Angola right to not cancel Cup of Nations

10 January 2010

by Jerrad Peters

I heard something that bothered me this weekend. As he was setting up Saturday's English Premier League match between Arsenal and Everton, a North American television commentator took the opportunity to criticize the Africa Cup of Nations, which he said should never have been awarded to a "country like Angola."

I've heard many similar comments since Friday afternoon, when Cabindan rebels opened fire on the Togolese national team in Angola's north. And I've bristled every time. Such statements are laced with ignorance and hypocrisy, and are a sad reminder that narrow, Eurocentric worldviews are as prominent as ever.

Now, I'm not trying to downplay Friday's tragic events. Quite the contrary. In the context of international soccer, they were without precedent. Never before has a competition of this magnitude been overshadowed by the type of violence and death we witnessed last week. They cast a pall over this tournament that will never go away. This Cup of Nations will always be associated with machine gun fire and the blood-soaked floor of a team bus. And that's devastating.

But to go so far as to say the competition should have been kept out of Angola is preposterous. This is a country that, since emerging from 27 years of civil war in 2002, has become one of the continent's feel-good stories. It has experienced double-digit economic growth every year since 2006, and its life expectancy—long mired below an average of 40 years—is climbing steadily upward. China has emerged as a major investor, and the rebuilding of infrastructure destroyed by war has created hundreds of thousands of jobs. Angola is a model of stability in sub-Saharan Africa, and was a worthy recipient of the Cup of Nations when it was awarded in 2007.

Unfortunately, the government of president Jose Eduardo dos Santos attempted to use the tournament as a political vehicle. This is hardly uncommon (see Argentina in 1978), but its backfire was deadly.

Angola's northern region of Cabinda is separated from the rest of the country by a thin strip of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It's a breakaway enclave, and a reminder of Angola's violent, sectarian past. As such, it should have been avoided when the Cup of Nations' organizing committee named the four host cities. Instead, the government just couldn't resist the chance to present an image of a unified Uganda to the international community. They should have left well enough alone.

The conundrum was hardly without precedent. Spain kept away from Basque capital Vitoria when they hosted the 1982 World Cup. Similarly, Sarajevo was not among the host cities when Yugoslavia staged Euro '76. Separatist factions are a reality in many countries, and Angola had dealt with Cabinda rather well since agreeing a fragile peace in 2006.

But awarding the province an entire group for the Cup of Nations was a step too far. It was a gamble that should never have been made, and it was paid for in blood. The Angolan government should bear sole responsibility for that misstep.

The country as a whole, however, should not be implicated. Canceling the Cup of Nations would have only reinforced the beliefs and assumptions of those who know nothing at all of this part of the world. They're the same people who insist the competition should be held in the summer, and not in the middle of the European domestic season.

The act of terrorism that resulted in three deaths and countless injuries was inexcusable and embarrassing to a government that approached the tournament with a shocking amount of arrogance. But that doesn't change the fact that Angola is prospering. It is a model to its sub-Saharan neighbors, and a worthy host of the Cup of Nations.