2002, after some houses had already been demolished, the then Luanda Provincial Governor, announced publicly that houses were to be demolished in order to construct the Luanda Provincial Hospital, which was to be built with funds provided by the Chinese government.(8) The new hospital was inaugurated on 3 February 2006 in the Kilamba Kiaxi municipality. After the demolition of their homes, the former residents went to live with relatives or in rented accommodation elsewhere. There is no record that the government attempted to rehouse these victims or that it paid them any compensation. To the knowledge of Amnesty International there have been no developments concerning official complaints registered by two of the former residents about the beatings that accompanied these evictions; nor have there been any developments concerning investigation by the Criminal Investigation Police of cases of fiscal agents suspected of carrying out beatings and theft of property.

Most of the residents of the more than 470 houses in Benfíca Commune demolished between July 2001 and April 2003 were given new houses in Panguila, Cacuaco Municipality. However, the government failed to provide housing to 16 families.

The authorities have not commenced investigations into these cases of forced evictions and excessive use of force by police officers and fiscal agents. Similarly, there have been no developments in the compensation claims initiated against the provincial authorities by evicted residents. These actions were being prepared by lawyers working with the victims of forced evictions in Soba Kapassa at the time of writing the 2003 report.

The current report examines what steps have been taken by the authorities to implement the recommendations made by the Amnesty International in 2003. Between 2004 and 2006 there have been several notable developments as appears below: In 2004 the government of Angola enacted a series of Land Laws.(9) These land laws were promulgated after consultation with Angolan civil society. However, as will be shown later in this report, these laws do not fully address the problem of forced evictions and security of tenure. There were a few cases of evictions that do not appear to have violated the human rights of the evictees. For example, in 2004 residents of Ingombotas and Sambizanga were evicted from land that belonged to Luanda Railways (Caminhos de Ferro de Luanda – CFL) but only after they had been consulted, given adequate prior notice and offered compensation. In 2006, the Angolan government publicly acknowledged the right of those forcibly evicted to be compensated.(10) In June 2006 the government proclaimed that it was reviewing its housing strategy with a view to responding to the housing needs of its urban population.(11) Despite these positive steps, between 2005 and 2006 there was an intensification of large-scale forced evictions in Luanda. This prompted the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living (UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing) to issue a press statement on 30 March 2006, expressing serious concern about the persistent practice of forced evictions in Angola and calling on the government to “comply with its human rights obligations and promptly act to address this gross violation of human rights.”(12)

Amnesty International is concerned that a visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing to Angola, planned for February 2006, was postponed by the Angolan government. In a press statement issued on 30 March 2006, the Special Rapporteur was concerned that the Angola government had not yet rescheduled the visit.(13) In response the representative of the Angolan Permanent Mission in Geneva reportedly said the Special Rapporteur had issued his statement at a time when the Angolan authorities were preparing his visit. He added that the UN Special Rapporteur’s statement was based on non-verified reports and from non-official sources, a situation which could only be interpreted as a “demonstration of bad faith and intolerable pressure on the Angolan Government.”(14) At the time of writing the visit of the Special Rapporteur had still not occurred. Amnesty International urges the Angolan government to ensure that a visit by the Special Rapporteur is re-scheduled as a matter of urgency.

This report is based on information gained through communication with contacts based in Angola and additional background research. Amnesty International attempted to go to Angola to interview the relevant parties. However, despite several requests to the Angolan government for an invitation letter, which is required to obtain a visa, Amnesty international has not yet received one.

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