Police arrests and detention of EACOP environmental defenders DOUBLES in less than a year

Police have ramped up the repression of environmental defenders fighting TotalEnergies’ climate-wrecking East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).

EACOP: police repression

In just the first nine months of 2024, Ugandan cops have arrested or detained nearly a hundred people taking on the EACOP project.

It involves a 930-mile long pipeline that will transport oil from Uganda to a port in Tanzania. French fossil fuel firm TotalEnergies, China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd (CNOOC), and Uganda’s state oil company are partnering on the pipeline. It’s set to be the world’s longest heated crude oil pipeline, snaking through both Uganda and Tanzania.

However, the project poses a climate and environmental disaster – threatening thousands of kilometres of vital wildlife habitats. Crucially, EACOP risks displacing over 100,000 people along the route – and is already harming many of these communities.

As a result, communities and environmental and human rights campaigners have formed an alliance to fight the project. The StopEACOP movement has mobilised multiple protests in Uganda. In addition, it has inspired solidarity actions from groups across the world.

But, in a Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s (BHRRC) 2023 report, it found that in 2022, TotalEnergies was one of the five worst companies for projects linked to attacks against human rights defenders (HRDs).

In particular, it linked projects operated by TotalEnergies to at least 42 attacks against HRDs since 2015. As many as 14 of these – a third – were committed in 2022 alone.

Specifically, all 14 attacks in 2022 involved activists and defenders fighting against the EACOP project.

Echoing this, in November 2023, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Ugandan authorities of harassing, arresting and beating activists and demonstrators protesting the EACOP project. It also highlighted the intimidation and harassment of non-profits working on environmental conservation and oil extraction in the country.

Now, Global Witness has underscored how Ugandan authorities have stepped up this abuse throughout 2024 so far.

State crackdown on environmental defenders ramps up

In December, Global Witness released a report entitled: ‘Climate of Fear’. It documented reprisals against land and environmental defenders challenging plans to build the EACOP. At the time, authorities had arrested 47 people for challenging the pipeline in Uganda between September 2020 and November 2023. Since then, double the number of incidents have since been reported in less than a year.

Specifically, cops have detained or arrested a total of 96 people for opposing the controversial pipeline.

Reports of attacks and threats have continued and sky-rocketed in recent months. This is despite the French oil major TotalEnergies “expressing concern” to the Ugandan government over arrests in May 2024. Following this, the state has only stepped up its crackdown against people mobilising to protest the pipeline.

In early June, the army abducted and detained environmental campaigner Stephen Kwikiriza, reportedly beating him and dumping him on the side of a road a week later. Then, later that month, Ugandan authorities arrested 30 people outside the Chinese embassy. On 9 August, cops intercepted 47 students and three drivers on their way to protest the EACOP project and diverted them to a police station.

Senior investigator at Global Witness’s land and environmental defenders campaign Hanna Hindstrom said:

The tsunami of arrests of peaceful demonstrators fighting EACOP has exposed the limits of TotalEnergies’ commitment to human rights.

The company cannot in good conscience press ahead with the pipeline while peaceful protesters are being attacked for exercising their right to free speech. It must adopt a zero-tolerance approach to reprisals.

Hindstrom added:

Climate activism is under threat around the world, while fossil fuel companies quietly benefit. European oil companies cannot absolve themselves from responsibility while their investments fuel climate destruction, reprisals and violence overseas.

Feature image via the Canary