Twenty-six Ugandans have on Tuesday, June 27, taken legal action against French oil giant TotalEnergies in Paris for restitution over reported human rights violations at its giant mega-projects in the country.
Individuals from the affected communities have reported that the energy firm had caused grievous harm to the communities tight to land and food.
This report had been affirmed by five Ugandan and French aid groups.
The core of their complaint at the Paris court were the two expansive TotalEnergies developments ongoing in the country: the Tilenga exploration of 419 oil wells, and EACOP, a 1,500-kilometre pipeline bringing crude oil to the Tanzanian coast through some sheltered nature reserves.
The associations had revealed that individuals affected by the developments have been denied from the free use of their land for about three or four years, in violation of their property rights. This had then led to food shortages for certain households.
It was reported that some of those affected had been offered ‘in-kind’ compensation while others had been offered financial assistance that feel short of what they had lost.
Several villages had consequently suffered flooding occasioned by construction at the Tilenga project’s oil treatment plant.
It had also been reported that several plaintiffs had been threatened, harassed and arrested for trying to criticise the oil projects in Uganda and Tanzania and trying to defend the rights of the affected communities.
In addition to the list of injustices, the association hd reported that TotalEnergies had not done anything when they had been cautioned. No corrective measures had been implemented when the human rights violations had occurred.
TotalEnergies may think it is okay to get away with some of the injustice it has been committing in Uganda since it knows it is a foreign company in an African country with supposed immunity due to the negligible laws in its host country.
Whatever the case may be, I hope the litigants are successful and win the case against TotalEnergies. This would hopefully serve as a lesson for future foreign investors that look on Africa as a land to milk from, legally and illegal with little to no consequences.
