Special Report on land rights

As millions of displaced Angolans arrive back home after a devastating 27-year war, arguments over land ownership and access are on the rise, raising concerns over the potential for serious conflict. Aid and humanitarian agencies are worried that the poor in both rural and urban areas, already in a vulnerable position, will have insufficient access to the benefits of the government's proposed land law, which has itself come in for criticism. Already, displaced people are returning to their land, sometimes after years away, to discover that others are farming it. Meanwhile, in the big cities, properties occupied by the poor are being eyed by both business and the government as a real-estate opportunity. "It is a very complex situation and there are not yet enough capabilities and resources to deal with that complexity," said Paolo Groppo, land tenure systems analysis officer of the Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) Rural Development Department. "It's a confusing and difficult situation. If an appropriate legal framework is not established, there is a possibility of increasing conflict, which could lead to a more serious problem," Groppo added. In 2001, the government began discussing ways to update and modernise existing land tenure legislation which dates back to 1992. Designed to make it easier for the relatively well off to secure urban housing property rights, critics charge it does little to address land held informally. LACK OF PROTECTION Non-governmental organisations (NGO) are calling on the government to hold fire on the bill until they can better gauge its impact in both poor rural communities and in city-centre and suburban slums. And there are serious concerns that the fragile justice system is not strong enough to implement the law in an equitable way. Angola does not have to look far back into its history to see the devastating results of land conflict. The appropriation of land by Portuguese colonists in the years before independence in 1975 was one of the main drivers of discontent that sparked the liberation war. "Have Angolans not learned their lesson?" asked Fern Teodoro, director of World Learning, part of a coalition of NGOs known as the Land Network or Rede Terre. "Today the same thing is happening – will this be another huge conflict in the future?" Rede Terre has begun collecting case studies on land issues in Huila province, in the south of the country, where it alleges prime agricultural ground is being taken away from the poor. "Each day the ministers and the military people are occupying more land. One day there's a fence, the next day the people wake up and the fence has moved a little bit wider," said a report by Rede Terre. "These people feel really unprotected." When the bulldozers come, the local communities have neither the confidence nor the capability to fight their corner. "They don't have enough lawyers, they don't have the means," the report noted. Some people were driven from their homes by Angola's long civil war, whereas others stayed and farmed their land, creating a hugely complex and sensitive problem. "What happens when the owner comes back and says, 'this is my land'? How do you resolve that conflict? They've both got a point, so what do you do?," asked Teodoro. She argues that customary or traditional law is being ignored, and that the situation in Huila is just the tip of the iceberg. "This is happening all over the place. It's a huge problem everywhere and nobody is dealing with it. It's very sad," she said. Nor is the problem confined to agricultural areas. In the major cities, especially around the capital, Luanda, many families who fled fighting in the countryside occupied or bought land on the informal market from people who typically had no legal title. Earlier this month, London-based rights group Amnesty International (AI) called for a moratorium on compulsory evictions, claiming that more than 5,000 people had been forcibly removed from their homes in three incidents between 2001 and 2003. AI said people had been killed after police opened fire, and others beaten by members of the Luanda provincial government's eviction and demolition squad. NGOs fear there could be more clashes to come. "This could become a major point of conflict in the future here, if people's occupation rights are ignored," said Allan Cain, director of Development Workshop, a non-profit organisation that helps people living in settlements with shelter, water and sanitation. "They've invested in their land, their houses, and if they lose right of access, they are excluded both socially and economically," he added. [See full Interview with Development Workshop director on land rights] INFLUENCING GOVERNMENT POLICY The irony is that land conflict in Angola appears to be a peacetime problem. Allan Cain commented: "Under the constitution the land belongs to the state, but people have occupation surface rights. At the present time, many occupy without title, but it's not illegal. They have some protection; some recognition of occupation under the civil code. Under the first draft of the land law, residents in peri-urban areas would lose more than they would gain. It risks annulling all these informal occupations and making all of those people who occupy land informally, illegal. That's a big concern." Finding the answer will not be easy, but aid organisations are cautiously hopeful that the problem can be solved – provided they and the international community are allowed to help the government in its efforts to build a coherent policy. "It is possible to have a greater impact if we propose a coherent and integrated approach. We have an opportunity to influence this process, which helps to create a more informed and balanced decision-making process," Groppo said. "We are lobbying for a more holistic approach – how to combine the customary rights with the so-called policy rights - linking security of tenure with issues of development," he explained. While stressing that it was the Angolan government's decision whether to enlist outside help, Groppo said the international community could potentially provide valuable technical assistance and financial resources. "The risk is that Angola ends up with a set of inconsistent laws, which bring confusion into the implementation. Without sufficient officers in the provinces, with conflicting laws on how to issue titles and protect those titles, without an adequate registry, without sufficient judicial capacity, this would be a mess," he said. "The best scenario is that the international community becomes aware of this window to intervene and helps work towards a coherent intervention." Recognising their land rights could in itself help improve the lot of the 70 percent of Angola's 13 million population who live in abject poverty, whether they live in the countryside or in towns. "One of the sources of investment in the sector will come from the people themselves, if their rights are recognised," said Cain. "People invest in turning a tin-sheet house into a concrete house and in upgrading their land ... Regularising land rights will unblock a lot of people's own capital for improving their housing conditions." It could also benefit the government by boosting tax revenue and, in turn, providing resources for basic services like water and sanitation. "It's also an opportunity for the state because in that process it has an opportunity to impose local rates and taxes, and transfer duties or titling duties," Cain said. That, however, is a long-term goal. In the meantime, the best solution would be for the international community to support Angola's efforts in addressing the land issue with financial and technical assistance. The government is presently mulling the second draft of its controversial land bill, but cracking the problem is going to be a slow process. "A reasonable time frame for Angola to get to grips with this issue is, in my opinion, 10 or 15 years," Groppo said. "That's because of the institutional setup, the overlapping mandates of the ministries dealing with land, a lack of institutional capacity, and the need to recreate trust and confidence. These are things which cannot be done overnight. "It may seem extremely slow for the international community, but here, 10 or 15 years is nothing," he added. ANGOLA: Interview with Development Workshop director on land rights