The Cabinda State Liberation Front (FLEC-FAC) today called on the new US administration to support its struggle for self-determination of the territory, urging the United Nations (UN) to promote a referendum.
“The politico-military leadership of the FLEC-FAC calls on the new American administration and President Joe Biden to support a process that leads to the self-determination of Cabinda,” the organization said in a statement on the occasion of the 136th anniversary of the Treaty of Simulambuco.
Signed on February 1, 1885 between the Portuguese government and the native Cabins, the Treaty of Simulambuco sealed the creation of a Portuguese protectorate, in which Portugal pledged to maintain the integrity of the territories.
In the same declaration, the movement also calls on the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres, to “organize a referendum on the free and fair self-determination of Cabinda”.
“The right of the Cabindian people to self-determination is a fundamental right, Cabinda is not a province of Angola, but a Portuguese protectorate until today“, underlines the statement signed by the secretary general of the organization, Jacinto António Télica.
The separatists express “the hope” that the administration of President Joe Biden “will help the region to resolve this problem within the framework of international legality“.
In the same sense, they call on the international community “to assume its historic responsibilities for the self-determination of the people of Cabinda“.
“The Portuguese government will find its own role in supporting this process,” the statement concluded.
The FLEC-FAC calls come on the same day that Angolan police arrested six activists and prevented a demonstration outside the Portuguese embassy in Luanda to demand that Portugal respect the agreement that allowed the independence of the enclave .
The separatists of Cabinda claim that the territory was an independent colony of Portugal and should have been treated as such in the process of independence of Angola.
In contrast, the territory from which most of Angolan oil is extracted has become an Angolan province.
Source : angola24horas.com
