In a surprise development, the defamation charges against journalist Rafael Marques de Morais were dropped Thursday by the Angolan military generals who had brought them.
Marques had been charged with criminal defamation for writing about human rights abuses in Angola’s diamond mining region. He alleged that the murders and torture there had been orchestrated by private security and mining companies owned by Angolan generals. Marques could possibly have faced up to nine years in jail if he had been found guilty.
The criminal trial against Marques began in Luanda, Angola on May 14 and was supposed to continue on May 21 with testimony from the generals. Instead, Marques told the court Thursday that he had not meant to harm the generals. “I made a statement basically reaffirming that I never had an intention of offending the generals,” Marques told me via Skype. “My only concern was to report on the suffering of the people in the Lundas” – the diamond-mining regions in northern Angola that Marques wrote about in his book “Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture In Angola.”
Marques also told me that the information about the abuses – his book alleges 100 cases of murder and 500 cases of torture – were not shared with the generals who owned the security and mining companies. “The contacts that I made with the companies, from what I learned in court, were never communicated to the generals,” Marques explained. “That is the reason why I never heard from the generals directly.”
Marques told the court that agreed not to reprint his 2011 “Blood Diamonds” book. He also told the court that he will continue to monitor the human rights situation in the diamond-mining region and will write about abuses if he learns of them. “I expect to have the cooperation of the generals in providing me the answers,” Marques said.
Forbes contacted the Angolan Attorney General's office for a comment on the new development but had not received an answer by the time of publication.
Angola, whose economy relies heavily on oil production, has suffered due to the plunge in oil prices. A recent Reuters article also noted that Marques’ trial was also taking place “a month after the police and military were accused by opposition parties of killing hundreds of members of a Christian sect in the Huambo central highlands.” The last thing the Angolan government needed now was more negative attention from the international media, at a time when it is trying to court international business.
Marques cautioned that the trial proceedings are not officially over. The trial will continue with oral submissions on Monday May 25 and the judge will read the sentence on Thursday May 28.
Marques, a longtime investigative journalist who has highlighted abuses in his country, had widespread and ongoing support from a broad range of human rights and free speech groups, some of which had expected the court to wrongly convict Marques. So the news came as a positive surprise.
Amnesty International USA's Sarah Hager, a country specialist who focuses on Southern Africa, said, “The dropping of criminal defamation charges against Rafael is a significant victory for human rights and freedom of expression in Angola. Amnesty has long called for the government to repeal its criminal defamation law. In the absence of that ultimate goal, discontinuing the prosecution of one of the most important voices in Angola holding the government to account moves the line sharply forward in the ability of activists like Rafael to tell the stories we must read, learn and hear of the human rights and corruption situation in Angola. It has been a privilege to stand with Rafael during the course of this prosecution and Amnesty will continue to support him in the future.”
Jeff Smith, advocacy officer at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, said, “"This is an absolutely stunning turnaround, as many of us were dug in for the long haul. Rafael is an unbelievably brave and principled man who, in essence, would have put the Angolan government on trial for their rampant human rights abuses that they've committed for decades with callous impunity. He stood face to face with Angola's most powerful and dangerous men, and he did not blink.”
Marques worked with me at Forbes to publish an article in September 2013 about the billions of dollars in assets amassed by Isabel dos Santos, the eldest daughter of the Angolan president, thanks in large part to kleptocratic transfers initiated by her father. A spokesman for Isabel dos Santos said in 2013 that allegations of improper transfers were “groundless and completely absurd.” The article won a Gerald Loeb Award in June 2014 for international reporting.
With this latest development, Marques is determined to continue exposing corruption in his country. “Time to get back to work,” he said.
Follow me on Twitter at @KerryDolan
