NGO denounces 'human rights disaster' at Ugandan oil project September 3, 2024

The Kingfisher oil project is operated by China's CNOOC (Stuart Tibaweswa)

By AFP - Agence France Presse

NGO denounces 'human rights disaster' at Ugandan oil project

A major oil project in Uganda, jointly owned by French group TotalEnergies and China's CNOOC, is mired in allegations of sexual violence, forced evictions, and environmental damage, climate activists said on Monday.

The $10 billion investment includes drilling for oil in the Lake Albert area of northwestern Uganda and building a 900-mile (1,443-kilometer) heated pipeline to transport the crude to Tanzania's Indian Ocean port of Tanga.

Climate Rights International (CRI), a non-profit organization, interviewed dozens of residents for a report that listed a “catalog of abuses” in the Kingfisher project.

“It is appalling that a project that is heralded as bringing prosperity to the people of Uganda is instead leaving them victims of violence, intimidation, and poverty,” CRI executive director Brad Adams said in a statement.

“The Kingfisher project, which is operated and co-owned by CNOOC and majority-owned by TotalEnergies, is not only a dangerous carbon bomb but also a disaster for human rights,” Adams said.

The report states that villagers in the Kingfisher area described “being forcibly evicted, often with little or no warning,” by the army, the Uganda People's Defense Forces (UPDF).

“Interviewees described being ordered to leave and fleeing with what little they could carry,” the report said, adding that homes were emptied and, in some cases, demolished.

“Many residents told Climate Rights International that they faced threats, coercion, and intimidation when they questioned or opposed CNOOC's acquisition of their land,” the report said.

The families also described “pressure and intimidation” from employees of TotalEnergies' Ugandan subsidiary and its subcontractors “to agree to low levels of compensation, which were inadequate for the purchase of replacement land”.

Since the arrival of CNOOC and the military, fishing boats, the main economic activity in the region, which do not comply with new regulations banning smaller vessels, are regularly seized or burned by the army, according to the report.

CRI said that “several women” reported sexual violence resulting from “threats, intimidation or coercion by soldiers in the Kingfisher project area”.

“Many reported that soldiers threatened them with arrest or confiscation of their fishing goods unless they agreed to have sex with them,” the report said.

The non-profit organization added that it had also received reports of sexual violence from “managers and superiors of the oil companies operating in Kingfisher, including one involving a CNOOC employee”.

As for environmental damage, two people who worked for China Oilfields Services Limited, a drilling services contractor, told CRI that their former supervisor, a Chinese national, instructed them to empty the drilling rig's contaminated water basins directly into the lake or onto a vacant lot.

TotalEnergies has said in the past that people displaced by the oil project have been fairly compensated and that measures have been taken to protect the environment.

Uganda's first oil is expected to be extracted in 2025 and the project has been hailed by President Yoweri Museveni as an economic boon for the landlocked country, where many live in poverty.

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