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Angola was stupid to hold Africa Cup of Nations games in Cabinda. But this has nothing to do with the World Cup...As Malawi and Algeria took the field today in the second match of the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations tournament, the stadium in Luanda was almost completely empty apart from officials and security men. That no attempt was made to entice Luanda's crowds to matches not involving the home team was symptomatic of the lack of imagination of the bureaucracies that dominate many African countries. But the more damning act of imbecility was the decision of the Angolan government to host some of the matches in Cabinda. It is all very well to have persuaded the Chinese to build a spanking new stadium, costing millions of dollars, in Cabinda city: this was to make the political point that not all the money obtained from the oil that gushes out of the region is commandeered by the apparatchiks in Luanda for the own purposes. It was also an attempt to warn the oil companies that they should not be tempted � as a kind of insurance policy � secretly to finance some of the residual elements of the Cabinda secessionist movement that have continued to operate since the Luanda government reached a deal with the spearhead of the Cabinda separatists Flec (Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda). The message was that Luanda was now in full control of the entire territory of Angola. But the Luanda government � made up, as it is, of a coalition of two guerrilla organisations that had been at each other's throats for decades, the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) and Unita (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) � should have realised that elements of Flec might seize the opportunity to make their own political point. In their own long sojourn in the bush, first against the Portuguese and then against each other, they suffered often from splits and undisciplined coups de theatre precisely of the type inflicted on the Togolese players last week. Not that the Togolese were without fault. An elementary casing of the joint that was to be their home for at least four weeks would have revealed to them that the situation in Cabinda is so dodgy that oil workers there have evolved their own rules for survival. Many spend only a few days on the rigs, then go off by private plane to Luanda, where they catch a plane to Houston, Texas for their "recreation". Such an expensive system wouldn't have been evolved for nothing. Above all, the oil-worker community shuns like the plague the delights of nearby Brazzaville in Republic of the Congo. Yet it was there that the Togolese elected to spend their days of pre-tournament training. Brazzaville's francophone ambience was deemed preferable to the Portuguese-speaking frostiness of Cabinda. But they paid dearly for it. As might be expected, the usual anti-African crowd has been making noises, trying to use the Cabinda disaster to prejudice the chances of the World Cup tournament in South Africa succeeding. But such a comparison is woefully ignorant. Comparing South Africa to Angola, and especially Cabinda, is like comparing apples and oranges. As Danny Jordan, head of the organising committee of the World Cup 2010 retorted when the issue of the safety of teams for the World Cup was raised with him: "Why are people suddenly applying double standards? When there are terrorist attacks in Europe, do we hear about the 2012 Olympics being under threat? No. We cannot be called to account for the security arrangements of Angola, which is far removed from South Africa."