Two people were killed Nov. 8 when a separatist group in the Angolan exclave of Cabinda attacked an Angolan army convoy that was protecting a group of Chinese workers. One soldier died in the attack, in addition to a civilian driver for the Armed Forces of Angola (FAA), though no Chinese were hurt. This latest ambush by the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) is the group's most high-profile attack since a similar assault on an FAA-guarded convoy carrying the Togolese national soccer team on Jan. 8. The FLEC faction responsible for the Nov. 8 ambush, FLEC-Armed Forces of Cabinda, said after the attack that the group was not targeting Chinese in particular, but rather the FAA. The Angolan military has 30,000 soldiers occupying the tiny strip of land separated from mainland Angola by less than 65 kilometers (40 miles) of territory belonging to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Regardless of intent, Beijing will likely begin to pay more attention to the safety of its citizens in Angola, who are facing a rising tide of anti-Chinese sentiment throughout the country, an issue that extends beyond the borders of Cabinda and into the mainland. Angola is China's top trading partner in Africa, and the second-largest supplier of crude oil to China as well, making the relationship too strong to suffer too much from this latest FLEC attack.
