On November 21, 2017, AfroAmerica Network pointed to a major event that appeared to signal the dawn of a new era: President Joao Lourenco, nicknamed "JLo", hand-picked by then President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos to replace him, won presidential elections. He was viewed as the continuation of the Dos Santos' legacy. Less than 3 years later, on August 14, 2020, Jose Filomeno Dos Santos, son of former President Dos Santos, has been sentenced to five years in prison for fraud, embezzlement and traffic of influence. How did Angola and Angolans get there?.
On February 3, 2017, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, then one of the longest serving African leaders, confirmed that he will not run in the presidential election due in August 2017. Several critics contacted by AfroAmerica Network, then, had wondered whether, with Jose Eduardo Santos out, Angola was entering the after Jose Eduardo dos Santos' dynasty period or rather a transition towards a new Dos Santos' era (see AfroAmerica Network: Angola's new President Joao Lourenco Sacks Jose Eduardo Dos Santos' Daughter: Is the End of African Dynasties Getting Near?)
Angola: A New Era
It happend to be a new era: Angola's new President Joao Lourenco took action that was so significant that Angolans hailed it as the beginning of a revolution. He sacked the feared police boss and the intelligence chief, after removing, a week earlier, Isabel dos Santos, Jose Eduardo Santos' s daughter as the head of the state oil firm. President Joao Lourenco replaced Isabel with an official she had fired previously. He then started to release most political prisoners jailed under Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
Rights groups and independent observers had accused President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of personalized and autocratic rule and sometimes of corruption, after his daughter Isabel dos Santos was appointed head of the state oil company, Sonangol and his son, Jose Filomeno, as the chairman of Angola's Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Since then, Jose Filomeno Dos Santos, 42, has been under investigations and trials, accused of illegally transferring $500 million outside the country with the help of 3 accomplices. He was tried by a Luanda court for embezzlement when he was head of the Angolan Sovereign Wealth Fund between 2013 and 2018.
The court case said that with the transfer, the four defendants were able to embezzle around $1.5 billion. Angola's Supreme Court handed a five-year jail sentence to Jose Filomeno dos Santos, but dropped the money laundering case.
A Typical case of Nepotism and Kleptocracy by African Dictators
The case against Jose Filomeno, is another “illustration of the full cycle of kleptocracy”, which goes as follows: They loot their countries, swim in a sea of wealth and orgies farther from their homelands, mostly in Western foreign lands, especially the United States, while their people are starving or dying from easily preventable diseases, and their killing squads are brutally murdering those who dare to speak up against corruption, embezzlement and tyranny (see AfroAmerica Network: Kleptocrat Dictators and Sons: US vs. Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso)
@AfroAmerica Network, 2020
