Focus on Cabinda conflict

Along the main road north of Cabinda town, 500 people are living in hastily constructed shelters.

They said they moved there after the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) attacked their villages, in reprisal for attacks by the separatist guerrilla movement, the Liberation Front for the Cabinda Enclave (FLEC).

When IRIN visited the troubled province some residents spoke of being arrested and driven from their homes, as the army wages a new campaign against separatist rebels.

One young man had scars on his wrists, apparently the result of having been tied with rope or wire.

"We were in the field, playing ball. We came across the FAA troops who captured us, right there on the field. There were three of us. We were tied up. They said there had been trouble - we denied it, and then they let us go. We ran away, and now we're here."

Another man said: "At night, about 11 pm, the FAA troops came and captured civilians where we were living. It wasn't the first time, it was the third time, so we had to abandon our village."

In the rainforest further to the north, in a village formerly controlled by FLEC, an old man told a similar story.

"Whenever the FLEC and government forces confront each other, the government soldiers turn against the people, carrying off their possessions. Now whenever they hear shooting, they flee to the bush."

The man said the Angolan government must negotiate with FLEC.

"The government must get together with Cabinda's politicians, in whatever country, so as to resolve this matter. Because we are tired of the war."

But FLEC-FAC have accused the government of sabotaging peace efforts by stepping up its military offensive since the signing of the 4 April ceasefire between the government and former UNITA rebels.

In an interview last week with Radio France Internationale Alexandre Bati, a FLEC-FAC spokesman, said the army was closing in on the movement's headquarters.

"Right now, clashes are taking place on the outlying areas of FLEC-FAC's headquarters. There has been indiscriminate shelling of our positions, forcing civilians to flee the area. The number of people killed is high. We are in the midst of a catastrophic situation. More than 100 civilians, excluding children, have been killed," Bati claimed.

Cabinda, a small piece of territory physically separated from Angola by a sliver of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), produces about 60 percent of Angola's oil revenues.

FLEC was established before Angolan independence in 1975, to fight against Portuguese rule in the enclave. The movement is represented bt at least two factions, FLEC-Renovada (Renewed) and FLEC-FAC (FLEC-Armed Forces of Cabinda).

Separatists refer to certain documents that demonstrate that Angola and Cabinda were seen as separate entities under colonial rule, and say that the two territories should therefore have formed separate states at independence.

According to Colonel Francisco Machado, the former military commander of the FLEC-Renovada faction, who laid down his arms two-years-ago and now lives in Cabinda town: "History shows us the Cabinda is not Angola. And because it is not Angola, we could never go and fight alongside the MPLA [the ruling party]. The war in Cabinda continues, it's not over yet."

Colonel Machado said the government should negotiate with FLEC, and believes that FLEC would accept autonomy, rather than independence, as a solution for Cabinda.

"Autonomy would be an important step, as long as it were a true autonomy," Machado said.

But there is still some support for independence within Cabindan civil society.

At the Catholic mission next to the beach in Cabinda town, with the gas flames from the oil rigs clearly visible on the horizon, a Juventude Catolica de Cabinda held an angry meeting.

One man said: "Cabinda is a country, not a province."

But not everyone believes that immediate independence or autonomy is the solution.

Mateus Nhanga, provincial co-ordinator of the Federation of Angolan NGOs, believes there are more urgent problems to be addressed.

"Let's start with small things - which means that before independence or autonomy, we must first look at good governance, then we can move on to other things. With good governance we will get basic minimum living conditions for the population, and the other problems will be resolved painlessly."

Although living conditions in Cabinda are no worse than in other Angolan provinces, poverty provokes anger in contrast to the wealth of the region. Oil exports from Cabinda are worth the equivalent of US $100,000 for every resident of the province.

Officially, 10 percent of the revenue received by the government from Cabindan oil must be spent on development projects in the province, but local people complain that they do not see the share of the benefit to which they are entitled.

The cost of living is high. Although situated on the coast, Cabinda has no port facilities, and imports have to be flown from the capital, Luanda, or brought across the border from the DRC or Congo-Brazzaville. In relation to the wealth which it produces, the oil industry provides relatively few jobs for local people.

The FAA have made no statement regarding the current military situation in Cabinda, and it is only recently that politicians in Luanda have started to pay attention to the continuing conflict in the remote province.

At a conference in the Angolan capital in September, UNITA parliamentarian Abel Chivukuvuku suggested that autonomy might be a solution for Cabinda's problems.

"It is a matter of priority to demand that those who, through their position of authority, hold the destiny of the country in their hands, that they make every effort to bring a complete and definitive end to the cycle of wars in Angola, putting an end to the Cabinda conflict and opting for a peaceful resolution to its problems. If this means listening to the voice of Cabindans, to heed their wishes, then let it be so. If we need to move towards rethinking the kind of state that Angola will be, opening up the possibility of autonomy of Cabinda, then so be it."

On the same day as Chivukuvuku's address to the conference, MPLA secretary-general João Lourenço said in a radio interview that the government would be willing to discuss autonomy, provided that it was recognised that Cabinda remain part of Angola.

More recently, President José Eduardo dos Santos, asked about the government's plans for Cabinda, said: "Cabinda is passing through a unique phase because of pockets of guerrilla movements and this problem should be seen as an internal problem.

"The government has defined policies to deal with this issue and this policy is multi-disciplinary which goes from dialogue with the people and personnel in the region to giving better attention to economic and social issues within the region. I think that the demands that arise are justified by the fact that the due attention has not been paid to the resolution of local problems," he said.

But so far, neither side has taken action to initiate dialogue.