Oil infrastructures in Kome, Chad
Oil infrastructures in Kome, Chad © AFP

Chad & Cameroon

Oil Pipeline Project Threatens Local Communities and Fragile Ecosystems

In September 2005, Amnesty International published “Contracting Out of Human Rights: The Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Project,” a report focusing on the human rights implications of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline project that are of particular concern to Amnesty International in light of its work in both countries over several decades. The report draws attention to features of the legal framework that are similar to those of investment projects in other parts of the world, many of which pose threats to human rights for similar reasons. According to Amnesty International’s analysis, the State-Investor Agreements that underpin the vast project have frozen human rights protection for the thousands of people who live in its path. This allows the Exxon-Mobil-led consortium that operates the pipeline to effectively side step the rule of law in Chad and Cameroon, and limits the ability of those countries to develop effective human rights protection for their citizens over the next several decades. The other members of the oil consortium include Chevron Corporation (25 percent) and Petronas of Malaysia (35 percent).

The $3.7 billion oil project, which is sub-Saharan Africa's single largest private sector investment, involves a 650-mile pipeline that stretches from the oil wells and drilling operations in southern Chad through Cameroon to the export-loading terminal on the Atlantic coast. The pipeline cuts through Chad's most fertile agricultural region and Cameroon's Atlantic Littoral Forest, a richly biodiverse area and home to the Indigenous Bagyeli people. Drilling in the Doba fields of Chad began in 2003, but the project went ahead only after the World Bank Group agreed in June 2000 to provide $200 million in loans and to mobilize hundreds of millions of additional dollars from commercial banks, as long as it was allowed to oversee the project. The Exxon-led consortium invited World Bank oversight in the hopes that it could insulate itself from the negative repercussions that accompanied oil projects in other countries, such as neighboring Nigeria. The World Bank’s rationale for participating in the project, despite the potential risks to human rights and the environment, is that it would provide substantial monetary benefits to Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world.

World Bank involvement in the Chad-Cameroon oil project requires compliance with policies concerning compensation, resettlement, indigenous peoples and the environment. It also established the International Advisory Group (IAG), which is charged with advising the World Bank and the governments of Chad and Cameroon on overall progress of the project in the areas of accountability, transparency, governance, environmental management, and in meeting social goals. It also pushed for the introduction of an oversight committee that is charged with ensuring that government oil revenues are allocated to government works intended to alleviate poverty. These safeguards, which have been criticized by some as being inadequate (For example, the 2005 CRS-BIC report), were largely adopted as a response to intense campaigns focused on the pipeline project by civil society. For example, in 1998, 86 environment, development, human rights and religious organizations from 28 countries called on the World Bank not to approve the financial support requested by the oil consortium unless respect for human rights and the environment, and transparent spending of oil money on social development projects, could be guaranteed.

Exxon officials in Chad  
Exxon officials are accompanied by armed security guards on their way to meet local officials in Chad. (© Martin Zint)

Despite the existence of these safeguards, activists remain concerned about the impact of the oil project on the populations of Cameroon and Chad. This concern is based on the history of gross human rights violations, poor governance and corruption in both countries, the flaws in both the design and the implementation of the much-touted project safeguards, the World Bank's failed promises in the past, and the fact that the extraction of oil and other natural resources has frequently corresponded to serious problems in countries with weak economies and poor governance records. These problems include a downward spiral of corruption, instability, conflict and serious human rights abuses, and increasing poverty levels.

Chad’s Doba oil fields are located in a region plagued by civil strife for several decades. The Chadian government has been criticized for systematic harassment and intimidation of local activists, journalists, and elected officials critical of the oil project. They have been arrested, detained and have received death threats. In March of 1998, Chadian security forces reportedly killed more than 200 unarmed civilians in the villages of Dobara and Lara in the Doba oil region. The massacre was never investigated. The community consultation process for the oil project took place in Chad largely in the presence of the security forces responsible for these human rights violations, hence exacerbating the climate of fear and intimidation in the oil region. And in March 2005, Chadian civil society was pressured by Prime Minister Pascal Yoadimnadji to remove Dobian Assingar, a prominent human rights defender, from his seat as their representative on the oil revenue oversight body. The request came just one day after he discussed the weaknesses in Chad’s oil revenue oversight system in an international radio interview.

Moreover, the people of Chad continue to suffer from serious human rights violations and a culture of impunity, even though the violent thirty-year civil war they lived through came to an end in 1990 with the coup that brought current President Idriss Déby to power. The Chadian government continues to utilize extrajudicial killings and disappearances, torture as a means of interrogation, illegal searches and wiretaps, home demolition, threat of death or grave bodily harm, rape, and arbitrary arrest and detentions against its political opponents and their neighbors and family members. The U.S. State Department's 2004 Country Report states that Chad's human rights record “remained poor, and the Government continued to commit serious human rights abuses.” In addition, the government continued to limit the rights of people to change their government, the rights to freedom of expression and of the press, and the freedom of assembly, religion, and movement.

In addition, about 880 kilometers of the pipeline, more than three fourths of its total length, cuts across Cameroon, which has created both immediate and long-term threats to the country's natural resources. Environmental and human rights activists in Cameroon remain concerned about the destruction of the livelihoods of the forest-dependent Indigenous Bagyeli people as well as habitat destruction and marine pollution. Activists in Cameroon have also been monitoring the impact of the pipeline and the compensation process on people and the environment. Like their Chadian colleagues, human rights and environmental defenders in Cameroon continue to face government harassment and the use of force by security personnel.

And while there has been some progress, especially in the area of individual compensation cases and efforts to minimize environmental impacts associated with the construction and operation of the pipeline and drilling operations, there nonetheless appears to be increasing frustration among local NGOs and their international counterparts that a number of key concerns remain unresolved. Some of the major problems reported by local NGOs include serious threats to the right to livelihood, to food and to water, and numerous unresolved complaints regarding the compensation process. One of the most serious examples is the failure of the consortium to provide recompense to impoverished communities in southern Chad who have lost access to the land that provides them with the food, water and income necessary for survival. According to the June 2005 IAG report there have been “serious delays” in the consortium’s plans to restore to these communities land normally used for herding and farming, and that “no convincing explanation” was provided.

Problems stemming from the Exxon-led consortium’s compensation process have also been reported by local groups in both Chad and Cameroon. They include Cameroonian farmers who have seen financial ruin as a result of inadequate compensation for loss of farmland and fruit trees, the destruction of hundreds of sacred sites without compensation, and the inadequate recompense provided to individuals and communities in southern Chad who suffered losses due to the project. Specific compensation complaints made in Chad include houses built that cannot withstand the climate, classrooms and community centers that were poorly built, not completed or not constructed at all, the digging of wells with poor water quality, and the receipt of defective farm implements, among others. Also troubling is the fact that all compensation claims for losses caused by the project are determined by the Exxon-led consortium itself, and there is currently no right nor mechanism for Chadians or Cameroonians to appeal these decisions to any independent body.

Of growing concern to local and international advocates is the issue of new oil exploration being undertaken by both the Exxon-led consortium and the Canadian Company EnCana outside the Doba basin project area because of the higher level of population density in the new areas, and the potential lack of transparency and accountability on any new oil development there. The transparency and accountability concerns stem from the fact that the oil revenue management law does not apply to the new fields under exploration, and the Government of Chad has so far made no move to amend the law to include them. The comparatively high population density of this region has led to serious concerns about how to balance farming and herding activites with oil-related activities. This is because a larger percentage of the population would be eligible for resettlement and compensation for losses associated with expropriated or destroyed property.

Human rights and environmental defenders in both Chad and Cameroon have devoted themselves to ensuring that the ongoing social and environmental impacts of the pipeline project, the implementation of the revenue management law in Chad, and any further development of Chad’s oil industry are properly monitored. They will continue to hold their governments, the Exxon-led consortium and other future operators accountable for actions that negatively impact the environment and human rights.

Governments, however, are primarily responsible for realizing the human rights of their citizens. The governments of Chad and Cameroon have acknowledged this responsibility by ratifying a number of the most important international human rights treaties, including The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), The Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), The Convention Against Torture, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment (1984), a number of International Labor Organization Conventions, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981). Under these international laws both Chad and Cameroon also have the obligation to regulate the conduct of third parties, including companies like Exxon-Mobil, to ensure respect for human rights.

In “Contracting Out of Human Rights: The Chad Cameroon Pipeline Project,” Amnesty International voices its concern that the State-Investor Agreements (SIAs) between the Exxon-led consortium and Chad and Cameroon will discourage these Governments from progressively realizing international human rights. Amnesty International’s analysis shows that if any time over the next several decades either government chooses to change the regulatory environment of the project, according to the SIAs they have to seek the prior consent of the consortium. In addition, the SIAs give the consortium the right to seek arbitration if they think the new regulations, including regulations that protect human rights, could affect its profits. The SIAs must be amended to protect human rights and allow the countries to hold corporations accountable for their actions under local, national and international law.

Amnesty International is concerned that unless these SIAs are amended, vulnerable communities and the environment will remain at risk in Chad and Cameroon. We will continue our work on this important area of human rights protection to ensure that in the future, no country will “contract out of human rights,” and no company will ask them to.

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