The Angolan government announced his death on its Facebook page. Reports said he had been traveling to Spain for several years for cancer treatment. During his nearly four decades in power, from 1979 to 2017, Mr dos Santos led his resource-rich nation through seemingly endless conflict and an uneasy peace marked by corruption that funneled vast wealth to his family and to a favored few, while it left most of the Anglicans in miserable poverty. More than half a million people were killed in a civil war that displaced more than 3 million and left much of the country in ruins or mined, even as Angola became Africa’s second-largest oil producer and third-largest producer of diamonds. A fiercely private, even reclusive figure, Mr. dos Santos largely eschewed any cult of personality. Even his image on the country’s currency was partially hidden by another portrait. He gave few speeches or interviews, revealing little of his personal life. He offered a tight smile in official photos, none of which showed his office or homes. Mr dos Santos was eventually forced into exile – to a $7.2m mansion in Barcelona – after his successor, President João Lourenço, unexpectedly launched an anti-corruption crackdown that shut down the long-outlaw dos Santos family and its associates . The main target of the investigation was Isabel dos Santos, the former president’s eldest daughter and reputedly Africa’s richest woman. She was indicted in 2020 for money laundering, forgery and other financial crimes stemming from her tenure as head of Angola’s national oil company, Sonangol. Prosecutors relied heavily on a vast trove of leaked financial and business records disclosed by news organizations working with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington-based investigative nonprofit. The “Luanda Leaks” scandal linked Isabel dos Santos or her husband to more than 400 corporate entities in 41 countries and offshore tax havens. He owned luxury homes in London and Dubai and built a secret business empire worth an estimated $3.5 billion, but denied wrongdoing. Two of her half-siblings fled abroad. Half-brother José Filomeno dos Santos was arrested in 2018 and later sentenced to five years in prison for embezzling up to $500 million from the Angolan sovereign wealth fund he headed. In total, the Lourenço government estimated that more than $24 billion was looted during Mr. dos Santos’ rule, allegedly through the illegal diversion of oil revenues, favored government contracts, deep-seated patronage and other schemes. Mr. dos Santos “allowed his immediate and extended family and associates to dominate commercial activity in an economy that became stagnant. [and] a textbook kleptocracy,” said Alex Vines, head of the Africa program at Chatham House, a British think tank. Despite his subdued public image, Mr. dos Santos wielded almost unlimited power. He headed the armed forces, oversaw the security services and led the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA, the forces that have dominated almost every aspect of Angolan life since the Portuguese colony gained independence in 1975. At that point, Mr. Santos’ faction was supported by Cuba and the Soviet Union. The United States and apartheid-era South Africa backed the MPLA’s main military rival, known by its acronym UNITA, fueling a devastating superpower proxy war for control of Angola. The country’s civil war lasted longer than the Cold War, ending only in 2002. During his long tenure, Mr. Santos’ regime was based on what State Department reports described as arbitrary arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings, as well as an murky judicial process and limits on freedom of assembly, speech and expression. type. A shrewd negotiator, Mr. Santos achieved his political longevity by trading allies and ideologies as the world changed around him. As the Soviet Union began to collapse, the one-time Marxist-Leninist allowed for a partial market economy, allowing Chevron, Texaco and other American companies to tap Angola’s vast offshore oil fields, the country’s main source of income. In time, he abandoned Marxism-Leninism altogether, expelled the Cuban forces, and allowed the country’s first multiparty elections. The United States became Angola’s largest trading partner, and Mr. dos Santos made four working visits to the White House by 2004. Since then, an increasing share of the country’s oil has gone to China. As part of an oil loan program, China has invested more than $20 billion in roads, schools, power plants and other infrastructure in Angola, according to Portuguese news agency Lusa. However, the World Bank estimates that more than half of Angola’s more than 30 million people survive on less than $1.90 a day. Angola’s life expectancy remains among the lowest in the world and infant mortality ranks among the highest. José Eduardo dos Santos, the son of a mason, was born in Luanda, the capital, on August 28, 1942. His high grades secured him one of the few places available to African students at a school attended by children of the Portuguese elite. Amid growing anti-colonial sentiment on the continent, he enlisted in the MPLA army at the age of 20 determined to end four centuries of Portuguese rule. Like many African fighters, he found support in Moscow. He received a degree in petroleum engineering in 1969 from a college in Baku, Azerbaijan, then a Soviet republic. He served on the MPLA’s central committee when Portugal agreed to grant independence to Angola in 1975. The transitional government in Luanda collapsed when fighting broke out between the MPLA and rival rebel groups, including the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, or UNITA. With help from Havana and Moscow, the MPLA managed to secure a shaky new government under President Agostinho Neto, but his death from cancer in 1979 elevated Mr dos Santos – then a key cabinet member – to president, commander of the armed forces and head. of the People’s Assembly. Angola – a country twice the size of France – remained in dire straits. The currency was completely worthless and the civil war, often fought by child soldiers, destroyed infrastructure and sent millions fleeing. The multi-party elections of 1992, held under a ceasefire and under the supervision of the United Nations, marked the first real chance for peace. But when Jonas Savimbi, the US-backed leader of UNITA, lost decisively to Mr dos Santos, he falsely claimed fraud and reignited the war. Savimbi’s forces soon captured vast tracts of land and cut supply lines to the towns, causing starvation in some areas. As casualties and atrocities mounted, Alioune Blondin Béye, the UN special envoy to Angola, called it “the worst war in the world”. A peace deal was only reached after Angolan troops killed Savimbi in February 2002. Mr. dos Santos was married to Ana Paula dos Santos, a former fashion model and flight attendant. He was reported to have had four to eight children by various wives and relationships, but an official list of survivors was not immediately available. Suffering from poor health, Mr. dos Santos voluntarily stepped down in the 2017 parliamentary elections and handed power to Lorenzo, his former defense minister and political protégé. A year later, Mr dos Santos sat in stunned silence at an MPLA conference as his chosen successor denounced recent “corruption, nepotism, flattery and impunity” in a thinly veiled attack on the former ruling family. At the rally, Mr. dos Santos did not apologize, acknowledged unspecified mistakes and said he was leaving with his “head held high.”
