"The Cabinda High Council urges the Angolan and Portuguese authorities, the African Union and the United Nations to begin negotiations between the Angolan authorities and the representatives of the people of Cabinda without further delay in order to restore freedom and human dignity to these people," it said in a statement.
The organization also asks "the Portuguese government, based on its historical responsibilities, to organize and mediate the negotiations between the government of Angola and the people of Cabinda [...] in order to ensure the credibility of the process and the respect of the peace agreement that comes out of it.
The Cabinda High Council was established in October 2019 in Accra, Ghana, and resulted from the convergence of political movements, civil society groups and cadres in Cabinda.
It aims to find "peaceful solutions" to the conflict affecting the region through dialogue with Angola.
The Council says it has already held meetings with several political organizations of the Cabindan resistance and Angolan political parties, as well as with youth organizations, Catholic Church and refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cabindans abroad.
In the same communiqué, the structure denounces the conditions of "abandonment" and "vulnerability" of the populations of the villages in the interior of the territory, aggravated by the covid-19 pandemic.
"This pandemic is an 'iceberg' about the precarious living conditions of the populations", the communiqué said, adding that they have not been contemplated by "any mitigation plan of the local government nor by the various supports of the World Health Organization".
"This situation has made the daily sustenance of the family a worse enemy than the pandemic itself", the text stresses.
The armed conflict in Cabinda, a province that claims independence from Angola, an oil-rich enclave separated from the rest of the country by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has lasted for more than 40 years.
