Document #1286196
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Author)
According to a February 1996 report on
Angola published by the Organisation suisse d'aide aux
réfugiés (OSAR), compulsory military service was
abolished in May 1991 but re-instated in March 1993. Men and women
between the ages of 20 and 45 are expected to perform military
service but men between 20 and 24 years of age are usually forcibly
conscripted (ibid.). According to Human Rights Watch Arms Project
and Human Rights Watch report,
the government's attempt to draft 30,000 new recruits by July 1993
was not successful, and the Ministry of Defense decreed on April
21, 1994 the mobilization of youths born in 1974. The general
service for all males over twenty years of age is for three years.
They then remain in first-line reserve status to the age of
thirty-four, second-line reserve status until age thirty-nine, and
third-line reserve status until age forty-five (Nov. 1994, 26).
For additional information on military
service in Angola, please consult the attached documents.
Information on the consequences for "desertion" prior to completing
military service could not be found among the sources currently
available to the Research Directorate.
This Response was prepared after
researching publicly accessible information currently available to
the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is
not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any
particular claim to refugee status or asylum.
References
Human Rights Watch Arms Project and
Human Rights Watch/Africa. November 1994. Angola. Arms
Trade and Violations of the Laws of War since the 1992
Elections. New York: Human Rights Watch.
Organisation suisse d'aide aux
réfugiés. February 1994. Angola.
Attachments
Human Rights Watch Arms Project and
Human Rights Watch/Africa. November 1994. Angola. Arms
Trade and Violations of the Laws of War since the 1992
Elections. New York: Human Rights Watch, pp. 25-30.
Organisation suisse d'aide aux
réfugiés. February 1994. Angola, p. 22..