“Deliver us from Total”, “Warm hearts, not pipelines”… These are the words an AFP journalist heard this morning outside a TotalEnergies gas station in the south of Paris. In all, around thirty environmental activists and believers came together to denounce the East African Crude Pipeline (EACOP) and Tilenga oil field projects in Uganda and Tanzania initiated by TotalEnergies.
Several religious figures mobilized
Behind the rally: Extinction Rebellion Spiritualities, an offshoot of the Extinction Rebellion movement known for its hard-hitting civil disobedience actions, as well as GreenFaith, a US-born interfaith NGO fighting “for climate justice,” supported by believing volunteers . The NGOs accuse the multinational of taking over the land through expropriation and are concerned about the environmental impact of these projects.
“Our traditions and our religions push us not to remain silent,” said Rabbi Yeshaya Dalsace, one of the religious figures present, with pastor Caroline Ingrand-Hoffet, president of the Rassemblement des Muslims de France Anouar Kbibech, Buddhist teacher Olivier Reigen. Wang-Genh and Bishop Marc Stenger.
These religious personalities arrived carrying an empty coffin, on which African landscapes were painted. “I’m Catholic and I think it’s great to see religious figures take a stand on this divisive issue of ecology,” says Isabelle, 43, who, like all members of Extinction Rebellion, refuses to be named after family.
A trial in progress
TotalEnergies has been sued by several environmental NGOs regarding its activities in Uganda and Tanzania. He will speak on this subject on December 7 before the Paris court.
In the associations viewer, two colossal sites inextricably linked: the Tilenga project, a 419-hole rig in Uganda, a third of which in Murchison Falls Nature Park; and the EACOP (East African Crude Oil Pipeline) project, the world’s longest heated pipeline, which runs through Tanzania for almost 1,500 km, passing through various protected natural areas.
Source: BFM TV
