National Unity Platform leader Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine has said that his party and leaders are the reason the European Union has passed a resolution to delay the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).
Mr Kyagulanyi said that he has relentlessly asked the EU to revise their relationship with the Ugandan government for as long as they continue to abuse human rights and destroy the environment through this particular deal.
“We know that we need our oil, we know that that oil is supposed to change the lives of the people of Uganda but we also know that Gen. Museveni has said it not only once that that is his oil. We tell Museveni that is not your oil, that is our oil. It will be betrayal and it will be a disservice to the people of Uganda if the world’s democracies stood with the dictator who is only using the resources of Uganda to enrich himself and to subdue the people of Uganda,” Mr Kyagulanyi said.
Last week, the EU Parliament voted by a majority of 334 to pass a resolution that seeks to compel Uganda, Tanzania, and Total Energies SE to delay the development of the proposed EACOP for at least one year.
The MPs cited major environmental and climate risks posed by the project. They said there is a need to find an alternative route that would not affect as many people and the ecosystem as well as a review of alleged human rights abuses, especially in Uganda.
In February this year, while addressing the addressed the fifth Annual Africa Week Conference on Socialists in Brussels, Belgium organised by the EU, torture and other forms of human rights violations took centre stage during Bobi Wine’s presentation.
Bobi Wine also pointed out that many people who are in the line of this pipeline deal have never been compensated and yet they lost their land and livelihoods.
More than 7,000 people were displaced when the government acquired 29-square kilometres of land for the construction of the Oil refinery in 13 villages in Kabaale parish, Buseruka sub-county in 2012. Some of the people who occupied the area were resettled to Kyakaboga village where the government acquired 533 acres of land and constructed permanent houses.
The EACOP will run 1,443km from the oil fields in Hoima in mid-western Uganda to the Indian Ocean Tanga Port in Tanzania. But the part of Uganda stretches for 296km. All together—in Uganda and Tanzania—there are 30,000 households whose land is touched by the project. But in terms of PAPs there are 3,900 in Uganda, and 9,000 in Tanzania, majority of whom are economically impacted; whose portions of gardens are touched, but not displaced entirely.
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“I on behalf of the NUP, I want to welcome and thank the European Union for the resolution they passed to resolve the oil companies under the influence from supporting the East African Crude Oil pipeline and we are glad that they incited the issues clearly. Issues of Gross Human Right abuses and Gross environmental abuses. For a very long time we’ve been calling upon the International community to stop being the wing beneath Museveni’s wing. We have been asking them to stop standing with dictator Museveni,”Mr Kyagulanyi said.
Joel Ssenyonyi, the party spokesperson reiterated his boss’ comments and said that they are going to take President Museveni back home for retirement by breaking all the roots that he has in the international community.
“If you break all the ties that Gen Museveni has in the West, they will stop funding him and he will run bankrupt and he will have nowhere to stand. As a party we shall make sure that we destroy that false image that he has always portrayed in the international community,” Mr Ssenyonyi said.
Mr Kyagulanyi also said they will hold concerts abroad in order to fundraise for Ugandans who are suffering and still stuck in the Diaspora because the government has not done anything to ensure their safety as Ugandans.
“I have seen our brothers and sisters facing racial segregation in China in a wave of Covid 19pandemic .Myself and other Pan Africans offered a plane to repatriate them home but Museveni’s regime denied us landing space to bring our brothers and sisters back home,” he said.
Mr Kyagulanyi said, “Today our black brothers and sisters are all facing oppression in the Arab countries, they are stuck they just want to come back home, Museveni can afford to use Ugandans money to take his daughter to German to give birth ,they can afford to put one person on Uganda’s plane to go for treatment but they can’t bring back our brothers and sisters who are suffering in the Diaspora. That is why in our little abilities we have decided to stage concerts in various places so that we can raise funds to bring back our people from those areas.”
