Category: Politics

Angola and Sudan assessed, in Luanda, the level of bilateral cooperation, with emphasis on political and diplomatic issues, in addition to issues linked to peace and security on the African continent.

The approach took place on Thursday, during a courtesy meeting between the Angolan Foreign Affairs minister, Téte António, and the Special Envoy of the President of the Sovereign Transitional Council of Sudan, Daffa Alla Elhag Ali Osman.

The Sudanese emissary is in the Angolan capital to participate in the Extraordinary Summit of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), on Saturday, June 3rd.

Angola and Sudan maintain excellent relations of friendship and cooperation. Both are part of the ICGLR, an organization created in 1994 with the aim of solving issues of peace and security in the region.

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)

Angolan head of States João Lourenço analysed the political and military instability in the Great Lakes region during an audience he granted to the special envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for that region, Huang Xia, on Friday.

Speaking to journalists, after the meeting, the Chinese diplomat described the situation in the Great Lakes region as “very serious”.

“The situation is very serious, so it is up to us to join-up thinking. And I have come to speak to the Angolan President on his expectation around the Saturday Summit,” he said.

Huang Xia has been in Angola to take part in the Extraordinary Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) scheduled for Saturday (03) in Luanda, under the chairmanship of Joao Lourenço.

The UN senior official defended combined effort involving partners in the search for peace, stability and security in the region, starting with the leaders of the organisation’s member States.

“We have to work more and more towards objectives that can bring solutions to the latent problems in the region at the moment,” he stressed.

ICGLR was created in 1994, after the political and military conflicts that marked the Great Lakes Region in the early 1990s.

The institution brings together Angola, Burundi, the Central African and Democratic Republics of Congo, as well as Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia.

Envoy from Sudan

President Lourenço discussed the internal conflict in Sudan with Daffa Alla Elhag Ali Osman, Special Envoy of the President of the Sovereign Council of Transition, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan.

After the meeting, held at the Presidential Palace, the Sudanese envoy, who is in Luanda to participate in the Extraordinary Summit of the ICGLR, did not speak to journalists.

Conflict

Sudan is currently an unstable country in economic and political terms, with frequent internal conflicts.

The latest clashes in Sudan began on 15 April, when paramilitary forces tried to seize power and came face to face with the army.

Over four hundred people are reported dead and an undisclosed number of people fled the country

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)

Angolan head of State João Lourenço denied alleged political persecution, as part of the ongoing fight against corruption in the country, since September 2017.

The President João Lourenço reacted during an exclusive interview with Jornal Expresso and Agência Lusa, adding that there are also many citizens appearing before justice.

The Angolan Statesman recognised that, despite efforts, the problem of corruption will take time to disappear.

“You cannot expect to end corruption in five years, I don’t even know if any country has ended, in the true sense of the word, with corruption”, he said, stressing that the problem “is not that there is corruption, it is that there is impunity”.

The Holder of the Executive Power said that Isabel dos Santos is “just one” among several citizens who must face justice and is not her political rival.

“I don’t see her as my political rival. Political persecution? An opponent is persecuted and MPLA’s opponents are known,” said President João Lourenço.

As for the process concerning the former Vice-President of the Republic, Manuel Vicente, the Head of State said that it was a case of sovereignty and that it was not Angola that caused what became known as “annoying” between the two countries.

Investigators allege Vicente paid Portuguese magistrate Orlando Figueira to drop two investigations that involved alleged money-laundering and Angolan investments in Portugal.

But the defense appealed, alleging that the former Vice-President has not been made defendant or notified of the accusation.

Still in Portugal, the Public Prosecutor’s Office accused Manuel Vicente of crimes of active corruption, money laundering and forgery of documents as part of Operation Fizz.

In May 2018, the Lisbon Court of Appeal decided to send Manuel Vicente’s case to Angola and admitted that the former Vice-President of the Republic enjoyed immunity, so he could not have been made a defendant or accused.

He underlined that it was the Portuguese judicial authorities who decided to take a senior official to the court.

I am not imagining Angola, said the President of the Republic, having the audacity, for example, to take José Sócrates to court if, eventually, he had committed a crime in Angola.

“Fortunately, the outcome was good (…) if it had taken longer, it might have left wounds, but I must guarantee that it didn’t leave any”, noted the Head of State.

As for the relationship with Álvaro Sobrinho, a Portuguese-Angolan businessman and former director of Banco Espírito Santo in Lisbon and of the BESA bank, he needn’t stop having relationships with people unless there are reasons to do so.

“He was not tried, he was not convicted, if he appears here I will not turn my back on him for sure, until proven otherwise he is a free citizen”, he said.

In his interview, João Lourenço stated that “in Europe it is not normal to ask heads of State to account for cases of corruption, nobody asks President Marcelo about the José Sócrates case”.

However, said the holder of the Executive Power, sometimes it is understood that Africa is different, particularly in Angola “, which he described as unfair. “This type of differential treatment is not fair”, concluded the president João Lourenço

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)

The Anglican Diocese of Seychelles celebrates its golden jubilee this year. The diocese was set up on March 25 in 1973 and its first bishop was Reverend Canon George Cardell Briggs, consecrated at St. James Cathedral in Mauritius.

This year the community’s celebration is two-fold as it is also during the month of March

SNA brings you seven interesting facts and events of the diocese since its establishment.

Construction of St. Paul’s church

An Anglican church was built in May 1859 in the capital city of Victoria by Bishop Vincent William Ryan, the first Bishop of Mauritius. It acts as both a cathedral of the diocese and an Anglican parish church. It was demolished and rebuilt and on April 15, 2004, Archbishop French Chang Him inaugurated and re-consecrated the new cathedral that still stands today.

(Seychelles News Agency) Photo License: CC-BY

The Anglican church of St. Paul elevated to a cathedral

The Anglican Diocese of Victoria was established on April 3, 1973. In April 1961, the church was given the status of a cathedral by Bishop Alan Francis Rogers in Mauritius, who also ordained the first Anglican Priest of Seychelles, Father French Chang-Him in 1963.

This year 2023, marks 163 years since its consecration.

St. Paul’s Church safe haven during the 1862 landslide

One of the worst natural disasters in the history of the island nation is the landslide that occurred in the capital city of Victoria. After days of heavy rainfall, in October 1862 a great avalanche devastated the town and many inhabitants sought refuge in the church. Sacks of rice that were able to be salvaged from the debris were stored in the bell tower. The church became a significant sanctuary for the homeless families whose homes were destroyed in the disaster.

A nearby Catholic convent was completely destroyed and 11 orphan girls and two nuns perished. Six bodies – a mother and her three children, a father and his daughter, who were swept away in the churchyard during the disaster — were buried in the grounds of the cathedral.

(Seychelles National Archives) Photo License: All Rights Reserved

Baptism of an exiled African king

On May 29, 1904, King Prempeh of Ashanti, who was exiled to Seychelles, was baptised in this church after he expressed his desire to belong to the same faith as King George V of the United Kingdom.

King Prempeh was exiled to Seychelles in the year 1900 by the British together with his family, several of his chiefs, and members of his entourage. The island nation at the time had a population of only 19,000.

After 24 years, the King was finally allowed to go back to Ghana and died in his native land in 1931.

(richardis.univ-paris1.f/Wikipedia) Photo License: CC0

Anglican Church formally establishes a parish on Praslin

The construction of the St. Mark church in 1852, symbolised the arrival of the Anglican Church on Praslin. Located at the centre of the streets of Baie Ste Anne, one of the two districts on Praslin, the church was originally made with wood and covered with leaves from the coco de mer tree.

St. Mark’s church was originally built at the inspiration of Phillippe Annette, a renowned catechist and evangelist known as the apostle of Praslin. Dedicated to the first disciple of Jesus, Mark, the church was consecrated by the first bishop of the archipelago James Chapman who was then based in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The church was renovated in 1906 and built with brightly red corrugated iron sheets.

(Seychelles News Agency) Photo License: CC-BY

Four bishops at the head of the diocese

During the first 50 years of the Anglican diocese, four bishops led the congregation. George Briggs was the first bishop of the newly created diocese. French Chang Him, the first Seychellois Anglican priest and Archbishop was the second until he retired in 2005. He passed away on May 26, 2023.

Bishop Santosh Marray from Guyana was the third, until 2008.

Mauritian-born, but now a Seychellois citizen, James Wong, currently heads the diocese. He was elected the new Anglican Archbishop of the Indian Ocean Province in 2017, the second of the Seychelles Diocese to assume the position, after Archbishop French Chang Him.

(Seychelles News Agency) Photo License: CC-BY

Book – Launching Out Into the Deep: The Anglican Church in the History of the Seychelles to 2000 AD’

Launched in 2005, the book written by Donald Taylor, a Mauritian theologian who previously worked in the Seychelles diocese, chronicles the history of the Anglican church in Seychelles. The 877-page book charts the Church’s involvement in Seychelles from the first settlers to the year 2000.

The book covers events such as slavery, the Protestant Experiment, the creation of the Diocese of Mauritius, witchcraft and herbalism, the relations between the Roman Catholic and Anglican Church, the formation of the Seychelles Diocese, the coup d’état, the one-party state, the new constitution, and multi-party politics.

Source: Seychelles News Agency

National Assembly (AN) speaker Carolina Cerqueira reiterated Thursday in Luanda her institution’s responsibility, duty and commitment to protect the children’s rights.

The Parliamentary made the pledge during her visit to the “Nossa Senhora de África” school, accommodating the pupils, as part of the World Children’s Day.

The Speaker highlighted the importance of the MPs to continue to defend the rights to health, education, housing, security and other obligations inherent to child.

Carolina Cerqueira stated that the AN role, however, is to make society healthy, with civic and patriotic moral values, aiming at dignifying the human person.

The Parliamentary leader stressed the focus on the family and the preservation of values for the strong nation and the dignity of the democratic rule of law.

She appealed to the children to preserve the environment, treat animals and take care of plants, “as these activities help children to discover the beauty of life”.

Carolina Cerqueira conveyed the congratulations from the 220 members of the Parliament on celebration of June 1, the World Children’s Day.

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)

Angolan minister of National Defence, Former Combatants and Homeland Veterans João Ernesto dos Santos said Tuesday in Luanda that Angola enjoys an effective and irreversible peace, having as challenges the deepening of democracy and the economic and social development of the country.

Speaking at the opening session of the 22th Meeting of Defence of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), the official added that Angola is experiencing an environment of perfect reconciliation and reconstruction of its main infrastructures.

He stated that Angola has been creating the necessary conditions to attract foreign investment that might contribute to development of the all sectors of the society.

João Ernesto dos Santos spoke of the investments in the energetic field, such as Laúca and Caculo-Cabaça dams, due to end in 2026, the largest in the country and the third in Africa, behind Nigeria and Egypt.

Military cooperation in CPLP

The Angolan minister praised the progressive, common and advantaged cooperation with counterparts that contributed to the strengthening of the action and consolidation of the community project.

He said that the creation of the CPLP on 17 July, 1996 and the strengthening of military cooperation allowed the exchange of different experiences through military training in several military fields.

The minister stressed Angola’s role in supporting the reform of the military sector for Angolan military mission in Guinea Bissau (MISSANG) and in Mozambique, when it was ravaged by the cyclone IDAI and the contribution to peace process of Cabo Delgado (Mozambique).

He asserted that the issues of defence aim to promote world peace and security which must serve as a standard for the present and the future.

He expressed satisfaction at the decoration Aparecido de Oliveira of the CPLP, awarded to the Angolan President of the Republic and Commander-in-Chief of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA), João Lourenço, in recognition of his role in the community, with emphasis on the promotion of the mobility agreement.

The minister added, among the contributions of the Angolan statesman, the creation of new general objectives of the CPLP for economic cooperation and the integration of the principles of representativeness and gender equality in the statutes of the organisation.

The ambassadors of the member countries witnessed the opening ceremony of the meeting of defence ministers of the Community.

Created in July 1996, the institution comprises Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe, and East Timor are the members of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries.

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)