There are so many outrages being committed every day it is easy to miss them, so I’m grateful to the local free rag Spits for alerting me to this one. And quite an outrage it is too:
Antonio Bento Bembe is the secretary-general of the FLEC, which has at its aim the liberation of Cabinda, a small Angolan enclave within the Democratic Republic of Congo, which used to be a Portuguese colony independent from its Angolan colony; the FLEC was active against the Portuguese before it had to fight against the MPLA, the Angolan independent movement. The FLEC and the MPLA/Angolan government have been fighting for decades ever since the MPLA first invaded Cabinda in 1975.
Before Cabinda had become a Portuguese colony, it had been a Dutch trading post, which may explain the continuing interest of the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs in the region; it has been acting as a neutral peace broker. It was in this capacity that Antonio Bento Bembe was invited to come to the Netherlands for peace talks. when he did so, he was arrested…
Turns out the United States, once it had learned Antonio Bento Bembe was in the Netherlands, had asked for his extradiction, allegedly because he was involved with the kidnapping of an American pilot in 1990 or 1991. So when he came to the Netherlands in June of this year, he was promptly arrested.
At first glance this just seems to be another example of American cack-handedness; favouring domestic concerns above foreign political realities. Tactless and stupid, but not actively malicious. A second look however reveals that there might be more to the story. As per usual, the whole affair might just revolve around one little word:
Oil.
It turns out most of Angola’s oil production is coming from Cabina, of which the American oil company Chevron has the lion’s share (39.2%, according to Wikipedia). Angolan oil –as noted, largely Cabinan– at the moment also accounts for 4% of the US’ oil imports. The Angolan government is very favourable towards the US and Chevron, a newly independent Cabina might not be, especially since little of the oil profits flow into the province itself, the industry causes huge pollution within it and Angola is harsh in repressing any “unrest”.
Now that pilot that was supposedly kidnapped, was working for Chevron at the time. Who else was working for Chevron before she became Bush’s handler? Guess who signed the extradition request?
It would be just like the Bushies to fuck up a fledgling peace process by wanting to arrest one of the participants, just to make sure America (and Chevron) gets that all important oil…
Maroc.nl has a good overview of the affair, though sadly only in Dutch.
Patricia Behnke
April 12, 2009 at 8:01 amThis comment copied from the original Haloscan comment to this post – MW
You are right on track with the reasons for Bembe’s arrest, but you have a few things confused.
I am a writer who is working with Brent Swan, the “pilot” to whom you refer, on his story of the kidnapping that occurred in 1990 in Cabinda (you have it spelled Cabina). Brent worked for Petroleum Helicopters, Inc. as an aircraft mechanic. PHI was under contract with Chevron to maintain the helicopters for trips to the offshore oil rigs.
His story is poignant because he still suffers from the effects of this act of terrorism – he was taken hostage with AK-47s pointing at his head and hand grenades held at the window of his truck. For 61-days he was guarded heavily by 25-30 members of FLEC until Chevron negotiated his release. He tries to forget and then the U.S. government arrests one of his captors (there are pictures of Bembe and I have them). I believe you are correct in your assumptions about the U.S.’s involvement in this case, but please remember that there is a man in the United States whose life has changed drastically along with his wife’s. They cannot work and they basically cannot function because of their fear of terrorism at the hands of FLEC and the U.S. government.