Boavista residents still in limbo

As police prepare to resume demolishing homes in Luanda's inner city suburb of Boavista this weekend, development workers in the capital say they are concerned about living conditions at three sites outside of Viana, where the government wants to resettle about 60,000 people.

Luandan authorities began evicting residents from Boavista last Sunday, citing health and safety hazards. However, the residents, some of whom have lived in Boavista since the 1960s, say they are being uprooted without consultation and moved to settlements between 15 km and 30 km outside of Viana - which is about 45 km south of Luanda - from where they will not be able to support themselves. Some residents work for the local municipality, while others are traders or work in the capital. Many of the community's children are enrolled in nearby schools. Two people were killed and four others were injured when police and soldiers began demolishing the houses more than a week ago.

One development worker told IRIN on Wednesday that while one resettlement site was partially prepared, the second was still being cleared and the third had not been cleared at all. He said the government had provided some tents, a generator and temporary lighting, water storage tanks and large tents which could be used as schools, but added that the facilities would not be adequate.

"Some housing plots are being prepared and a partially-complete showhouse stands at the site," the worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told IRIN. The government has said it plans to provide houses on 400 sqm plots for the Boavista residents who move to Viana. But, said the worker: "I don't think any of this is realistic. The main problem is that there is absolutely no employment in this area. It's a rural area and even if they (the Boavista community) took up subsistence farming, they would need at least two hectares of land per family."

He said though, that while the brutal manner in which the Boavista community was relocated was cause for concern, the suburb of Boavista itself needed to be upgraded and the government could not be faulted for thinking so. "The area is definitely dangerous. For erosion, environmental and sanitation reasons the area should be upgraded ... there are a number of ways of upgrading which could involve people owning some stake in the process," he said. This would inevitably involve the displacement of people.

Meanwhile, freelance journalist and Open Society Foundation representative Rafael Marques told IRIN that conditions in Boavista were no better than conditions in many other Luandan suburbs, where the government had not acted. He claimed that residents were being removed to make way for an upmarket mixed residential/commercial district which would not benefit Boavista's community. He said that the state oil company Sonangol had outlined plans in its March newsletter for a development which included a swimming pool, cable television connections, pubs and restaurants. This he said, would price the new development well out of reach of many of Boavista's residents, some of whom were being forced from big, well-built homes into tents shared with other families.

Residents have also voiced concerns about security around the new settlement, where only a few families have moved so far. In addition, with school exams around the corner, they are concerned about their children and about the daily costs of travelling to Luanda. For now they have put their faith in David Mendes, a human rights lawyer who is taking the government to court, saying that the evictions are illegal because the correct procedures have not been followed.