LUANDA, Angola: The frame of Angola’s Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who died in Spain closing month, arrived in Luanda on Saturday, finishing a weeks-long feud over the repatriation of the ex-president’s corpse. A aircraft wearing the stays landed within the Angolan capital from Barcelona within the night time, AFP journalists on the scene stated. Just a few dozen folks had accumulated at Luanda’s airport to welcome the previous president’s casket.
“I used to be informed he used to be going to reach, so I got here to greet him. It used to be a pleasant welcome,” stated Wilson Miguel, a type of in attendance. A number of of dos Santos’ youngsters and his widow, Ana Paula, had been additionally provide. Ana Paula seemed teary as she were given right into a automobile out of doors the airport.
Some folks clapped because the coffin wrapped in an Angolan flag used to be taken away adopted through a convoy of black automobiles. Extra got here out at the streets to look at the convoy go through. Some cheered, others chanted “Ze Du!”, dos Santos’s nickname, photos posted on social media confirmed.
“We Angolans are proud to welcome the stays of president dos Santos, and that he could have a dignified funeral,” stated some other attendee, Telma Pilartes. Dos Santos, who dominated the oil-rich African country with an iron fist from 1979 to 2017, died in Barcelona on July 8 on the age of 79 after struggling a cardiac arrest.
Since then, the query of when and the place he’s going to be buried has pitted the Angolan executive and his widow in opposition to a few of his grownup youngsters. A Barcelona courtroom this week ordered his stays be brought to Ana Paula and granted authorisation for “the repatriation and world switch of (his) stays to Angola”.
Dos Santos’ 44-year-old daughter Tchize dos Santos filed an attraction to problem the verdict. However Josep Riba Ciurana, a legal professional for the widow informed AFP a pass judgement on had granted quick execution of the ruling, permitting the frame to go away Spain.
‘Ripped out of my palms’
“We’re the first to be shocked,” stated Tchize’s legal professional, Carmen Varela, including they learnt concerning the repatriation from tv and had now not been “notified of the rest”. Varela defined they sought after to carry the funeral in Barcelona as a result of returning to Angola isn’t an choice for some family members.
A number of of dos Santos’ youngsters have confronted an array of corruption investigations lately. The repatriation got here only a few days ahead of Angolans are because of head to the polls in a countrywide vote, and marks a small victory for President Joao Lourenco.
Lourenco used to be addressing a big crowd of supporters at a marketing campaign rally in Luanda because the frame’s impending go back used to be introduced. In an Instagram publish, Tchize accused the president of the use of her father’s corpse as a campaigning device, describing this as a “global disgrace”.
The just about four-decade tenure of dos Santos noticed participants of his circle of relatives capitalise at the country’s oil riches whilst maximum Angolans remained mired in poverty. When he stepped down in 2017, dos Santos passed over energy to Lourenco, the previous defence minister.
However Lourenco temporarily became on his erstwhile patron, unleashing an anti-corruption pressure to recoup billions he suspected have been embezzled below dos Santos, a marketing campaign that has centered the previous president’s circle of relatives.
“You took me to the altar and… I can now not be capable to take you on your closing (resting) position,” Dos Santos’ eldest daughter Isabel, who has confronted a slew of investigations into her multinational industry dealings, wrote in an Instagram publish. “They ripped you out of my palms.” – AFP