APA-Kampala (Uganda) The French fossil fuel giant’s planned pipeline in East Africa has devastated the livelihoods of thousands of people and will exacerbate the global climate crisis, the NGO warned in a report published on Monday July 10.
The plan is gigantic. If completed, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project (EACOP) will include dozens of well platforms, hundreds of kilometers of roads, camps and other infrastructure, and a 1,443-kilometer pipeline linking the oil fields of western Uganda to the port of Tanga in eastern Tanzania. This is more than enough to prompt Human Rights to warn of the project’s “devastating” consequences.
According to HRW, studies have shown that the construction and operation of EACOP presents serious environmental risks. The pipeline route crosses sensitive ecosystems, including protected areas and
wetlands of international importance, threatening the biodiversity and ecosystems on which local communities depend for their livelihoods.
In its 47-page report, the American NGO also points to “years of delays in compensation payments and inadequate compensation” for some 100,000 people who will have to give up their land for the EACOP.
“EACOP has been a disaster for the tens of thousands of people who have lost the land that provided food for their families and income to send their children to school, and who have received too little compensation from TotalEnergies,” the report said, quoting Felix Horne, Senior environmental researcher at HRW. According to this
expert, “EACOP is also a disaster for the planet and the project should not be completed.”
Last year, the French multinational announced a $10 billion investment agreement with Uganda, Tanzania and the Chinese company CNOOC to carry out the project.
To produce this document, HRW conducted over 90 interviews in early 2023, including with 75 displaced families in five districts of Uganda. From these interviews, it emerges that the impact of multi-year delays has been compounded by unclear communications about whether farmers can continue to use the land to harvest coffee,
bananas and other cash crops in the interim.
Substantial debts
The land acquisition project has thus, according to Human Rights Watch, caused severe financial hardship for thousands of Ugandan farmers, including heavy household debt, food insecurity and an inability to pay school fees, causing many children to drop out of school.
Farmers said they felt obliged to sign compensation agreements in English, a language many of them cannot read, and many described being offered money instead of the option of replacement land in line with
international standards.
“The unfulfilled promises of serious relocation and improved quality of life promised at the many early meetings extolling the virtues of EACOP have eroded trust between the communities and TotalEnergies,” HRW points out.
“They come here promising us everything,” one resident said. “We believed them. Now we’re landless, the compensation money is gone, the fields we have left are flooded and dust fills the air,” he complained.
TotalEnergies is committed to various international standards, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC) performance standards, which require it and its subsidiaries to restore or improve livelihoods to pre-disruption levels.
The pipeline has secured around 60 percent of its funding target. While the project is still seeking the necessary funding, TotalEnergies and its subsidiaries should increase the amount of compensation and livelihood restoration efforts to comply with human rights standards, says HRW.
TotalEnergies in denial
In a June 15 letter to Human Rights Watch, TotalEnergies stated that it “continues to pay particular attention to respecting the rights of the communities concerned” and provided detailed responses underlining its view that the compensation offered was in line with IFC standards.
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