Perspective: Aftermath Of Attack On Togo National Team In Angola

Not for the first time, a sporting delegation to a major tournament has turned out to be the prime target for terrorists who are hell bent on making one point or another. Considering that Sport is a universal language that brings people around the world together, it’s not surprising at the least that in today’s age of conflict, an event like the Africa Cup of Nations is a terrorist target.

It happened in Munich in 1972 when Israeli athletes were gunned down at the Olympics, and it happened last spring in Pakistan when the Sri Lankan cricket team was ambushed on the way to a test match. In recent times, security has been a key issue for sports delegations and host countries and sports associations have invested considerable amounts of money to address security concerns. Despite the precautions, it is always a sad day when people lose their lives in this way.

Before Friday, not many people would have pointed to Cabinda on a map, and many questions are now being asked as to why the Togo national team was ambushed on their way to their camp in Cabinda where their group matches are being played. These questions have to be asked though, however difficult they are.

Firstly, the Togolese Football Federation have to explain what their national team was doing travelling by road through to Cabinda from their training camp in Congo Brazzaville. The organizing committee of the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations were crystal clear to all 16 national teams that no team was to travel by road to a host city.

Teams were expected to fly into the Angolan capital Luanda before being escorted with adequate security arrangements to the 4 host cities including Cabinda. Was it a case of naivety and sheer incompetence in risk management by the Togolese footballing administration, or was it a case of employing reckless short cuts to cut costs? Either way, there was enough military intelligence to suggest that travelling to Cabinda by road from Congo was insanity of the highest order and should have never been an option.

Suggesting that there were nominal security arrangements was naive at best and incompetent at worst. The truth is that the tragedy could have been avoided, and the minute the Togolese delegation decided to travel by road, they became a prime target of the highest order. By the time they left their training camp in Congo Brazzaville for the Angolan border, their convoy was the worst kept secret in the region.

I think it’s worth understanding a bit of the political context in the area at the moment.

Cabinda, where the Togo group matches are being played, is a resource rich province producing over half of Angola’s oil reserves, second only to Nigeria on the continent. China for example, is Angola’s biggest importer of oil on the African continent, and the country is also strategically important to developed countries in the west scavenging the world for energy resources. Since the 27 year civil war in the country ended 8 years ago, most of the reconstruction and rebuilding efforts have been funded and supported by Asian and western governments that have a strategic interest in Angola’s oil reserves.

Spend a week in and around the Angolan capital Luanda and you will quickly find out how much ass kissing foreign governments interested in Angola’s resources are indulging in. For a country that has been decimated by civil war, the strategic importance of such relationships and the ability to leverage its natural resources is paramount for the development of the country and the rebuilding of its infrastructure.

It’s for this reason that Cabinda was chosen as a host city. Many may question why this is so considering the volatility of the area and the specific activities of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), who have claimed responsibility for the attack.

The answer is simple. There was no way in the world the Africa Cup of Nations would be held in Angola without matches being played in Cabinda. The separate province is too strategic and too important for the Angolan government primarily because of its oil resources. ‘Gifting’ Cabinda host city status was a deliberate strategy to include the province as part of Angola and to show the world that Angola is in total control of the region.

It’s fair to say that the Angolan national forces have pretty much wiped out the core of the FLEC separatist rebels, but a few (said to be in the hundreds) still exist and are hell bent on making a point about their existence. Cabinda itself, as with the other host cities including the capital Luanda, are relatively safe havens and there’s no inherent risk of an attack like Friday’s being repeated. In fact, I’ll go as far as suggesting that most of the actual host cities are safer than South East London or North East Washington DC during any time of day or night. The same can’t be said about the areas in and around the border where FLEC rebels still hide out and where they’re are likely to have an influence. It’s for this reason why I say that the decision for Togo to travel in this area by road was insanity beyond belief, especially when the organizing committee specifically advised that delegations should fly into host cities and not travel by road. Furthermore, not being aware of Togo’s movements makes it that much more difficult to provide impromptu security arrangements that would have staved off such an attack. With the openly available information about the existence of the Togo National team convoy, I must say such an attack by the FLEC was inevitable.

I am supportive of the fact that the tournament is going ahead. It would be a travesty for the handful of separatist rebels to gain the initiative by derailing such an important and strategic sporting event for the continent. The government of Angola is obligated to step up security and use all means necessary to ensure the security for the rest of the tournament, and reports already indicate that Angola’s military forces are already playing a role in this.

While it’s easy to understand the motivation of the Angolan government to include Cabinda in the mix of the ACN, the attack on the Togo national team is an embarrassment to the political agenda of the tournament. However, it is totally understandable that the Togo national team has pulled out. Not only are the delegation traumatized by the attack, it is unfair to expect them to play competently considering the events 10 Km from the Angolan border. Going home is the right thing to do and the players and delegation need to be given time to grieve for their 3 colleagues who lost their lives, and for them to get some counselling. The remaining 15 teams should show solidarity and determination by seeing the tournament through and not letting rebels and terrorists get their own way.

The events in Angola though, have started murmurings and misguided comparisons with perceived and imaginary security threats being concocted with respect to the World Cup in South Africa.

Allow me to be blunt and say how much I detest this double standard bull shit of the highest order from mainly the western media who are hell bent on trying to create a crisis where one does not exist. Firstly, Cabinda is thousands of miles away from South Africa and there’s absolutely no parallel that can be drawn with South Africa politically, economically and socially, save for the fact that they’re both in the same continent. Secondly, to suggest that there’s now a real and present danger for the world cup in South Africa is irresponsibility of the highest order and is eternally patronizing.

When the railway network was blown up by terrorists in Spain, no one suggested that we shouldn’t go to Germany for the World Cup. When London was blown up in July of 2005, no one suggested that London was too dangerous to host the 2012 Olympics. I’ve had it to the neck with lazy and irresponsible journalism that is more interested in concocting sensationalism than being realistic and balanced. Some of the reporting of the link between what has happened in Angola and the imagined risk in South Africa is outright offensive.

They’ll state of course that South Africa has a high crime rate. Maybe they should try walking in South east London. Besides, I find it hard to believe that you’ll encounter a group of masked, machine gun wielding separatist rebels in South Africa hoping for a jackpot.