{"id":230901,"date":"2022-07-09T20:16:12","date_gmt":"2022-07-09T18:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/former-angolan-president-dos-santos-dies?lang=en"},"modified":"2022-07-09T20:16:12","modified_gmt":"2022-07-09T18:16:12","slug":"former-angolan-president-dos-santos-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/former-angolan-president-dos-santos-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Angolan President Dos Santos Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Human<\/a>
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After years of prolonged illness, the former president of Angola, José Eduardo Dos Santos, died<\/a> on Friday in Barcelona, Spain at age 79. A controversial figure, Dos Santos will be missed by many Angolans who praised him as the architect of the peace negotiations that ended the country’s 27-year civil war in 2002. But to victims of human rights abuses during his 38-year rule, Dos Santos was a ruthless leader who did not hesitate to use law enforcement agencies and the judicial system<\/a> to intimidate his critics, independent journalists, and human rights defenders.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Before his retirement in 2017, Dos Santos was the second-longest serving president in Africa, having come to power in 1979. His rule was characterized by unprecedented economic crisis<\/a>, a very poor and unequal society<\/a>, and entrenched impunity for serious human rights violations, including unlawful killings<\/a>, politically motivated detentions, and crackdowns on the press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His administration was notorious for persecuting activists, including Rafael Marques<\/a>, who exposed a range of high-level corruption cases and human rights violations, and who also pursued sensitive investigations into human rights violations in Angola’s diamond areas. In 2015, the Dos Santos-led government arrested a group of academics, students, and artists who were attending a book club to discuss peaceful protests and democracy. The authorities charged<\/a> them with crimes of “preparatory acts of rebellion” and “plotting against the president and state institutions.”<\/p>\n

For decades, his administration ensured impunity for security force members implicated in excessive use of force<\/a>, torture, and enforced disappearance<\/a>, as well as mass killings. This includes those allegedly responsible for the 2015 massacre<\/a> of members of a Christian sect, known as the Seventh Day in the Light of the World, at Mount Sume in Huambo province. The same forces were accused<\/a> in 2012 by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of abuses against Congolese migrants, including beatings, torture, and unlawful anal and vaginal searches.<\/p>\n

The legacy of human rights abuses during the Dos Santos era still haunts Angolans today, five years after he left power. His successor, President João<\/em> Lourenço, has yet to introduce meaningful security sector reforms, emboldening forces to continue serious violations, including violent attacks<\/a> on activists and crackdown<\/a>s of peaceful protests.<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Human Rights Watch (HRW).<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: Africa Newsroom – APO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download logo After years of prolonged illness, the former president of Angola, José Eduardo Dos Santos, died on Friday in Barcelona, Spain at age 79. A controversial figure, Dos Santos will be missed by many Angolans who praised him as the architect of the peace negotiations that ended the country’s 27-year civil war in 2002. But to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4585],"class_list":{"0":"post-230901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-apo","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/former-angolan-president-dos-santos-dies.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}