Angola bids solemn farewell to ex-president dos Santos

AFP | Angolans and world leaders gathered on Sunday for the state funeral of former president José Eduardo dos Santos.

The memorial service was held at the historic palm tree-lined Praça da República in the seaside capital Luanda on what would have been dos Santos’s 80th birthday.

It comes days after his party, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) – saw its worst results at the polls in the most hotly contested elections since independence.

Dos Santos – who died last month following a cardiac arrest – will be remembered as a “statesman and devoted pan-Africanist,” former Namibian president Sam Nujoma, 93, told the hundreds of mourners in attendance.

A choir sang dirges while flags flew at half-mast around the square, which houses an imposing concrete mausoleum where the country’s founding president Agostinho Neto is interred.

Dignitaries including South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi and Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa filled rows of white and gold seats.

Josiane dos Santos, the late leader’s daughter, sobbed while recalling her father’s love for music.

During Angola’s war for independence, the young “Zedu”, as he was called, began his career as a revolutionary by recording LPs that encouraged the fight against colonizer Portugal while he took refuge in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, she said.

Architect of peace

Dos Santos was referred to by many, particularly MPLA members, as the “architect of peace” who brought democracy and multiparty politics to the country.

Dos Santos led the country from 1979 to 2017 under the MPLA banner. His party notched up its worst electoral performance in last week’s polls.

After 97 percent of the results were tallied, an initial count showed the MPLA had won 51.07 percent of the vote, with 44.05 percent for the party’s main rival, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

Dos Santos died at a clinic in Barcelona, and some of his children were at loggerheads with the government and his estranged wife over where and when he was to be buried. But a Spanish court last week ruled that the body be returned to his wife in Angola.

Under dos Santos’s tenure, Angola became one of Africa’s top oil producers. While dos Santos and his family reaped vast wealth from Angola’s resources, most of the country’s 33 million people remain among the poorest in the world.

As one of the longest-ruling African leaders, he established himself as a political heavyweight beyond the country’s borders.

Weakened by age and illness, he stepped down in 2017, appointing João Lourenço as his successor, who now stands to gain a second term in office.

Dos Santos passed a series of laws before his departure from government, granting himself broad judicial immunity.