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IRIN Web Special on Cabinda
I N T R O D U C T I O N - Cabinda, one of Africa’s longest, least reported conflicts
 www.cabinda.net
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Successive attempts over the past 27 years to end a secessionist conflict in Angola's Cabinda enclave are yet to bear fruit. However, a recent visit to the Angolan capital, Luanda, by the founder of the main rebel group has been seen as evidence that peace may finally reach the troubled province.
Although details surrounding the meeting of Ranque Franque, leader of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), with Angolan authorities in July remained vague, some observers saw it as the latest attempt by the government to move towards a negotiated settlement with separatists, who have battled the central government and each other since Angola achieved independence in 1975.
This webspecial examines the economic and social impact of the protracted struggle on the people of Cabinda, arguments for secession, and attempts to anticipate the possible obstacles peace negotiators and humanitarian actors will face in the future.
Often dubbed "Angola's forgotten war", the decades-long conflict in the oil-rich province of 250,000 people took a new turn with a government offensive in October 2002 in the Buco-Zau military region, in northern Cabinda.
"We have always been in a state of war, and we have come to expect that as part of our daily lives. But the situation deteriorated in October 2002," a Roman Catholic priest, Father Jorge Congo, told IRIN. "Before then there were reports of attacks, but these happened only now and then."
In 2002 it was widely believed that FLEC-FAC, a splinter group of the original FLEC movement, posed the most serious military threat to the government. The government reportedly stationed some 30,000 soldiers in the province for a planned counter-insurgency campaign.
According to Congo, the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA - a Portuguese acronym) advanced into the heart of rebel-held territory and by the end of October 2002 had destroyed Kungo-Shonzo, FLEC-FAC's main base since 1979, in the municipality of Buco-Zau, 110 km from the provincial capital, Cabinda town.
Just months later, FAA General Nundo Sachipengo announced that a FLEC-FAC "command post" in the area had been closed down. At the end of December 2002, FAA claimed it had captured the base of another separatist faction, FLEC-Renovada (FLEC-R).
By the end of February this year, General Armando da Cruz Neto, the FAA chief of staff, confidently announced: "We are in a position to state that there have been significant changes in Cabinda's military situation as a result of operations carried out by our armed forces. FLEC-Renovada has ceased to operate since late 2002. We could say that the operation launched to restore peace in Cabinda has reached a positive phase. The next phase entails the development of border control mechanisms, so as to prevent FLEC forces from regrouping and returning."
FLEC had for years used territory in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Congo-Brazzaville as rear bases from which to launch attacks into Cabinda.
On 8 June 2003, the Angola Press Agency reported that the FLEC-FAC chief of staff, Francisco Luemba, and six other high-ranking officers had surrendered to government authorities.
According to Jaoa Porto of the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), the armed secessionist movements, with a combined estimated force of no more than 2,000 troops, are no match for the battle-hardened FAA, who in 2002 had finally forced Angola's UNITA rebel movement to sue for peace after three decades of war in the country.
But the apparent containment of Cabinda's separatists has come at a high price.
THE PRICE OF CONTAINMENT
In December 2002, civil rights activists in Angola released details of widespread allegations of human rights abuses by the FAA following the October military campaign against the rebels in the Cabinda enclave.
The report, "Terror in Cabinda", contained 20 pages of testimony on alleged abuses, including summary executions, murders, disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, rape and looting.
In one incident reported in November 2002, 30 villagers were said to have died during an attack by a helicopter gunship. In the same month, a 16-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by 14 soldiers.
Although the report cited abuses by both the Angolan security forces and FLEC, the overwhelming number of accusations were made against the FAA.
One local leader told IRIN: "It is no secret that the majority of Cabinda people support the FLEC's call for self-determination, but it seemed that during the October raids [government] soldiers were targeting civilians instead of soldiers, because of this tacit support."
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