Nations Cup throws spotlight on Cabinda´s troubled past

The Angolan enclave of Cabinda is expected to deploy heavy security at its Chiazi stadium, when the country hosts the 2010 edition of the African Nations Cup starting Sunday.

Chelsea teammates Michael Essien and Didier Drogba will play the group stages there, one of four Cup venues in the country, but not all the security will be for the Premier League stars.

Oil-rich Cabinda, separated from the rest of Angola by the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been embroiled in a long-running independence struggle but will host the seven Nations Cup matches this month.

The conflict officially ended in a 2006 deal with the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC).

FLEC however has made several media claims in recent months about attacks on the military and foreign construction and oil workers based in the province.

According to Agostinho Chicaia of Mapablanda, Cabinda’s only human rights organisation, things have only gotten worse since the deal.

“Cabinda continues to be unstable, there is no peace,” he told AFP, saying the fighting has eased, but human rights abuses and arrests on security charges were increasing.

“The true peace is that which is born first in the hearts of people and in their consciences, and it’s a peace based on justice,” he said.

“The (agreement) has done nothing for justice, so now there is only a heightened tension.”

Mapablanda as well as US-based Human Rights Watch have documented abuses, including the case of Fernando Lelo, a former Voice of America journalist who last year was sentenced to 12 years in prison for national security offences.

Lelo spent two years behind bars but was later acquitted.

“Cabinda is still living in a state of war today,” he told AFP. “The fact that we present ourselves as defenders of human rights… we’ve been targeted for arbitrary detentions and persecutions.”

Antonio Bento Bembe, the former FLEC leader who signed the peace deal that has now made him a government minister, disputes the claims of abuses.

“What these people are saying is not true,” said Bento Bembe, a minister without portfolio in charge of human rights. “These people are just using Human Rights Watch to get publicity.

“It would be good to recognise the efforts being made by the government, not only to speak critically.”

The one-time rebel bush fighter has also dismissed concerns that Cabinda was not a good location for the Nations Cup, which runs to January 31 with games also taking place in the capital Luanda, Benguela and Luango provinces.

“Cabinda is safe and security there is guaranteed,” he said. “The Cup of Nations is an opportunity for Cabinda to receive visitors and it will bring money and investment to the province.”

The minister denied tensions in the enclave, but the December arrests there of a French and an Angolan journalist doing a story about the tournament has re-stoked concerns.

According to Human Rights Watch, the pair were detained because one took a photograph of the new Chinese-built football stadium, and they were taken to several military and police garrisons where they were questioned and then released without charge five hours later.

“The Africa Cup of Nations is an opportunity for Angola to showcase its progress after years of debilitating civil war,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

“But by arbitrarily arresting and intimidating journalists, Angolan officials draw attention to how far the country still has to go.”

The 20,000-seat Chiazi stadium will host Group B – Ghana, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Togo – in the tournament.

The Nations Cup is seen as the starter to a 2010 African football feast whose main course comes in June with the World Cup in South Africa — the first time international football’s biggest competition has ever been held on the continent.