p.CHPlf ~~ t 6~!jE'aB r ·:uru, Human and Peoples' Rights Hwnan R,ghts ou, Collective Responsib lity Charter28. The Commission had previously made a similar pronouncement in the case of Front for the Liberation of the State of Cabinda vs Angola, when it recognized the right to equality between different communities in the same State29. 149. The Commission notes that the Court, for its part, has recognised the lack of definition of the term people in the African Charter. Following the same line of reasoning as the Commission, it considered that the reference to peoples in the African Charter should not be restricted to the concept of people for the purposes of external self-determination (independence) but also from the perspective of internal self-determination which does not entail secession, which would be contrary to the principle of the inviolability of borders laid down in Article 4(b) of the Constitutive Act of the Union. The Court concluded that intra-State communities are peoples for the purposes of the collective rights provided for in the African Charter30. 150. The Commission observes that the collective rights provided for in the African Charter cannot be restricted to peoples as a constituent element of the State as a sovereign entity. This is because one of the distinctive features of the African Charter is that it takes into consideration the virtues "of historical traditions and the values of African civilization that should inspire and characterize its reflections on the conception of human and peoples' rights" .31 151. The Commission recalls the words of Keba Mbaye that in traditional African society " ... law is rather considered as a set of rules protecting the community of which the individual is a part." However, according to the same author, "[t)his conception of law and human rights should not be interpreted as reducing the rights of the individual to nothing. On the contrary, in traditional African society, if the privileged subject of the law is the community, the individual keeps his freedom and the specificities of his rights." Indeed, the Commission notes that the African Charter could not ignore the foundation on which African States are based, all of which are organised around ethnic, tribal and other types of affinities. 152. Based on the above, the Commission is therefore of the opinion that the concept of the people for the purposes of the collective rights provided for in the African