Angola’s rebel province of Cabinda is on a difficult search for a settlement to end decades of separatist fighting in this patch of land that is the lifeline of the country’s oil boom.
A peace overture from the Angolan government is being received with skepticism — although not rejected — in the poor northern province where offshore oil generates billions of dollars to Luanda’s coffers.
Separated from the rest of Angola by a strip of land from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Cabinda has been in a state of insurgency since it was annexed to Luanda in 1975 with the end of Portuguese rule.
The Angolan government in early February presented a draft accord proposing autonomy and a ceasefire for Cabinda while Prime Minister Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos stood up in Parliament two weeks ago to announce that a special status would be granted.
“The Angolan government has recognised that Cabinda is not Angola when it announced this special status,” says Roman Catholic priest Father Jorge Kongo, a leading figure in Cabinda’s opposition to Angolan rule.
“But we don’t know what this status means,” Kongo told Agence France-Presse in his mud-brick church in the middle of a Cabinda shantytown.
“We are waiting for the Angolan government to enter into negotiations.”
Church leaders have joined human rights groups and rebel commanders of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (Flec) to form the forum for Cabindan dialogue, which has been tasked with negotiating the autonomy deal.
“We are open to all solutions. Everything is negotiable,” said Agostinho Chicaia, president of the Mpalabanda civic association, which is a member of the forum.
While they have been seriously weakened since 2002 when Angolan troops destroyed their bases in the inland of Buco-Zau, Flec rebels continue to wage attacks against military targets.
Three Angolan soldiers were killed and four injured on Saturday evening in the village of Piadinge in the northeast corner of the province, ambushed by Flec rebels, according to a human rights source.
But contrary to other attacks, there was no immediate retaliation from Angolan troops, whose presence on the province of some 300 000 is estimated at about 15 000, the said.
Cabindans blame oil for their woes, saying that were it not for the offshore wealth, the Angolan government would not be seeking to subdue the province militarily.
But United States petroleum giant Chevron which pumps about 430 000 barrels per day off Cabinda’s shores says its presence in the region, established in 1954, predates the province’s current-day troubles stemming from the 1975 independence.
“We had an agreement a long, long time ago, before the conflict began,” says Chevron spokesperson Fernando Paiva.
“Chevron is a company. We don’t get involved in local politics. We have an agreement with the government of Angola and we fulfill that agreement.”
But Chevron nevertheless hopes that a peace deal can be struck soon.
“The Angolan government is seeking a peaceful solution and we have told them that we would support an initiative in that direction. But they have never asked for our help.”
A peace accord would pave the way for Cabinda to take part in elections that Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos says will be held later this year or in 2007, the first polls since the end of the 27-year war in Angola in 2002.
The Cabindan side is pushing for elections of the local governor to cement its autonomy status within Angola, sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer after Nigeria.
“If there’s no peace accord, we are not going to vote,” says Emilio Mabiala, the secretary general of the former rebel group and now main opposition Unita (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) party.
“We must have self-determination,” says Mabiala, who like his fellow Cabindans, stresses the historical and cultural differences between Cabindans and Angolans.
Unlike the rest of Angola, Cabinda was a Portuguese protectorate and not a colony and its residents feel closer linguistically and culturally to the Congolese in the neighbouring countries.
The push for a negotiated settlement is also driven by the loss of support from the DRC and Congo-Brazzaville to the Cabindan cause after Luanda moved to improve ties with those governments. – AFP