GPPi fellow denied entry into Angola

GPPi Fellow Ricardo Soares De Oliveira was denied entry into Angola in what ​“Público,” the leading Portuguese daily newspaper, calls a ​“bizarre episode.” On December 6, Soares De Oliveira, a fellow at Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, was held up by the immigration authorities at Luanda airport when entering the country in order to conduct research. After five hours of interrogation, the Angolan authorities claimed that Soares De Oliveira’s visa was forged and that under the Chicago Convention they had the right to withhold his passport. With his passport withheld by the Angolan authorities, Soares De Oliveira was forced to take the next flight back to Lisbon. Franz Heimer, a leading researcher on Angola, stated that ​“whatever the reason, this incident is worrisome.” Soares De Oliveira is an expert on oil and governance in the Gulf of Guinea and the author of the forthcoming Petroleum and Politics in the Gulf of Guinea (Hurst Publishers 2006). This month, he published Sobre as relações entre Portugal e Angola ao fim de trinta anos: um ensaio crítico, a critical appraisal of Portuguese-Angolan relations since independence.