Uganda Police Arrested 21 People For Protesting Against Oil Project
Ugandan police arrested 21 environmentalists in Kampala on Monday as they protested a controversial multibillion-dollar oil development scheme, according to their lawyer.
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project (EACOP), led by French oil giant TotalEnergies, involves drilling for oil in Uganda and transporting it to Tanzania for export.
Environmental groups say the project is having a negative impact on local communities and the environment because drilling is taking place in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda’s largest protected area.
“There are 21 people arrested, they included 19 males and two females,” said Samuel Wanda, one of the defence lawyers.
The group attempted a march on parliament and the Chinese embassy.
Today morning the Oil affected communities in Uganda planned to march to EACOP offices in Hoima over oil impacts, however they have been blocked by @Ugandapolice1 and other security agencies! Details to follow #stopEACOP pic.twitter.com/S3KxAmHuys
— YECA (@yecaug) August 26, 2024
Wanda stated that eight of those detained would be directly impacted by the TotalEnergies project.
He stated that the protesters were being held at Kampala’s central police station, but officers had yet to detail the charges.
In a petition obtained by AFP, the protesters issued an “urgent appeal against the continued violations of human and environmental rights by the EACOP project”.
According to the petition, the oil scheme is a “threat to Uganda’s local economies” and has negative “social and cultural impacts”.
TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) are drilling in Lake Albert, which contains an estimated 6.5 billion barrels of crude, with approximately 1.4 billion barrels currently considered recoverable.
The shrinking civic space in Uganda against youth climate activists continue to increase day by day! Today twenty youth activists were arrested as they peacefully demonstrate against oil activities in Uganda @PoliceUg this is not acceptable! pic.twitter.com/lBKOsYQEga
— Barekye Gerald geraldbarekye@gmail.com (@geraldbarekye) August 26, 2024
The crude will be transported via a 1,443-kilometer (900-mile) heated pipeline from the oilfields in northwestern Uganda to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean port of Tanga.
TotalEnergies owns 62 percent of the pipeline, while Ugandan and Tanzanian state-owned oil companies each own 15 percent, and CNOOC owns 8%.
Uganda’s first oil is expected to flow in 2025, nearly two decades after the reserves were discovered, and President Yoweri Museveni has hailed the project as an economic boon to the landlocked country, where many people live in poverty.
TotalEnergies claims that those displaced by the project have been fairly compensated and that environmental safeguards have been implemented.
Uganda Police Arrested 21 People For Protesting Against Oil Project
