A massive oil project in Uganda jointly owned by French group TotalEnergies and China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) of China is mired in reports of sexual violence, forced evictions and environmental damage, climate campaigners said yesterday.
The US$10 billion East African Crue Oil Pipeline project includes drilling for oil in the Lake Albert area in northwestern Uganda and building a 1,443km heated pipeline to ship the crude to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean port of Tanga.
Climate Rights International (CRI), a nonprofit organization, interviewed dozens of local residents for a report that listed a “Catalogue of Abuses” at the Kingfisher project.
Photo: AFP
“It is appalling that a project that is touted as bringing prosperity to the people of Uganda is instead leaving them the victims of violence, intimidation,and poverty,” CRI executive director Brad Adams said in a statement.
“The Kingfisher project, which is operated and coowned by CNOOC and majority owned by TotalEnergies, is not only a dangerous carbon bomb, but also a human rights disaster,” Adams said.
The report said residents of villages in the Kingfisher area described “being forcibly evicted, often with little or no notice,” by the army.
“Interviewees described being ordered to leave and fleeing with what little they could carry,” the report said, adding that homes had been emptied and, in some cases, demolished.
“Many residents told Climate Rights International that they faced threats, coercion and intimidation when they questioned or opposed the acquisition of their land by CNOOC,” it said.
Families also described “pressure and intimidation” by officials from TotalEnergies’ Ugandan subsidiary and its subcontractors “to agree to low levels of compensation that was inadequate to buy replacement land.”
Since CNOOC and the military’s arrival, fishing boats, the primary economic activity in the region, that do not comply with new regulations banning smaller vessels are regularly seized or burned by the army, the report said.
“Numerous women” reported sexual violence resulting from “threats, intimidation, or coercion by soldiers in the Kingfisher project area,” it said.
“Many reported that soldiers threatened them with arrest or confiscation of their fish merchandise unless they agreed to have sex with them,” it said.
The nonprofit added that it also received reports of sexual violence by “managers and superiors within oil companies operating at Kingfisher, including one involving a CNOOC employee.”
As for environmental damage, two people who worked for China Oilfields Services Ltd, a drilling service contractor, told CRI that their former supervisor, a Chinese national, instructed them to empty contaminated water basins from the drilling rig directly into the lake or vacant land.
TotalEnergies has said in the past that those displaced by the oil project have been fairly compensated and measures have been taken to protect the environment.
Uganda’s first oil is expected to flow next year and the project has been hailed by President Yoweri Museveni as an economic boon for the landlocked country where many live in poverty.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS