Investigative Review of TotalEnergies

The Theatre of Consent: Manufacturing Signatures

The process by which TotalEnergies secured land rights for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) was not a negotiation between equal parties. It was a systematic extraction of consent through psychological pressure, information asymmetry, and implicit threats of state violence. While the French energy giant publicly touted its adherence to the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standard 5, which mandates “free, prior, and informed consent”, investigations reveal a reality on the ground that was neither free, nor prior, nor informed. For the majority of the Project Affected Persons (PAPs) in Uganda and Tanzania, the “consultation” meetings were their encounter with the corporate of TotalEnergies. These interactions were designed to intimidate. Farmers, of whom had never dealt with formal legal contracts, were presented with dense, technical documents frequently exceeding twenty pages. In the Bunyoro region of Uganda, where local languages such as Runyoro or Luganda are dominant, these binding legal agreements were frequently provided only in English. The language barrier was not an accidental oversight; it was a structural advantage for the company. Illiterate farmers were expected to affix their thumbprints to documents they could not read. When they requested translations or time to consult with independent legal counsel, they were frequently refused. Witnesses interviewed by Global Witness and Human Rights Watch described a high-pressure environment where company representatives, accompanied by local government officials, demanded immediate signatures. The presence of these officials served a dual purpose: it lent a veneer of state legitimacy to the low compensation offers and signaled that refusal was an act of defiance against the government itself.

The “Sign or Court” Ultimatum

The most potent weapon in the acquisition arsenal was the threat of “compulsory acquisition.” Under Ugandan law, the state retains the right to expropriate land for public infrastructure. TotalEnergies and its subcontractors, including Atacama Consulting, weaponized this legal provision to crush dissent. Farmers who questioned the valuation of their crops or the size of their land parcels were presented with a clear binary: accept the company’s non-negotiable offer, or face the Ugandan courts. This ultimatum was because it exploited the farmers’ poverty and absence of legal literacy. Company agents reportedly told residents that if they went to court, the process would take years, they would require expensive lawyers they could not afford, and, the government would take the land anyway, likely for zero compensation. One interviewee told Human Rights Watch in 2023: “The moment they threaten you with court, you quickly agree. I have no money for a lawyer… So you agree to avoid these problems.” This tactic nullified the concept of ” seller.” A transaction made under the threat of total loss is not a sale; it is confiscation with a token payment. The fear was compounded by the political climate in both Uganda and Tanzania, where opposition to the pipeline is frequently criminalized. Farmers understood that delaying the project could result in being labeled an “enemy of development,” a designation that carries serious security risks in the region.

Exploiting Illiteracy: The Case of the Buffer Zones

The deception extended to the specific terms buried within the English-language contracts. A particularly egregious example involves the “buffer zones” surrounding the pipeline. Beatrice Nyamahunge, a resident of Buliisa district, testified to the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) that she “ignorantly signed” documents consenting to the uncompensated takeover of her land. Nyamahunge and others were told to sign forms as residents “adjacent” to the pipeline. They were not informed that by signing, they were agreeing to a 200-meter buffer zone where they would be forbidden from constructing permanent structures or growing perennial crops. This restriction rendered the land useless for the subsistence farming that sustains these families. Because the forms were in English and the explanation provided by the agents was intentionally vague, these farmers signed away their property rights without receiving a single shilling for the lost utility of their land. This pattern repeated across the pipeline route. The “translators” present at these meetings were frequently employed by the project or the sub-contractors, creating a conflict of interest that guaranteed the company’s narrative prevailed. Independent NGOs attempting to interpret the documents for farmers were frequently barred from the meetings or harassed by security forces. The objective was isolation: keep the farmer separated from independent advice until the thumbprint is on the page.

The “Allowance” Trap and Social Engineering

To further accelerate the acquisition process, TotalEnergies’ agents used immediate cash incentives to bypass logical objections. Farmers were offered small “transport allowances” or “signing bonuses” if they completed the paperwork on the spot. in a context of extreme rural poverty, where cash is scarce, these small sums acted as a coercive tool. The immediate need for money to pay school fees or medical bills frequently overrode the long-term need of securing fair value for the land. Social engineering tactics were also deployed to break community solidarity. Agents would isolate holdouts, telling them that “everyone else has already signed” and that they were the only ones delaying the project. This created a sense of inevitability and social pressure. In reality, neighbors had not signed, or had signed under similar duress. By preventing shared bargaining and treating each land acquisition as a private, transaction, the company prevented the community from realizing their shared use.

The Subcontractor Shield

TotalEnergies frequently deflects responsibility for these intimidation tactics by pointing to its subcontractors. In Uganda, firms like Atacama Consulting handled the direct engagement with communities. When allegations of coercion surfaced, the parent company could claim that these were the actions of rogue third parties, not corporate policy. Yet, the consistency of these reports across hundreds of kilometers, from Hoima to the Tanzanian coast, suggests a centralized strategy rather than incidents of misconduct. The company’s grievance method, theoretically designed to address these complaints, proved to be functional dead ends. Farmers who attempted to retract their signatures or complain about the intimidation found the process unclear and unresponsive. The grievance logs were managed by the same entities accused of the misconduct. By the time the complaints were “processed,” the land had frequently already been cleared, and the construction was moving in.

State Complicity and the Climate of Fear

The coercion was not limited to corporate agents; it was enforced by the state. In Tanzania, Global Witness reported that residents in the Chongoleani peninsula were warned by village chairmen and ward leaders not to speak to journalists or activists. Swalehe Nkungu, a Tanzanian farmer, described being bullied into signing a contract he could not read and subsequently being interrogated by government officials for seeking help from civil society groups. In Uganda, the repression was more overt. Activists like Maxwell Atuhura and Jealousy Mugisha, who attempted to organize farmers and document the abuses, faced arrests, office raids, and threats to their lives. This state-sponsored harassment created a “climate of fear” that permeated the land acquisition process. When a farmer sees a community defender arrested for asking questions, the message is clear: sign the paper, take the money, and be silent.

The Zinsou Assessment: A Post-Facto Whitewash

In January 2024, facing mounting international pressure and lawsuits in France, TotalEnergies appointed Lionel Zinsou, a former Prime Minister of Benin, to “assess” the land acquisition program. While the company framed this as a commitment to transparency, critics viewed it as a public relations maneuver designed to sanitize the record. The assessment was commissioned years after the primary coercion took place. By 2024, thousands of farmers had already been displaced, their signatures extracted and their land lost. A review conducted after the damage is irreversible does not constitute accountability; it constitutes a cover-up. The Zinsou mission focused on “socio-economic development initiatives” and “grievance handling,” diverting attention from the fundamental illegitimacy of the initial consent. No amount of post-hoc “livelihood restoration” programs can cure the legal and moral defect of land acquired through intimidation. The signatures on the Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) forms remain a testament not to agreement, to the powerlessness of rural farmers against a multinational corporation backed by authoritarian state.

Data: The Consent Deficit

The evidence establishes that the land acquisition for EACOP was built on a foundation of duress. The “agreements” held by TotalEnergies are legally dubious documents, extracted from a population that was systematically denied the right to say no.

The Physical Invasion: Industrializing the Wilderness

TotalEnergies does not operate on the periphery of Murchison Falls National Park; it operates within its beating heart. The Tilenga project represents a direct, physical breach of Uganda’s oldest protected area, a transgression that defies the fundamental principles of conservation. While the company frequently uses the term “footprint” to minimize its presence, claiming it occupies less than 1% of the park, the reality is a sprawling network of industrial infrastructure that fragments a contiguous ecosystem. The project places ten well pads directly inside the park boundaries, specifically in the ecologically sensitive northern sector. These are not small, temporary fixtures. They are fortified industrial islands, complete with concrete foundations, high fences, and heavy. The specific locations of these well pads, Jobi-Rii, Gunya, and Ngiri, reveal a strategic disregard for ecological sanctity in favor of extraction efficiency. The Jobi-Rii and Gunya fields sit atop prime grazing grounds for the park’s most iconic species. Satellite analysis confirms that well pads Jobi-Rii 10 and Ngiri 1 are positioned dangerously close to the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Wetland System, with distances reported as short as 750 meters. This proximity transforms a sanctuary into a hazard zone. The infrastructure includes not just the pads themselves feeder pipelines and upgraded tarmac roads that slice through the savannah, creating blocks that disrupt ancient migration routes and hunting grounds.

The Ramsar Violation: Drilling at the Delta’s Edge

The Murchison Falls-Albert Delta is not a river mouth; it is a Ramsar site (Site no. 1640), under international treaty as a wetland of global importance. It serves as a serious spawning ground for Lake Albert’s fisheries and a refuge for the Shoebill stork. TotalEnergies’ operations here constitute a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Ramsar Convention. The project design includes a pipeline crossing that burrows directly under the Victoria Nile, a feat of engineering that introduces catastrophic risk to a hydrological system that supports millions downstream. The decision to drill adjacent to this wetland ignores the porous nature of these ecosystems. Contamination risks are not static; they flow. A spill or leak in this delta would not be contained within a “footprint.” It would poison the slow-moving waters of the Nile, coating the papyrus swamps in crude oil and suffocating the aquatic life that forms the base of the food web. The “closed-loop” drilling systems promised by TotalEnergies rely on perfect operational execution in a remote, harsh environment, a gamble where the house wins and the river loses. The abstraction of water from Lake Albert to pressurize these wells further a system already facing climate-induced volatility, prioritizing oil recovery over the hydrological health of the Nile Basin.

The “Silent” Rig Myth and Acoustic Trauma

TotalEnergies has deployed what it markets as “silent” drilling rigs, a term that functions as a masterpiece of corporate oxymoron. In the context of a heavy industrial operation, “silent” does not mean the absence of noise; it means a reduction of decibels relative to a standard that is already deafening. These rigs, painted in beige to “blend” with the savannah, still emit a constant, low-frequency thrum of industrial activity. In the acoustic vacuum of a wilderness area, where the baseline ambient noise is the rustle of grass or the call of a bird, the mechanical drone of a drilling rig is an alien and pervasive stressor. This acoustic trauma has tangible consequences. Elephants, which communicate over long distances using low-frequency infrasound, are particularly sensitive to the vibrations and noise generated by drilling and heavy vehicle traffic. The disruption of their acoustic environment creates behavioral stress, causing herds to scatter or act aggressively. Reports indicate a correlation between the intensification of drilling activities and a rise in human-wildlife conflict, as agitated elephants are pushed out of their safe zones and into neighboring villages. Between June 2023 and April 2024, displaced elephants killed five people in communities adjacent to the park, a blood price paid by locals for the disturbance caused by foreign extraction.

The Death of the Night

The industrialization of Murchison Falls extends beyond the auditory to the visual. The park, once a reservoir of true darkness essential for nocturnal predators, contends with the artificial glare of floodlights. Drilling rigs and processing facilities operate around the clock, casting a light pollution dome visible for over 13 kilometers. This artificial day disrupts the circadian rhythms of the park’s wildlife. Lions and leopards, which rely on the cloak of darkness to hunt, find their advantage stripped away. Conversely, prey species are exposed, altering the delicate balance of predator-prey that has evolved over millennia. This photic pollution also acts as a barrier. Light creates a “fence” of fear for species, shrinking the usable habitat even further than the physical structures do. The psychological footprint of the project is thus vastly larger than the physical one. Animals do not simply walk around a well pad; they avoid the entire zone of sensory disturbance, leading to overcrowding in the remaining undisturbed areas and increased competition for dwindling resources.

Regulatory Failure and the NEMA Stamp

The National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) of Uganda bears a heavy load of responsibility for this breach. The approval of the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for the Tilenga project in 2019 was a pivotal failure of regulatory oversight. Critics and independent experts pointed out serious flaws in the assessment, particularly regarding the cumulative impacts of drilling in a biodiversity hotspot and the inadequacy of mitigation measures for transboundary water problem. Yet, the certificate was granted. NEMA’s approval allowed TotalEnergies to proceed with a “mitigation hierarchy” that prioritizes “avoidance” and “minimization” on paper while sanctioning destruction in practice. The agency accepted the premise that an oil field could coexist with a national park, a concept that conservation biology largely rejects. By permitting drilling inside a Ramsar-adjacent protected area, NEMA set a dangerous precedent, signaling that conservation boundaries are permeable when hydrocarbon interests are at stake. The “restoration” plans touted by the company, replanting vegetation after twenty years of drilling, ignore the irreversible loss of biodiversity and ecosystem function that occurs during the operational lifespan of the project. not pause an ecosystem for two decades and expect it to resume where it left off.

The Rothschild’s Giraffe: A Species Under Siege

Murchison Falls National Park is the final stronghold of the Rothschild’s giraffe, housing approximately 75% of the global population of this endangered subspecies. The tragedy of the Tilenga project is that the oil fields overlap almost perfectly with the giraffes’ prime habitat in the northern sector of the park. The fragmentation of this by roads and well pads poses a direct threat to their recovery. Giraffes are not scenic fixtures; they are architects who shape the vegetation structure. Restricting their movement through industrial obstacles alters the vegetation of the savannah. The heavy vehicle traffic associated with construction and operation introduces a mortality risk from collisions, a threat that has already claimed wildlife on the upgraded roads. The stress of living in an industrial zone affects reproduction rates and susceptibility to disease. TotalEnergies’ presence here is an experiment in extinction, testing how much pressure a fragile population can withstand before it collapses.

The breach of Murchison Falls National Park by TotalEnergies is not a case of necessary development; it is a calculated sacrifice of a global heritage site for a finite resource. The drilling rigs standing tall over the savannah are monuments to a regulatory system that failed to protect the very assets it was sworn to guard. As the drills turn, the integrity of the park unravels, leaving behind a that is protected in name industrial in nature.

The delay itself acted as a method of impoverishment that the uplift could not reverse. During the years of waiting, the cut-off date restrictions prevented farmers from planting perennial crops like coffee or bananas, which are the primary engines of household wealth in the region. They were told to plant only seasonal crops, the uncertainty of when the bulldozers would arrive led to stop farming altogether. This forced idleness consumed their savings. When the compensation, uplift and all, arrived in 2023, it was not treated as capital for investment. It was immediately absorbed by accumulated debts, school fees that had gone unpaid, and the basic costs of survival incurred during the years of limbo.

The between compensation and replacement cost

The psychological toll of this financial engineering cannot be overstated. Farmers signed valuation forms in 2018 believing the money would come within months. As years passed, the nominal value of the shilling eroded. The global inflation spike in 2022, driven by the war in Ukraine and post-COVID supply chain shocks, saw the price of construction materials like cement and iron sheets rise dramatically in Uganda. A farmer planning to build a replacement house with their 2019 valuation found that by 2023, the cost of bricks and cement had outpaced the uplift. The money received built a smaller house on a smaller plot of land. Global Witness and other investigative bodies have recorded testimonies where TotalEnergies’ subcontractors pressured illiterate farmers to sign acceptance forms without understanding this depreciation. The “uplift” was sold as a bonus, a windfall that would make them rich. In reality, it was a partial inflation adjustment that failed to account for the specific hyper-inflation of the assets the farmers actually needed to survive: land and housing. TotalEnergies defends its record by pointing to the high acceptance rate of compensation packages, frequently citing figures above 90%. This statistic is meaningless in a context of coercion and desperation. After waiting four years with no income from their primary cash crops, farmers were financially broken. They accepted the cash not because it was fair, because it was the only lifeline available to pay off the debts accrued while waiting for TotalEnergies to act. The high acceptance rate is a metric of resignation, not satisfaction. The 15% uplift is a textbook example of corporate gaslighting. It uses the language of finance—percentages, annual rates, allowances—to mask a brutal transfer of wealth. By locking in land values at pre-boom rates and paying out years later with an adjustment that failed to match the market, TotalEnergies acquired the pipeline corridor at a discount, paid for by the shrinking livelihoods of Ugandan and Tanzanian farmers. The uplift did not lift them up; it softened the blow of their descent into landlessness.

Table: method of Bureaucratic Erasure

The Enforced Disappearance of Stephen Kwikiriza

The violence escalated sharply in mid-2024, marking a transition from harassment to physical brutality. On June 4, 2024, Stephen Kwikiriza, an environmental observer with the Environmental Governance Institute (EGI), in Kampala. Kwikiriza had been documenting environmental violations and land displacement in the Kingfisher project area, a region operated by CNOOC integral to the wider EACOP infrastructure led by TotalEnergies. Witnesses reported that plainclothes officers, suspected to be military intelligence, seized Kwikiriza. For five days, his location remained unknown, classifying the incident as an enforced disappearance under international law. He was not taken to a police station. Instead, he was held in an ungazetted safe house, a hallmark of extrajudicial state operations in Uganda. When Kwikiriza was dumped on a roadside in Kyenjojo District on June 9, 2024, he bore the physical and psychological scars of his captivity. He reported severe beatings and interrogation sessions that focused not on criminal activity, on his collaboration with “foreigners”, a clear reference to international NGOs and legal teams challenging EACOP in French courts. His captors demanded to know why he opposed the oil project, explicitly linking his torture to his advocacy work. TotalEnergies issued statements expressing “concern” and calling for an investigation, yet the company continued its operations with the very security forces accused of the abduction. The message to local communities was unambiguous: opposition invites physical peril.

Maxwell Atuhura and the Criminalization of Truth

Years prior to Kwikiriza’s abduction, the state established its playbook with the targeting of Maxwell Atuhura, a field officer for the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO). In May 2021, Atuhura was arrested in Buliisa while guiding Federica Marsi, an Italian journalist, through the oil-rich region. The police did not charge him with a violent crime. Instead, they fabricated a charge of “unlawful assembly,” a catch-all statute used to suppress civil gathering. Atuhura’s arrest was strategic. He was a primary link between displaced farmers in Buliisa and the French legal teams preparing the “Duty of Vigilance” lawsuit against TotalEnergies. By detaining him, the state severed the information pipeline, preventing evidence of land acquisition violations from reaching the Paris courtroom. During his detention, Atuhura was interrogated specifically about his emails and his relationship with French NGOs. TotalEnergies’ response to the Atuhura incident was illustrative of its broader strategy. The company claimed it had “intervened” with authorities to ensure his rights were respected. Yet, Atuhura was banned from entering the oil region as a condition of his bond, exiling him from his home and his work. The company accepted the neutralization of a key critic while publicly posturing as a defender of free speech.

The “NGO Bureau” and Administrative Lawfare

Beyond individual arrests, the Ugandan state employs administrative “lawfare” to organizational resistance. The primary weapon is the National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO Bureau). In 2021, the Bureau suspended AFIEGO and 53 other organizations, citing vague regulatory non-compliance. This bureaucratic strangulation prevents these groups from accessing bank accounts, holding public meetings, or legally employing staff. Dickens Kamugisha, the CEO of AFIEGO, has faced repeated police raids on his Kampala offices. In these raids, police confiscate laptops, files, and phones, specifically targeting data related to EACOP compensation rates and environmental impact assessments. The objective is not prosecution, charges are rarely pressed to trial, disruption. By keeping these organizations in a perpetual state of legal defense, the state exhausts their resources and intimidates their staff.

The Youth Movement and “Common Nuisance”

As the pipeline construction advanced in 2024 and 2025, a new wave of resistance emerged from Ugandan universities. The “Students Against EACOP” movement began staging peaceful marches in Kampala, targeting the offices of the Ministry of Energy, the EU delegation, and TotalEnergies. The state’s response was disproportionate and swift. In August 2024, police arrested 47 students during a peaceful march to the parliament. They were packed into police vans and detained at the central police station. The charges were uniform: “common nuisance.” This colonial-era statute allows authorities to arrest anyone causing “inconvenience” to the public. In the context of EACOP, holding a placard constitutes a nuisance. The repression continued into 2025. On February 26, 2025, police arrested 11 activists protesting at the European Union Mission in Kampala. The activists, including Shaffic Kalyango and Joseph Ssengozi, were remanded to Luzira Prison, a maximum-security facility, for a non-violent protest. Weeks later, on April 2, 2025, nine more youth activists were arrested at the headquarters of Stanbic Bank, a key financier of the project. The pattern is consistent: the state uses the judicial system to inflict punishment through process. Activists spend weeks on remand before charges are dropped or stalled, serving prison sentences without conviction.

Table: Timeline of Suppression (2021, 2025)

The following table documents specific incidents of state-security collaboration targeting EACOP critics.

TotalEnergies’ Complicity and the “Security Gap”

TotalEnergies defends its position by citing the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, asserting that it maintains a dialogue with security forces to promote human rights. This claim collapses under scrutiny. The company pays for the support of government security forces through the project budget. Under the HGA, the state is required to provide security, and TotalEnergies is required to it. When the UPDF beats Stephen Kwikiriza or when the police raid AFIEGO, they are acting to secure the interests of TotalEnergies. The company’s failure to publicly condemn these specific acts of violence—beyond generic statements of “concern”—signals tacit approval. TotalEnergies benefits directly from the climate of fear. When activists are jailed, the compensation process faces less scrutiny. When journalists are arrested, the environmental destruction goes unreported. The “security gap” is a deliberate feature of the project’s design. By outsourcing security to a state apparatus known for repression, TotalEnergies creates a of deniability. They can claim that the arrests are “police matters” unrelated to their operations, even when the interrogators explicitly ask about the pipeline. This structure allows the oil major to extract resources while the host state extracts the human cost of dissent. The pipeline is being built not just on land, on the liberty of those who dared to protect it.

The Tilenga Displacement: Livelihood Collapse in Buliisa and Hoima Districts

The Tilenga oil project, operated by TotalEnergies in the Buliisa and Nwoya districts, represents the extraction heart of Uganda’s oil ambitions. While the EACOP pipeline transports the crude, Tilenga is where the ground is broken, wells are drilled, and the central processing facility (CPF) dominates the terrain. For the residents of Buliisa, particularly in villages like Kasenyi, Kirama, and Ngwedo, the arrival of the oil major has not brought the promised development. Instead, it has engineered a systematic collapse of traditional livelihoods, replacing self-sufficient agrarian systems with a cash-dependent vulnerability that has left thousands food insecure.

The of land acquisition for Tilenga is massive. The project requires approximately 2, 400 acres across six oil fields, an industrial area, and support infrastructure. In the Industrial Area alone (RAP 1), over 600 households were displaced to make way for the Central Processing Facility. TotalEnergies promotes its Resettlement Action Plans (RAPs) as, citing compliance with International Finance Corporation (IFC) standards. The reality on the ground in Buliisa contradicts these corporate assertions. The transition from communal, customary land tenure to a rigid, title-based system has disenfranchised the most, particularly those who relied on seasonal access to land for grazing and subsistence farming.

The Cassava Mirage and Agricultural Failure

A of TotalEnergies’ “Livelihood Restoration Program” (LRP) was the promotion of high-yield agricultural projects intended to modernize local farming. In Buliisa, this took the form of a cassava growing scheme. Displaced farmers, stripped of their diverse ancestral gardens, were encouraged to plant specific high-yield cassava varieties supplied by the company. TotalEnergies promised a market for this produce, linking the initiative to a value-addition chain that would theoretically increase household incomes.

This program failed catastrophically. Farmers in Ngwedo and Kasenyi reported that the supplied cassava cuttings frequently dried up before maturity due to a absence of compatibility with the local soil and insufficient water support during dry spells. More damning was the market failure. The promised starch factory, intended to buy the surplus, either did not materialize in time or ceased operations due to market gluts and import competition. Farmers who had converted their limited remaining land to this monoculture found themselves with rotting tubers and no buyers. The shift from diverse food crops (maize, beans, vegetables) to a single cash crop left families with neither money nor food.

Engineering Disasters: The Kasenyi Floods

The construction of the Central Processing Facility (CPF) in Kasenyi village introduced a new, man-made hazard: severe flooding. Residents who had lived in the area for decades without such incidents reported that the massive earthworks and land clearing for the industrial park altered natural drainage patterns. During the rainy seasons of 2020 and 2021, storm water runoff from the elevated CPF site surged into the lower-lying community lands.

This runoff did not just bring water; it brought silt and construction debris that buried gardens and destroyed homes. Farmers lost acres of watermelon, jackfruit, and maize. When the community petitioned TotalEnergies, the company initially attributed the flooding to “natural causes” and climate change. Yet, independent assessments and local testimony point to the absence of adequate drainage channels in the project design. The flooding displaced families a second time, by the land acquisition, and second by the environmental engineering failures of the project itself.

The Gendered Cost of Displacement

The impact of the Tilenga displacement falls disproportionately on women. In the Bunyoro region’s customary tenure system, men hold the land rights, women are the primary users of the land, responsible for growing food to feed the family. When TotalEnergies executed its compensation packages, the cash payments were directed almost exclusively to male heads of households. Reports from local monitoring groups indicate that, men used this compensation money for non-essential purchases, alcohol, or to marry additional wives, leaving the wife and children destitute.

also, the physical resettlement severed women’s social support networks. Kitchen gardens, which are serious for daily sustenance and do not require large tracts of land, were frequently impossible to replicate in the resettlement sites due to space constraints and poor soil quality. The “modern” concrete houses provided by TotalEnergies, while structurally sound, were frequently located far from water sources and firewood, increasing the labor load on women who must travel longer distances to secure basic household needs.

Fisheries and the Lake Albert Squeeze

The livelihood collapse extends to the fishing communities along Lake Albert, particularly in Wanseko. The Tilenga project involves water abstraction systems and drilling near the lake shores. Security restrictions and the establishment of “safety zones” around oil infrastructure have curtailed access to traditional fishing grounds. Fishermen report harassment by security forces patrolling the oil installations. The bright lights from the drilling rigs and the industrial area also disrupt the behavior of light-sensitive fish species, forcing fishermen to venture deeper into dangerous waters to catch less. This restriction on the “Blue Economy” has removed the primary protein source for thousands of residents, the malnutrition emergency caused by the agricultural failures.

The Resettlement House Trap

TotalEnergies frequently showcases the brick-and-mortar resettlement houses as evidence of its benevolent impact. These structures, numbering over 200 for the primary residents of the Industrial Area, are presented as an upgrade from traditional mud-and-wattle homes. This visual upgrade masks a functional degradation. The resettlement plots are frequently too small to support the livestock (goats and cattle) that families rely on as a savings method. Without land for grazing, families were forced to sell their herds, stripping them of their financial resilience.

also, the issuance of land titles for these new properties has been plagued by bureaucratic delays. Without titles, the “owners” cannot use their new assets as collateral for loans to start businesses. They are trapped in “modern” houses they cannot maintain, on land that cannot feed them, waiting for a title deed that grants them rights they previously held by birthright. The result is a population that is housed hungry, living in the shadow of a multi-billion dollar project that has extracted their future along with the oil.

The Education Deficit: A Manufactured emergency

The most insidious legacy of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) is not the physical displacement of farming communities, the systematic of a generation’s future through forced school dropouts. TotalEnergies and its subsidiary, TotalEnergies EP Uganda, orchestrated a land acquisition process that severed the financial lifeline of thousands of families: the perennial cash crop. For decades, households in the Hoima, Buliisa, and Kyotera districts relied on coffee, bananas, and vanilla not just for sustenance, as the primary vehicle for paying school fees. When the oil major imposed “cut-off dates” as early as 2018 and 2019, they froze the economic engine of these communities.

Farmers were instructed to stop planting new perennial crops to asset valuation. Yet, the promised compensation did not materialize for three to five years. During this interim period of imposed stagnation, families consumed their savings to survive. By the time cash settlements arrived in 2022 or 2023, the money was frequently diverted to service accumulated debts or purchase food at inflated market rates, leaving nothing for education. A 2023 study by the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) presents a damning statistic: 37% of children from EACOP-affected households were out of school at the time of the research. This is not a temporary interruption; for, it is a permanent exit from the education system.

The correlation is mechanical and brutal. In Uganda’s rural economy, school fees are paid in lump sums derived from seasonal harvests of high-value crops. By prohibiting the planting of these crops, TotalEnergies removed the specific capital required for secondary education. Headmasters in the Bunyoro sub-region reported a sharp increase in fee defaults among children of “Project Affected Persons” (PAPs). Unlike a bad harvest, which is a natural risk, this poverty was engineered by corporate bureaucracy. The delay was a choice, and the resulting illiteracy is a liability TotalEnergies has yet to acknowledge on its balance sheet.

The Hunger Gap: From Producers to Purchasers

Before the arrival of the oil majors, the Albertine Graben was a food basket. Today, it is a region of food insecurity. The displacement process transformed independent subsistence farmers into net food purchasers in an environment of skyrocketing inflation. The “cut-off” directive forced farmers to rely on short-pattern seasonal crops like maize or beans, which offer lower nutritional density and lower market value than the prohibited perennial crops. In Buliisa district, families that once ate three meals a day reported rationing food to a single meal. The loss of banana plantations is particularly devastating; a banana grove provides year-round food security, whereas maize is seasonal and weather-dependent.

TotalEnergies touts its “Livelihood Restoration Plans” (LRP) as the solution, distributing seedlings and chickens to affected households. These programs, yet, are woefully insufficient replacements for mature agricultural systems. A sapling takes years to yield fruit; a chicken requires feed that families can no longer afford. The LRP treats complex agrarian economies as simple inputs and outputs, ignoring the years of labor required to bring a coffee farm to maturity. The result is a caloric deficit in the very communities hosting multi-billion dollar energy infrastructure.

The following table contrasts the pre-project agricultural status with the post-displacement reality for a typical household in the pipeline corridor:

Gendered Consequences of Impoverishment

The economic shock administered by TotalEnergies has not affected all children equally. In the patriarchal structures of rural Uganda and Tanzania, when money runs short, girls are the to be pulled from classrooms. Field reports indicate a rise in early marriages in the pipeline corridor as families seek to reduce their economic load. The “dignity ” and sanitary pads distributed by EACOP’s public relations teams are a grotesque inadequacy in the face of this structural violence. Providing hygiene products to a girl who has been forced out of school due to parental land loss is not; it is a branding exercise.

Human Rights Watch documented cases where the loss of land led to family breakdowns. Men, stripped of their role as providers and flush with a one-time cash compensation payment that was insufficient to buy replacement land, frequently abandoned their families or spent the money on alcohol. The women and children were left behind to face the hunger gap alone. This social disintegration is a direct downstream effect of a compensation scheme that prioritized corporate timelines over community stability. The oil major’s failure to provide “land-for-land” compensation, pushing cash settlements instead, accelerated this fracture, leaving mothers with no soil to till and no money to feed their children.

The Myth of Transitional Support

TotalEnergies defends its record by citing the distribution of food rations during the transitional period. These rations, consisting of maize flour and beans, were temporary, sporadic, and frequently of poor quality. More importantly, they created a dependency that did not exist before. A farmer who owns a producing acre of land does not need a handout of maize flour. By converting landowners into aid recipients, TotalEnergies stripped them of their agency. The “transitional support” was a tacit admission that the project had rendered these families incapable of feeding themselves.

The generational cost is already visible. A child who dropped out of school in 2019 due to the initial land freeze is an adult with limited prospects, likely to end up as casual labor for the very industry that displaced them. The “local content” jobs promised by the oil sector require skills and certifications that these dropouts can no longer attain. TotalEnergies has created a permanent underclass in the Bunyoro and Tanga regions, ensuring that the wealth extracted from the ground never circulate in the hands of the people who once owned the surface.

The ‘Net Positive’ Myth: Biodiversity Offsets vs. Habitat Fragmentation

TotalEnergies markets the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and the associated Tilenga extraction project under the banner of a “Net Positive” biodiversity impact. This corporate doctrine asserts that the company leave the environment in a better state than it found it. Yet, a forensic examination of the project’s footprint across Uganda and Tanzania reveals a strategy that relies heavily on theoretical offsets to excuse immediate, irreversible habitat destruction. The “Net Gain” calculation depends on a flawed accounting system that treats ancient, complex ecosystems as interchangeable assets, tradable for lower-quality land or future conservation pledge. The Tilenga project, which feeds the pipeline, situates its industrial operations directly inside Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda’s oldest and largest protected area. TotalEnergies’ Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) claims the company applied the “mitigation hierarchy”—avoid, minimize, restore, offset. Evidence suggests the and most step, avoidance, was discarded early in the planning phase. By placing 132 oil wells, ten well pads, and a network of inter-connecting roads within the park boundaries, the project has industrialized a Ramsar wetland site for global conservation. Satellite imagery analyzed by Earth Insight in late 2025 confirms that over 38 kilometers of new roads and nine well pads scar the Murchison. These linear intrusions create an “edge effect,” a phenomenon where the disturbance extends far beyond the physical footprint of the road. For the park’s African savanna elephants, these roads act as psychological and physical blocks. Vibrations from drilling rigs, perceptible for miles, have altered elephant behavior, driving herds out of protected zones and into conflict with local farming communities. Reports from Buliisa District indicate a sharp rise in human-wildlife conflict, with elephants raiding crops and fatal encounters increasing as their range is compressed by extraction infrastructure. The fragmentation extends beyond Murchison Falls. The pipeline corridor severs serious wildlife corridors connecting the Budongo and Bugoma forests. These reserves are the last strongholds of the endangered Eastern Chimpanzee. Chimpanzees require vast, contiguous territories to forage and mate. The pipeline’s 30-meter-wide right-of-way creates a permanent “dead zone” that arboreal primates cannot cross safely. This isolation splits populations, reducing genetic diversity and increasing vulnerability to disease. The “Net Positive” framework fails to account for this genetic, focusing instead on acre-for-acre land swaps that ignore the functional connectivity of the ecosystem. TotalEnergies’ offset strategy relies on supporting the Burigi-Chato National Park in Tanzania and other “equivalent” areas to balance the destruction in Uganda. This method, known as “out-of-kind” offsetting, is scientifically contentious. Protecting a savanna in Tanzania does not compensate for the loss of tropical forest habitat in Uganda. The species displaced in the Albertine Rift—such as the chimpanzee or the shoebill stork—cannot simply relocate to a different ecosystem hundreds of kilometers away. The offset is a financial transaction, not an ecological one. It allows the company to claim a balance on a spreadsheet while the physical reality on the ground is a net loss of specific, irreplaceable habitat. The pipeline also traverses the Taala Forest Reserve in Kyankwanzi District, where it cuts through 4. 5 kilometers of woodland and wetland. Here, the “minimize” stage of the mitigation hierarchy appears to have been bypassed in favor of the lowest-cost routing. Open-cut trenching is planned for the majority of water crossings, including the Victoria Nile. This method involves excavating the riverbed, releasing sediment plumes that choke fish breeding grounds and disrupt the aquatic food web. A directional drilling method, which bores beneath the riverbed, would have significantly reduced this impact was rejected for crossings due to higher costs. Independent reviews by E-Tech International highlighted these deficiencies as early as 2019. Their analysis noted that the ESIA failed to adequately assess the cumulative impact of the pipeline, the feeder roads, and the influx of migrant workers on biodiversity. The “Net Gain” calculation assumes that restoration efforts—replanting trees over the buried pipeline— be 100% successful. Yet, the pipeline operates at 50°C, heating the surrounding soil. This thermal pollution alters soil chemistry and prevents the regrowth of deep-rooted native vegetation, forcing a permanent shift to shallow-rooted grasses or invasive species. The result is a permanent scar of degraded land running the length of the pipeline, not a restored ecosystem. The offset plan also ignores the “indirect” impacts that follow industrial access. The new roads constructed for Tilenga and EACOP have opened previously inaccessible areas of Murchison Falls and the Bugoma Forest to illegal logging and charcoal burning. Poaching rings use these routes to penetrate deeper into the park. TotalEnergies classifies these as “third-party” impacts, distancing itself from the consequences of its own infrastructure. yet, without the project’s roads, this rapid degradation would not be possible. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has issued warnings that industrial activities in category II protected areas like Murchison Falls contradict global conservation standards. By with the project, TotalEnergies challenges the very definition of a protected area. If a national park can be opened for oil extraction under the guise of “Net Positive” offsets, the legal protection of all nature reserves becomes conditional on their absence of mineral wealth. The biodiversity “gain” exists only in corporate sustainability reports; the loss is written in the severed corridors and silenced forests of the Albertine Rift.

The Preemptive Strike: Arresting the Messenger

The suppression of dissent surrounding the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and the Tilenga oil project is not a byproduct of heavy-handed policing; it is a calculated strategy of judicial harassment designed to sever the link between local communities and the international world. No case illustrates this method more than that of Maxwell Atuhura, a human rights defender and the Executive Director of the Tasha Research Institute (TASHA). Operating out of Buliisa, the epicenter of TotalEnergies’ drilling operations, Atuhura became a primary target for state security forces acting in defense of corporate interests. His ordeal exposes a pattern where the legal system serves not as an arbiter of justice, as a weapon of attrition.

On May 25, 2021, Atuhura was at the Adonia Hotel in Buliisa. He was not leading a protest. He was not blocking a road. He was eating lunch. His companion was Federica Marsi, an Italian journalist conducting an investigation into the displacement of farmers and the environmental risks of the oil projects. Their objective was to meet with project-affected persons (PAPs) who had lost land to the Tilenga central processing facility. Before they could conduct these interviews, the Buliisa Resident District Commissioner (RDC) and the District Police Commander (DPC) stormed the hotel.

The arrest was swift and preemptive. Security forces did not wait for an alleged crime to occur; the presence of an international observer guided by a knowledgeable local activist was the crime. Police officers separated the two. Marsi, a foreign national, was released later that day ordered to leave the oil region immediately, neutralizing her investigation. Atuhura, a Ugandan citizen, faced a different reality. He was detained, stripped of his digital devices, and thrown into a cell. This separation of reveals the operational logic of the security apparatus: remove the international witness, then crush the local source.

The Geography of Isolation

The authorities did not keep Atuhura in Buliisa, where his family and legal counsel could easily reach him. Instead, they initiated a transfer designed to disorient and isolate. He was moved from Buliisa to the Hoima Central Police Station, a significant distance away. This tactic serves multiple purposes. It increases the logistical cost for lawyers attempting to secure a release. It removes the detainee from their support network. It also creates a psychological environment of total state control.

For more than 48 hours, Atuhura remained in custody, a violation of the Ugandan constitutional limit for detention without charge. During this period, he was denied access to his family and legal representation. The interrogation he endured stripped away any pretense that this was a standard police matter. Officers did not ask about “unlawful assembly,” the charge eventually plastered on his file. Instead, they asked specific, politically charged questions: “Why are you working against Total with foreigners?” and “Who is funding your work?” These questions demonstrate that the police viewed their role as protecting the reputational and operational interests of TotalEnergies, rather than enforcing the penal code.

The charge of “unlawful assembly” was particularly absurd given that Atuhura was arrested while seated at a table with one other person. Yet, the validity of the charge was never the point. In the context of judicial harassment, the charge is a hook to justify the process. The process, the arrest, the detention, the seizure of phones, the travel, is the punishment.

The Bond Trap: Paralysis by Procedure

When Atuhura was released on May 27, 2021, he was not free. He was released on police bond. This method is a favored tool for silencing activists in Uganda’s oil region. The conditions of the bond required him to report periodically to the Hoima Regional Police headquarters. For a resident of Buliisa or Kampala, this requirement imposes a debilitating financial and temporal tax.

Every week or month, the activist must pay for transport, travel hours to the station, wait for the investigating officer, and sign a book, only to be told to return on a future date. This pattern can continue for months or years without a trial ever commencing. It keeps the threat of imprisonment hanging over the defender’s head, discouraging them from organizing meetings, speaking to the press, or traveling abroad. It places them on an open-air leash.

For Atuhura, this “bond trap” coincided with a broader crackdown on his organization. TASHA and its partner, the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), faced simultaneous administrative attacks. The National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO Bureau) suspended AFIEGO’s operations, citing regulatory technicalities. This administrative warfare runs parallel to the criminal harassment. While Atuhura fought to stay out of jail, his organization fought to keep its doors open. The synchronization of these attacks suggests a centralized directive to the infrastructure of civil society in the Albertine Graben.

TotalEnergies and the “Voluntary Principles”

TotalEnergies frequently cites its adherence to the “Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights,” a set of guidelines intended to ensure that corporate security arrangements do not violate human rights. The company claims it maintains a constructive dialogue with NGOs and does not tolerate harassment. Yet, the arrest of Maxwell Atuhura occurred in the direct operational shadow of the Tilenga project.

When pressed by international bodies, including the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, TotalEnergies distanced itself from the incident. In a response dated August 23, 2021, the company stated it was “not aware” of the threats against Atuhura until informed by NGOs and asserted that it played “no part whatsoever” in the arrest. This defense relies on a convenient separation between the company and the Ugandan state security forces that protect its assets.

yet, the interrogation questions reported by Atuhura, specifically regarding his work against Total, imply a flow of information between corporate interests and security enforcement. The police acted to protect the project’s image from the scrutiny of an Italian journalist. Whether TotalEnergies explicitly ordered the arrest or simply benefited from a security environment overzealous in its defense is a distinction without a difference for the victim. The company’s presence provides the motive; the state provides the muscle.

Digital Seizure and Surveillance

During his detention, police seized Atuhura’s phone and laptop. In the digital age, this constitutes a severe breach of privacy and a security risk for the entire network of activists. These devices contain contact lists of displaced farmers, records of compensation grievances, and communications with international legal teams.

The seizure of devices allows security agencies to map the resistance. They can identify who is feeding information to Atuhura, which farmers are refusing to sign agreements, and which international journalists are planning visits. This intelligence gathering chills the entire community. Farmers who might have spoken to Atuhura see him arrested and his data taken; they correctly assume their names are in a police file. The result is silence.

Following his release, Atuhura reported continued surveillance. Unidentified vehicles trailed his movements. His home in Buliisa was broken into, yet nothing of monetary value was stolen, only documents were disturbed. These “burglaries” bear the signature of intelligence operations seeking information rather than material gain. The psychological toll of knowing one is constantly watched forces activists to live in a state of perpetual anxiety, further degrading their ability to work.

International Testimony vs. Local Reality

The harassment of Maxwell Atuhura eventually reached the halls of power in Europe. In May 2024, Atuhura testified before a French Senate Inquiry Commission investigating TotalEnergies. He detailed the intimidation, the arrests, and the forced displacement of his community. His testimony provided a clear counter-narrative to the corporate presentations that depicted the oil projects as a boon for Uganda.

While his appearance in Paris was a victory for visibility, it did not the apparatus of repression back home. The disconnect between international sympathy and local safety remains a serious problem. European parliamentarians may pass resolutions condemning the arrests, the police commander in Buliisa operates under orders from Kampala, where the oil revenue is viewed as a regime survival fund.

The judicial harassment of Atuhura is not an anomaly; it is a template. It was used against Joss Kaheero Mugisa, another observer for AFIEGO, who was arrested and held in Masindi prison on fabricated charges of “threatening violence.” It was used against the nine students arrested for supporting the EU resolution against EACOP. The objective is consistent: criminalize the act of questioning the oil project. By wrapping suppression in the language of the law, “unlawful assembly,” “incitement,” “police bond”, the state attempts to sanitize its actions. for Maxwell Atuhura and his colleagues, the law has ceased to be a shield. It has become the primary instrument of their persecution.

The Memorandum of Coercion

The final and perhaps most formidable barrier between the people of the Albertine Graben and their rights is not a fence or a trench, a document. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between TotalEnergies EP Uganda (TEPU) and the Uganda Police Force (UPF) establishes a formal, logistical, and financial link between a private multinational corporation and the state’s coercive apparatus. While TotalEnergies publicly champions its adherence to the “Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights” (VPSHR), the operational reality on the ground suggests a different arrangement: the privatization of public security to enforce corporate.

Under this agreement, TotalEnergies provides “logistical support” to the police forces deployed to protect its assets. This support is not abstract. It includes vehicles, fuel, food, and accommodation. In a region where local police stations frequently absence fuel for a single patrol car, the Oil and Gas Police Division (OGPD), a specialized unit dedicated to the energy sector, operates with superior resources funded directly by the entity they are meant to regulate. This financial dependency creates a conflict of interest so severe it deputizes the state police as private security guards for the oil major. When a farmer refuses to sign a compensation form and sees a police truck pull up, they do not see a neutral arbiter of the law; they see the enforcement arm of TotalEnergies.

The Oil and Gas Police Division: A Private Army?

The creation of the Oil and Gas Police Division marks a militarization of the extraction zone. Unlike standard community policing, this unit has a specific mandate: to secure oil infrastructure and ensure the smooth progression of project activities. Reports from the Albertine Watchdog and other civil society monitors indicate that this unit functions less like a public service and more like a corporate shield. The unit’s officers are frequently seen accompanying TotalEnergies’ land acquisition teams (ATACAMA Consulting and others) during “negotiations” with Project Affected Persons (PAPs).

The presence of armed, uniformed officers during compensation talks fundamentally alters the power. A villager in Buliisa, illiterate and facing dispossession, cannot negotiate freely when the other side of the table is flanked by state security forces known for their brutality. The implicit threat is clear: sign the papers, or face the consequences of resisting “national development.” This is not a commercial transaction; it is coercion under the color of law. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights require companies to avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts, yet the very presence of these forces, sustained by corporate funds, generates a climate of fear that invalidates the concept of “Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.”

Surveillance and the Chilling Effect

Beyond visible patrols, the collaboration between TotalEnergies and Ugandan security forces has birthed a sophisticated surveillance network. Investigations suggest that the “logistical support” extends to intelligence sharing. Civil society organizations (CSOs) such as AFIEGO (Africa Institute for Energy Governance) and NAPE (National Association of Professional Environmentalists) report that their meetings are routinely infiltrated, their offices raided, and their staff trailed by intelligence officers operating in tandem with oil interests. The Albertine Watchdog has alleged that funding from the oil sector has been used to acquire surveillance technologies to monitor the communications of activists and community leaders.

This surveillance creates a “chilling effect” that silences dissent before it can organize. Villagers are afraid to speak to journalists or NGO workers, fearing they be branded as “saboteurs” of the pipeline. In Kyotera and Lwengo districts, PAPs who voiced dissatisfaction with low compensation rates reported receiving visits from security operatives warning them against “fighting the government.” TotalEnergies consistently denies directing these actions, citing its VPSHR policies. Yet, by funding the very forces conducting the harassment, the company provides the fuel, literally and metaphorically, for the repression.

The Host Government Agreement: Legalizing State Violence

The roots of this militarization lie in the Host Government Agreement (HGA) signed between TotalEnergies and the Ugandan state. This binding contract obligates the government to provide security for the project and, crucially, to ensure that the project proceeds without “interruption.” Such clauses incentivize the state to use whatever means necessary to clear obstacles, whether those obstacles are physical structures, protected wetlands, or human beings refusing to move. The HGA overrides the constitutional duty of the police to protect citizens, repurposing them to protect the schedule of a pipeline.

The HGA also insulates TotalEnergies from liability. When security forces use excessive force to disperse protests or evict families, the company can claim these are the independent actions of a sovereign state. This legal firewall allows TotalEnergies to maintain a clean image in Paris while benefiting from the dirty work performed by Ugandan security forces in Hoima. The company’s “Duty of Vigilance” defense in French courts relies heavily on this separation, arguing that they cannot be held responsible for the actions of a foreign government. Yet, the financial receipts for the police vehicles tell a different story.

The Failure of Voluntary Principles

TotalEnergies’ primary defense against accusations of complicity in state violence is its adherence to the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. The company conducts training sessions for police officers and includes human rights clauses in its contracts. yet, these measures appear to be performative rather than preventative. Training a police officer on human rights in a classroom is meaningless if their operational orders, and their daily rations, come from a structure demanding the rapid clearance of land for oil drilling.

The voluntary nature of these principles renders them toothless. There is no independent oversight method with the power to sanction the company when the police it supports violate rights. When the Uganda Police Force arrested students protesting the EACOP project in Kampala, or when they detained Maxwell Atuhura in Buliisa, the “Voluntary Principles” did not secure their release. The principles serve as a public relations shield, allowing the company to tick a compliance box while the security apparatus it funds the civil liberties of the host population.

A Legacy of Displacement and Impunity

As this investigative series concludes, the full picture of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline and the Tilenga project emerges not as a beacon of development, as a monument to corporate impunity. From the “cut-off date” that trapped thousands in economic limbo to the drilling inside Murchison Falls National Park; from the manipulation of illiterate farmers to the erasure of ancestral graves; and, to the deployment of state security forces to enforce silence, the pattern is widespread.

TotalEnergies has constructed a parallel governance structure in the Albertine Graben. It manages land, controls movement, dictates economic terms, and finances its own security detail. The Ugandan state, eager for oil revenues, has willingly ceded its sovereignty, turning its police force into a private guard and its environmental agencies into rubber stamps. The displaced families, landless and food insecure, are the collateral damage of a project that prioritizes shareholder dividends over human dignity.

The EACOP project is frequently described by its proponents as a “major change” for East Africa. It is indeed changing the game: it is establishing a precedent where multinational corporations can extract resources at the cost of human rights, protected by the guns of the state and shielded by the apathy of the international community. The oil flow to Tanga, the profits flow to Paris, and the people of Uganda be left with the empty pledge of prosperity and the enduring scar of displacement.