The global campaign #StopEACOP has called for the Chinese state and numerous Chinese companies to abandon the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), which has disrupted livelihoods and family structures.

“What we have already at this point is thousands of families who have been displaced, pushed off their land as a result of the land acquisition process making way for the path of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline,” said Zaki Mamdoo, campaign coordinator at #StopEACOP.

According to EACOP’s website, it is “a pipeline that will transport oil produced from Uganda’s Lake Albert oilfields to the port of Tanga in Tanzania where the oil will then be sold onwards to world markets”. 

Zaki Mamdoo at the protest at Innisfree Park in Sandton on 23 August 2023. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)

Mamdoo was speaking at Innisfree Park in Sandton, on Wednesday, where several groups gathered to protest against issues related to the BRICS Summit, which was under way at the nearby Sandton Convention Centre.

The families affected by the pipeline live in rural areas and rely on subsistence farming for food and income to afford services such as healthcare and education for their children.

Mamdoo spoke against the China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s involvement in the pipeline, as well as the French energy company TotalEnergies, the Uganda National Oil Company and the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation. The Chinese state’s involvement is part of what #StopEACOP considers to be a friendship of “destructive, exploitative and resource-driven endeavours” by China.

Some who have been compensated for their land have not received fair prices, while others are still waiting to be compensated, said Richard Senkondo, executive director of the Organisation for Community Engagement in Tanzania.

Read more in Daily Maverick: My land has been taken to make way for Uganda’s oil pipeline — is this what’s meant by ‘economic upliftment’? 

Damages extend to national parks

Drilling sites for the pipeline have been created in Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park, negatively affecting the wildlife and biodiversity of the park and contiguous territories. The activities at these sites have displaced animals including elephants, which then venture into villages, where they damage vegetation and property.

Civil society organisations, community-based organisations, climate and environmental activists including #StopEACOP campaigners protest at Innisfree Park in Sandton on 23 August 2023, during the BRICS summit. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)

There are other concerns, particularly pertaining to the trajectory of the pipeline.

“The pipeline traverses an incredibly long route; it is almost 1,500km long and, in its way, it goes right through protected wetlands,” Mamdoo said.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Uganda pipeline has ‘devastated’ livelihoods, Human Rights Watch says

“It crosses through the lake basin of Lake Victoria, which is the largest water source in Africa with over 40 million people in the region dependent on it for livelihood and subsistence.

“It is also on a seismic zone and so, whether the pipe is underground or not, if there is any link, it will be devastating for the millions who depend on the water sources and millions of others who depend on other vital ecosystems [on the pipeline’s route].”

Pipeline opponents ‘perceived as enemies’

Senkondo said the pipeline would create an environment where African countries continue to mainly export raw materials and then import finished products, as the crude oil will be partly refined in Uganda through the Ugandan Refinery project and the rest exported to the international market.

It will further encourage and entrench a reliance on fossil fuel when there are efforts for a just transition to green energy, which Tanzania possesses in the form of solar, thermal, wind and hydro. DM