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Background

Cabinda is a province of Angola, separated from the country’s other seventeen provinces by a narrow strip of the DRC. Its population of about 300,000 has known war for more than forty years; FLEC and its offshoots have been fighting a guerrilla war with the aim of securing independence since 1963. Initially, FLEC fought for independence from Portuguese rule but continued its separatist struggle after Angola gained independence on November 11, 1975.¹ At Angolan independence, the MPLA appointed its leader, Agostinho Neto, as president of Angola. The rival liberation movement, UniÃo Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA - National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) never recognized the MPLA’s rule, and the two parties remained almost continuously at war for the following twenty-seven years.²

After independence, FLEC attempted to seize power in Cabinda, backed by Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC). The MPLA government, however, took control of much of Cabinda, including the offshore oilfields, with military backing from Cuba. For much of the period from independence until late 2002, the armed conflict in Cabinda was a low intensity guerrilla war, as FLEC never had the manpower or weaponry of a conventional army. FLEC sporadically attacked the relatively small number of government troops deployed in Cabinda as well as economic targets, including kidnapping foreign employees working in the province’s oil, timber, gold mining and construction businesses.³ During this period, FLEC primarily controlled territory in the densely forested inland areas of the province but never threatened to take over major population centers.  Its effectiveness was hindered by various factional splits, notably the division in 1984 between FLEC-Renovada (FLEC-R) and FLEC-FAC (Armed Forces of Cabinda) caused by personal rather than political or ideological differences.⁴

The fighting escalated in early 1993 when the government of Angola deployed some 15,000 troops to Cabinda.⁵ In 1997-98, villages which were suspected of supporting the separatists were targeted, causing large-scale displacement of the civilian population. FLEC-R and FLEC-FAC also increased their attacks against the FAA. In September 1998, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture reported that government forces and the paramilitary group of the Polícia da IntervençÃo Rápida (PIR - Rapid Intervention Police) committed widespread acts of torture and ill-treatment against persons from whom the government soldiers were trying to obtain information, civilians in reprisal for armed attacks by separatist groups and those suspected of supporting FLEC as well as political opponents.⁶ By 2001, the situation in Cabinda had calmed to the extent that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) began a phased repatriation of Cabindan refugees from the Republic of Congo, declaring the enclave as the only safe area in Angola.⁷

Following the end of the armed conflict between the MPLA and UNITA in the contiguous part of Angola in 2002, the fighting – and attendant violations against the civilian population – shifted to Cabinda.⁸ The FAA redeployed some 30,000 soldiers to Cabinda in an attempt to defeat FLEC militarily. These troops include an unknown number of special forces called commandos caçadores or infantry commandos.⁹ Reports compiled by Cabindan human rights activists in 2002 and 2003 alleged that the FAA committed widespread violations against captured combatants and the civilians including the summary execution of suspected FLEC combatants or supporters; rape and forced marriage of women and girls; arbitrary detention; torture and other mistreatment; forced labor; and excessive restrictions on civilian access to agricultural areas, rivers and hunting grounds.¹⁰ A large number of these violations reportedly took place from October 2002 to mid-2003. The reports attributed a small number of abuses, including hostage taking and summary executions of suspected government collaborators, to FLEC forces.

From mid-2003, there has been a decline in the number of violations committed by the FAA as the consequence of a reduced level of conflict in the province following FAA’s destruction of FLEC’s principal bases, including those in the Republic of Congo and the DRC. FLEC combatants also emerged from the forest to claim the demobilization benefits offered by the government; FLEC’s sympathizers as well as its opponents acknowledge that the movement has been reduced to small roving bands of guerrillas with light arms, and no permanent logistical bases. The FAA regional commander in Cabinda estimated that there are only about seventy to eighty FLEC fighters remaining in Maoimbe forest.¹¹ The Maoimbe is densely forested, limiting FAA military operations against the remaining FLEC forces.  At the time of writing, the FAA regional commander and others said that there have been no FLEC attacks since early 2004.¹² 

Despite the apparent end to major military operations by both sides, the FAA has not reduced its 30,000 member force deployed throughout Cabinda.  The FAA regional commander told Human Rights Watch that the large number of troops “were needed to defend the enclave from external aggression” and expressed concern about the unstable situation in the DRC.¹³ He also told Human Rights Watch that the armed conflict in Cabinda was over but the government has not made an official declaration to that effect in Angola. In interviews, the Angolan defense minister has suggested that the situation in Cabinda is not that of an armed conflict: “Cabinda is no longer a military problem” and “Cabinda is totally under control by the FAA.”¹⁴ President dos Santos reportedly stated during his visit to the United States in May 2004 that there is “no war in Cabinda,” and that the government remains committed to dialogue.¹⁵  This suggests that the government now believes security in Cabinda can be achieved through law enforcement, rather than through the use of the military although the government still maintains a military force of 30,000 in Cabinda.