June 25, 2012
The Housing and Land Rights Network of Habitat International Coalition has learned from the Constructing Communities Association (Associação Construindo Comunidades (ACC), HIC-HLRN Association and other sources in Angola, of current and further forced evictions in the “Arco-Iris” (Rainbow) Zone of Lubango City, in Angola’s southwestern Huíla Province. From 12 May up to 12 June 2012, authorities and their agents in Lubango have bulldozed an estimated figure of 250 homes of residents after a period of intense intimidation and threats of eviction since 7 March 2012. The actions have left over 250 families homeless or subject to forced relocation.
In the process, it is estimated that authorities demolished more than 8,000houses already. The announced objective is to demolish more houses in the Arco-Iris area, but also in other areas where houses to be demolished have been already stamped with a number given by the local administration. This is likely to affect thousands of other families, without any guarantee that they be resettled or receives any form of reparation. The previous evictions have caused the death of seven people, including two children: one who fell off a truck that was transporting evicted people and one child whom government agents ran over with their cars while escaping the stones thrown by people living in the nearby Canguinda area. One adult fainted at seeing his house being demolished, and later passed away at hospital. Among the four other persons who died were also children who lived in one of the demolished houses.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
On the morning of 12 June, at 04:00, a detachment of more than 20 armed police and a few plainclothes officers stationed themselves in the Arco-Iris community. Following them were bulldozers that began to demolish the houses at 05:00. In total, eight houses were demolished, all under armed cover. The previous day, authorities demolished three houses. In all of these houses, most of the residents’ belongings were destroyed under the rubble. Also demolished was the Evangelical Pentecostal Church of God’s Power in Angola.
After starting the demolition, when local activists began to question the police, the police fired three warning shots in the air, threatening the residents with live fire.
As part of the effort to induce people to vacate their homes, authorities have promised households that they would receive 3,000 bricks, if they agreed to take their tin sheeting off, to give the impression they were leaving voluntarily, and build somewhere else. However, those families who accept that arrangement also must accept to be homeless until they manage to build their own shelter. Those who refuse this eviction are threatened with force and forfeit the chance to receive even this crude compensation.
The Lubango Municipality (Administração Municipal do Lubango) is carrying out the forced evictions with help of police and Hyundai bulldozers. About 500 families are affected by the current wave of demolitions, totaling to 2,500–3,000 persons. Half of them already lost their home.
The Arco-Iris evictees are reportedly being transported to a make-shift relocation site in the town of Tchituno, nine kilometers away. ACC has reported that the site lacks adequate housing, water, roads, electricity, schools, health facilities, public transport, physical security, or access to recreation. Robberies and other violent crimes are common in the absence of police or security personnel. In fact, reports indicate that the Lubango authorities literally dumped the evicted people in a desolate plot covered with thorny bushes, snakes, and without the support of promised construction material.
These forced evictions have harmed especially residents with special needs and conditions such as the elderly, sick persons and outpatients. At the Tchituno relocation site, ACC reported such cases as an evicted 60-years-old women suffering from thrombosis, who is now prevented from continuing her treatment in the central hospital.
Although journalists are not allowed to enter the area, the independent newspaper Novo Jornal reported that, CFM railway officials, in November 2009, said all displaced would receive new houses. The affected families later found out that they are expected to build their homes themselves on plots to be bought from provincial government for about US$250 each. Other reports indicate that parts of the assigned plots are farming lands belonging to inhabitants of Tchavola, and the affected families’ occupation of those lands has sparked tensions and conflicts.
Background
Several waves of demolitions in Angola precede these recent developments. Every time, local and national civil society organizations have reacted in protest. In earlier instances, even the National Assembly (parliament) and the Catholic Church had reacted. For example, in March 2010, more than 3,000 families were forcibly evicted and sent to an isolated area; in August 2010, 1,300 families in Matala and Quipungo municipalities were evicted after negotiations that resulted in somewhat better conditions (in Matala) with help of a local human rights group. In September–October 2010, Angolan authorities evicted and demolished more than 3000 houses along the Mukufi River and the evictees were sent to Tchimukwa area, nearby Tchavola, under the same conditions of those of Tchavola. The current evictions also resemble violations committed atTchavola and Tchimukua, in March and September 2010.
The oldest inhabitants of the Arco-Iris zone built their house in the 1940es, still under Portuguese rules, and before the colonial administration plans the avenue that is now used as a reason to evict people of the area. More families arrived and built their home in the area along the years of war, which forced to internal displacements several million people in Angola.
Official Reasons
Lubango City officials are claiming that the current evictions and demolitions are necessary, because the targeted homes were built on the site of a planned avenue. However, that pretext is not credible, since the government plan reportedly is to evict a wider area encompassing all of the homes in the Arco-Iris Zone in a second phase of destruction beyond the planned road. Since Angolan “laws restricting rights, freedoms and guarantees… may not have a retroactive effect,” even if some of the houses were standing in the way of an urban plan, many of them predate that design and, thus, are not in violation of any planning law.[1]
Actions Taken and Remedies Attempted
When this last wave of demolitions and evictions first were announced, ACC petitioned the court for a restraining order against the action; however, the tribunal has not ruled yet. Now, human rights organizations are considering also to initiate a criminal case against the provincial governor himself for forced evictions carried out since 2010, invoking the Angolan Constitution, national legislation and state obligations under international law, seeking indemnification of the victims. Community leaders have prepared a protest letter to be delivered to the Huila Governor Isaac dos Anjos.[2]
In addition, local civil society with the participation of Luanda and Benguela partners and friends, is preparing a Journey of Prayer and Fasting, to remember the memory of the dead, in the wake of the demolitions, and to demand a human treatment in the face of future urban projects, with a real compensation in accordance to international standards and domestic laws. This Journey is due to take place from 28 up to 30 of June, 2012, with a gathering on the last day, of the victims of demolitions and all citizens who want to support the cause.
On 15 June 2012, Marcolino Moco, a well-known lawyer and former secretary-general of the ruling MPLA, held a press conference to criticize the current authorities for the evictions in Lubango.[3] Governor dos Anjos responded in a statement to Angola National Radio that some people were using this moment to make political noise in advance of the coming parliamentary elections (31 August 2012).
An inhabitant of the Arco-Iris area, João Benedito Cassula, upon returning home from Luanda on the evening of 13 June, found his house torn down, and went to the police to protest. The police arrested him on the spot. ACC representatives heard of the situation went to the police station to investigate. When they left briefly to fetch him some food and blankets, they returned to find that the police already had sent Mr. Cassula to the tribunal for summary judgment without a lawyer.
However, the trial was postponed until the next day and the judge accepted that the hearing be public and that the defendant have access to a lawyer actually. ACC was able to organize and bring the media and other evicted people to the trial. The court had given a public defender, but asked those present if someone wanted to defend the accused man in place of the court-provided lawyer (as such public defenders enjoy little public confidence). One evicted person rose up in a gesture of courage and said he would defend the accused. In consultation with the judge, the arresting police were unconvincing in justifying their actions, and the judge released Mr. Cassinda.
Then Mr. Cassula asked the judge in which part of the world were people arrested in such a way by posing a rightful question on why his house has been demolished with no prior notice, destroying all his belongings, but being arrested on the spot, and later thrown into jail for two days without anything to eat or drink. The judge responded that he could not answer as a judge, but, as a citizen, he assured that this practice was against anyone’s human rights.
Please write to the authorities in Angola, urging them with recommendations—found in the sample letter below—to respect human rights, as they are obliged under international law and their own Constitution. Please send a copy of your letter also to the following:violation@hlrn.org, and usindiswe@gmail.com.
A sample latter is provided in this post, or you may send your letter automatically from the HLRN website at: http://www.hlrn.org/cases.php
To get the letter model (both in Portuguese and English), click here.
Find out more about the campaign here.
Source: Quintas de Debate
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