LUANDA – Opponents of Angola’s long-serving President Jose Eduardo dos Santos vowed to push through with a planned protest on Monday despite several arrests, including those of three journalists. Three reporters of the Novo Jornal daily, their driver and a rapper famed for his inflammatory lyrics against dos Santos were arrested overnight in Luanda, said one of the organisers, Mangovo Ngoyo, speaking by telephone from London. Following the arrests, organisers pushed back the demonstration to later on Monday after initially planning to march at midnight, he added. Ngoyo is a member of the separatist movement in Cabinda, an oil-rich enclave in this former Portuguese colony.
The deputy manager of Novo Jornal, Gustavo Costaun, confirmed the arrests of its employees. Police could not be reached for confirmation. Local Internet news website Angola 24horas said 15 to 20 people were arrested at May 1 Square in the capital and carted away to a police station. Since last month rumours have circulated on the Internet of North Africa-style protests scheduled to begin on March 7.
While the organisers of the protest remain largely anonymous, a Facebook page called “The Angolan People’s Revolution” had called on Angolans to march at midnight with posters “demanding the departure of Ze Du (Dos Santos’ nickname), his ministers and his corrupt friends.” Rapper Brigadeiro Mata Frakus, who recently returned from exile, is hugely popular on the Internet since he released a song criticising dos Santos, in power since 1979.
The chief opposition party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), has said it would not take part in the protests because it does not know who is calling for the marches. Many had dismissed the anonymous call to protest as a charade but the ruling party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), reacted with a show of strength by organising large pro-government demonstrations Saturday in Luanda and several other cities. Angola is the continent’s largest producer of crude oil along with Nigeria, but the majority of its 18 million people lives beneath the poverty line.
“What outrages people is that Angola is a rich country. The government knows well that the level of discontent is growing,” investigative journalist Rafael Marques told AFP on Sunday. “All this has created a debate on the idea of regime change,” he added. But more than 80 percent of voters elected the presidential party during 2008 elections, the first since the end of its 27-year civil war in 2002.
