Dos Santos, Angola’s former president, dies at 79

Angolan presidency says Angola's former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled Africa's second biggest oil producer for nearly four decades, has died aged 79.

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Angolan presidency says Angola’s former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled Africa’s second biggest oil producer for nearly four decades, has died aged 79.

The announcement said dos Santos, who ruled Angola for almost 40 years from 1979, was “a statesman of great historical scale who governed … the Angolan nation through very difficult times.”

Dos Santos had mostly lived in Barcelona since stepping down in 2017 and he reportedly had been undergoing treatment there for health problems.

Angola’s current head of state, Joao Lourenco, announced five days of national mourning starting Friday, when the country’s flag will fly at half-staff and public events are canceled.

One of Africa’s longest serving leaders, dos Santos came to power four years after Angola gained independence from Portugal and became enmeshed in the Cold War as a proxy battlefield. His rule was marked by a brutal civil war lasting nearly three decades against US-backed UNITA rebels and a subsequent oil-fuelled boom.

His political journey spanned single-party Marxist rule in post-colonial years and a democratic system of government adopted in 2008. He voluntarily stepped down when his health began failing.

In public, dos Santos was unassuming and even appeared shy at times. But he was a shrewd operator behind the scenes.

He kept a tight grip on the 17th-century presidential palace in Luanda, the southern African country’s Atlantic capital, by distributing Angola’s wealth between his army generals and political rivals to ensure their loyalty.

The Angolan strongman frequently described himself as an accidental president, taking the reins after Angola’s first leader, Agostinho Neto, died during cancer surgery in 1979.


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