The attack on the Togolese Soccer team on Friday 8^th January 2010, in the Cabinda province of Angola, had various people and institutions raising eyebrows and has also led to concerns over security for events – since “it had never been anticipated” that such horror attack would ever take place in the region. The group that carried out and claimed responsibility for the attack is the separatist group, the Front for the Liberation of Cabinda Enclave (FLEC), which has been fighting for the liberation of the Cabinda Enclave since the colonial era and had continued after the independence of Angola from Portugal.

In these attacks, the separatist group had gunmen spraying bullets on the Togolese football team bus, killing at least three people - that is exactly the strategy of terrorist groups. They attack and leave and claim responsibility – where political movements (including the separatist group) are involved, one then gets these groups aligning their strategy with their quest for either self-determination or total freedom and autonomy from a colonizer or oppressive regime. This is exactly what happened to the Togolese team. Worse, the African Soccer governing body (CAF) failed to come to the rescue of the Togolese team, but instead further punished them for having been attacked by removing them from the tournament altogether.

This attack has raised security concerns over events both globally and in Africa. Countries like the US, Israel and South Africa have all condemned the attack calling it cowardice and unwarranted against a soccer team that was not part of the political agenda of the separatist group. In response, the separatist group FLEC responded, through its Switzerland-based Secretary General Rodrigues Mingas, regretting the incident and claiming that the Togolese team happened to be on the wrong place at the wrong time. FLEC further claimed that the attack was directed at the Angolan government as well as CAF leadership for having organized the tournament on the Cabinda province knowing very well that the province was embroiled in an armed struggle for independence from Angola. This attack raises various normative questions to the global community as well as Africa in Particular with regard to the scale and modus operandi applied in global terrorism.

This incident therefore raises five pertinent questions, namely:

-          Firstly, is the world and the overall global community ready and prepared to quell and deal with a terrorist attack targeting civilians, similar to September 11^th?

-          Second, what is the magnitude of the global security threat?

-          Third, what is Africa’s share of this magnitude?

-          Fourth, are South Africa’s security arrangements threatened by such incidents, and if yes, what should the South African state’s response be?

-          Lastly, has the global community positioned its youth not to be recruited into these and future terrorist activities?

The Global community’s preparedness to prevent and combat another September 11^th attack has been slammed as inadequate in various quarters – while drastic improvements have been noted by Africa’s response. The United State has been singled out, globally, as the only global player that has both prepared and resourced global endeavours towards preventing and combating global terrorism. However, this is untrue because terrorism is a global phenomenon that impacts upon every country and region in the world.  Every country is required to prepare itself and its institutions to prevent and combat global terrorism as per Security Council Resolution 1373. It is alleged that these arrangements, however, have not seen coherence and practice within all countries and especially African states. For example, the United States has recently been at pain against South Africa’s global terrorism mechanisms[1] which it deemed too liberal and accommodating to terrorists. Their main concern was that the South African overall governance system, quoting the cases of two terrorists (Khalfan Khamis Mohamed – the alleged bomber of both the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as well as the recent case of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab of Nigeria who flew from Lagos to Amsterdam before boarding Northwest Airlines Flight 253 for Detroit. US authorities allege that Mr. Mutallab tried to set off an incendiary device – this was when Flight 253 was descending to its destination). In the final analysis, neither of these two cases specifically questions the rigor and efficacy of the South African, globally accepted as adequate, mechanisms. These and other events prompted the US to close its South African mission for fear for the safety and security of their personnel.

In assuring the world that South Africa has geared itself adequately against global terrorism, South Africa’s New York-Based Political Councilor to the United Nations – Mr. Wayne Malgas, assured the world that SA has geared itself up long time ago in its global mandate of preventing and combating global terrorism. With regard to the lack of regional coherence in combating terrorism, Mr. Malgas said that South Africa has long recognized the inevitable truth that terrorism cannot be addressed in isolation because of the global nature of its security threat. Unfortunately for Africa, it has not been left alone by these threats and carries an equally, formidable and shared responsibility towards preventing, combating and permanently quelling them.

According to Mr. Malgas, the South African state’s intelligence and security agencies have implemented parallel activities aimed at curtailing actions that promotes terrorism, including transnational criminal activities. These activities include acts related to money laundering, drug trafficking, trafficking in illegal firearms, documentary/identity fraudster networks and organizations. In achieving this goal, the South African state established an Inter-Departmental Counter-Terrorism Working Group – whose tasks involves monitoring and overseeing the implementation of UN SC Resolution 1373. Another parallel activity has been the establishment of a National Joint Operational Committee by the intelligence and security communities.  

Furthermore, South Africa’s response to global terrorism is that it has various mechanisms in which it prevents and combats global terrorism. It is for this reason that South Africa has successfully hosted the African Cup of Nations (1996), Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup, 20/20 Cricket Championships, and recently hosted the English Cricket team. None of these sporting events have seen any terroristic incidents. It is for these reasons that South Africa’s Local Organizing Committee Chairman, Mr. Danny Jordaan, was confident in asserting that “we (South Africa) are convinced that we will deliver the Soccer World Cup – in an efficient, professional and safe manner”. This he assured despite his acknowledgement that terrorism is a global phenomenon. Relating to the Togolese terrorists incident, Danny Jordaan, maintained that “the event in Angola has absolutely nothing to do with South Africa and the world cup. Angola is its own sovereign state with its own military”. Mr. Jordaan queried why “South Africa was to be judged  on the Angolan incident, while Germany was not judged based on the European terrorists attack in the 2004 Madrid (Spain) bomb blast and the 2005 London train blasts.”

Supporting Danny’s views, South Africa’s National Defense Force’s (SANDF) boss, Lieutenant General Veejay Ramlakan, assured the global community that the SANDF was ready to handle all security and health care needs for the tournament. This he said would be delivered by the overall structure of the SANDF, namely the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the South African Military Health Services. It should also be noted that South Africa has the region’s best and arguably one of the world’s best police response teams. Both the SAPS response specialist units – the National Response Unit and the Elite Special Task Force Unit have been roped into the World Cup Security Structure of South Africa. Furthermore, since 1994 South Africa has successfully quelled the activities and neutralized the potential threat of probable terrorist group PAGAD. Currently, South Africa does not have separatists movements as a result of the country’s Constitution and the overall governance system.

The South African state, through its multi-lateral approach, has embarked on various pro-active measures against terrorism – measures that impact on its national security, one of which was the conducting of national as well as regional security risk assessments. The Post 9/11 period saw a Risk Audit being authorized and mandated by the South African government through its Cabinet. This working group was chaired by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (formerly known as the Department of Foreign Affairs). The audit reported a low scale risk facing South Africa. The outcomes contained in the report confirmed South Africa’s approach to preventing and combating global terrorism to be centered on a particular approach, namely the multilateralism approach[2]. Although the US, and the West overall, have at times commended South African mechanisms for they include both multi-lateral approaches as well as the law enforcement approach. The latter approach is regarded as a good instrument and mechanism in dealing with, preventing and combating terrorism. This is because this approach relies on due process as an appropriate instrument tool of enforcing the law upon its inhabitants. This view is represented in both the objective and the substance of the Protection of Constitutional Democracy Against Terrorism and Related Activities Act (Act No. 33 - POCDATARA) of 2004.

Lastly, the world has been criticized for failing its youth by not engaging it on the prevention and the combat of global terrorism. Within the global community, the failure of the global leaders to separate between non-violent religious movements and those movements that are openly committed to the armed struggle has received attention from the research community. The lack of this separation is viewed as distancing the observant faction of the communities of the world, especially those in Europe and Asia, away from their leadership. This in turn can be used, by terrorists groups and other self-enriching terrorist factions, as a political strategy of infiltrating observant communities and enforcing terroristic behaviors upon its youth. Some (mainly in the West) view this threat as entailing a political strategy aimed at establishing an Islamic state across the whole region. In making this statement, International Crisis Group[3] asserts that the security agencies’ failure to differentiate between non-violent religious movements and those openly committed to the armed struggle will deepen the divide between the observant Muslim population and central governments – a particularly dangerous development at a time when the risk of armed Islamic insurgency is growing. The role of the African state has also been underscored in recent events. In Africa, the creation of this distance between the youth and its leaders has been notably growing. For instance, South African security agencies have singled out the young people as being responsible for recent violent protests and breaking the law in the disguise of exerting their right to free speech as well as to mobilize[4]. The South African Police Service, SAPS, admitted that certain structures of the SA youth was leaning towards terroristic behaviours and that the authorities have, through consultations with their leadership, already put measures on the ground to deal with this without having to resort to the strict law enforcement measures – thereby further entrenching the already suspected barrier between the youth and its national leadership structures and South Africa in general which has a tendency of creating faction groups and separatists movements.

In conclusion, it has been adequately demonstrated that the phenomenon of terrorism is a global problem and not a single country concern. It has also been indicated in this paper that the creation of structures alone is inadequate – for resourcing is more important in the implementation of the global mechanisms of preventing and combating global terrorism. Africa has also seen its share of terror in the CAF Cup of Nations that is underway in Angola. South Africa has demonstrated its ability of organizing and hosting an incident free first world cup in Africa. The question, therefore, bothering the minds of many is whether these mechanisms are adequate to quell off terror and related behaviours.

Recommendations

Based on the analysis above, the following can be recommended:

·         The global community must seek prompt and pro-active ways of combating terrorism, like they did when the threat of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab manifested itself.

·         Africa needs to weed itself of separatist groups and alleged terror movements either by working with such at an early age and resolving the problem or quashing its very existence through a formal drastic law enforcement approach.

·         South Africa need not be complacent with its measures and systems – terrorism is a mobile activity. South Africa must be continuously wary of the surprise Togo element in its preparations.

·         Africa’s response has to be both morally and legally acceptable to its people – unfortunately this has not been the case to the Togolese People. They were forced out of the tournament by terror and the African leadership rubberstamped their removal from the tournament.