AFRICAWORLD MAN OF THE YEAR 2014

JOSÉ EDUARDO DOS SANTOS IS AFRICAWORLD MAN OF THE YEAR 2014

JOSÉ EDUARDO DOS SANTOS IS AFRICAWORLD MAN OF THE YEAR 2014

RETURN OF THE NATIVE - ANTONIO AGOSTINHO NETOMore on page 2

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President of the Republic of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos is AFRICAWORLD MAN OF THE YEAR 2014. The coveted award which was launched in 2012 had Alan Shatter TD, Ireland

former Minister of Defence, Equality and Justice as maiden winner while Presi-dent Uhuru Kenyatta of Ke-nya clinched it in 2013. In selecting the shy Angolan leader, the progress of An-

gola, a country that came out of fratricidal war comes into focus especially its post-conflict era achievements and in the consolidation of democracy.Continue on page 4

By Ukachukwu Okorie

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AfricaWorldnewspaper

Antonio Agostin-ho Neto was an enigma: father of a nation, inde-pendence fighter, poet, doctor, guer-rilla and statesman, Born near Catete town, one of the four communes (the others being: Bom Jesus, Cabiri and Cassoneca) in the municipality of Icolo e Bengo, Luanda Province, Angola, on Sep-tember 17, 1922.

Agostinho Neto’s family lived in Lu-anda where his father was Meth-odist pastor of a large church while his mother taught in a kindergarten school. Reserved but ambitious Agostinho Neto was one of the few Africans who received post pri-mary education at the famous Silva Correia High School. His zeal to further in aca-demic knowledge drove him to work as secretary to the Methodist bishop, of which stipends garnered bought his school books and supplies. Un-able to earn prop-erly in order to study medicine as he wanted, Neto went to work for the government health services in Luanda from 1944 to 1947.

While in the city, he joined in the formation of cul-tural associations which fanned the embers of African

Agostinho Neto directed the armed struggle of MPLA within Angola against the Portu-guese colonial rule. Traveling around the world: to Eu-rope, the Soviet Union, and many African countries, he mobilized sup-port for his orga-nization. In 1974, a coup in Portugal which toppled the Salazar dictator-ship opened the way for Neto, as the head of MPLA, to start negotia-tions with Portugal and other Angolan liberation move-ments which led to the indepen-dence of Angola on November 11, 1975, when he was sworn in as the first president of the People’s Republic of Angola.

Neto immediately went to work to lay a solid founda-tion from the ruins of an old colonial empire. Beside the mass departure of Portuguese expa-triates who wanted the new state to collapse, rival liber-ation movements backed by foreign powers refused to recognize the MPLA government and continued to wage war. How-ever, Neto’s sense of duty to his lov-ing people and country drove him on, as it had always done, in his teeth-ing years as a lead-er and humanitar-ian.

Antonio Agostinho Neto encouraged intellectual pur-suits while advo-cating equality and the general well-being of his

nationalism at the time due to prohi-bition of political organizations by the Portuguese co-lonial authorities. During those years, cultural movement grew swiftly under the motto of “Let’s learn about An-gola.”

A breakthrough came in 1947 when Agostinho Neto, at the age of 25, left for Portugal having saved up money to study. While in Lisbon, he received a schol-arship from the Methodist church in the United States, to continue his desired medi-cal studies at the Faculty of Medi-cine, ancient Uni-versity of Coimbra ( Established in 1290, it is one of the oldest universi-ties in continuous operation in the world). In Lisbon, he joined other African students, taking active part in opposing the Salazar dictator-ship in Portugal. While studying and partaking in struggles far away in Lisbon, stronger dreams illuminat-ed Agostinho’s life: the independence of his homeland Angola.

He was arrested and incarcerated on many occasions for participation in protests, organiz-ing petitions and writing poetry. Agostinho’s poetry centered on the harsh conditions of African life un-der Portuguese colonialism and the quest of his

people for free-dom and justice. With his writing, Neto became well-known as a leading African intellectual and nationalist. While in prison, fa-mous writers, art-ists, and liberal pol-iticians petitioned and secured his release, enabling him complete his medical studies in 1958, which had been interrupted.

In 1959, after working as a gy-necologist in a Lisbon hospital for a short time, Neto returned to Angola with his Portu-guese wife, Maria Eugenia. On Arrival in Luanda, Neto set up a medical practice where he welcomed all, however poor and low the patient’s background may be. While serving his people through medical practice, he kept writing. His poetic thoughts expressed his firm belief in the vic-tory of African nationalistic spirit. A line in a stanza of one of his po-ems say “No one can stop the rain.” At the same time, Neto assumed the leadership of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), founded in Luanda in 1956.

In June 1960, he was jailed again by the local PIDE (secret police) af-ter being arrested by the Chief in his Luanda medical office. He was sub-sequently sent to prison in Lisbon, and later confined

to the island of Sao Antón, and then Santiago Island, both in the Cape Verde archipela-go. Nonetheless, Agostinho Neto continued prac-ticing medicine among the people of Cape Verde, his comrades and cadres from vari-ous Portuguese colonies who were there on exile.

Soon, a campaign was mounted to free Agostinho Neto, who was made honorary president of the MPLA, and the Por-tuguese colonial authorities were forced to release him in 1962, order-ing him instead, to live in Portugal.

The MPLA and the Portuguese anti-fascists devised an escape plan for Neto, who es-caped Portugal with his wife and children, and after a hazardous jour-ney, arrived in the Congo Leopold-ville (present-day Kinshasa), where his MPLA operated from. In December, Neto was elected MPLA president at the organization’s national confer-ence. Then in 1963, the MPLA head-quarters was trans-ferred from Kin-shasa, where the government had become a Mobutu Sese Seko instru-ment, to Braz-zaville, capital of the former French Congo, where a more tolerant gov-ernment, presided over by Massemba Debat, was in pow-er.

Until 1974,

Antonio Agostinho NetoBy

Ukachukwu Okorie

02 |December 25 - 2014 RETURN OF THE NATIVE

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Angolan people. During the 1960s, many volumes of his poetry were published. Some

were translated and published in other languages, including English. Unfortunately, Dr.

Antonio Agostinho Neto, who deserv-edly been called “the father of mod-ern Angola”, had

his work cut short by his death from cancer on Septem-ber 10, 1979.

MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PERFECT PEACE

December 25 - 2014 | 03RETURN OF THE NATIVE








José Eduardo dos Santos was born on 28 August, 1942 in the district of Sambizanga in Luanda. In 1961, Eduardo dos San-tos, a militant na-tionalist, joined the Movimento Popu-lar de Libertação de Angola (Popular Movement for the Liberation of An-gola; MPLA), which supported inde-pendence from Portugal.

After the Luanda Uprising of 4 Feb-ruary 1961, Eduar-do dos Santos left Angola with his friends to undergo training with the MPLA, which went into exile .

He was later cho-sen by the move-ment to study in USSR, specializing in the problems of the oil industry, an important sector of Angola’s economy today, receiving degrees in petro-leum engineering and in radar com-munications from the Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute in Baku, Azerbaijan. After undergoing fur-ther military train-ing, he returned to Angola, becoming the head of the MPLA’s communi-cations machinery, which coordinated links with all the MPLA battlefronts.After indepen-dence, he became Angola’s foreign minister, then the first vice-premier, and later, the Min-ister of Planning in the Government.

the path towards a sustainable recon-ciliation and pacifi-cation of the spirits and consciousness, which again one might accept the fact of it being a long process thus not being possible to materialize all the expectations immediately, bear-ing in mind the damage that had been imposed on the populace and the infrastructure for twenty seven years and even more, as far as the civil war, which erupted after in-dependence from Portugal is con-cerned.

However, right now many ben-efits which peace and security can afford are already granted to the entire population. The climate of peace and security has allowed the gradual restoration of infrastructure, like roads, bridges, industry and the construction of social housing in several regions of the country. Fami-lies, the communi-ties as a whole be-ing the ones who mostly suffered from the horrors of the war, still bear with them a great deal of traumas, susceptible to pre-vail in the course of their lives if not promptly and ade-quately dealt with. This relates to in-ternally displaced people and as well as those who due to the conflict find themselves set-tling in other coun-tries around the world, who are in the process of ben-efiting from gov-ernment policies

While the Ango-lan fratricidal war raged on, leader-ship beckoned on Dos Santos after the sudden death of Antonio Agostinho Neto.

Until April 2002, at the signing of the Luena Memo-randum of Un-derstanding be-tween the Angola government of the Popular Move-ment for the Lib-eration of Angola (MPLA) and the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), in which comprised of a series of previ-ous failed peace agreements, and was drafted as an addendum to the extensive Lusaka Protocol of 1994, Eduardos dos San-tos steered excel-lently a war rav-aged nation-state.Being Angola’s Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time war broke out, helped him play a significant role in making use of his extensive contacts to obtain diplo-matic recognition for the MPLA Gov-ernment.

Despite shoulder-ing a onerous task of building a new nation-state, due to the fact that Angola had never known peace since independence, Dos Santos played a formidable and strategic role in the southern Af-rica region. The AfricaWorld Man of the Year played an important role

in ensuring contin-ued Angolan sup-port for the armed struggle embarked by South African cadres during the quest for freedom. Angola even host-ed Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) camps and fought along-side MK soldiers against the South African apartheid security forces. In appreciation of his support and regional influence, the rainbow coun-try awarded Dos Santos an honor-ary member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foun-dation.

Today, Angola is widely acclaimed as a country of stability, economic growth and de-mocracy. Lest we forget, these were achieved due to peace after one of Africa’s bloodiest and long-lasting civil war which was fought almost con-stantly for 27 years.

After the Luena Memoradum of April 4th, 2002, Eduardo dos San-tos still had the “Cabinda Peace 2006” which re-solved issues concerning the parallel separatist conflict in the en-clave of Cabinda, of which had start-ed in 1994. This conflict formally came to end with the Memorandum of Understanding which was signed by the MPLA An-golan government and one faction of the rebel group

FLEC (Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave) on 1 August 2006.

If one goes back to 1961, when the anti-colonial forces pitched battle against the Portu-guese regime, it could be summed up that Angola has never endured a period of stability for long. A war that claimed over 500 thousand civilian lives, thousands of military person-nel on both sides as well as untold number of the wounded and dis-appeared. There were over 4 mil-lion displaced, and the fact that every family were direct-ly affected by the impact of the war cannot be ignored.

Although, with the advent of inde-pendence in 1975, many would argue that in a way, An-gola claimed inde-pendence with the end of the hostili-ties at the wake of the Luena Memo-randum of 2002, which eventu-ally brought back joy and hope for many Angolans. But what about the Cabinda 2006 Agreement? Inter-national observers and analysts must give kudos to the man who talks less but do more - Jose Eduardo dos San-tos.

With the advent of peace, inroads were set to con-sistently project the country on

José Eduardo dos Santos is AFRICAWORLD MAN OF THE YEAR 2014

04 |December 25 - 2014 MAN OF THE YEAR 2014

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on social re-settle-ment and poverty alleviation pro-grammes. Locally, these days, people can afford the free-dom to safely and peacefully travel in the either newly built or refurbished roads. These are benefits of stability and peace.

On the other hand, the restoration of the infrastructure has brought by the rise of domestic and foreign in-vestment oppor-tunities. Business ventures as well as advances in sec-tors which, hith-erto are unfamiliar to the conflict ter-rain have set in. Now Angola talks robustly about industry, agricul-ture, tourism and so forth.

After steering war ravaged Angola onto the path of peace and stabil-ity, Dos Santos has grown to an Inter-national Statesman on the implemen-tation of peace. Currently, he leads the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), an intergovernmen-tal organization

gentina, Austra-lia, Luxembourg, Republic of Korea and Rwanda. An-gola and other new Council mem-bers will take their seats on 1 January 2015. With their new seat, Angola will be better posi-tioned to play vital role in efforts for global peace es-pecially in steering the leadership of the Great Lakes.

The political sta-bility and path to prosperity created by President Edu-ardo dos Santos has energized An-golans abroad. As a matter of fact, Angolans back home and abroad cherish the re-wards that peace and security has offered and there-fore render due homage to their calm and calcula-tive leader, know-ing fully well that the future is bright for the former por-tuguese colony.

More reports on Angola and Afri-caWorld Man of the Year 2014 will unfold in all our news sources on-line especially in the social media as 2015 set in.

of African coun-tries in the African Great Lakes region. The 12 Member States of the body include: Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Re-public of Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Republic of South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia. In a testimony by United States Spe-cial Envoy for the Great Lakes and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Russell D. Feingold before the Con-gressional Senate Foreign Relations Committee, titled : Prospects for Peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Great Lakes Region,

the Congressman spoke of Eduardo dos Santos re-gional efforts. “... I believe one of the most promising signs in the Great Lakes region is the budding dialogue taking place under the stewardship of Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, who as-sumed the chair of the ICGLR on Janu-ary 15 of this year.

During his first day as the ICGLR chair, President dos San-tos convened the Presidents of the D.R.C., Rwanda, Uganda, and South Africa to discuss the FDLR, an armed group led by Rwandan geno-cidaires which has plagued eastern Congo and Rwan-da for more than a decade. My fel-low envoys and I, as well as regional leaders, saw in this meeting the po-tential start to the needed broader dialogue. Partici-pating presidents were particularly complimentary of dos Santos’ role in the process. We strongly support and encourage Angola’s role in fa-cilitating a region-ally owned and initiated dialogue within the context of the Framework and stand ready to support Presi-dent dos Santos in furthering it. We hope the ICGLR mechanism under Angolan leader-ship will expand to cover issues such as the return of M23 combatants from Rwanda and Uganda, border security, ethnic

tension, domestic challenges to the voluntary and sus-tainable return of refugees and in-ternally displaced persons, and re-gional economic cooperation. We welcomed Angola Foreign Minister Chicoti’s recent trip through the Great Lakes region and Angola’s pledge of financial support to the ICGLR Ex-ecutive Secretariat to strengthen its technical and organizational capacity, as indi-cators of Angola’s commitment to its new role as Chair of the organiza-tion.”

On the 18 October 2014, at the Sixty-ninth session,

25th Meeting (AM) of the United Na-tions General As-sembly, Angola, Malaysia, Venezu-ela, New Zealand and Spain were elected to serve as non-permanent members of the Security Council for the next two years.

Those elected will fill seats to be vacated on 31 December by Ar-

December 25 - 2014 | 05MAN OF THE YEAR 2014







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AFRICAWORLD MAN OF THE YEAR 2014

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