Carlos Santos obituary

My friend and former student, Carlos Santos, has died aged 79 of liver disease. He experienced life to the full and became regarded as a living repository" of the contemporary history of southern Africa.

Carlos's life was shaped by traumatic experiences. Aged 17, he was sent to learn English in a high school in the Transvaal, where he suffered as an outsider in Afrikaner society. Then, in 1973, during Frelimo's independence struggle against Portugal in Mozambique, he was arrested by the colonial security police and endured 22 days of solitary confinement in Machava prison, as well as physical maltreatment. It was alleged he had been involved in the destruction of a statue of the Portuguese dictator, Antonio de Salazar. Released for lack of evidence, he swore the truth would go with him to the grave.