{"id":24156,"date":"2016-03-26T03:20:42","date_gmt":"2016-03-26T03:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/savimbi-sons-lose-defamation-case-against-firm\/"},"modified":"2016-03-26T03:20:23","modified_gmt":"2016-03-26T03:20:23","slug":"savimbi-sons-lose-defamation-case-against-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/savimbi-sons-lose-defamation-case-against-firm\/","title":{"rendered":"Savimbi sons lose defamation case against firm"},"content":{"rendered":"

{A French court has rejected a case in which the family of late Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi sued the makers of Call Of Duty over his depiction in the best-selling video game.}<\/p>\n

Three of Savimbi\u2019s children accused Activision Blizzard of defamation by representing him as a \u201cbarbarian\u201d.<\/p>\n

Magistrates said the lawsuit contained procedural flaws and that they had no jurisdiction in the case.
\nSavimbi founded the Unita movement, waging a civil war with Angolan forces.<\/p>\n

Angola became a Cold War battleground, with Unita backed by the US and the apartheid government in South Africa, while Angola\u2019s ruling MPLA party was supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba.<\/p>\n

The rebel leader was eventually killed in clashes with state forces in 2002. The family was seeking $1.1 million in damages.
\n\u201cWe are disappointed,\u201d Savimbi\u2019s son Cheya was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n

In the last years of the Angolan war, Jonas Savimbi became a symbol to the outside world for everything that was wrong in Angola.<\/p>\n

Savimbi\u2019s reputation is based on some confirmed incidents. Suspected witches were burnt alive at his headquarters in 1980s.<\/p>\n

Fred Bridgland, Savimbi\u2019s previously admiring biographer, later wrote a horrifying tale of the murder of the Chingunji family who had fallen from grace with Savimbi.<\/p>\n

ANGOLAN CIVIL WAR<\/p>\n

Yet the Angolan civil war lasted for 27 years and both sides committed acts of brutality.<\/p>\n

It would be wrong to pin everything on one man, who is still remembered with awe by many who lived under the rule of Unita, and admired by a generation that has grown up since the war.<\/p>\n

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 shows him rallying his troops with phrases like \u201cdeath to the MPLA\u201d.<\/p>\n

His family had said they were outraged at the depiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing him kill people, cutting someone\u2019s arm off… that isn\u2019t Dad,\u201d Cheya Savimbi said.<\/p>\n

The three children live in the Paris region and took the French branch of Activision to court in Nanterre, near the French capital.<\/p>\n

A lawyer for Activision Blizzard, Etienne Kowalski, argued that the case was about freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a warlord, there is no possible contestation,\u201d the lawyer said, according to AFP.<\/p>\n

The latest Call of Duty was the world\u2019s top selling game last year, and the game has often featured versions of real-life figures.<\/p>\n

In 2014, a bid by former Panama dictator Manuel Noriega to claim damages over his depiction in the game was dismissed by a US court.<\/p>\n

\"Angolan<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{A French court has rejected a case in which the family of late Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi sued the makers of Call Of Duty over his depiction in the best-selling video game.} Three of Savimbi\u2019s children accused Activision Blizzard of defamation by representing him as a \u201cbarbarian\u201d. Magistrates said the lawsuit contained procedural flaws […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[228],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-afp"],"bylines":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"contributors":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24156"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24156"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}