Call of Duty publisher sued by family of Angolan rebel

The family of Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi have filed a €1m lawsuit against Activision over his portrayal in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

In the lawsuit, the family of Jonas Savimbi, the rebel leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, is suing the French division of Activision for around $1 million due to his portrayal in the 2012 game, The Guardian reported.

“[He’s portrayed as] a big halfwit who wants to kill everybody”, the family’s lawyer Carole Enfert explained. He is represented in the Black Ops II mission “Phyrric Victory”, where he leads an assault against the MPLA, orders his troops to kill everyone they encounters, carries a grenade launcher, and drives a machete through a soldier’s chest.

This isn’t the first time Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has resulted in Activision stepping into legal controversy. The sequence reflects the USA backing of Unita against the Soviet-supported government.

It certainly doesn’t help that Savimbi was a hugely controversial figure. He regularly fought against the Portuguese, who had colonised the country, and then also fought against the new ruling political party, the MLPA, up until his death in 2002.

In response, Activision claims that Savimbi is shown in the level to be a “good guy”. See The Guardian’s article for more on the case.

Noriega filed a lawsuit in 2014 in the United States complaining that the game portrayed him in a bad light, but the case was thrown out. Activision brought in Rudy Giuliani to defend the case and the suit was rejected by a judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, under the first amendment right to free expression.