Africa-Press – Angola. The death of the former President of the Republic, José Eduardo dos Santos, which took place on Friday, in Spain, Barcelona, was highlighted in the foreign press, describing him as “the man who led Angola for 38 years and leaves the legacy of a country at peace”.
In Portugal, Diário de Notícias highlighted the figure of José Eduardo dos Santos as “the man who pacified Angola and kept the MPLA in power. The legacy he leaves is of a country at peace”.
All life narratives praise the trajectory of the MPLA militant, whom he joined at the age of 16, in 1958, right in the beginnings of the party founded by Agostinho Neto and Viriato Clemente da Cruz. By that time, in the days of Liceu Salvador Correia, the young MPLA activist was already frequenting the clandestine corridors that opposed the regime. In 1961, he joined the outbreak of the fight against Portuguese colonization and in that same year he was one of the founders of the Youth of the MPLA, which he began to coordinate since his exile in the Republic of Congo (DRC).
The Spanish agency EFE also reported the death of the former Head of State: “The historic former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos dies in Barcelona”.
France 24 called him “the Angolan strongman has often described himself as an accidental president, taking the reins after Angola’s first leader, Agostinho Neto, died during cancer surgery in 1979”.
The Spanish daily El País described José Eduardo dos Santos as “one of Africa’s oldest rulers. He joined the MPLA when Angola was still a Portuguese colony. He became a confidant of the first independent President of Angola, Agostinho Neto, who died in 1979, four years after the proclamation of independence.
“Dos Santos took the scepter and installed himself in power. From there, he directed the evolution of his country, so closely linked to his person. He led the Army during the civil war, in one of the bloodiest and most prolonged conflicts on the African continent (1975- 2002),” the paper added.
In France, Le Monde recalls that “in his last speech, delivered on September 8, 2018, the former Angolan Head of State, José Eduardo dos Santos, said that he had accepted the mistakes of the past, without, however, specifying which ones. After leaving power after the elections, the septuagenarian, weakened by illness, ceded the presidency of the MPLA”.
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