A SECOND separatist faction from Angola’s troubled Cabinda province has laid claim to last week’s deadly attack on the Togo national football team, but it has maintained that the Angolan security forces were the real target.
The ambush on the Togolese travelling party last Friday as they made their way from Republic of Congo to Cabinda to play their first African Cup of Nations match left three dead and eight others injured, including a number of players. The team was withdrawn from the tournament by the Togolese government on Sunday.
The incident was initially claimed by the Forces for the Liberation of the State of Cabinda – Military Position (Flec-PM), a separatist group led by Rodrigues Mingas, who is exiled in France.
However, yesterday another larger Flec faction, the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda – Armed Forces of Cabinda (Flec-Fac), claimed responsibility for the attack but insisted the actual targets were the Angolan security forces.
“We are not terrorists. The attack did not target our Togolese brothers,” said Flec-Fac leader Jean-Claude N’Zita, who is exiled in Switzerland.
“Every time the Armed Forces of Cabinda [Flec-Fac] sees an Angolan convoy, they open fire,” local reporters were told in a statement.
N’Zita went on to dismiss Mingas’s separatists as “opportunists” and promised there would be no more attacks while Africa’s showcase football tournament was under way in Angola.
The original Flec group began its fight for autonomy in the 1960s against the Portuguese colonial power and carried on its separatist activities against the Angolan government when the country got its independence in 1975. But in recent years the group has splintered into several rival factions.
Cabinda province is of huge importance to Angola, as it produces 60 per cent of the country’s oil, the sale of which has been the driving force behind recent economic growth.
Cabinda’s chief state prosecutor, Antonio Nito, announced on Sunday that the authorities had apprehended two people suspected of being involved in the shoot-out with the Angolan security forces guarding the team.
But few details about the detainees or their allegiances have been made public.