"Uganda: Oil Project Fuels Rights, Climate, and Environmental Harms" 2 September 2024

Serious and widespread human rights abuses, environmental damage, and massive and unnecessary future carbon emissions should lead banks, financial institutions, and insurers to decline to provide further support for the Kingfisher oil project operated by the Chinese National Overseas Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in Uganda, Climate Rights International said in a new 156-page report today...

[The report] documents how the Kingfisher project has resulted in forced evictions; inadequate or non-existent compensation for land and other assets; coercion and intimidation in the land acquisition process; loss of livelihoods; reduced standards of living and impoverishment; labor rights violations; and sexual and gender-based violence...

Dozens of interviewees accused the Ugandan Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF) of responsibility for forced evictions, destruction of fishing boats, violence, and creating a climate of fear aimed at protecting the Kingfisher project and intimidating local residents, activists, and environmental defenders opposed to the project...

While CNOOC committed to adhere to International Finance Corporation Standards on Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement, the reality has been far different. Villagers who were offered compensation for their land but did not accept...told Climate Rights International that they were threatened and intimidated into selling...

Since the arrival of CNOOC, fisherfolk and fish sellers report that UPDF fishery and marine units regularly seize and burn boats that don’t comply with new regulations banning smaller boats, arrest fisherfolk, demand bribes for their release, and seize fish...

Women described sexual violence resulting from threats, intimidation, or coercion by soldiers in the Kingfisher project area...

The development of the Kingfisher project has also led to the degradation of the natural environment, including land, water, and air pollution...

Community members who have sought jobs with CNOOC’s subcontractors report poor treatment including excessive hours, low wages, hazardous working conditions, failure to provide employment contracts and pay promised wages, and demands for bribes to obtain jobs...

In July, Climate Rights International sent letters to CNOOC, TotalEnergies, and the Uganda National Oil Company outlining the allegations made by residents of the Kingfisher project area, but received no replies.

“Banks and insurance companies should follow the lead of major financers and insurers from North America, Europe, and Japan that have already ruled out support for Kingfisher and other parts of the wider oil project,” ...