Corruption is bad. The detailed evidence in Luanda Leaks has rightly gained global news coverage. As has already been publicized and common knowledge for years in and outside of Angola, the actions by Isabel dos Santos (hereafter, IS) exacerbated poverty and injustice, were facilitated by ‘legitimate Western institutions’ (see here, here and here), and are part of wider sets of problematic practices and actors in Angola.
Luanda Leaks is also a valuable opportunity to reflect on how to improve anti-corruption work. Two areas stand out: understanding corruption’s relations with other development challenges, and ensuring anti-corruption work symbiotically bolsters global justice, equality, and participatory democracy. (The following comments also respond to wider and longer trends in global news and scholarship, and are not all specific to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and their crucial, welcomed work.)
On the first point, commentators must clearly situate corruption in relation to Angola’s utterly overwhelming long history of globalized armed conflict, rather than use it to overshadow that history. Various articles, as well as ICIJ’s key summary and their timeline, could be read as incorrectly suggesting that Angola’s poverty is largely a result of Isabel dos Santos’ corruption: “Two decades of unscrupulous deals made Isabel dos Santos Africa’s wealthiest woman and left oil- and diamond-rich Angola one of the poorest countries on Earth” (see also here, here, here and here).
