the tanker again prosecuted, residents and NGOs denounce “threats and harassment”

TotalEnergies is again sued. The French oil group is attacked for human rights violations in Uganda by 26 Ugandans and five local and French associations. It is in this East African country that the French multinational launched its EACOP-Tilenga oil project. A pharaonic project consisting of 419 oil wells, partly drilled in the Murchison Falls natural park, and a giant and heated pipeline of nearly 1,500 kilometers which will bring the crude to the Tanzanian coast, to then export it to the ‘foreign.

>> TRUE OR FAKE: Does Macron support Total in Uganda and Tanzania?

These sites which have already done damage, according to the NGOs: abusive expropriations, insufficient or too late compensation… They are now asking for compensation. Jealousy Mugisha is one of those Ugandans who filed a complaint against TotalEnergies. He was forced to leave his house for a smaller one to make room for the project. And for almost a year, his land has been flooded, because of the construction sites in progress: “The place that was acquired has many swamps. These swamps are covered and so the water is looking for a way. We have floods! My crops of mangoes and watermelons have been totally destroyed. That was what I was earning money to pay my children’s school fees. Now it’s over because of this project”.

Another consequence of the construction site, the behavior of elephants in Murchison Falls Park has changed. Diana Nabiruma is part of the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO, a Ugandan association for the defense of human rights and the environment): “TotalEnergies’ Tilenga project is more than 400 oil wells. About 130 of them are in Murchisson Falls National Park. The communities that live near the park are starting to report that they live more elephant attacks that destroy their gardens. Elephants have also killed people: women and children, recently.”

Activists denounce pressure

Total is sued for all this, but not only. Ugandan human rights activist Maxwell Atuhura has been arrested several times. His photo and video equipment was confiscated and he accuses the French company of having played a role in the pressures he has been under for several years: “I am suing Total, because of the threats and the harassment I suffered for psychological torture, for the trauma I experienced. For having limited my freedom and my speech”.

TotalEnergies rejects the accusations and considers that a vigilance plan has indeed been put in place, and that it is respected by its subsidiaries on site. In February, a first legal action by NGOs, an application for interim relief, was ruled inadmissible for a question of procedure.