An environmental defender campaigning against a TotalEnergies oil megaproject in Uganda, missing since Tuesday, was found “in bad shape”, his association told AFP on Monday. According to the latter, he was arrested and beaten by soldiers.
On Sunday evening, Stephen Kwikiriza “was thrown along a road in Kyenjojo”, about 250 kilometers west of the capital Kampala, Environmental Governance Institute (EIG) director Samuel Okulony said in a message to AFP.
According to the first information provided by Stephen Kwikiriza, he was “beaten” by soldiers and “is clearly in bad shape”, he detailed, adding that the activist is currently being monitored at Nsambya hospital. “They kept moving him from one place to another and in each new place he was beaten,” Mr. Okulony continued.
Spokespersons for the Ugandan army did not respond to AFP’s requests.
“Particularly worrying escalation”
Several NGOs, including the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Human Rights Watch (HRW), were concerned about the disappearance since Tuesday of Stephen Kwikiriza, affirming that he “would have been arrested” by soldiers in civilian clothes.
The FIDH denounced “a particularly worrying escalation of repression” against opponents of the TotalEnergies megaproject, affirming that it targeted 11 environmental defenders between May 27 and June 5.
In a press release sent to AFP on Saturday, TotalEnergies said it was monitoring “the situation very closely”, and assured that it would not “tolerate any threats or attacks against those who peacefully defend and promote human rights”.
Fragile ecosystem threatened
TotalEnergies announced in 2022 an investment agreement of 10 billion dollars with Uganda, Tanzania and the Chinese company CNOOC, including in particular the construction of an oil pipeline (EACOP) of 1,443 kilometers connecting the deposits of Lake Albert, in western Uganda, to the Tanzanian coast on the Indian Ocean.
The project is denounced by environmental protection organizations who believe that it threatens the fragile ecosystem of the region and the populations who live there.
Complaint against Total for “climaticide”
Twenty-six Ugandans and five French and Ugandan associations launched a civil action in June 2023 to request “reparation” before the Paris court for various damages (unfair expropriations, insufficient compensation, harassment, etc.).
The associations Darwin Climax Coalitions, Sea Shepherd France, Wild Legal and Stop EACOP-Stop Total in Uganda also filed a criminal complaint in September in France, which is, according to them, “unprecedented”, because it summons TotalEnergies “before the judge criminal offense for acts resembling climaticide.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1986, has repeatedly described the project as a major economic Source in the landlocked country.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
