"After 5 years, we have to ask: what has changed in Angola? In other words, are the reasons that guided the 15+2 still current or have they been dissolved?", question the two social scientists in an open letter to which Lusa had access.
The seventeen Angolan activists were accused of preparing a coup against the MPLA government of José Eduardo dos Santos and tried in the Luanda Provincial Court.
Five years later, Hitler Tschikonde and Nuno Alvaro Dala analysed what had changed in this period in terms of the political framework, economy and living conditions, rights and freedoms, freedom of the press, administration of justice and state security services, concluding that the situation remains identical in several respects in the government of João Lourenço, who succeeded José Eduardo dos Santos in 2017.
The activists point out that the MPLA has been in power for almost 45 years, point out the prolonged economic crisis in which Angola is still plunged and point out that, after some opening between September 2017 and 2018, there has been a return of police repression of demonstrations.
As for the administration of justice "the scandal is the same", they criticize.
"Recently, the Constitutional Court, for example, made the PRA-JA party political project unviable for manifest political orientation. On the other hand, the actions carried out by the Attorney General's Office and the courts, translated into the arrest, trial and conviction of a few criminals, are essentially operations that fit into the MPLA's strategy of useful regeneration, to ensure its survival," says the letter, in which the activists also lament the actions of the security forces "which have already made more deaths than the coronavirus.
According to the activists, the reformist impetus of João Lourenço, who took office on September 26, 2017, as President of Angola, was nothing more than a farce.
"The fight against corruption and the repatriation of capital is a farce. It's a political lie with a view to misleading national and international public opinion", the two social scientists stress.
"After three years [since João Lourenço came to power], it's clear that 'correct what's wrong and improve what's right' [the motto of the president's campaign] is nothing more than a process in which the cardinal's objective is not to make the country viable, but to keep the MPLA in power".
For Hitler Tschikonde and Nuno Alvaro Dala, therefore, the reasons that led the 15+2 to meet are still current:
"From June 2015 to June 2020, after 5 years, the MPLA is still in power, Angola is still hostage to the MPLA, the economic and financial crisis continues and worsens, Angolans continue to live in apocalyptic living conditions, rights, freedoms and guarantees continue to be violated, finally, the tragedy is total".
For the two activists "João Lourenço is not up to the task, in other words, it was a replacement of the same" and the MPLA is not the solution, but the problem of the Angolan people.
"It's time to become aware and put an end to the MPLA dictatorship that has lasted 45 years", they appeal, stressing that the 15+2 were arrested, tried and sentenced because they were idealizing, conceiving and projecting the genesis of the bases of a political movement that would end the MPLA regime without resorting to violence.
On 20 June 2015, 13 young activists were arrested in the classroom of the Instituto Luandense de Línguas e Informática (ILULA).
The fourteenth (Domingos José João da Cruz) was arrested at the end of the same day in Santa Clara (Cunene), and on 24 June the fifteenth (Osvaldo Sérgio Correia Caholo) was arrested in Centralidade do Sequele (Luanda).
Human rights activists and defenders Laurinda Gouveia and Rosa Conde were also accused, but were not arrested.
On 28 March 2016, the Luanda Provincial Court sentenced the 15+2 to between two years and three months to eight years and six months in prison for the alleged crimes of preparatory acts of rebellion and association of wrongdoers.
On 29 June of the same year, the Supreme Court in Luanda ordered their release with a term of identity and residence.
