Angola Has Delivered A Body Blow To African Football By Cameron Duodu

WHEN Malawi and Algeria played in Luanda on Monday, 11 January 2010, in the second match of the 2010 African Cup of Nations tournament, the stadium looked fairly deserted, with the numerous, brightly-coloured yellow and red completely unoccupied, except for the few that had officials and security men seated on them.

This is the 27th edition of the competition, yet neither the organising body, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) nor the host, the Angola Government, had had the imagination to realise that empty red and yellow-coloured seats look bad on television, and are not a good advertisement for a tournament being televised world-wide. They could have made admission free of charge and filled the stadium with Luanda's impecunious but football-loving hordes of unemployed people.

Or could they? Both CAF and the Angolans could argue that after the shooting in Cabinda that had cost the lives of three Togolese players, and caused the Togolese team's peremptory departure for their homeland, it would have been risky to throw the gates open and allow entrants to come in free of charge. But that is an excuse that does not hold water, isn't it? What about increasing the number of security personnel who would search spectators before they entered? And, to add pepper to the injury: suppose paying spectators had thronged the venue, wouldn't they have been subjected to security checks?

So, it wasn't the means that was the problem: it was the lack of anticipation and the absence of charity in the organisers that caused the empty-stadium fiasco. No wonder the match was one of the dullest between African countries that we have seen in recent years, and ended in a goalless draw.

Signs of unconcern -- like these -- give a clue to the empty-headed nature of the bureaucracies into whose hands the welfare of the African populace is so often placed. The supreme act of stupidity, of course, was the initial decision of the Angolan Government to make Cabinda one of the venues at which matches would be played.

It is all very well to get the Chinese to build a spanking new stadium costing millions of dollars in Cabinda city to make the political point to the Cabinda population, that not all the money obtained from the oil that gushes out of Cabinda is commandeered by the apparatchiks in Luanda for their own purposes. Or to demonstrate to the oil companies that if, as an insurance, they had been secretly supporting residual elements of the Cabinda secessionist movement, since the Luanda Government absorbed the main body that had been spearheading Cabinda insurgency, FLEC (Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda) the time had come for this to cease, because Luanda now reigns supreme over the entire territory of Angola.

But the Luanda Government, made up, as it is, of a coalition of two guerrilla organisations that had been at war with each other for decades, the MPLA (People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Movement_for_the_Liberation_of_Angola

and UNITA (Union for the Total Liberation of Angola)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNITA
is best placed to have known anticipated that elements of FLEC-- such as Flec-Military, were extant and might seize the opportunity to make their own political point that they still count for something in the Angolan equation. For in their own long sojourn in the bush, both MPLA and UNITA had suffered often from splits and undisciplined coups de theatre of precisely the type inflicted on the Togolese players on Friday 8 January 2010. They are also supposed to be well trained in intelligence techniques, MPLA operatives having had excellent relations with the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union and Cuba, while UNITA had long co-operated with the CIA and the South African apartheid intelligence machine. Couldn't they have kept a wary eye on the area between Cabinda and Brazzaville, while the Togolese team was in Brazzaville, and got wind of the impending attack It is an intelligence failure of gigantic proportions? Why, when they knew the Togolese had chosen to train in Brazzaville, didn't they mount a covert operation to protect them from harm? Isn't it totally disgraceful that this was not done?

For there is so much at stake in Cabinda that secessionist activity there cannot be written off just like that. Its oilfields, especially what is called “Block Zero”, is (according to one authoritative description):

“one of the world's most lucrative oil fields, although new offshore discoveries elsewhere are diminishing its net contribution to Angola's oil production…Cabinda is the goose that [lays] the golden egg for Angola. The tiny enclave …is entirely separate from the rest of Angola in geographical terms….[But] Angola's Oil Minister… [has stressed] how essential Cabinda is for the country's overall economy, pointing out that the province contributes the majority of the oil revenues that currently make up 42 percent of the gross national product, and 90 percent of the state budget.

“In production terms, Cabinda generates about 60 percent of the country's oil… Some of Angola's most productive oil fields today lie in Block Zero and Block 14, both of which lie off the Cabindan coast. Block 14 [at the time of writing was] operated by ChevronTexaco, with a 31 percent interest, through its local subsidiary Cabinda Gulf Oil Company or Cabgoc. The rest of the consortium comprises state oil company Sonangol with 20 percent; Italy's Agip and TotalFinaElf also have 20 percent; and Petrogal brings up the rear with 9 percent.

“However, Cabinda's other main offshore deposit, Block Zero, is the bedrock of Angola's petroleum industry. It has been operational for over two decades, and has served as the main supplier of oil to the country…ChevronTexaco is the lead operator with a 39.2 percent share; Sonangol has 41 percent; TotalFinaElf has 10 percent; and Agip 9.8 percent. This partnership ratio has existed since the early 1990s. Sonangol previously had a 51 percent stake in Block Zero, but sold 10 percent of its share to Elf Acquitaine before the national elections of 1992.

"Inevitably, ChevronTexaco has been deeply influential in the development of the province, although the company's operational base at Malongo terminal is a world apart from the rest of the province. Guarded by private security companies, Malongo is completely sealed off from Cabinda proper. Apart from the oil storage depots and a small topping-type refinery, the complex serves as a residential area for Chevron's expatriate employees, and most consumable items, including water, are flown in from overseas.”

Knowing that in their own long sojourn in the bush, first against the Portuguese and then against each other, MPLA and UNITA had both suffered often from splits and undisciplined coups de theatre, as I have said earlier, why didn't they expect “something“? The negligence is difficult to explain and, if one may refrain from mincing words, quite simply criminal.

That is not to say that the Togolese were without fault themselves. An elementary casing of the joint that was to be their home for at least four weeks, would have revealed to them that the situation in Cabinda is so dodgy that the oil workers there have evolved their own rules for survival. Many spend all their time at Malongo (as previously explained) and others spend only a few days on the rigs, then go off by private plane to Luanda, where they catch a plane to Houston, Texas for their 'recreation'. Such an expensive system wouldn't have been evolved for nothing.

Above all, the oil-worker community shun the not inconsiderable sub-Parisian delights of nearby Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, like the plague. Yet it was there that the Togolese elected to spend their days of pre-tournament training. Who could blame them? Brazzaville's francophone ambience was, of course, preferable to the Portuguese-speaking frostiness of Cabinda. But they ought to have been protected from themselves, instead of being so pitifully made to pay for their ignorance. Ignorance? Yes. Anyone who knows the Togolese political system will appreciate that almost the entire security system is geared towards protecting the life of a singe individual, the President, and that there are hardly any intelligence officers left over from their duties at the presidency to be spared for the protection abroad of the national football team. By the way, that probably goes for other African countries as well. So the CAF ought to be a better organisation than it is at the moment. But expecting it to fulfil such expectations is like expecting an elephant to fly. .

As could be expected, the usual anti-African crowd in Europe and America has been making noises, trying to use the Cabinda disaster to prejudice the chances of the World Cup tournament in South Africa succeeding. But such a comparison is woefully ignorant as comparing South Africa to Angola, and especially Cabinda, is like comparing apples and oranges.

As Mr Danny Jordaan, head of the organising committee of the World Cup 2010 retorted when the issue of the safety of teams for the World Cup was raised with him,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jan/10/football-begins-africa-cup-nations

“Why are people suddenly applying double standards? When there are terrorist attacks in Europe, do we hear about the 2012 Olympics being under threat? No. We cannot be called to account for the security arrangements of Angola, which is far removed from South Africa."

Jordaan is right. But South Africa should serve as a serious warning to him. Football team protection units should be employed and trained. FIFA has enough money to put out contract for that right away. And the South Africans must, themselves, recruit and train a lot more personnel than they have done so far. June is not that far away...I do wish them good luck, though. Africa does need the World Cup to succeed, if only to show the racists and Cassandras that not all of Africa is bereft of proficiency.