Steinmeier must speak up for release of arrested human rights worker

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) appealed on Tuesday to the Chairperson of the EU Council of Foreign Ministers, German foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to speak out on his visit to his opposite number in Angola for the immediate release of the arrested British human rights worker. Dr Sarah Wykes, who works for the reputed British human rights organisation "Global Witness”, was arrested on Sunday in the Angolan exclave Cabinda, which is rich on account of its oil, under the suspicion of espionage. "This charge is absurd”, said the GfbV Africa expert Ulrich Delius, "but of course the investigations of Dr Wykes are an irritation for the government of Angola.” The human rights worker was arrested shortly before a meeting with representatives of local NGO’s which wanted to obtain information on the human rights situation and the ecological destruction caused by oil-mining.

More than half of the 1.4 million barrels of oil, which are extracted daily in Angola, come from Cabinda. Oil export is for the economy of the southwest-African country of particular importance. With it Angola secures about 90 percent of its exports.

The population of the former Portuguese colony of Cabinda is in the region of 250,000, the overwhelming majority being Catholic Christians. People there have never come to terms with the Angolan rule, but have since 1975 been calling for the foundation of an independent state of Cabinda. Armed groups have for more than 30 years been resisting Angola’s security forces, which are terrorising the civilian population with arbitrary arrests, rape, torture and intimidation.

"Global Witness” has for years been investigating the consequences of oil-mining in Angola and has always called for a greater transparency of the Angolan oil industry, which is notorious for its corruption.