Africa-Press – Angola. Beijing has broken its silence on the trial involving Generals Kopelipa and Dino and the China International Fund and warns that there is a risk of a “diplomatic crisis”. In other words, it recognizes its impact on the calculation of Angola’s debt to China.
The indefinite postponement of the trial of generals Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias (Kopelipa) and Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento (Dino), where another of the defendants is the China International Fund (CIF) Angola, is indicative of the diplomatic turmoil currently surrounding relations between Luanda and Beijing.
The two generals are accused of influence peddling, money laundering, document forgery, criminal association and abuse of power, and a possible conviction could call into question the actual amount of Angola’s debt to China.
On March 31 of this year, the Supreme Court of Angola had postponed the trial for seven days due to the absence of any CIF representative in the courtroom, with the judge, Anabela Valente, giving seven days for this to happen, warning that, as an alternative, she would appoint an official defender. This last scenario did not materialize and on April 14 the trial was postponed “indefinitely”.
China’s unease, reflected in a deterioration in bilateral relations that culminated in João Lourenço’s decision to cancel his presence in September 2024 at the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOFAC) held in Beijing, had been silent until now. This situation changed with public statements made by a Chinese government official to four Angolan newspapers, published on April 17.
The director for Africa at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yu Yong, quoted by the newspaper Valor Económico, warned of the risk that the sentence in this trial could be “influenced” by external interests. To this extent, Yu Yong appeals for “rationality and objectivity” in the trial of Chinese businessman Yiu Haiming, who represents CIF, adding that his government is following the trial with some expectation, “due to possible interference” from other countries.
Yu Yong, according to Valor Económico, admits a “diplomatic crisis” in the event of a “biased trial” of the Chinese businessman. For the diplomat, the conduct of Chinese companies and citizens should be assessed in the same way as that of Angolans. “They are neither superior nor inferior, they cannot be privileged or further disadvantaged”, he warned.
The possible conviction of Generals Kopelipa and Dino, as well as of CIF, will be a fundamental weapon for the Angolan government to return to China with the aim of discussing the issue of the actual amount of the debt, as Negócios reported earlier this month. If it is proven that the two generals misappropriated loans granted by Chinese institutions that were intended for the State or public companies, this will mean that the door is opened to invoking the argument that Angola cannot be held responsible for the debt burdens that resulted from them.
Kopelipa and Dino, the two main henchmen of the former President of the Republic, José Eduardo dos Santos (1942-2022), who handed over power to João Lourenço in 2017, have now become means to achieve a more comprehensive end, that of proving that the Angolan State cannot be held responsible for the payment of a debt relating to amounts that never reached the public coffers.
This could be just a theoretical debate, but the statements made by the director for Africa at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs show that it is much more than that. In other words, Beijing sees this possibility as a real threat and, breaking the golden rule of media silence that it recurrently uses, has now felt the need to resort to the media to warn the Angolan government that the scenario of a “diplomatic crisis” is real.
Angola’s debt to China stands at 13.45 billion euros and the plans of the government led by João Lourenço include paying it off completely by 2028. The debt service that Luanda will have to pay Beijing for 2025 is estimated at 3.6 billion euros.
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