Middle East & Africa | A legacy of looting

José Eduardo dos Santos, who plundered Angola, has died

But the former president’s corrupt legacy lives on

CAPTION CORRECTS AGE - FILE - Angola's President Jose Eduardo dos Santos looks on during a banquet hosted by his Portuguese counterpart Anibal Cavaco Silva at the Ajuda palace in Lisbon, Tuesday, March 10, 2009. Former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos has died in a clinic in Barcelona, Spain after an illness, the Angolan government said. He was 79 years old and died following a long illness, the government said Friday, July 8, 2022 in an announcement on its Facebook page. (Andre Kosters/Pool Photo via AP, File)
|Johannesburg

AFRICA HAS endured more than its share of grotesque dictators. Mobutu Sese Seko guzzled pink champagne in a jungle Versailles built from his plundering of Congo. Sani Abacha, who looted Nigeria’s oil money, was allegedly poisoned while in the company of three prostitutes. Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the self-proclaimed Emperor of Central Africa, fed his opponents to animals. Robert Mugabe, reserved by comparison, dressed in Savile Row suits while decrying the perfidious British, and brought in North Koreans to train his soldiers to massacre his opponents.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “A legacy of looting”

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