DIRCO Committee agrees to summon Minister Lamola over hostage crisis

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has today in Parliament requested that the Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation urgently summon Minister Ronald Lamola to outline all actions his department is taking to secure the release of political hostages in Equatorial Guinea.

The DA were accompanied in Parliament by the families of the hostages.

It is deeply concerning that two South Africans, Frederik Potgieter, 54, and Peter Huxham, 55, have been unlawfully held in detention in Equatorial Guinea for over 550 days.

The United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has issued a Formal Opinion that the detention of Frederik and Peter is both arbitrary and illegal, and has called for their immediate release.

Equatorial Guinea is a signatory to the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The distraught families of the two hostages have also asked the Pan-African Parliament to intervene, and continue to seek the assistance of DIRCO, but with little or no progress.

While former Minister Naledi Pandor visited Equatorial Guinea on 5 May this year, to plead for their release, there has been no substantive communication by the Department to the families since.

In light of the lack of communication between our government and the hostages’ families, it is now incumbent on Parliament to determine exactly what steps DIRCO is taking to secure the release of our citizens.

In today’s committee meeting, it was resolved that the Minister and his Department would now be called before Parliament to account on all actions being taken to free these engineers.