Shell-shocked Togo leaves as Africa Cup opens
Nick Reeves
Togo’s national football team, still reeling from a rebel attack that
killed two of their squad, traveled home Sunday against the players’
wishes as the Africa Cup of Nations kicked off in Angola. President Jose
Eduardo dos Santos denounced Friday’s attack by separatist rebels in the
northern enclave of Cabinda, where the teammates were flying back to
Togo with their two slain colleagues.
“We condemn this act of terror, but the competition will continue in
Cabinda,” Dos Santos said as he opened the tournament. “We are together,
may the best man win.”
His government and African football officials pleaded to the last
second for Togolese authorities to allow the players to fulfill their
wish to compete in the tournament to honour their slain colleagues.
“It’s very sad. It’s hard for Africa and for us. These things are
part of life, you have to accept it,” Togo captain Emmanuel Adebayor
told AFP at the airport in Cabinda.
The team later arrived home in Lome on a special government plane,
where it was met at the airport by Prime Minister Gilbert Fossoun
Houngbo, members of the government and sports officials, an AFP
correspondent reported.
Cabinda is to host seven of the tournament’s 22 matches, but with
Togo’s goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale still in critical care at a South
African hospital, their prime minister ordered the team home.
“We understand the position of the players who want to in some way
avenge their dead colleagues, but it would be irresponsible for the
Togolese authorities to allow them to continue,” Houngbo earlier told
reporters in Lome.
Rebels ambushed the Togo convoy as they drove into the Cabinda
enclave from neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville on Friday, leaving players
cowering under their seats during a 20-minute gunbattle with security
forces.
Goalkeeper Obilale was airlifted to a Johannesburg hospital to
undergo surgery to treat gunshot wounds to the lower back and abdomen.
“He is ventilated at the moment, it’s still early stages at the
moment,” a hospital spokeswoman said. “He is in critical condition but
he stable.”
Separatist rebels threatened to carry out more attacks, saying they
had warned Confederation of African Football (CAF) boss Issa Hayatou
against holding matches in Cabinda. “This is going to continue, because
the nation is at war, because Hayatou persists,” said Rodrigues Mingas,
secretary general of the Forces for the Liberation of the State of
Cabinda-Military Position (FLEC-PM).
“We wrote two months before the Nations Cup to Mr Issa Hayatou to
warn him that we were at war. He did not want to take our warnings into
consideration,” Mingas told AFP by telephone.
“They were warned, they knew it, and they closed their eyes.”
Mingas’s faction is one of several groups battling for independence
in small but oil-rich Cabinda, a cornerstone of Angola’s economic boom,
despite a 2006 peace agreement.
Mingas now lives in exile in France, and a French foreign ministry
spokesman on Sunday vowed a response to his comments. South African
President Jacob Zuma condemned the shooting as “shocking and
unacceptable”, but brushed away speculation that the attack could affect
his nation’s hosting of the World Cup in June.
He “reiterated that South Africa remains 100 percent ready to host
the FIFA World Cup, and dismissed speculation that the Angolan incident
had any bearing on the World Cup tournament in South Africa,” his office
said in a statement.
Despite the sombre mood in Cabinda, spirits soared in Luanda, where
cars honked and pedestrians blew trumpets to celebrate Angola’s opening
match against Mali.
However, Mali was able to wipe out a four-goal deficit to draw 4-4
with the hosts. The tournament was meant as a coming-out party for the
oil-rich nation after decades of civil war, and Angola put on a splashy
opening ceremony with fireworks, laser lights and traditional dancers
enacting scenes from the country’s history.
The normally traffic-clogged streets were deserted as Angolans
gathered on rooftops and huddled around televisions to watch the game.
LUANDA, AFP |