Optimism Turned To Horror
The Angolan government chose to use the northern enclave of Cabinda as a venue for the African Cup of Nations to improve the province's war-torn image and drive investment, but its plan has turned out to be a tragic own goal, with reports of three dead, Togo set to pull out of the tournament and Angola in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The death toll from an attack on Togo's football team as they travelled in Angola has risen from one to three, reports say. The team bus driver was killed in Friday's attack, with the deaths of the assistant coach and a spokesman announced a day later.
Two players were among nine people injured in the attack as the team headed to the Africa Cup of Nations. The teams were recalled from the competition by the Togo government.
The Angolan government officials and tournament organizers had held unsuccessful talks with the team to persuade them to stay after reports they were withdrawing.
The attack happened in Angola's northern province of Cabinda on Friday. Goalkeeper Kossi Agassa, who plays for French club Istres, told France-Info radio that two people had died.
They were the assistant coach Amalete Abalo and media spokesperson Stanislas Ocloo. Among the nine people injured were two players, an assistant manager, physio, goalkeeping coach and another coach.
Reserve goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale was flown to South Africa for surgery for injuries to his back, club president Philippe Le Mestre told AP news agency.
The attackers machine-gunned the vehicle after it crossed from the Republic of Congo into Angola's oil-rich territory of Cabinda.
Rebels who have been fighting for the region's independence later said they had carried out the attack. The Angolan government called the incident an "act of terrorism".
Togo had been due to play their first cup game in Cabinda on Monday. The Angolan Prime Minister, Paulo Kassoma, described the attack as an "isolated act", and guaranteed the security of teams, AFP news agency reported.
The BBC sports correspondent says that Togo's withdrawal will be a crushing blow for the Angolan hosts, who hoped the tournament would show how far their country had progressed since the end of the civil war.
The tournament's organizers, the Confederation of African Football (CAF), said the team should have travelled by air rather than road.
The Togolese team - which includes Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor and Aston Villa midfielder Moustapha Salifou - were shot at by a group of gunmen as they travelled by bus from the Republic of Congo into Cabinda, which is separated from Angola by a strip of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The small jungle province is home to much of Angola's offshore petroleum activity and has been at the centre of a long-running independence fight led by various splinter groups of Flec (the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda).
Despite a so-called peace deal in 2006, low-level insurgency has continued and there have been sporadic reports of attacks on members of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and some on Chinese and Brazilian nationals working in the province.
Flec had made some veiled threats that it might attack during the Cup of Nations - when it knew the world's media would be watching - but the Angolan government gave assurances security was in place and there would be no trouble.
Speaking ahead of the tournament, Antonio Bento Bembe, a former Flec leader who was made a government minister as part of the 2006 Memorandum of Understanding, said: "Cabinda is safe and security there is guaranteed.
"The Cup of Nations is an opportunity for Cabinda to receive visitors and it will bring money and investment to the province," he added. Later, responding to the shooting, the minister said he had made the statements in good faith and added: "I am really sad to think that our African brothers came to Angola to take part in the Cup of Nations and this has happened."
An investigation has been launched into what happened, but questions are also being asked about why Togo chose to drive through a notoriously dangerous part of the province, a known location for insurgents, instead of flying to Cabinda city directly, according to the Confederation of African Football regulations.
"The mistake is that the team travelled by road, they had obviously done no serious risk assessment of the area," said Alex Vines, of London-based think tank Chatham House.
"This is the Mayombe rainforest and where radical Flec separatists have operated for decades. "They number just several hundred but they can be disruptive, despite the large number of Angolan military and security deployed in the province, and international companies in the zones have been targeted with abductions and killings."
Few such attacks reach the headlines because of an ongoing clampdown on media activities in the province of Cabinda and the government's refusal to acknowledge Flec's actions.
With Togo having pulled out of the tournament, the organizing committee is pledging tighter security but trying to play down the incident. On Saturday, it issued a statement repeating that the competition would go ahead as planned.
Angola has reportedly spent $1bn preparing for the biannual tournament to be played in the four host cities of Luanda, Lubango, Benguela and Cabinda, as well as four brand new Chinese-built stadiums. There are new airports, roads, hotels and upgraded hospital facilities.
Hype has been building in the country for weeks and the streets of Luanda have been a sea of red, black and gold Angolan flags and people in team shirts and caps.
One woman selling mangoes outside Luanda's 50,000-seat stadium said: "We are happy about the Cup of Nations because it will bring tourists to Angola, and they will see that the war is over and that the people are peaceful."
After the incident involving the Togo team, this type of optimism may now be hard to find.
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