TotalEnergies again sued by Ugandans over ‘human rights violations’ in oil project

French oil giant TotalEnergies is being sued in Paris by 26 Ugandans, together with five Ugandan and French aid groups, for reparations over alleged human rights violations at its massive mega-projects in the East African country.

People from the affected communities in Uganda say the energy firm caused “serious harm”, especially to their rights to land and food. Their complaints submitted on Monday June 26 to the Paris court are centered on two vast TotalEnergies developments: the Tilenga exploration of 419 oil wells, one-third of them in the Uganda’s largest national park of Murchison Falls, and EACOP, a 1,500-km pipeline bringing crude oil to the Tanzanian coast through several protected nature reserves.

People in the local communities affected by the TotalEnergies’ work “have been deprived of free use of their land for three or four years, in violation of their property rights”, the associations said in a statement.

Some families were thus “deprived […] of their means of subsistence,” so that they had to deal with “serious food shortages” and although some received in-kind compensation, many others were offered financial terms “far short” of what was needed.

The complaint also says that some villages suffered flooding caused by construction at the Tilenga project’s oil treatment plant, the associations further alleged. Not only many affected families were not appropriately compensated, “several plaintiffs suffered threats, harassment and arrest simply for daring to criticize oil projects in Uganda and Tanzania and defend the rights of affected communities,” the rights groups added. They also say that more than 118,000 people have had their land wholly or partially expropriated because of the two TotalEnergies projects.

Friends of the Earth and four Ugandan associations failed in a 2019 bid before a French court to force TotalEnergies to halt Tilenga and EACOP.