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Angola Prison System
Little information was available on the Angolan prison
system.
Prisons were primitive, and authorities apparently had
wide
discretion in dealing with prisoners. As in most Third
World
countries, prisons were designed for custodial and
punitive
purposes, not for rehabilitation. Detention facilities
were
overcrowded, diets were substandard, and sanitation and
medical
facilities were minimal. Intimidation, prolonged
interrogations,
torture, and maltreatment, especially of political
prisoners, were
common. Visits by families, friends, and others appeared
to be
restricted arbitrarily. Prisoners were sometimes held
incommunicado
or moved from one prison to another without notification
of family.
The ministries of state security and interior
reportedly
administered penal institutions, but their respective
jurisdictions
were unknown. The principal prisons were located in
Luanda, where
a maximum security institution was opened in early 1981,
and in
several provincial and local jurisdictions. The main
detention
centers for political prisoners were the Estrada de Catete
prison
in the capital and the Bentiaba detention camp in Namibe
Province.
The government-run detention center at Tari in Cuanza Sul
Province
was identified as one of the main rural detention centers.
Tari was
a former sisal plantation turned into a labor farm, where
prisoners
lived in barracks or in their own huts while doing forced
labor. In
1983 it was reported that Tari's prisoners included those
already
sentenced, awaiting trial, or detained without trial as
security
risks. Political reeducation, once an integral element of
rehabilitation, was not widely or consistently practiced.
Foreign
advisers, principally East German and Cuban security
specialists,
assisted in operating detention centers and in training
Angolan
state security service personnel. Elsewhere, East Germans
were
reported to be in charge of a political reeducation camp.
Data as of February 1989
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