Government wants dialogue over Cabinda

Separatist rebels in the oil-rich Cabinda enclave remained sceptical on Thursday about the government's recent comments that it was open to negotiations. Following a recent visit to the oil-rich province, Bornito de Sousa, the ruling MPLA member responsible for the enclave said that "the solution for the [conflict in the] territory will be through dialogue and not the use of violence," the Portuguese news agency LUSA reported. "We hope the government is serious about dialogue. We want to see something concrete happening. We are still concerned about the build-up of soldiers in Cabinda and the continuing offensive against our people," Francoise Xavier Builo, a representative of the separatists FLEC-FAC faction in the Netherlands, told IRIN. Builo said that following the signing of the 4 April ceasefire between the government and UNITA, the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) had turned its attention to Cabinda. "Intimidation, day and night ground and aerial reconnaissance, incursions and attacks have become the norm in Cabinda following UNITA's surrender," Builo added. Attempts to negotiate a ceasefire and hold talks on the future of the enclave have so far failed. Earlier this year, in a sign that frosty relations between the government and rebels were beginning to thaw, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos expressed the government's willingness to hold "broad consultations" on the status of Cabinda. Last month at a peace and national reconciliation conference in the capital, Luanda, a coalition of NGOs called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. The closing declaration requested that "[Angolan] society not remain under the illusion that the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the government and UNITA means that the country is now finally at peace, when in reality the war is continuing to claim innocent lives in Cabinda". FLEC/FAC has called for a referendum in the enclave to determine its political status. But analysts told IRIN that it was unlikely the MPLA would concede to the proposal considering the province's strategic importance. Divided from the rest of Angola by a sliver of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cabinda accounts for 60 percent of the country's oil production of over 700,000 barrels per day, which in turn represents some 90 percent of the country's export earnings.