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National and International Responses to Forced Evictions in Luanda

International Community

Several international organizations have publicly denounced the human rights violations caused by forced evictions carried out by the government of Angola in Luanda.

The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Office in Angola issued a public note reacting to the eviction of March 13, 2006 in Cambamba. According to this note, the UN office was “…witness of serious violations of the fundamental rights of people living in the Bairros [neighborhoods] Cambamba I and II…” These violations included “excessive use of force and violence by state agents,” “demolitions with a questionable mandate,” “evictions without compensation,” “abuses against human rights defenders,” “detentions,” and “abuse of power.”¹⁹⁷ The head of the UN Human Rights Office in Angola has also visited the evictees in the area of Cambambas on August 19, 2006.

On March 30, 2006, the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living also issued a public statement expressing “serious concern about persistent practice of forced evictions in Angola.”¹⁹⁸ This UN expert referred to the forced evictions of March 13, 2006 in the Cambambas as the “more recent forced evictions and demolitions of homes undertaken by the Luanda Provincial Government…” He said “I have [been] following closely for some time the situation with respect to housing rights in Angola, particularly in light of the persisting practice of forced evictions in Luanda. I have brought my concerns to the attention of national authorities, but no response has been received yet and the most recent events suggest that such appeals are not being taken into account.” ¹⁹⁹

To this date, the Special Rapporteur has not been able to undertake an official mission to Angola. The Special Rapporteur attended a seminar in Luanda—the National Urban Forum—organized by the Ministry for Urban Planning and Environment and the UN Human Rights Office in Angola on April 9, 2007. It is yet unclear if this marked the beginning of a new trend on the part of the Angolan government to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur or what impact this recent short visit by the Rapporteur may have on his official mission and recommendations. 

Amnesty International has exposed and condemned the human rights violations caused by the forced evictions that took place in Luanda since 2001.²⁰⁰ The Center on Housing Rights and Evictions (CHORE) has also issued several public statements denouncing forced evictions in Angola.²⁰¹Similarly, the NGO Christian Aid has reported on the forced evictions in Angola’s capital, particularly in the area of Cambambas.²⁰²  

At the time of writing of this report Human Rights Watch had no information that any bilateral donor had issued public statements condemning forced evictions in Luanda either in capitals or through their diplomatic representatives in Luanda. Five months after the March 2006 evictions in Cambamba, SOS Habitat invited the diplomatic community in Luanda to visit the site to witness the harsh conditions under which the remaining victims of the forced evictions were still living. According to the organization, representatives of the United Kingdom, United States and German embassies visited the site but made no public statements.

On September 20, 2006, the German Embassy and other EU diplomatic representations in Luanda held a meeting with SOS Habitat to obtain information about forced evictions in Luanda but have not informed the organization of any action subsequent to that meeting.²⁰³ The European Commission has also discussed the issue internally but has not made any public statement on this matter. To Human Rights Watch’s knowledge it has also not carried out demarches about this issue with the Angolan authorities. ²⁰⁴

The reaction of donors to forced evictions in Luanda is inadequate in view of the human rights violations documented in this report. Stronger commitment and support to national and international organizations that expose such violations and help evictees is needed, and human rights standards on evictions should be incorporated into bilateral and multilateral development cooperation.

Angolan government

The government’s response to the human rights abuses described by Human Rights Watch and SOS Habitat has been manifestly insufficient. According to media reports credited to sources of the Angolan government, on March 31, 2006, the Permanent Mission of Angola to the United Nations in Geneva sent a letter to the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights denying all facts cited by the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing in his public statement referred to above. It accused the UN of bad faith and intolerable pressure on the government.²⁰⁵ 

In May 2, 2006, Angola’s Prime Minister Fernando Dias dos Santos attended an open inquiry session at the National Assembly, initiated at the request of the main opposition party (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, UNITA), and answered specific questions by members of parliament about forced evictions and demolitions in Luanda. He stated that in his view the issue of demolitions involved three different groups of people: (a) those that occupied land legally and to which, he claimed, the government had paid and would continue to pay compensation; (b) those who occupied land illegally and to which the government would no longer pay compensation; (c) those who occupied land illegally but unknowingly through corrupt municipal officials acting without the competence or power to award land concessions.²⁰⁶

The prime minister did not clarify what constituted legal or illegal occupation but he did not link legality or illegality to the holding of formal title. He described illegal occupation as situations where people “anarchically” build “shacks” in a piece of land with the purpose of claiming undue compensation from the government, often having housing elsewhere. He did not clarify what procedures or criteria were followed to ascertain which people fell in which of the three categories. He confirmed the government’s intention to investigate and hold to account civil servants involved in illegal land concession schemes. However, he said nothing about what had or would be done about the citizens who fell victim to such schemes and consequently occupied land in good faith, believing they had followed proper legal procedure.

In December 23, 2005, the provincial governor of Luanda issued a decision (despacho) establishing a commission of enquiry to investigate the “illegal concession of land in the municipalities of Kilamba-Kiaxi, Samba and Viana.”²⁰⁷Human Rights Watch could not obtain information about the results of the enquiry or any other measures concerning this situation, despite efforts to meet different officials of the provincial government.   

The prime minister said in his statement that any citizens who feel their rights were not respected can submit a complaint to the body responsible for the acts that violated the rights and, if not satisfied, can appeal to a higher body of the administration.²⁰⁸ In the evictions researched by Human Rights Watch and SOS Habitat most people did not receive a formal notification with precise information about the evictions, its legal basis and the body that ordered it. Formal complaints were, therefore, extremely difficult to make.

In his May 2 statement at the National Assembly, Prime Minister Dias dos Santos also specifically addressed the use of private security companies during eviction operations, particularly regarding the March 13, 2006 eviction in Cambamba. According to him such companies are “subsidiary bodies of the National Police.”²⁰⁹     

In the same statement, the prime minister gave some examples of eviction cases that had been settled peacefully through the relocation of the families involved.²¹⁰He accused the Angolan organization SOS Habitat—the main organization working to protect the housing rights of families affected by forced evictions in Luanda—of “inciting” a group of residents of Cambamba I and II to refuse a relocation offer made by Luanda’s provincial government. The prime minister said that he agreed that NGOs should defend the rights of victims of any injustice, but that they should not “create situations only to justify their own existence…or to create difficulties for the government.”²¹¹ Four of the leading human rights organizations in Angola promptly issued a public statement in support of SOS Habitat and reaffirming that the government of Angola had been carrying out evictions in violation of human rights standards.²¹²According to one of these organizations, “[t]he strategy of the Angolan government is to try to discredit its partners [the defenders and the victims of its arbitrariness].”²¹³

On June 13, 2006, Human Rights Watch addressed a letter to the Angolan permanent representative to the United Nations in New York and to the Angolan ambassador to Belgium. In this letter, Human Rights Watch outlined the main findings of its research and sought the government’s views about the allegations contained in this report. Although we obtained no reply from the permanent representative in New York, the ambassador to Belgium, Toko Serrao, agreed to meet with us and discussed the issue at length.

Ambassador Serrao told Human Rights Watch that he had received letters from other organizations about evictions in Luanda and that the Angolan government was the first to be concerned about it. He stated that the housing shortage was a problem that affected all of Luanda which the government was addressing through its housing program, including the building of “social housing” (housing aimed at resettlement of displaced population).²¹⁴ Ambassador Serrao stated that his government had never taken people out of their places and left them on their own. In some cases the government had relocated people who were in danger in their neighborhoods due to land slides. According to him, the displacement of population in Luanda’s neighborhoods had taken place openly and with notice to the population: “the houses targeted for demolition are numbered, residents are warned in advance and they are transported for new sites.”²¹⁵

The ambassador said that there were many cases of fraud from individuals who returned to their original places of residence after being relocated by the government only to illegitimately claim compensation again. Finally, Ambassador Serrao told Human Rights Watch that international organizations must evaluate the situation in his country by local development standards. According to him, Angola is not fully developed. There is no computer based registration system, so there is no way to keep track of which people receive alternative housing and what they do with that housing or if they stay in their relocation sites.²¹⁶

While in Luanda in August 2006, Human Rights Watch met with the minister for urban planning and environment, Sita Jose, who presented the housing policies developed by his ministry. One of the stated aims of such policies is to “ensure the universal right to housing.” The minister and other staff from the ministry present at the meeting acknowledged that the informal sector “makes our cities” and that part of the government’s strategy to address informality is to include informal construction and people’s investments in informal housing into the formal economy: “irregular occupants will be transformed into regularized citizens integrated into the urban society.”²¹⁷

The policies as described by the minister appear to be based on a serious concern for the safety and living conditions of the tens of thousands of residents of informal areas in Luanda. But as presented they were in sharp contrast with the reality of the mass evictions carried out by the government documented by Human Rights Watch and SOS Habitat. 

Minister Jose also told Human Rights Watch that there were areas in Luanda that were occupied in an “anarchic” manner, where constructions are too precarious to allow regularization, so people must be removed and all structures demolished to give way to new projects. The presentation by the minister and his staff stressed that only “anarchic constructions” have been demolished so far and that evictions have only taken place in areas reserved by the government for public use and which were improperly occupied by individuals acting in bad faith and seeking undue compensation or relocation.

The minister, however, failed to provide a precise definition of “anarchic” constructions or describe any criteria and procedures to determine in specific cases whether a construction (house) is “anarchic.” The minister did not classify such housing as illegal. He also did not detail how the government is ensuring that the public is informed of what land is reserved by the state for public interest projects which is vital to protect residents from arbitrary decisions by the government concerning clearance of inhabited areas. 

Human Rights Watch’s research demonstrated that many residents of the so-called anarchic areas are actually longstanding occupants, many of whom had their occupation acknowledged or authorized by the state as far back as late 1980s or early 1990s. Others who continued to occupy these areas after that time and were affected by forced evictions were people who moved to the peri-urban zone of Luanda during or right after the war. They occupied land according to customary use, as detailed in the preceding chapters of this report. Others developed urbanization plans for their neighborhoods supported by local authorities.²¹⁸ Many had brick houses. A brick house represents, on average, a four to five year investment by a family and cannot be regarded as a temporary shelter built for the purpose of claiming undue compensation from the state.²¹⁹ Even corrugated metal housing is not necessarily temporary shelter—most urban poor in Luanda live in such housing for many years while trying to save money to build better structures. 

Human Rights Watch and SOS Habitat recognize that there have been cases where the Angolan government followed procedures to evict and relocate people. Human Rights Watch also acknowledges that the government has the right to carry out development and “beautification” projects to improve living conditions in Luanda, including, where necessary, by relocating residents. However, such projects should be carried out in a manner that ensures respect for peoples’ substantive and procedural rights, including their right to be free of forced evictions of the type described in this report. The government must also take measures to ensure secure land tenure in the long term.

The government’s public response to forced evictions does not adequately explain or in any way justify the violations documented in this report. Its urban development policies may be designed to take account of the situation and rights of residents of informal settlements. However, its actions are at odds with such policies and there have been no visible significant efforts so far to either address the violations that have already occurred or prevent future violations.

Other state institutions 

Other Angolan institutions such as Luanda’s provincial government and the general prosecutor have also responded insufficiently to forced evictions in Luanda.

SOS Habitat circulated several public notes in 2005 and 2006 alerting the civilian and security authorities to human rights abuses committed in the course of forced evictions in Luanda.²²⁰ It has also assisted residents of affected communities to submit complaints, petitions, and letters to relevant authorities, informing them of the forced evictions and asking these entities to act, within their competencies, to help stop the evictions, investigate abuses by police and government officials, and compensate people for the damages they suffered during evictions.²²¹

SOS Habitat has also helped residents seek legal aid from the Angolan bar association to submit complaints to the criminal investigation police (National Directorate for Criminal Investigation, DNIC) and possibly initiate court cases against the state authorities for their illegal eviction. Some communities have obtained legal aid and investigations have been initiated but none of these cases have so far been adjudicated in court.²²² An Angolan human rights organization described the situation this way:

In the process of eviction and demolitions people suffered cruel and degrading treatment…Some of those acts constitute crimes. There were shootings that caused serious injuries and mutilation of the victims. With the help of SOS-HABITAT, the victims submitted complaints to the criminal investigation police, but the cases have not been following its normal course.²²³

On 22 February, 2006, the committee of residents of Bairro da Cidadania submitted a complaint signed by 105 people to the delegate of the public prosecutor at DNIC about abuses committed by police officers during evictions. According to SOS Habitat, by January 24, 2007 they had not received an answer.²²⁴Evictees from Bem-Vindo filed a complaint with DNIC on November, 15, 2005. At the time of writing the case was still in the investigative phase. Angolan human rights NGOs have noted the lack of response by the office of the public prosecutor to complaints from evictees:  

We are not aware of any public position of the General Prosecutor on this issue, when the Statute of this body grants [the prosecutor as] the defender of democratic legality legitimate means of denouncing, alerting or even using judicial avenues, in legal support of those that have been harmed by violations by the state administration.²²⁵

Residents have also submitted letters and petitions to Luanda’s provincial Government. For example, SOS Habitat and the residents’ committees of several Luanda neighborhoods researched in this report (Gaiolas, Talatona, Wengi Maka, Bairro da Cidadania, Maria Eugenia Neto, Mbondo Chape) addressed a letter, dated October 6, 2004, to the provincial government. The signatories of the letter asked for a meeting to discuss several measures they proposed regarding forced evictions and demolitions in Luanda. These included requests for the government to stop evictions in violation of human rights standards, promote mechanisms to regularize land possession, provide appropriate relocation sites in advance of evictions, pass legislation to ensure eviction decisions are authorized by a court, and provide support to community development projects proposed by affected communities or civil society organizations. The provincial government has not replied.

Evictees from Bairro da Cidadania and Benfica have addressed petitions to the National Assembly, in particular through its commission on human rights, petitions, complaints, and suggestions by citizens.²²⁶The assembly asked for information from Luanda’s provincial government about the events alleged in the petitions.²²⁷It informed the residents of Bairro da Cidadania about such requests, but when Human Rights Watch visited in August 2006, the petitioners had not been advised of any information provided by the provincial government or any measures taken subsequent to their complaints. On March 15, 2006, members of parliament visited the area of Cambamba and verified the conditions under which residents were living immediately after evictions.²²⁸Parliamentarians from UNITA visited the site again in August 2006. The assembly also organized the enquiry session to the government described above but, so far, has not taken any other action. 

Other organizations have tried to bring the situation of evictees in Luanda to the attention of the Angolan government. In April 2006, “[t]he president of the republic, at the request of AJPD, NCC and Gremio ABC, appointed one of his advisors to speak to these organization about the practice of forced eviction. This meeting took place last year (2006) and the advisor was going to write a report with information about arbitrariness on the part of National Police officers, local administrations, and staff of private companies. We have not received any information from the President’s Office after the meeting…”²²⁹