Angola: “They Pushed Down the Houses” - Forced Evictions and Insecure Land Tenure for Luanda’s Urban Poor
Carmen Silvestre, Researcher, Africa division

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Emma Daly:

I’m speaking with Carmen Silvestre, Angola researcher at Human Rights Watch, and co-author of a report on forced evictions in the Angolan capital, Luanda, during Angola’s post-war economic boom.

This is a joint report by Human Rights Watch and SOS Habitat, an Angolan group working with victims of forced evictions in Luanda. It focuses on 18 mass evictions carried out by the government between 2002 and 2006 that Human Rights Watch and SOS Habitat have documented over the past year.

Many Angolans fled to Luanda during the long civil war seeking shelter and protection from the conflict raging in the countryside.

But the laws around land rights in Luanda are confusing and complex, and date back to independence from Portugal in 1975. Informal claims to land and housing make poor Angolans vulnerable to being forced out of their homes. A registration system to document land tenure was essentially paralyzed for 27 years, during the civil war that ended in 2002.

Carmen is here to explain.

Carmen, in your report, you documented 18 instances where people were forcibly evicted by the government from their homes. Do you have a sense of how many people were affected by these evictions – and why do you think this is happening?

Carmen Silvestre:

Well, in the period we covered in this report some 20,000 people were affected by forced evictions in Luanda. We estimate that over 3,000 houses and many small cultivated land plots were destroyed by officials and police officers. This has happened in the context of an economic boom in Luanda, with the government and private companies building major development and infrastructure projects.  Most of Luanda’s residents don’t hold formal title to their land or houses, so when they are evicted they are often left with little or no means to assert their claims to the land, and no legal recourse. They will remain vulnerable to forced evictions unless the government changes its policy.

Daly:

The government has justified the evictions on grounds that it needs the land for public interest development projects, or that it is removing alleged trespassers from state land.

Could you tell us how these evictions were carried out?

Carmen Silvestre:

In most cases, the government did not warn people ahead of their forced removal or explore possible alternatives to eviction. Residents were caught by surprise when trucks and bulldozers began to destroy their homes with their possessions inside. Police officers used violence to intimidate residents, sometimes with the help of private security companies. Police frequently beat and even detained residents and human rights activists present during evictions.

Daly:

And did the government resettle or compensate those who were forcibly moved?

Carmen Silvestre:

The government evicted people without setting up a fair system of compensation. Many people lost their homes, crops and possessions but received little or no compensation. The government has relocated many of those evicted, though we don’t have exact numbers or locations. The problem is most people weren’t consulted about where they wanted to go, and many were forced to leave the city and move as far as 30 kilometers away from their original homes. We visited several relocation sites and found they were not supplied with adequate basic services, such as water and sanitation, transportation, health care and schools, when evictees first moved there.

Daly:
What does Human Rights Watch recommend the government of Angola do to address land tenure in Luanda?

Carmen Silvestre:

The government must first of all implement affectively the existing land and urban management legislation. For that it needs to approve several important implementing regulations that are mission. It must also approve and implement specific law on forced evictions that clearly set out all procedural safeguards required when carrying involuntary removals of populations. Most importantly it must improve or create new and accessible mechanisms and procedures for effective real estate registration. This must include a public information campaign specifically targeting informal areas of Luanda so that the population knows how to regularize their land or housing.