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Magnífica e Miserável: Angola desde a Guerra Civil
«Magnífica e Miserável: Angola desde a Guerra Civil» retrata as mudanças vertiginosas que se vivem em Angola, um país incontornável como exportador de petróleo e diamantes, e cada vez mais influente em África.
A partir de uma investigação de fundo sobre a realidade em Angola, envolvendo longos períodos de trabalho no terreno, Ricardo Soares de Oliveira analisa a súbita ascensão económica do país e o seu enquadramento no sistema internacional a partir de 2002, ano em que emergiu de uma longa e sangrenta guerra civil.
A partir de uma investigação de fundo sobre a realidade em Angola, envolvendo longos períodos de trabalho no terreno, Ricardo Soares de Oliveira analisa a súbita ascensão económica do país e o seu enquadramento no sistema internacional a partir de 2002, ano em que emergiu de uma longa e sangrenta guerra civil.
375 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 8, 2021
A masterpiece on how Angola's government works, doesn't work and their motivations. Its dense and it took a long time to read but the book gives you great insight into how Angola functions and helps provide a model for looking at other African countries and how they function. Highly recommended.
December 11, 2016
Um livro notável, cuja leitura releva perfeitamente não só um extraordinário conhecimento do tema, como a indiscutível seriedade, profundidade e realismo com que o mesmo é tratado, em diversas vertentes. A análise é rica e, além de muito bem fundamentada, de extrema inteligência e sensibilidade. É crítica, como poderia não ser, mas é construtiva e minimamente encorajadora (“Angola começa agora”).
Algumas citações:
“Angola is changing at an extraordinary speed. The party-state does not fully understand or control this process, even when it is the unintended consequence of its policies. The MPLA’s legitimacy tropes— the liberation struggle, the civil war victory, even the early postwar threat of confusão— are quickly becoming redundant in Angolan political discourse.” “Angola’s potential remains unrealized. The “magnificent” promise of this book’s title continues to be elusive, the abject poverty of most Angolans far too real.”
“Angolans remain some of the world’s worst educated and unhealthiest people. Yet twelve years after the end of the war, the defence, security and public order budget is three times larger than the education budget and four times larger than the health budget.” “In Manuel Ennes Ferreira’s words, “the only opposition party capable of unseating the MPLA is the oil barrel”. The price crash of late 2008 already showed the Angolan economy’s high degree of exposure. A major and long-lasting fall of production or price collapse would snatch this lever from the hands of the MPLA, undermine every choice the party-state has made, and introduce a remarkable degree of unpredictability into Angolan life.”
“In our lifetime, Angolans may not get a welfare state or anything resembling a just society. But if they are lucky (in other words, if sustained popular mobilization unleashes a degree of enlightened self-interest at the elite level), they may get some of the distributional clientelism of petro-states like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or Iran, which provide large, but not overly large, segments of their populations with some disbursements.”
Sobre o esforço de reconstrução nacional: "The extent of the physical task ahead cannot be overstated. Large cities such as Huambo and Kuito had practically been obliterated. 98 per cent of bridges (amounting to more than 300) were destroyed, as were 80 per cent of factories, 60 per cent of hospitals, 80 per cent of schools and most of the country’s roads. The three major railways were unusable. The damaged electricity system intermittently covered only a small part of the country while piped water was a rare luxury even in cities. An estimated 10–12 million landmines scarred the landscape. Even in the few areas that had not seen much combat, such as Luanda, the state of disrepair of the mostly colonial-era infrastructure was considerable. The cost of war damage to the country’s infrastructure alone was an estimated US$60 billion. With almost every piece of infrastructure in tatters, Angola was simply not a place for the small-is-beautiful approach to reconstruction: large-scale rehabilitation was both necessary and entirely legitimate."
Um aspecto que é realçado, e um dos mais importantes, senão o mais importante, é o seguinte: “Worse, far from being an exception, it is a magnified version of a dynamic occurring across many resource-rich states around the continent. Elites in these states have used the dramatic increase in revenue allowed by the upturn in commodity prices— a pivotal trend of the “Africa Rising” conjuncture of the last decade— to pursue their own, allegedly developmental, agendas. But more often than not, these elites have failed, the enrichment of insiders notwithstanding, to use the rewards of the boom to transform resource wealth into development, support genuine African entrepreneurs and transcend the perennial handicaps of African economies.” Conforme Howard W. French no seu livro “China’s Second Continent”: “The proposition at work here couldn’t be more straightforward. The timeline for resource depletion in many African countries is running in tandem with the timeline for the continent’s unprecedented demographic explosion. At current rates, in the next forty years, most African states will have twice the number of people they count now. By that same time, their presently known reserves of minerals like iron, bauxite, copper, cobalt, uranium, gold, and more, will be largely depleted. Those who have diversified their economies and invested in their citizens, particularly in education and health, will have a shot at prosperity. Those that haven’t, stand to become hellish places, barely viable, if viable at all. Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea were all recent democracies, but each was exceedingly fragile, too, with the feeblest of institutions. Where will they fall on this scale?”
Não há dúvida que face à extraordinária riqueza do território, o prazo para a viabilidade de Angola enquanto projecto de nação desenvolvida será mais largo, mas esta é definitivamente a grande questão que se pode pôr ao país na fase de transição em curso.
Algumas citações:
“Angola is changing at an extraordinary speed. The party-state does not fully understand or control this process, even when it is the unintended consequence of its policies. The MPLA’s legitimacy tropes— the liberation struggle, the civil war victory, even the early postwar threat of confusão— are quickly becoming redundant in Angolan political discourse.” “Angola’s potential remains unrealized. The “magnificent” promise of this book’s title continues to be elusive, the abject poverty of most Angolans far too real.”
“Angolans remain some of the world’s worst educated and unhealthiest people. Yet twelve years after the end of the war, the defence, security and public order budget is three times larger than the education budget and four times larger than the health budget.” “In Manuel Ennes Ferreira’s words, “the only opposition party capable of unseating the MPLA is the oil barrel”. The price crash of late 2008 already showed the Angolan economy’s high degree of exposure. A major and long-lasting fall of production or price collapse would snatch this lever from the hands of the MPLA, undermine every choice the party-state has made, and introduce a remarkable degree of unpredictability into Angolan life.”
“In our lifetime, Angolans may not get a welfare state or anything resembling a just society. But if they are lucky (in other words, if sustained popular mobilization unleashes a degree of enlightened self-interest at the elite level), they may get some of the distributional clientelism of petro-states like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or Iran, which provide large, but not overly large, segments of their populations with some disbursements.”
Sobre o esforço de reconstrução nacional: "The extent of the physical task ahead cannot be overstated. Large cities such as Huambo and Kuito had practically been obliterated. 98 per cent of bridges (amounting to more than 300) were destroyed, as were 80 per cent of factories, 60 per cent of hospitals, 80 per cent of schools and most of the country’s roads. The three major railways were unusable. The damaged electricity system intermittently covered only a small part of the country while piped water was a rare luxury even in cities. An estimated 10–12 million landmines scarred the landscape. Even in the few areas that had not seen much combat, such as Luanda, the state of disrepair of the mostly colonial-era infrastructure was considerable. The cost of war damage to the country’s infrastructure alone was an estimated US$60 billion. With almost every piece of infrastructure in tatters, Angola was simply not a place for the small-is-beautiful approach to reconstruction: large-scale rehabilitation was both necessary and entirely legitimate."
Um aspecto que é realçado, e um dos mais importantes, senão o mais importante, é o seguinte: “Worse, far from being an exception, it is a magnified version of a dynamic occurring across many resource-rich states around the continent. Elites in these states have used the dramatic increase in revenue allowed by the upturn in commodity prices— a pivotal trend of the “Africa Rising” conjuncture of the last decade— to pursue their own, allegedly developmental, agendas. But more often than not, these elites have failed, the enrichment of insiders notwithstanding, to use the rewards of the boom to transform resource wealth into development, support genuine African entrepreneurs and transcend the perennial handicaps of African economies.” Conforme Howard W. French no seu livro “China’s Second Continent”: “The proposition at work here couldn’t be more straightforward. The timeline for resource depletion in many African countries is running in tandem with the timeline for the continent’s unprecedented demographic explosion. At current rates, in the next forty years, most African states will have twice the number of people they count now. By that same time, their presently known reserves of minerals like iron, bauxite, copper, cobalt, uranium, gold, and more, will be largely depleted. Those who have diversified their economies and invested in their citizens, particularly in education and health, will have a shot at prosperity. Those that haven’t, stand to become hellish places, barely viable, if viable at all. Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea were all recent democracies, but each was exceedingly fragile, too, with the feeblest of institutions. Where will they fall on this scale?”
Não há dúvida que face à extraordinária riqueza do território, o prazo para a viabilidade de Angola enquanto projecto de nação desenvolvida será mais largo, mas esta é definitivamente a grande questão que se pode pôr ao país na fase de transição em curso.
June 20, 2017
"Não obstante um PIB per capita de 5700 dólares, em 2012, a maioria dos angolanos é muito pobre, sofre e morre devido a doenças evitáveis e tem uma esperança de vida que praticamente não chega aso cinquenta anos"
Fantástico trabalho de investigação conduzido por Ricardo Soares de Oliveira sobre a Angola do pós-guerra, sempre devidamente fundamentado e apoiado num exaustivo trabalho de campo.
Retrato imaculado de um país disfuncional, que nunca quis sair da alçada do "estado paralelo" da Sonangol e do petróleo. Do controlo "ditatorial" do MPLA aos interesses económicos instalados em Portugal, sem esquecer o "milagre da reconstrução" do pós-guerra, recomendo vivamente a todos os que procurem saber mais sobre a realidade actual angolana.
Fantástico trabalho de investigação conduzido por Ricardo Soares de Oliveira sobre a Angola do pós-guerra, sempre devidamente fundamentado e apoiado num exaustivo trabalho de campo.
Retrato imaculado de um país disfuncional, que nunca quis sair da alçada do "estado paralelo" da Sonangol e do petróleo. Do controlo "ditatorial" do MPLA aos interesses económicos instalados em Portugal, sem esquecer o "milagre da reconstrução" do pós-guerra, recomendo vivamente a todos os que procurem saber mais sobre a realidade actual angolana.
May 31, 2016
De Oliveira presents a thoroughly researched overview of one of the more obfuscated African nations, providing many excellent insights. But, his writing style is convoluted, while too often he doesn't elaborate on the many small remarks he puts in as matters of course while describing a larger narrative. Mostly, these are issues an editor should have taken care of, and take away from the accessibility of the book.
Oliveira makes the point that post colonial Angola is the only African country where the Creole, the power brokers between the colonial masters and the colonial subjects, eventually became the elite. Also because there was a colonial elite to begin with, the Portuguese themselves being handsoff with the administration of their dominions, whether in Angola, Mozambique or Brazil.
But, perhaps more importantly, specifically for the post-independent resurgence of nationalism, driven by the descendants of these Creoles, with the scramble for Africa in the late 1800s bringing in much more Portuguese than just the criminals that were sent to this formal penal colony, they suffered a relative setback in late colonial times, having to compete for civil service jobs with literate, and white, Portuguese subjects, thus creating an early breeding ground for wanting to return to their former greatness.
Urbanized Angolans, covetting their Portuguese connections, contrasted themselves with the 'savage' Africans from the hinterlands, which was emphasized by the most remote parts of Angola not even being formally integrated into a more centralized system until as late as the 1950s, education in these regions typically being taken care of by American and European missionary posts.
So, it was eventually the elites from very different parts of the country and thus with very different backgrounds, who first pitted themselves against the Portuguese and then against each other, each having very different ideas about their own position in the world, while not considering Angola as anything but a contingent piece of land.
Shortly after Portugal's retreat, two of the three movements remained, propped up by Cuba and South Africa, and the two countries themselves eventually faced off, in Angola, in 1988.
Peace agreements were signed in 1991, followed by elections in 1992. UNITA, operating from the countryside, expected an easy win. But, after high level defections, the tables turned, UNITA lost to the MPLA operating from Luanda, the capital, taking up their guns again, and reigniting a civil war that lasted ten more years and only ended with the death of UNITA leader Savimbi.
Angola was left with a president who tightly controlled his sphere of influence, focussed on exploitation of oil and diamonds, facilitated by Western companies, while having access to a very tight security apparatus, but unable to provide basic services in a country where agriculture had all but ceased to exist.
With UNITA out of the way, the MPLA dictated what it meant to be Angolan; a product of a Portuguese colonial history with no meaningful precolonial antecedent. With the capital at its center, Angola had become the republic of Luanda.
Already during the war that followed independence, the state aparatus which the MPLA controlled, was backed, or rather, undermined, by the president's setting up of a parallel system with the sole purpose of managing and controlling oil production. Technocratic, but also corrupt, the system remained in place after independence and is what effectively defines the state.
The Portuguese, before independence, for a bit over a decade, oversaw a period of huge growth, the country hosting the second largest contingent of foreigners after South Africa, but in 1976, all this had broken down, most foreigners having left after the start of civil war.
Fascinating, of course, that an exceedingly communist regime tolerated, even supported, the success of an exceedingly capitalist oil industry. While the MPLA was backed by the Soviets and the Cubans and the oppositions by the Americans and the South Africans, Angolan oil was managed by the French and Americans and shipped to the rest of the world via South Africa.
But after the country exchanged socialism for crony capitalism, SONANGOL, the state's oil company, went from strength to strength, at the turn of the century employing 9000 people in the second largest company in Africa.
All as the president's private vehicle for control.
After the war ended in 2002, the need for money in rebuilding the country and placating the former opposition grew significantly. With oil prices not yet having risen steeply, Angola was short on cash, but the many conditions set by Western institutions for providing funds were balked at and nothing happened, until China became willing to invest without conditions in 2005.
As a result, though not as efficient or cost effective, the state has been responsible for a wide array of infrastructural development projects, many with reasonably positive long term benefits, though many also with no clear long term plan or reasonable budgets, larger amounts available for spending also meaning more money being absorbed, appropriated, by those involved.
Not surprisingly, white elephants, large but pointless infrastructural projects, are plenty.
The poor are not included in the process of urban renewal and though lots of foreign expertise is flown in, the state dictates the nature of change, with the elite directly benefiting from the individual projects through 'partnerships' and kickbacks.
Perhaps surprisingly, there is virtually no desire to manage skills transfers to replace the expensive expat crowd. On the other hand, this is fairly typical for other oil-rich states as well.
Not surprisingly, with the state having ample income, development organizations have little leverage to set the agenda and, since the war, have been marginalised. Meanwhile, the state pays lip service to the language of development politics, without actually implementing meaningful political change.
What makes the post colonial, post civil war, politics of Angola unique is that, with the help of huge amounts of oil money, the state, that is mostly the president, managed to reinvent itself several times, while also being able to create some meaningful change, if disproportionally small in relation to the money spent, for the vast majority of the population. Yet, these reinventions has as their sole objective the entrenchment of the ruling class, even if the core of this success, driven by the national oil company, was and is the responsibility of a small group of competent professionals.
With the president at the center, the elite have traded power for money.
In business, Angolan incompetents partnering with foreign companies or foreign managers, get rich on the spoils. Though often beneficial for the foreign players, long term risks are huge, with no legal recourse available, sometimes the outcome being death or being expelled from the country.
And, typical for elsewhere in Africa as well, investment horizons are short, months, not years.
So, as a result, commercial agriculture and manufacturing, processes that take years to come to fruition, are avoided, virtually everything being imported from abroad.
More recently, Angolan business has moved abroad, with the most popular objective being Portugal, where towards ten percent of the country stock exchange is in the hands of the Angolan elite.
The author never says it, but Angola is a truly fascist state, and trying to become more so; everything is of the state and of the state. But, the MPLA's fascist tendencies have resulted in an inclusive, if unequal society where, for now, civil war based on ethnic differences is unthinkable. But, the political situation is ever more precarious, lacking the economic inclusion so desired by the masses.
Oliveira makes the point that post colonial Angola is the only African country where the Creole, the power brokers between the colonial masters and the colonial subjects, eventually became the elite. Also because there was a colonial elite to begin with, the Portuguese themselves being handsoff with the administration of their dominions, whether in Angola, Mozambique or Brazil.
But, perhaps more importantly, specifically for the post-independent resurgence of nationalism, driven by the descendants of these Creoles, with the scramble for Africa in the late 1800s bringing in much more Portuguese than just the criminals that were sent to this formal penal colony, they suffered a relative setback in late colonial times, having to compete for civil service jobs with literate, and white, Portuguese subjects, thus creating an early breeding ground for wanting to return to their former greatness.
Urbanized Angolans, covetting their Portuguese connections, contrasted themselves with the 'savage' Africans from the hinterlands, which was emphasized by the most remote parts of Angola not even being formally integrated into a more centralized system until as late as the 1950s, education in these regions typically being taken care of by American and European missionary posts.
So, it was eventually the elites from very different parts of the country and thus with very different backgrounds, who first pitted themselves against the Portuguese and then against each other, each having very different ideas about their own position in the world, while not considering Angola as anything but a contingent piece of land.
Shortly after Portugal's retreat, two of the three movements remained, propped up by Cuba and South Africa, and the two countries themselves eventually faced off, in Angola, in 1988.
Peace agreements were signed in 1991, followed by elections in 1992. UNITA, operating from the countryside, expected an easy win. But, after high level defections, the tables turned, UNITA lost to the MPLA operating from Luanda, the capital, taking up their guns again, and reigniting a civil war that lasted ten more years and only ended with the death of UNITA leader Savimbi.
Angola was left with a president who tightly controlled his sphere of influence, focussed on exploitation of oil and diamonds, facilitated by Western companies, while having access to a very tight security apparatus, but unable to provide basic services in a country where agriculture had all but ceased to exist.
With UNITA out of the way, the MPLA dictated what it meant to be Angolan; a product of a Portuguese colonial history with no meaningful precolonial antecedent. With the capital at its center, Angola had become the republic of Luanda.
Already during the war that followed independence, the state aparatus which the MPLA controlled, was backed, or rather, undermined, by the president's setting up of a parallel system with the sole purpose of managing and controlling oil production. Technocratic, but also corrupt, the system remained in place after independence and is what effectively defines the state.
The Portuguese, before independence, for a bit over a decade, oversaw a period of huge growth, the country hosting the second largest contingent of foreigners after South Africa, but in 1976, all this had broken down, most foreigners having left after the start of civil war.
Fascinating, of course, that an exceedingly communist regime tolerated, even supported, the success of an exceedingly capitalist oil industry. While the MPLA was backed by the Soviets and the Cubans and the oppositions by the Americans and the South Africans, Angolan oil was managed by the French and Americans and shipped to the rest of the world via South Africa.
But after the country exchanged socialism for crony capitalism, SONANGOL, the state's oil company, went from strength to strength, at the turn of the century employing 9000 people in the second largest company in Africa.
All as the president's private vehicle for control.
After the war ended in 2002, the need for money in rebuilding the country and placating the former opposition grew significantly. With oil prices not yet having risen steeply, Angola was short on cash, but the many conditions set by Western institutions for providing funds were balked at and nothing happened, until China became willing to invest without conditions in 2005.
As a result, though not as efficient or cost effective, the state has been responsible for a wide array of infrastructural development projects, many with reasonably positive long term benefits, though many also with no clear long term plan or reasonable budgets, larger amounts available for spending also meaning more money being absorbed, appropriated, by those involved.
Not surprisingly, white elephants, large but pointless infrastructural projects, are plenty.
The poor are not included in the process of urban renewal and though lots of foreign expertise is flown in, the state dictates the nature of change, with the elite directly benefiting from the individual projects through 'partnerships' and kickbacks.
Perhaps surprisingly, there is virtually no desire to manage skills transfers to replace the expensive expat crowd. On the other hand, this is fairly typical for other oil-rich states as well.
Not surprisingly, with the state having ample income, development organizations have little leverage to set the agenda and, since the war, have been marginalised. Meanwhile, the state pays lip service to the language of development politics, without actually implementing meaningful political change.
What makes the post colonial, post civil war, politics of Angola unique is that, with the help of huge amounts of oil money, the state, that is mostly the president, managed to reinvent itself several times, while also being able to create some meaningful change, if disproportionally small in relation to the money spent, for the vast majority of the population. Yet, these reinventions has as their sole objective the entrenchment of the ruling class, even if the core of this success, driven by the national oil company, was and is the responsibility of a small group of competent professionals.
With the president at the center, the elite have traded power for money.
In business, Angolan incompetents partnering with foreign companies or foreign managers, get rich on the spoils. Though often beneficial for the foreign players, long term risks are huge, with no legal recourse available, sometimes the outcome being death or being expelled from the country.
And, typical for elsewhere in Africa as well, investment horizons are short, months, not years.
So, as a result, commercial agriculture and manufacturing, processes that take years to come to fruition, are avoided, virtually everything being imported from abroad.
More recently, Angolan business has moved abroad, with the most popular objective being Portugal, where towards ten percent of the country stock exchange is in the hands of the Angolan elite.
The author never says it, but Angola is a truly fascist state, and trying to become more so; everything is of the state and of the state. But, the MPLA's fascist tendencies have resulted in an inclusive, if unequal society where, for now, civil war based on ethnic differences is unthinkable. But, the political situation is ever more precarious, lacking the economic inclusion so desired by the masses.
January 5, 2020
Excellent review of Angola post-civil war, covering the decade 2002-2012. Very helpful for understanding the current state of governance and the economy and Angola's place within the African and international order. Will inevitably get dated over time, but still very helpful for understanding Angola today under dos Santos' successor Lourenco.
March 2, 2020
Um livro de leitura obrigatória para quem quer perceber como funciona Angola.
Para quem o lê em 2020 fica a sensação de que uma análise aos anos posteriores ao que o livro cobre (acaba em 2012, na reeleição de JES) seria muito interessante.
Para quem o lê em 2020 fica a sensação de que uma análise aos anos posteriores ao que o livro cobre (acaba em 2012, na reeleição de JES) seria muito interessante.
May 24, 2017
Livro muito elaborado e com o cruzamento cuidado de várias fontes por parte do autor. Recomenda-se a quem quer conhecer melhor as origens do poder político e das elites em Angola.
March 14, 2023
A brilliant book that goes a long way in drawing together the existing literature on Angolan development and filling the (wide) gaps therein.
November 19, 2024
Livro sobre como é construído o Estado Angolano, baseado na liderança do JES e nas suas opções estratégicas. Interessante. Escrito, parece-me sob a forma dum trabalho académico.
April 25, 2016
Opinião: Acho o livro um bocado “desequilibrado”no sentido em que alguns capítulos são mais ricos em pormenores e informação que outros. Ás vezes a escrita e o texto tornam-se um bocado repetitivos e dá a ideia que estamos a (re)ler algo que já lemos em paginas anteriores.
No entanto, é um livro muito interessante e de leitura “quase obrigatória” para compreender a ascensão económica fulgurante de Angola (ou de alguns Angolanos) na última década. O Autor explica um pouco a súbita ascensão da economia angolana e o seu enquadramento no sistema internacional. Mostra como os oligarcas angolanos habitam o mundo da economia global de luxo. Demonstra igualmente a “interesseira complacência” dos países ocidentais que já nem sequer fingem censurar os cleptocratas..
Sinopse: Magnífica e Miserável retrata as mudanças vertiginosas que se vivem em Angola, um país incontornável como exportador de petróleo e diamantes, e cada vez mais influente em África. Com base em três anos de pesquisa e no seu conhecimento pessoal do país, Ricardo Soares de Oliveira descreve a súbita ascensão da economia angolana e o seu enquadramento no sistema internacional desde 2002, ano em que emergiu de uma das guerras civis mais longas e sangrentas de África. Num país historicamente marcado pelo tráfico de escravos, pela exploração colonial e pela guerra, os angolanos pretendem agora construir uma sociedade decente. Perante esse desafio, como tem agido o governo angolano, presidido por José Eduardo dos Santos desde 1979? Conseguirá o regime dar resposta às expectativas do seu povo?
No entanto, é um livro muito interessante e de leitura “quase obrigatória” para compreender a ascensão económica fulgurante de Angola (ou de alguns Angolanos) na última década. O Autor explica um pouco a súbita ascensão da economia angolana e o seu enquadramento no sistema internacional. Mostra como os oligarcas angolanos habitam o mundo da economia global de luxo. Demonstra igualmente a “interesseira complacência” dos países ocidentais que já nem sequer fingem censurar os cleptocratas..
Sinopse: Magnífica e Miserável retrata as mudanças vertiginosas que se vivem em Angola, um país incontornável como exportador de petróleo e diamantes, e cada vez mais influente em África. Com base em três anos de pesquisa e no seu conhecimento pessoal do país, Ricardo Soares de Oliveira descreve a súbita ascensão da economia angolana e o seu enquadramento no sistema internacional desde 2002, ano em que emergiu de uma das guerras civis mais longas e sangrentas de África. Num país historicamente marcado pelo tráfico de escravos, pela exploração colonial e pela guerra, os angolanos pretendem agora construir uma sociedade decente. Perante esse desafio, como tem agido o governo angolano, presidido por José Eduardo dos Santos desde 1979? Conseguirá o regime dar resposta às expectativas do seu povo?
June 22, 2017
O autor tinha muito material para elaborar um estudo interessante acerca de Angola. Após a parte introdutória bastante interessante, com uma explicação simples da história da guerra de Angola e de quais foram as partes intervenientes nos conflitos, o resto do livro torna-se confuso, muito repetitivo e aborrecido.
O autor aborda sistematicamente o sistema paralelo e o enriquecimento ilícito, refere alguns casos exemplificativos, mas o livro não passa do mesmo, página após página, capítulo após capítulo.
O autor aborda sistematicamente o sistema paralelo e o enriquecimento ilícito, refere alguns casos exemplificativos, mas o livro não passa do mesmo, página após página, capítulo após capítulo.
June 24, 2015
By far the best overview of Angola and Angolans since the end of the Angolan civil war. Should be read by anyone who has an interest in Angola. Much better than IMF annual reviews of Angola and/or US Government publications.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews