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Angola’s Bishop of Namibe Diocese, Dionysius Hisilinapo has denounced the forced evictions of indigenous communities from their rural ancestral lands by unidentified developers and business persons.

Voicing the Church’s concern about the involuntary taking-over of ancestral land belonging to poor rural communities, the Bishop expressed alarm at the growing frequency.

In the province of Cunene, for example, the land grabbing process is often accompanied by physical violence on hapless villagers. This is according to Isaiah Sipangeli a resident of the village of Curoca (Kuroka), one of the affected regions. Local residents see what is happening as a new form of colonisation.

Father Jacinto Pio Wakussanga, a local Catholic priest and a civil society activist with the organisation, Association for Building Communities (ACC) in Huila province also condemned the incidents as unjust given the powerlessness nature of the affected communities.

In response, Angola’s local government official, Belisario dos Santos, played down the crisis urging aggrieved communities to seek redress from the courts of law.

Most of the land being forcibly grabbed belongs to the indigenous pastoralists in Angola’s south. For ages, they have pastured their animals on land now being taken from them.

Angola is one of Africa’s poorest countries yet ironically one of the richest countries with regard to mineral resources. In 1975, the country gained independence from Portugal. A subsequent civil war that lasted more than 25 years crippled the country's economy and infrastructure.

(By Anastacio Sasembele, VR in Luanda)

Email:engafrica@vatiradio.va

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