Ten years after the close of Angola's lengthy and brutal civil war, aging President Jose Eduardo dos Santos is consolidating power around himself, while a new youth movement is taking to the streets to protest, inspired by the Arab Spring. The leaderless youths are filling the space left by a weak formal opposition in Africa's second largest oil producing country. Like many new Arab movements, they often use social media websites to organize protests.
"The problem now in Angola is the regime, which belongs only to the president," says Marcolino Moco, a former prime minister of Angola, the southern African nation of about 20 million people. "I don't understand how President dos Santos does not see what is happening in the world," Moco adds, referring to last year's popular uprisings in North Africa. As parliamentary elections scheduled for September near, the government seems increasingly spooked by the disorganised youth groups. They arrange sporadic protests, mostly in the capital Luanda, though recently the movement has spread to other locations too.
"This is a completely new phenomenon in Angola," Lisa Rimli, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, says about the new popular movements. Just a few years ago, she says, people would be afraid to talk badly about Dos Santos in a public cafe because of a "very deep culture of fear," but this is now changing.
"The government might be afraid people are losing their fear," she says about the often violent crackdowns, which target journalists and young activists. The youths' grievances relate to the dire state of the economy - the majority of the population lives in deep poverty, despite the vast oil and diamond reserves.
While Luanda is one of the most expensive cities in the world, Angola is ranked near the bottom of the UN's Human Development Index. It is a country with a massive gap between a small, elite class and the poor masses. Moreover, the stifling laws which regulate the freedom of expression mean there is little political space for the young - a new generation that is less cowered by the tragedy of the civil war, which killed about half a million people between 1975 until 2002.
Angola, which became independent from colonial master Portugal in 1975, now celebrates April 4 as the Day of Peace and Reconciliation - marking the end of fighting. The war was won by dos Santos' party, the once-Marxist MPLA, defeating the opposition Unita grouping, which had alliances with the West during the Cold War.
Dos Santos, who is 69 and has been president since 1979, has become less transparent in the 10 years since the war formally closed, according to Elias Isaac from the Open Society Initiative in Angola. "The regime is so powerful, everything rotates around it," he says.
According to Isaac, the youth groups are "growing bit by bit." Because of the internet, people are now hearing more about the government's questionable actions, bolstering the nascent protest movement. This year, for example, a 32 billion dollar discrepancy in public funds was revealed, which the government has tried to blame on poor record keeping.
Moco, who was premier from 1992 until 1996, says there are signs dos Santos is no longer accountable even to the MPLA. The presidency set up institutions that allow it to bypass other top officials on key matters, such as running the state-owned oil company Sonangol.
Besides the length of his rule, dos Santos has other things in common with ousted Arab dictators, including a flurry of reports that his family and those in his inner circle are striking business deals in Angola and around the world. The proceeds are said to go straight to their pockets. The state hardly benefits.
Horacio Junjuvili, a member of the opposition Unita party, says the youth "are fed up" with this type of behaviour. "Angolans are beginning to see clearly what is wrong and what is right. The old generation is fearful, but the young see clearly," says Junjuvili. He doubts the upcoming elections will be free and fair. The trick now will be to find a way to unravel a system of government so tied up with one person - dos Santos - without causing a collapse of the country. "We don't want a war anymore. Fighting now is without any weapons," says Moco, the former premier.
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