FLEC 4 (Cabinda, Angola)

Frente de Libertação do Estado de Cabinda

Last modified: 2002-08-30 by jarig bakker
Keywords: cabinda | flec | simulambuco monument |
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• FLEC 1996 flag
• FLEC symbol
• FLEC long flag
• Flag without quinas

• Angola
• Cabinda

FLEC (Frente de Libertação do Estado de Cabinda, Liberation Front of the State of Cabinda), founded 1996

FLEC symbol

FLEC long flag

by Robert Kee, 25 Feb 2001

This is the flag of the exile government of the Republic of Cabinda. The Portuguese Congo colony was situated between the French Congo (now Republic of the Congo) and the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). In 1920, it was administratively joined to the Portuguese Angola. During the 1950s, as Angola became a "province" of Portugal, people from former Portuguese Congo, now known as Cabinda, created their own liberation movements. Cabinda has huge oil reserves, now exploited by the USA company Chevron. Angola won't let go such a source of revenue...
Joan-Frances Blanc, 27 April 1998

The present flag is a Blue/Yellow/Black tricolor with Simulambuco monument. In February 1885 at Simulambuco was signed a treaty establishing Cabinda as a Portuguese protectorate. A monument was built later, sort of a padroe but much higher. The three arrows are not arrows, but spears, representing the three kingdoms of Kakongo, Loango and Ngoyo.The three spears are actually in front of the Simulambuco monument. In 1996 a new FLEC was created, in the Netherlands. That FLEC replaced the word "Enclave" by the word "State" (Estado). Now the FLEC is the "Frente de Libertação do Estado de Cabinda" (Liberation Front of the State of Cabinda).
Source: this page.
Joan-Frances Blanc, 4 May 1998

The detail of the flag is a representation of a padrao, a column of stone, carved in the upper segment with the portuguese quinas and topped by the cross of Christ, that the portuguese sailors used to carry around to leave at the lands they claimed for Portugal. There are hundreds of these monuments all over the place, and may be one in Cabinda as well.
Jorge Candeias, 29 April 1998

Flag without quinas

Another FLEC-faction, with its seat in Vilvoorde (Belgium), has the same flag as J. F. Blanc reported - but the quinas are missing. While there is a good picture of the monument of Simulambuco with the quinas in blue. Explanation (their words):

'Explanation of our national emblem - the flag

Blue : the royal row of the pre-colonial principality of Cabinda. It is also the color of the Atlantic Ocean of the 200km of full of fish coast of Cabinda which is not an enclave (illusory word invented at the 19th century for the benefit of the Portuguese illiterates of the timesalazarist).

Yellow : symbolize the various mineral not yet exploited in which abounds deep Cabinda, namely: white gold, pink, yellow; the diamond of jewellery and industrialist; money, platinum, copper, lead, zinc, cobalt, mercury, aluminium, bauxite, nickel, tin, antimony, lithium, tungsten, the molydene, zirconium, niobium, thorium, asbestos, asbestos, gypsum-talc, quartz, mica, graphite, the beryl, the lapse-lazuli, topaz, the ruby, sapphire, it salt-gem, sand-silicon (for the technology of microprocessing), coal, uranium (easily enrichissable for amateur of human destruction).

Black : finally, black gold (oil) and the KMT. And also, membership of Cabinda in the African continent.

The logo in the center : represent the famous one and memorable historic monument of Simulambuco (Treated protectorate lusitano-cabindais initialed the 1 er February 1885 between princes and notable cabindais and Portugal). Angular Stone of the Cabindan irredentism and irreplaceable initial treaty " Pacta Sunt Servanda " (article 15,26 of the convention of Vienna of 1969 on the right of the treaties.).'
----
No mistake: the quinas are gone. And the three spears.
Jarig Bakker, 6 Apr 2001

There is also a picture of the president of the government, holding a small desk flag. with the central emblem missing. Check it out. This is the third FLEC-faction, and seems to be implanted solely in the internet and in francophonous Europe. The people from the inside talk about the "Enclave" of Cabinda, while these guys talk about the "State" of Cabinda, for instance. Here there are representatives of both FLECs that operate inside Cabinda (FLEC-FAC and FLEC-Renovada), but no representative
that I know of from this third FLEC, which is basically a government in exile aimed at "organizing a national cabindan conference reuniting all sensible entities that struggle for independence", as they say in the homepage. These guys (and consequently this flag) are probably the least representative of them all.
Jorge Candeias, 8 Apr 2001