Environmental and human rights groups to EU: suspend aid to
Chad-Cameroon pipeline

DATE: June 21, 2001
FROM: Associated Press

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Environmental and human rights
activists called on the European Union to suspend its financial
backing of a dlrs 3.5 billion pipeline project to move oil from 300
wells in southern Chad to Cameroon's Atlantic port of Kribi.

A coalition of groups, including Friends of the Earth International
and the Chadian League of Human Rights called on the EU to halt
its loan ``until guarantees are provided that all environmental,
social
and political commitments are being met,'' it said in a statement.

Critics of the project claim it will only increase the problems in the
region, opening the door to corruption and further conflict.

The EU's European Investment Bank has said it will give a 144
million euros (dlrs 124 million) loan to the governments of Chad and
Cameroon and to the oil consortium.

The construction of the 1070 kilometer (665 miles) long pipeline
which started last October will last three years, and is meant to
serve as a model for poverty alleviation in Africa.

The World Bank is providing three percent of the project financing
through various loans.

The project has already been mired in controvery. Last year Chad
president Idriss Deby played down reports that part of a cash
advance had been spent to buy arms, saying funds had been used
in ``priority sectors'' and adding that without security, there could
be no development programs.

The issue centered on allegations that Chad had purchased
weapons with dlrs 4 million of a dlrs 25 million ``bonus'' from
Chevron and the Malaysian state oil company, Petronas - two of
the three members of the Exxon Mobil Corp-led consortium
operating the project.

``Last year, the Chadian government already spent the first
revenues from the oil project to purchase arms,'' Dobian Assingar of
the Chadian League of Human Rights told reporters.

Since 1998, Chad's government has been fighting a rebel
movement based in the north of the big, poor landlocked nation.

``Because of the huge sums of money involved, its causing a big
degree of corruption,'' said Paul De Clerck of Friends of the Earth.

De Clerck was also worried that the project would have a negative
impact on the environment with deforestation and on local
aboriginal populations which will be forced to leave their homes as
the pipeline moves through their area.

The European Parliament passed a resolution last year demanding
the EIB not to approve the loan unless Chad lives up to its
agreement to improve its environmental and human rights
legislation.

Under its deal with the World Bank, Chad passed legislation to
ensure that 80 percent of all oil revenues, expected to amount to
between dlrs 80-100 million a year over 25 years - would be spent
on education, health and infrastructure improvements.

Websites :  http://euforthepeople.tripod.com
 http://www.globalwarming.isbad.net

Mailinglist:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eupeople

Read the report from Friends of the Earth:  http://www.foei.org/Publications/fulladobetext/broken_prom.PDF