COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

My stand against Angola's blood-diamond generals Citizens need to see that they can break this reign of fear. That's why I've lodged this criminal complaint

Angola's president José Eduardo dos Santos has been in power for 32 years. Photograph: Themba Hadebe/AP

Earlier this month, I lodged a criminal complaint against nine top Angolan generals for crimes against humanity. For several years, the private security services hired to protect diamond mining concessions have been perpetrating atrocities in the Lundas, the north-eastern region of Angola, alongside the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA).

In the Lundas region, which produces over a billion dollars a year of revenue from its diamonds, the government and the mining companies regularly destroy subsistence farming and the livelihood of the local communities uprooted as a result of mining operations, without providing jobs or alternative means of subsistence. Some senior generals have take than one role in what is happening in the region. These individuals are shareholders in the joint mining ventures established with foreign companies, and take responsibility for their security operations. These same generals are also co-owners of the private security companies, hired by the mining ventures, which perpetuate the crimes. Moreover, the generals remain influential over military operations in the region. The FAA, too, is responsible for many summary executions, and regularly uses torture.

The main body of evidence consists of cases I have exposed since 2004 in a number of reports on human rights abuses. Last September, I published a book, Diamantes de Sangue: Corrupção e Tortura em Angola (Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola), exposing the web of corruption and the atrocities committed over the past two years. Dealing with two municipalities, Cuango and Xá-Muteba, the book reveals over 100 killings and the torture of more than 500 individuals.

Four examples merit particular attention. Two years ago, the FAA buried 45 illegal miners alive. In February last year, 22 illegal miners were executed by gunfire, in a mass extra-judicial killing. A year after that, guards from the security company Teleservice forced 15 miners at gunpoint to jump off a speeding truck at intervals so as to scatter the evidence of their deaths in the bush in the middle of the night. Routinely, illegal miners and villagers alike are stripped naked, and beaten with the flat side of a machete. In March, a Teleservice guard used a heated machete to torture a miner by burning his back.

This is not the first time I have lodged a criminal complaint against these individuals. In 2006, the local police in the town of Cuango requested that I file a criminal complaint, because I had provided medical assistance to a Congolese citizen, Jack Cuiulula, who was injured by Teleservice guards. The guards had unleashed dogs on him, one of which bit him on the buttocks. The guards then stripped him and beat him with the handle of a shovel, then forced him to fetch water and do other domestic chores. When I found him, his wounds had become infected, and I took him to the hospital where he later died. Nothing happened to the perpetrators. But I was encouraged by the police's attitude.

When I presented a new case this month, the attorney-general's office accepted it with incredulity. The rule of President José Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power for 32 years, has used the judiciary to protect the powerful, hunt down critics and oppress the masses. Rulers like to maintain a veneer of legitimacy, which perhaps explains why the constitution adopted in 2010 makes provisions for the prosecution of crimes against humanity (article 61), and exhorts citizens to make full use of the relevant international legislation that has been incorporated into domestic law. But given the long-standing culture of fear and subservience in Angola, the regime did not expect citizens to turn the legislation against their masters. The office of the attorney-general must now, by law, at least open a formal investigation and provide a hearing to the victims and witnesses. As Angola has promised to ratify the Rome statute of the international criminal court, the judiciary should set in motion an internal redress for the complaint, in order to spare the generals from an international investigation.

Strongmen thrive on their ability to keep people in fear. The criminal complaint stands as an act of defiance against fear. It also dispels the prevailing notion that little or nothing can be done without the support of international donors. This body of work has been sustained over the years by local volunteerism. It shows that citizens can use the law and the courts to seek justice and to challenge the individuals and institutions that oppress and humiliate them.

Rafael Marques de Morais is an Angolan journalist currently running the anti-corruption website makaangola.org