(Kampala) An environmental defender in Uganda, Stephen Kwikiriza, who campaigns against the TotalEnergies oil megaproject in the East African country, “was allegedly arrested” by the military on Tuesday, two NGOs said on Friday. including the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

“In a particularly worrying escalation of repression, Stephen Kwikiriza of the Environmental Governance Institute (EGI) was allegedly kidnapped by plainclothes Ugandan army officers on June 4,” lamented in a statement sent to the AFP the FIDH, adding that “all communication with Stephen Kwirkiriza has been cut off for 72 hours and we do not know where and in what condition he is.”  

Asked by AFP, Julius Hakiza, police spokesman in the region where Stephen Kwikiriza lives, said he was “not aware” of this arrest. The army spokesman has not yet responded.

For the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), the EGI “indicated that it had not heard from (Stephen Kwikiriza) since he sent a text message to a colleague on June 4, 2024, claiming that ‘he had been arrested by plainclothes Ugandan military officers’.

FIDH also claimed that 11 environmental rights defenders “were kidnapped, arbitrarily arrested, detained or subjected to various forms of harassment by Ugandan authorities between May 27, 2024 and June 5, 2024.” Those who were arrested were released, but are still the subject of an “investigation”, deplored the FIDH.

In 2022, TotalEnergies announced a $10 billion investment agreement with Uganda, Tanzania and the Chinese company CNOOC, including the construction of a 1,443-kilometer oil pipeline (EACOP) linking the fields of Lake Albert, in western Uganda, to the Tanzanian coast on the Indian Ocean.

The project, however, has encountered opposition from activists and environmental groups who believe it threatens the region’s fragile ecosystem and the people who live there.

Twenty-six Ugandans and five French and Ugandan associations (AFIEGO, Friends of the Earth France, NAPE/Friends of the Earth Uganda, Survie and TASHA Research Institute) launched a civil action in June 2023 to seek “reparation” in court of Paris for various damages: abusive 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 Nanterre (Paris region), which is, according to them, “unprecedented” because it summons TotalEnergies “ before the criminal judge for facts 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.