Rebels deny leaders have been captured

Separatists in Angola's oil-rich Cabinda enclave on Thursday denied government claims that the rebels' military headquarters had been captured.

A spokesman for the rebel group, FLEC-FAC told IRIN that although heavy fighting had been reported in the area, reports suggesting that its base had fallen and that two of its leaders had been captured were false.

On Wednesday, Angolan army radio said the movement's chief-of-staff, General Francisco Luemba and its minister of defence, Estanislau Boma had been detained. It added that the military offensive lasted four days and the final assault on the rebel base was carried out in half an hour.

But Xavier Builo, a representative of FLEC-FAC in the Netherlands refuted these claims.

"The government has employed more sophisticated military tactics to deal with areas controlled by FLEC-FAC. Right now we know that the armed forces have encircled the area in which our headquarters are located.

"It is in this context that the government has claimed to have captured Mr Luemba and Mr Boma. We have not received any word that the base or the two leaders are in the government's hands," he said.

Despite recent calls for peace talks, the Angolan army was reported to have launched a large scale offensive in Cabinda.

Builo claimed the army had attacked and killed scores of villagers in Kisungu and Buco Kango.

He said: "The government pretends to talk of peace but all it is interested in is imposing Angolan nationality on the people of Cabinda."

Earlier this month IRIN reported on alleged human rights abuses in the enclave.

Human rights activists have pointed out that with international attention focussed on the moves for peace in the rest of Angola, nobody outside Cabinda appears to be paying much attention to the fact that war sill raged in Angola's northernmost province.

Cabinda is separated from the rest of Angola by a strip of territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was handed to the Angolan government by Portugal on independence in 1975 and accounts for about 60 percent of the country's oil revenues.