Cabinda is a small enclave north of the Congo River delta nestled between the DR Congo and the Republic of the Congo. Like Angola it is a former Portuguese colony. When the Portuguese empire in Africa ended in 1975, Cabinda did attempt to declare itself independent of both Portugal and Angola but the main Angolan rebel group, the MPLA, took control of the enclave allegedly with the help of US oil giant Chevron.
Angola is now Africa’s largest oil producer and half of the production comes from Cabinda. The enclave has a population of some 250,000 and they have long-standing complaints against the government in Luanda. The attack on the Togolese National Football team that was to participate in the African Nation’s Cup currently being hosted by Angola is focusing renewed attention to Cabinda and the little-known group that carried out the attack – Liberation Front of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC).
More from Global Security:
As of 2009 the Angolan government claimed that the war in Cabinda is over. However, sporadic attacks on government forces and expatriate workers have continued. A peace deal was signed in 2006 between Angola’s government and the rebels under Bento Bembe’s leadership, but another FLEC faction has refused to sign on. Illegal detention and torture against suspected separatists continued as of late 2009, when FLEC [Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda] claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a Chinese worker and the killing of several Angolan soldiers. Antonio Bento Bembe, who once led FLEC, is now a minister without portfolio tasked with human rights.
Human Rights Watch said in a report released 22 Jun 2009 that there was a disturbing pattern of human rights violations by the Angolan armed forces and state intelligence officials. Between September 2007 and March 2009, at least 38 people were arbitrarily arrested by the military in Cabinda and accused of state security crimes. Most were subjected to lengthy incommunicado detention, torture, and cruel or inhumane treatment in military custody and were denied due process rights. Many of those detained were residents of villages in the interior of Cabinda who were arrested during military raids that followed armed attacks attributed to the Liberation Front of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC).
Successive attempts over a quarter of a century to end a “secessionist” conflict in Angola’s Cabinda enclave have yet to bear fruit. Political tensions were high in some areas of Cabinda as separatist groups demand a greater share of oil revenue for the province’s population. The separatist groups often kidnapped foreign nationals in an attempt to draw attention to their independence claims. The ongoing low-level insurgency group, Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), active in Cabinda province has a history of threatening foreign nationals with kidnapping.
Often dubbed “Angola’s forgotten war”, the decades-long conflict in the oil-rich province of 250,000 people took a new turn with a government offensive in October 2002 in the Buco-Zau military region, in northern Cabinda. The armed secessionist movements, with a combined estimated force of no more than 2,000 troops, are no match for the battle-hardened Angolan Armed Forces (FAA – a Portuguese acronym), who in 2002 had finally forced Angola’s UNITA rebel movement to sue for peace after three decades of war in the country.
The Angolan economy is highly dependent on its oil sector, which accounts for about half of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and over 90% of export revenues. Cabinda faces a situation similar to the Niger Delta states in Nigeria. Cabinda produces more than half of Angola’s oil and accounts for nearly all of its foreign exchange earnings. The province receives about 10% of the taxes paid by ChevronTexaco and its partners operating offshore Cabinda.
