20091130

LUANDA (Reuters) - An Angolan minister said on Tuesday a separatist group that has waged war for control of the country's oil-producing province for more than 30 years no longer existed.

Antonio Bento Bembe, a former fighter with the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) who is now a minister without portfolio, said all that remained of the group was a few individuals who tried to attract unhappy Cabindans to their cause with false statements.

The end of FLEC would help increase the flow of foreign investment into Angola's oil sector.

More than half the country's oil comes from wells offshore of Cabinda, a small enclave in the north of the African country and separated from it by a strip of land belonging to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"FLEC no longer exists," Bento Bembe said in an interview with Reuters.

"What you have is some individuals who issue war statements. They try to push the people to take up arms, sinking them into trouble. But who will point a shotgun at a whole army?"

Angola has succeeded in protecting oil companies such as Chevron in Cabinda by concentrating a significant amount of troops in the small territory -- branded the "Kuwait of Africa" because of its oil wealth.