"Drop funding for massacre-linked gas project or face legal trouble, UK warned"

Campaign group Friends of the Earth warns ministers that continued support for the project would be ‘unlawful.’

LONDON — Get ready for a legal fight.

That's the message Friends of the Earth — which successfully put a halt on Britain's North Sea oil drilling — is sending the U.K. government if it doesn't drop its support for a Mozambique gas project embroiled in allegations of abduction, murder and rape.

The group has fired out a letter to the U.K. government saying it would be “unlawful” to re-authorize $1.15 billion in British taxpayer-backed loans and grants supporting the TotalEnergies’ gas project in northern Mozambique.

POLITICO reported last month that a Mozambican military unit operating out of the gatehouse of the site, which is run by TotalEnergies, massacred at least 97 civilians in 2021. Work on the site was halted in 2021 as Islamist militants swept through the region.

The French energy giant has said it has “no knowledge of the alleged events … and has never received any information indicating that such events took place.” TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné wants to restart the project before the end of the year.

Britain’s new Labour government is now weighing whether to continue taxpayer loans and guarantees for U.K. exporters and banks supporting the French energy major’s project — help which was pushed for by the country's then-Trade Secretary Liz Truss.

British financial support has been on hold after TotalEnergies invoked force majeure — a contract clause that allows firms to suspend obligations in the event of a disaster — after the security situation deteriorated in the region.

But the letter from Friends of the Earth warns that the British government's legal case for the project's cash lifeline is now in serious peril.

“No government can claim climate leadership whilst underwriting the opening of substantial new gas fields abroad,” says Lawyer Niall Toru in a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and the head of the U.K.’s export finance body.

“This would be contrary both to longstanding policy on ending taxpayer support for fossil fuel projects overseas and to the foreign secretary’s recent speech on the climate crisis,” he adds. “We also note with alarm the horrendous human rights abuses that continue to be linked with the project.” [...]