African Cup of Nations - reactions to Togo team attack

Togo in shock, rebels unrepentant

Article published on the 2010-01-10 Latest update 2010-01-11 12:13 TU

Angolan police helicopters circle above the Olympic Village
(Photo: Reuters)

Togo's government sent a plane Sunday to Angola to bring home its  football team from the Africa Cup of Nations, after a rebel attack left at least two dead. The group responsible says the attack is the government's fault for organising matches in contested territory.

 

"We are awaiting the Togolese delegation today in Lomé," Prime Minister Gilbert Houngbo told journalists.

A leader of the separatist faction that claims responsibility for the attack told RFI Sunday that the attack took place because matches are taking place in the disputed Cabinda region.

"This attack was not against the Togolese," said Flec-FAC faction military leader Joao Batista Njimbi. "It was against the government, the MPLA [the ruling party].

"We are not against the Africa Cup of Nations but it should not have been organised before peace had been brought to Cabinda."

Njimbi's faction was born from splits in the separatist movement in the oil-rich enclave, which the Portugese attached to Angola under colonial rule in 1956.

It is one of two groups which rejected an agreement with the government reached by Antonio Bento Bembe's Flec Renovada in 2006.

The attack is "not really a surprise", comments rights campaigner Lisa Rimli.

"Since the peace agreement in 2006, the government has tried to oppress the independent media and civil society which have criticised this peace agreement and have denounced that the civil war has continued and that the military has committed serious human rights abuses against the civilian population."

The authorities refuse to recognise that a separatist movement still exists, Rimli told RFI.

"The government since 2006 had denied that there was still a civil war - that there was still a movement operating in Cabinda," she says, adding that it "has attributed ongoing attacks, which have been rather sporadic but a bit more intense in the last month against the Angolan army and against expatriate workers as the work of 'armed bandits'."

Shocked citizens of Togo support the government's attempts to bring the team home, according to correspondent Ebow Godwin in Lomé.

"Togo, especially in Lomé, is overwhelmed and consumed with grief," he told RFI. "The first mood of the people was that of shock, and there was this feeling of outrage that this can happen to the Togolese national football team.

"The prevailing opinion here is not to get CAN cancelled, but to get the Togolese players who were attacked back into safety. [...] We are not sure whether there will be another disaster, so they should come back home before another disaster strikes."

There is disappointment mixed with the shock, Godwin says.

"This will be a big blow to Togolese football, because there were a lot of people who were expecting Togo to put up a brilliant performance in Angola."