Angolan police have prevented a small opposition party from going ahead with a protest in the capital Luanda against state corruption in the oil-rich former Portuguese colony, the Lusa news agency reported yesterday.

The Angolan Party for Democratic Progress (Padepa), which has no seats in parliament in the west African country, called the protest for last week Thursday to draw attention to official silence to denunciations of corruption which it had made to the nation's attorney general.

But the group of some 150 people who turned out at the designated meeting point for the protest were met by police who informed them that the demonstration could not take place, the agency said.

The group then dispersed.

Martinho Capelo, the press officer for Padepa, told Lusa the party had decided to abandon its protest in order to "prevent a situation that could have led to aggression by security forces."

He added the action had not been a failure as it proved the Angolan government had "violent means" at its disposal to prevent public displays of opposition.

A police spokesman told Lusa the protest "had been prohibited as such demonstrations could only occur after 7 pm on working days."

Padepa has organised several demonstrations in Luanda against government corruption and lack of democracy before, including a protest outside the US embassy in the Angolan capital in March which drew some 1 000 people.

In January US-based Human Rights Watch said Angola had squandered more than $4-billion in state oil revenue between 1997 and 2002 due to corruption and mismanagement.

Luanda denied the allegation, saying gaps in the statistical system "which are currently being corrected or differences in the process of accounting for revenues in the oil sector cannot serve as a pretext for the launch of a defamation campaign."

Angola is sub-Saharan Africa's largest oil exporter after Nigeria, producing more than 900 000 barrels a day. – Sapa-AFP.