Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer, CEO, OMV (Austrian oil & gas group)

"For us, it is important that human rights are respected and this is very much in the foreground"

- from the following Reuters report:

OMV studying human rights situation in Sudan - Austrian oil and gas group OMV said on Thursday it was awaiting the results of a independent study of the human rights situation in potentially oil-rich areas of Sudan, racked by 19 years of civil war...OMV suspended its activities in Sudan in January 2002 after violence escalated and has said it needed assurances that reports the government was using violence to depopulate villages in block 5A in Western Upper Nile and other areas were not true. "We are awaiting the results of our impact study, and on the basis of that we will decide how to proceed," Chief Executive Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer told Reuters in an interview. "For us, it is important that human rights are respected and this is very much in the foreground," he added. (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, 11 July 2002)