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# Cabinda’s cause, Togo’s tragedy
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/cabindas-cause-togos-tragedy/
- Published: 2010-01-12T11:01:51.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:08:15.000Z
- Description: Behind the attack on Togo’s footballers in Angola’s enclave of Cabinda is a complex mix of history, geography, oil and politics, says Alex Vines.
- Author: Alex Vines
- Tags: Africa, #Migrated, Conflict & security, Politics & activism, Security in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, West Asia, conflict, International politics, #en, #Import 2026-04-09 17:02

Most of Angola is peaceful and safe, as the devastation of the long civil war of 1975-92 becomes a memory. But its northern Cabinda province – a coastal enclave that has no land border with the [rest](http://lib.utexas.edu/maps/cia08/angola%5Fsm%5F2008.gif?ref=opendemocracy.net) of the country - has for many years been insecure because of a low-level insurgency by separatists operating out of the Mayombe rainforest. Now, after the [attack](http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49929&ref=opendemocracy.net) on 8 January 2010 on a coach transporting the Togolese football team to its opening match in the African [cup of nations](http://www.cafonline.com/?ref=opendemocracy.net), a blame-game has started – especially why Togo’s players were driven from Pointe Noire in Congo to Cabinda city. To the group responsible for the attack, a splinter of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), this was an irresistible invitation.

The Angolans had been complacent over security in the [oil-rich](http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/images/cabinda-map-l.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2535&h=606&w=512&sz=87&tbnid=cdD6u3ARQjO4SM:&tbnh=136&tbnw=115&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcabinda%2Bmap&hl=en&usg=%5F%5Fyxh7hF7UyOTL5WigbFX0UTXc1QM=&ei=UbZMS7GgKNGB4Qbqw5H-DQ&sa=X&oi=image%5Fresult&resnum=2&ct=image&ved=0CAsQ9QEwAQ&ref=opendemocracy.net) but dirt-poor province. António Bento Bembe, the former leader of the FLEC-Renovada faction that in July 2006 signed an [agreement](http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/ACRText/ACR-AngolaCabinda.htm?ref=opendemocracy.net) with the Angolan government, shared this attitude. He stated in late 2009 that FLEC was a spent force; after the attack on the Togolese he admitted he had been wrong.

The evidence suggests that FLEC is and will remain a security threat in the far north of Cabinda, whose territory is surrounded by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The group has perpetrated a series of attacks in the last two years. In December 2007, FLEC rebels killed a police official and a Brazilian expatriate worker. In March 2008, FLEC claimed responsibility for an attack that led to the death of an employee of Geokinetics (a company subcontracted to do [prospecting](http://www.socointernational.co.uk/?ref=opendemocracy.net) for Britain-based Soco International) and another on a construction company that killed two workers. In November 2009, the group abducted a Chinese technician while he was prospecting for the state oil company, Sonangol.

A problem for the Angolan authorities is that FLEC has since the late 1970s been [factionalised](http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/01/2010194414660644.html?ref=opendemocracy.net), so that agreements such as the 2006 one are not comprehensive. When the Angolan civil war ended in 2002, Angola deployed about 30,000 troops to Cabinda - among a population of about 300,000\. The army’s mix of counterinsurgency operations, agreements and co-option has resulted in smaller cells, making splinter-groups even more difficult to penetrate. There is no united platform on the Cabinda side; the aspirations of pro-separatists range from significant devolution to full independence. The response to the attack on the Togolese football team reflects this fragmentation; two factions (FLEC-Military Position and FLEC-FAC) [claimed](http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-sport/group-claims-togo-football-team-attack-20100112-m4wo.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) responsibility while others distanced themselves from the operation.

The conflict, like many of Africa's independence struggles, has its roots in colonial times. The Cabinda region was [established](http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=67501&ref=opendemocracy.net) in 1885 as a Portuguese protectorate known as Portuguese Congo, at a time when Angola as a whole was ruled by Portugal and the Congo by Belgium. The separatist claim is that the region was never administered as part of Angola and thus deserves now to be [considered](http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/assessment.asp?groupId=54003&ref=opendemocracy.net) as a distinct entity.

Cabinda's physical isolation from Angola proper may soon be ended. A Chinese company is [charged](http://www.forbescustom.com/EconomicDevelopmentPgs/CabindaP1.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) with building a nineteen-kilometre-long bridge that will cross the DRC’s territory and connect the province to its mother-state; the bridge, at an estimated cost of $2.55 billion, is scheduled to be completed in October 2012\. But the shorter-term prospect is of a continuation of the low-level insurgency in the northern part of Cabinda. During the football tournament, the Angolan security [focus](http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/01/2010111101046859698.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) is on ensuring that no further attacks take place on footballers and their supporters; after it ends, a new counterinsurgency operation is probable.