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Angola's former President José Eduardo dos Santos, who has died aged 79, has left a legacy that will continue to divide opinion. He was Angola's second president after independence, and ruled the mineral-rich state for almost four decades. In part, Dos Santos will be remembered for ending a long-running civil war in the early 2000s, which led to his supporters dubbing him the "architect of peace". But in the later period of his term in office, he was linked to high levels of corruption and human rights violations. And it is these latter years, according to British journalist Victoria Brittain, that risk overshadowing one of the most important, and crucial outcome of his presidency, which was his support for the liberation struggles in southern Africa. Ms Brittain, who has lived and worked for many years in Africa and has written extensively about Angola and its history, told Focus on Africa's Bola Mosuro, that without Angola's intervention together with Cuba, change in South Africa and the ending of apartheid might not have happened, or would certainly have been much later. Photo: An image of former Angolan President and MPLA leader, José Eduardo dos Santos, at a party congress in 2017. Credit: Reuters.