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Frente de Libertacao do Estado de Cabinda (Cabinda, Angola)

Front for the Liberation of the State of Cabinda

image by Joan-Frances Blanc, 28 April 1998, regiffed by Robert Kee, 25 Feb 2001

FLEC - founded in 1996
FLEC - long flag
FLEC - flag without quinas

See also:

FLEC - founded 1996

detail of the central emblem by Joan-Frances Blanc, regiffed by Robert Kee, 25 Feb 2001

The present flag is a Blue, Yellow and Black tricolor with a representation of the Simulambuco monument in the centre. In February 1885 a treaty was signed establishing Cabinda as a Portuguese protectorate at Simulambuco . A monument was built to commemorate the event, which is similar to 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, replacing 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) and should not be confused with the Frente de Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda (which also goes by the same acronym - see here for details).
Joan-Frances Blanc, 04 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

FLEC - long flag

image 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 Congo). In 1920, it was administratively joined to Portuguese West Africa, now 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.
Joan-Frances Blanc, 27 April 1998

FLEC - flag without quinas

image by Jarig Bakker, 06 Apr 2001

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

'Explanation of our national emblem - the flag

Blue : the royal row of the pre-colonial principality of Cabinda. It is also the colour 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 time).

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, aluminum, 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 micro-processing), coal, uranium (easily to be enriched 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 (Treaty of protectorate lusitano-cabindais initialed 01 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.).'
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Make no mistake, the quinas have and the three spears have gone.
Jarig Bakker, 06 Apr 2001

There is also a picture of the president of the government, holding a small desk flag with the central emblem missing. This is the third FLEC-faction, and seems to be implanted solely on the internet and in francophone Europe. The people from the inside talk about the "Enclave" of Cabinda, while this group talks 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 grouping, which is basically a government in exile aimed at "organizing a national Cabinda conference reuniting all sensible entities that struggle for independence", as they say in the homepage.
Jorge Candeias, 08 Apr 2001