Rebels of the forgotten war

The Big Read: The Cabinda rebels who attacked the Togo football team's bus on Friday are hold-overs from the Angolan civil war who have refused to lie down and die.

A low-intensity war between local guerrillas and the central government in Luanda has continued since the civil war officially ended in 1995.

The oil-rich enclave was loosely part of Angola for the 200 years of Portuguese colonial rule. This French-speaking speck of land, bordering both the Congos and separated from Portuguese-speaking Angola by a 60km strip of coastline, was a protectorate of Lisbon, whereas Angola was a full-on colony.

"But, being the penny-pinchers they usually are, the colonial bureaucrats ruled both places through the same governor," said African defence expert Helmoed-Romer Heitman.

He said both Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) and Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo-Kinshasa) had designs on the enclave. But these have shelved, albeit temporarily, because of deals with Luanda.

The oil revenues make Cabinda an attractive proposition, with only about 10% of the money staying in the enclave and the rest going to the government in Luanda.

The Angolan economy is highly dependent on oil, which accounts for about half the country's gross domestic product and more than 90% of its exports.

This is why the Luanda government reached agreements with the two Congos to keep them out.

During the civil war, Congo-Brazzaville and the DR Congo, then under the rule of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and known as Zaire, gave help to Cabinda's secessionist movement, the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (Flec).

Guerilla fighters from Flec were flown south to be trained by Unita at its Jamba headquarters while the civil war raged.

"When the Portuguese colonialists left in 1975, Cabindans thought it was their chance for independence," said Heitman. "But then the Angolans arrived with Cuban troops in tow."

Flec resisted before a peace deal with the central Angolan government was signed in 2006. But a faction of Flec, the Forces for the Liberation of the State of Cabinda-Military Position (Flec-PM), baulked and continued to harry the Angolan army.

The attack on the football players has raised the rebels' international profile - at a time when the Angolan government believed it had kept them quiet - but Heitman does not believe the secessionist movement will achieve much else.

Last year, the Angolan government claimed that the war in Cabinda had ended, despite continuing attacks on the army and expatriate oil workers.

A former leader of Flec, Antonio Bento Bembe, was appointed Angola's minister without portfolio to oversee human rights. Ironically, the Angolan government detained, and allegedly tortured, suspected separatists as late as last year.

Last year, Flec-PM claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a Chinese worker and the killing of several Angolan soldiers.

Human Rights Watch said in June that there had been a pattern of violations by the Angolan army and the government's secret service.

Between September 2007 and March 2009, at least 38 people were arrested by the army in Cabinda and accused of state security crimes, according to Human Rights Watch. It said the detainees were denied their rights.

GlobalSecurity.org described the secession by Flec as "Angola's forgotten war" being waged by a force of no more than 2000, which was no match for the battle-hardened Angolan army.

Flec-PM might not have gained any military advantage with last week's attack on the Togo bus, which left three people dead, but it has embarrassed the Luanda government at a time when Angola was trying to project an image of normality for the staging of the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament this month.