paradoxically ever-present on billboards and in people’s psyches but rarely seen, shunning public appearances, media interviews and foreign travel. on the rare occasion Dos Santos does leave his pink palace, it is with an enormous convoy that leaves Luanda’s traffic paralysed for hours afterwards. “He’s not like other African leaders in the way he dresses or behaves; he has always been very modest, almost shy. He’s not at all like Obiang or Mugabe” A complex or contradictory picture? In fairness, Dos Santos maybe has more sense than Mugabe or Obiang Nguema. But Angola had a Civil War, in which UNITA while seen as a proxy force (be it for the Western bloc, South Africa or Zaire) was also a legitimate resistance movement with mass support. Angola has never had a proper national reconciliation. But Dos Santos, like Obiang Nguema and unlike Mugabe, has the benefit of oil and mineral wealth, and prosperity buys him time, since living standards must surely be better than Equatorial Guinea or Zimbabwe.
Posted on: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 03:01:44 +0000
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