"Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten." Cree Indian Prophecy
Mozambican organisation Justiça Ambiental (JA!) last Wednesday (December 21st) submitted a petition with more than 2,600 signatures from Mozambican citizens to demand that the controversial Mphanda Nkuwa dam project, proposed for the Zambezi River, cease immediately.
The terms under which the Mphanda Nkuwa hydroelectric project was conceived, and under which it is proceeding, do not comply with the fundamental objectives of the Mozambican State enshrined in Article 11 of the Constitution of the Republic, especially with regard to human rights and equitable development. Furthermore, this project entails very high environmental, ecosystem, climate, seismic, social and economic risks, which have not yet been properly assessed and studied by the Mozambican government. Despite these risks, and the numerous requests for clarification and information submitted by Justiça Ambiental to the government and to the Mphanda Nkuwa Hydroelectric Project Implementation Office (GMNK), the project has been moving forward, in this new phase, since 2018, in an accelerated manner and without due public scrutiny.
Furthermore, the project is also in violation of articles 21, 22 and 24 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which establish peoples’ right to the free disposal of the use of natural resources and prevent them from being deprived of their use; the right to choose the model of economic development, social and cultural with strict respect for their freedoms and identity; and the right to a balanced environment conducive to their development.
It should be noted that, although the project has been under way for 4 (four) years in this new stage, no public consultation related to the project has yet been carried out, nor has any consultation taken place with the local communities that will be directly and indirectly affected by it. This is in clear violation of several guidelines and principles followed by Mozambique regarding the protection and promotion of the right of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).
With this petition, the more than 2,600 undersigned Mozambican men and women demand that an open, inclusive and comprehensive dialogue is promoted and that the Mozambican government fully clarify the outlines, objectives and rationale behind this “priority” project, including:
• Where does the investment come from and what is the trade-off?
• Why is this project a priority for the country, considering our levels of poverty and inequality; that thousands of children have no place in school, and that there aren’t adequate health services for everyone?
• What is the reason for insisting on this project, which has already been abandoned so many times? What other interests exist behind a project of this dimension?
• Have other energy alternatives been considered? If yes, which ones?
• Who will be responsible for compensating the communities that have had their future mortgaged for the past 20 years, unable to invest in their community and in necessary infrastructure due to fear of losing their investments, since in 2000 they were advised by the government not to build any new infrastructure?
• What is the real purpose of the dam and what supposed gains do they believe the country would reap in the short and long term, including how do they intend to generate financial returns?
We also demand the elaboration of scientifically valid and impartial studies that respond to all the questions that have been raised since the approval of the environmental impact study in 2011, such as:
• Uncertainty about the flow regime under which the dam will operate (base-load or mid-merit);
• Lack of definition on the area chosen for resettlement of the communities directly affected by the dam;
• Poor sediment analysis elaborated with insufficient data, which does not allow for a valid scientific analysis;
• Weak seismic analysis, without concrete data and with results and conclusions that contradict other studies by renowned specialists;
• Weak analysis of the potential impacts of climate change and changes in upstream water demand, which will affect the project’s economic viability;
• The fact that the guidelines of the Worldwide Commission on Dams were not considered or followed, particularly with regard to social and environmental rights and justice, among others;
• Viable energy alternatives for the country, comparing and analyzing the respective benefits and impacts;
• How the project will ensure that the gains generated by the dam will not be appropriated by a small economic and political national elite, and by large multinational companies.
We furthermore demand that an open, inclusive and comprehensive dialogue be promoted around clean, fair and accessible energy solutions for all Mozambican men and women, so that we can embark on a sustainable development that ensures the protection of the important ecosystems that guarantee life on the planet.
Justiça Ambiental also calls for this matter to be dealt with as a matter of urgency, considering the growing and concerning scenario of intimidation and threats that we have observed in the context of our work in the District of Marara, including accusations of terrorism, demand for “authorisation to work on site”, and indication that local communities should not receive legal training on their rights or information on the impacts of dams. Several members of the communities that will have to be resettled to make room for this mega-project have also reported threats, intimidation and ‘warnings’ not to speak out against the project.
In addition to the signatures collected in the District of Marara, in Maputo City and throughout the country, more than 70 national, regional and international non-governmental organisations also signed the petition in online format, in solidarity.
It’s time to say STOP to a development model that enriches our elites and large multinational corporations, at the expense of most of the population and of nature. Let’s together demand clean, decentralised energy projects that benefit the Mozambican people!
Read the full text of the petition on the Justica Ambiental webpage:
After its ‘ghost’ phase between 2018 and 2021, when the Mphanda Nkuwa Hydroelectric Project Implementation Office (GMNK) had already been created but no one could find it (not even MIREME, the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy), over the past year GMNK has been effusively communicating several advances made on the project. Most of these news concerns new partners, potential investors, and calls for studies that are necessary for the different stages of the project. The Jornal Notícias on the 14th of September 2022, however, brought an unprecedented report on a topic that until then had been treated as taboo by our government: the opinion of local communities regarding the project.
Entitled ‘Communities say yes to Mphanda Nkuwa’, the article reports that the population of Chirodzi-Nsanangue, one of the villages that will be resettled to make way for the project, welcomes the construction of this dam. A great deal of information contained in this article, and in a similar television programme broadcasted by TVM (Mozambique’s public TV channel) on the 7th of the same month, raises some questions that deserve to be debated and problematized.
A doctor’s visit
The above-mentioned article and report were produced as a result of the first meeting of the GMNK (accompanied by its consultants) with the Chirodzi community since the revitalization of the project in 2018.
Coincidence or not, this GMNK visit to Chirodzi came just a few weeks after the launch of the study ‘Mphanda Nkuwa Dam: a climate change millstone around Mozambique’s neck’, which took place on 21 July; an event during which the GMNK Director was questioned by some community members as to why no meetings had been held with local communities since the project’s revitalization. On this same occasion community members also asked Director Carlos Yum about what benefits this project would bring to local communities, about maintaining their subsistence activities (fishing, livestock and agriculture) and about the land that would be made available for their resettlement. Some of the responses given by the GMNK Director were considered ‘disrespectful’ by the people who attended the event, as he stated that local populations should not only focus on individual benefits, but believe in the ‘macroeconomic’ benefits that the project will bring to the country. Most of the questions raised by the local communities were answered evasively, ambiguously or unclearly by the Director, missing an opportunity to finally clarify some of the issues that have been troubling these people.
This mention of the macroeconomic benefits of the project and the disregard for the concerns of local populations is in line with a concept that has been presented by several scholars and specialists, in which they call ‘sacrifice zones’ those regions that are buffeted by high environmental impacts and social problems due to the existence of polluting industries or other megaprojects, projects that are usually justified by an alleged ‘greater good’ that supposedly will benefit the country as a whole. Some sociologists have observed that the existence of sacrifice zones is made possible by a culture of vulnerability of the human and environmental rights of marginalized or disadvantaged populations, through which it is evident that some people have rights and privileges, and others suffer the impacts.
Returning to the meeting on the 7th, it is important to mention that it took place during Victory Day, a public holiday, and a day of celebration in the community, which in itself is quite unusual. JA! was present at the meeting that lasted no more than 15 minutes, and consisted of only one person speaking, the representative from GMNK. Of the various communities that will be affected by the project, only the community of Chirodzi-Nsanangue (main neighbourhood) was present, and other communities were not invited (nor their leaders), such as Bairros 1 to 6 of Chirodzi, Chococoma, and Luzinga, among others. No time was given for questions, comments or concerns that the community might have, nor were their concerns documented: no one had the right to speak apart from the GMNK. As we observed on the ground, and according to reports we received from various community members, this first GMNK visit to Chirodzi seemed to have only two purposes: to inform the community that the project is moving forward at full speed; and to produce reports to let the rest of the country know that the communities support the project.
The siege on civil society
Both the Notícias article and the TVM report, media outlets known for being aligned with our government’s interests and agenda, also stated that there are some NGOs that have been instrumentalizing communities so that they do not accept Mphanda Nkuwa’s dam project.
However, Justiça Ambiental has been working with communities in the region for 22 years, with regular visits and activities during the ‘dormant’ phases of the project, and we have never known or come across such organizations. It is really deplorable that some civil society organizations tend to treat local communities as if they were their property, speaking on their behalf and controlling their opinions, but we were not aware that this could be happening in Chirodzi.
However, this persecution of organizations that criticize so-called development projects is already well known. They are referred to as anti-patriotic, anti-development, or even terrorist organizations. Now, the government is preparing to tighten its grip on civil society even further, seeking to pass a highly controversial law that gives the government excessive powers, including to extinguish non-profit organizations for failing to report on their activities. It is easy to imagine what kind of organizations would be the first to suffer such reprisals.
The fact is that certain truths about these megaprojects – their impacts on the environment, the appalling conditions in which local communities are usually resettled, or how promises of employment never materialize – when said out loud do not please the government. What if people discover that the words spoken during community consultations only serve to convince them to accept the project? Worse, what if they decide to organize themselves so that the project progresses only according to their requirements, respecting their wishes, and ensuring that they truly benefit from it?
Communities accuse manipulation of information
Having been present in the region since 2000, and having cultivated a relationship of friendship and solidarity with these communities that was maintained even when the project seemed to have been shelved, JA! has received numerous requests for support, legal training and advice from people who fear the loss of their land with the arrival of the dam. JA!’s activities in this and other communities threatened or affected by megaprojects has been based on sharing information and exchanging experiences on the environmental and social impacts of this type of project, on empowerment and legal capacity building actions so that communities are able to defend their rights and negotiate the terms on which they agree (or not) to give up their land, and in activities that seek to raise the voice and raise awareness of the concerns of local communities through interviews, videos and articles.
When the Jornal Notícias of 14 of September reached Chirodzi and the surrounding area, it caused a lot of indignation within the community. The JA! team began to receive phone calls, SMS and videos from various community members expressing their displeasure with the information portrayed there, and accusing Notícias of manipulating the information, spreading lies and not having asked community members what they think of the project. Several families from two of the neighbourhoods’ threatened by the dam wrote petitions where they ask for some honest, independent and impartial media agency to go to Chirodzi and neighbouring communities in order to listen to the real opinions of the communities. This avalanche of outrage seems to confirm what JA! observed in the field: that there was no interest on the part of the GMNK to hear and make known the real opinion of the local communities regarding this project.
Rights, justice and paths to peace
We will not mention here the numerous risks and potential impacts that we have been pointing out over the last 22 years, and which have been neglected at all stages of the project. It’s not even up to JA! to clarify whether the community is for or against the project. It is up to us, as a civil society organization, to present our position, justify it and bring it up for debate in the public space, with the government, with the actors involved, with the local communities, pressing for responses and policies that deal with the problems we face as a society.
The question that arises at the moment is another: why does the government insist on not listening to the local communities which will be affected by the Mphanda Nkuwa project? Why does it insist on belittling their concerns, and masking them with a large media apparatus, to make it appear that the project is moving forward with local support? If local communities put their needs and demands forward for the advancement of the project, will these be respected and fulfilled? And if communities say they are opposed to the project as it stands, and claim their right to say no, will the government be willing to listen to them?
We believe that dialogue, and the broad participation of civil society in these types of issues, can help us start to embark on a development model that meets the needs and desires of the majority of the population, consequently reducing the social tensions and wars that we have in our country which are also caused by the exclusion of the majority of the population from decision-making processes.
The path we have been following, as a country, neither serves nor benefits the people. The attack on civil society organizations and any critical voice reflects our government’s lack of commitment to democracy and broad public participation. It is urgent that we chart new paths that lead us to peace and to a model of a country that we can be proud of – something radically different from what we are experiencing today.
*This article was originally published in Jornal Savana in Portuguese on 30th September, 2022
Oilwatch Africa (OWA) held the 2022 Conference and Annual General Meeting at Accra, Ghana between 8th -12th August. The theme of the continental gathering was Stop Gassing the continent: Pipelines of Discontent. The Conference had presentations and representation from CSOs, activists, scholars, journalists, fisherfolks and Eco-defenders from fossil fuels-affected communities across the continent and provided another opportunity to deepen OWA’s mission as a network of peoples and organisations building solidarity to end expansion of oil and gas activities given its negative impacts on people and the environment in Africa.
Key observations made by delegates included:
That the current rush for Africa’s oil, gas and mineral resources amounts to a perpetuation of extractive modes of colonial exploitation, which condemned the continent to predatory slave trade, followed by the massive raping of agricultural and forest resources, before the current iteration with its focus on minerals and fossil fuels.
That the argument that Africa deserves to utilise its natural resources for energy sufficiency and development belies the fact that extraction of natural resources has historically been export-driven for the benefit of the consumption needs of the global north and scarcely targets the needs of the continent and the rhetoric by African leaders that fossil fuels could be utilised by the continent as a “less harmful” transition fuel is a delusion as gas contributes massively to climate change through its methane content.
That the continuous financing and development of massive pipeline projects such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project, the West African Gas Pipeline Project WAGP, and the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline, among others constitute an aggression on the land rights of communities and portend massive livelihood disruptions, conflicts, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation across the continent.
That the current trend in which multinational oil and gas companies sell off their stakes in onshore oil and gas assets and move out of African countries or further offshore amounts to an abdication of responsibility for historical damage caused by their activities in these countries.
That the Paris Agreement and its 1.5 degrees Celsius target as driven by the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) is a huge betrayal for Africa as the continent warms at about 50% above the global average, meaning that going by the NDCs, Africa is condemned to literally burn at the best of scenarios.
That Africa is rich in renewable energies and given the growing competitiveness of clean energy technologies and has the potential to advance its energy transition along a zero-carbon pathway. For instance, Africa has the world’s highest solar potential but currently accounts for just one.
That industrialised countries have demonstrated insincerity by routinely spending close to $2 trillion annually on military hardware and warfare while foot-dragging on climate commitments, especially adaptation finance.
That emerging global and regional policy norms around a so-called blue economy revolution, constitute a massive threat to African coastal communities’ maritime and aquatic resources, and the continent’s environment, and will further incentivize illegal and overfishing in her waters.
That there has been a rise in the victimisation of Eco-defenders across the continent by oil companies and their state collaborators, and this repressive climate has been worsened in recent times by the proliferation of so-called oil and gas regulatory reforms (such as Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Act 2021) that shrink civic space by constraining the voice and agency of extraction-affected communities in decision making related to their natural resources and environment.
Oilwatch Africa denounced efforts to lock Africa in the exploitative fossil fuels pathway to meet the energy needs of polluting nations and to feed the greed of the fossil fuels industry. To ensure a just transition and secure climate justice for our peoples, the conference made the following demands:
There must be a halt to all new coal, oil, or gas exploration and extraction activities in Africa in line with the imperatives of the energy transition. We specifically demand the stoppage of oil exploration and expansion plans in the Virunga basin of the DRC, the Keta region of Ghana, the Okavango Delta of Botswana, the Orange River Basin in Namibia, and a halt on all plans for the West African Gas Pipeline Project, the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline Project, and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project, among others.
That African governments must leverage the hosting of COP27 this year to demand far-reaching measures on climate adaptation and finance, including emissions cut at the source.
African governments should demand from polluting industrialised countries an annual climate debt of $2 trillion being the amount they currently spend on military hardware and warfare annually. This will pay for loss and damage and serve as partial reparations for historical harms.
That oil and gas multinationals currently planning to divest and escape responsibility for their historical damage to African communities (such as Shell and Exxon Mobil in Nigeria’s Niger Delta) should restore the environment and compensate communities for ecocide committed in their territories before their exit.
African states must develop Africa-centred and just energy transition plans where such do not exist and where they do, to mainstream such plans into broader national development plans in ways that take cognizance of Africa’s huge renewable potential.
African countries and the African Union must tread with caution to the so-called blue economy, and especially denounce unconditionally all attempts to normalise Deep Seabed Mining (DSM) within the continent.
International Financial Institutions, including the African Development Bank and export credit agencies to cut all financing to fossil fuel projects in Africa
African governments and international organisations to respect the right to life of human rights and Eco-defenders in the continent who are increasingly repressed.
Adopted on the 11th of August 2022, by Oilwatch Africa members and organisations from:
Côte d’Ivoire
Democratic Republic of Congo
Ghana
Kenya
Mozambique
Nigeria
Senegal
South Africa
South Sudan
Swaziland/Eswatini
Tchad
Togo
Uganda
Organisations/Networks:
FishNet Alliance
Policy Alert
We the People
Peace Point Development Foundation
Oilwatch Ghana
Oil Change International
Host Communities Network, Nigeria
Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria
Kebetkache Women Development Centre
Foundation for Development in the Sahel (FDS)
Health of Mother Earth Foundation
Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO)
Jeunes Volontaires pour l’Environnement (JVE)
Justiça Ambiental (JA)
Ground Work
Friends of Lake Turkana
Femmes Solidaire (FESO)
Centre for Research and Action on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CRADESC)
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Marikana massacre, the day that striking South African mineworkers were violently attacked by the police, who killed 37 unarmed people. The police, government, company and even current President Cyril Ramaphosa, who were all directly involved, have not been held accountable for their crimes, and have gotten away, literally, with murder.
On the 16 August 2012, rockdrillers at Lonmin platinum mine were on strike, after a week of protests, demanding a basic, decent, liveable salary of R12 500 (MT 43 600 at the time) a month, on which the company refused to negotiate. The men were gathered on a hill, when the police opened live fire, unprovoked, and many men met horrific deaths – some of them were shot at close range, and some were even crushed by police vehicles.
Today, a full decade later, rockdrillers at the company are only earning R13 000 (MT 49 600). Lonmin never issued a formal apology for this massacre, not even to the families of those slain or the injured and has not provided all families with income compensation. In 2018, the company was bought by Sibanye-Stillwater. Lonmin has been a snake, slithering out of the country to avoid culpability.
No members of the police force. nor the government have been pinished or even legally charged for these blatant murders. President Ramphosa was a non-executive director of Lonmin at the time, and put pressure on the police to treat the strike as a criminal matter. Yet he has been exonerated of any responsibility for this massacre.
The families of the murdered mineworkers are continuing to go to court to obtain justice for their loved ones, for those guilty of these crimes to face some kind of punishment, and they will continue fight.
South Africans still live in an economic apartheid. The poor, including workers in the extractive and fossil fuel industries – the bodies on whom companies make as much as hundreds of billions every year – are still treated as less than human, as mere transactional tools to keep the capitalist system working for the wealthy, for local and international political and economic elite to benefit from their mere existence. This goes beyond South Africa – these exact same words can be used when talking about the extractive industries in Mozambique, Tanzania, Namibia, Lesotho, DRC, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Morocco, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Native American lands, to name very, very few.
Russian anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin once said: Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy stems from the poverty of the poor. We at JA! Stand in solidarity with the families of the murdered Lonmin mineworkers and those injured, with those fighting for basic humanity around the world, with those fighting for their lands, livelihoods, and the earth.
We urgently need the United Nations (UN) to implement a Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights, an accountability tool that actually has teeth and that communities devastated by corporations and civil society have been demanding for years.
Guiding principles are not enough – corporations have shown that they have no interest in human rights, the climate and the environment, except when they need to tick a box- and guidelines are certainly not going to force them to act with humanity.
It is time for institutions of power – states, especially those in the North, the UN and European Union- to create, and enforce laws that will make companies like Lonmin pay for their crimes, and protect lives, like those of the Marikana miners, struggling for their basic right to be treated as human beings. We must continue to fight to ensure that this capitalist, imperialist and neo-colonialist system of exploitation ends right now!
This week, Total announced that in 2021 it made 15 billion Euros, the biggest profits any company has ever made in French history. They are unashamedly boasting about this money, money that will go to wealthy European shareholders, money that they have made at the expense of the climate and people and the environment in the global South.
Total is one of the biggest players in Mozambique’s gas industry, leading the Mozambique liquid Natural Gas (LNG) project and is constructing the onshore Afungi LNG Park, which houses the aerodrome, treatment plants, port, offices and other support facilities for all the projects. To make way for the 70 square kilometre park, the company displaced over 550 families, thousands of people, from surrounding communities.
Even though extraction hasn’t even happened yet, fishing communities who had been living mere metres from the ocean for generations were displaced to a ‘relocation village’ more than 10 km inland, with no way of getting to the sea. Farmers who had now lost their land, were given small, inadequate pieces of land far from the relocation houses they had been given.
Their ‘consultation’ process with these communities has been a joke. In meetings between communities and companies, community leaders – many of whom have developed financially beneficial relationships with the industry – are present, and people avoided speaking out for fear of losing their compensation, or of physical threats. This is exacerbated by communities’ lack of basic knowledge law, thereby unable to demand their rights.
JA! works closely with communities on the ground in the gas region, and have seen how the only jobs created for locals were menial, unskilled and temporary. Communities’ complaints to Total about irregular compensation payments were waved away. And now that Total’s project was paused in April 2021, they have stopped compensation payments completely.
The project will also have irreversible impacts on the climate and destroy coral reefs and endangered species of the UNESCO Biosphere, the Quirimbas Archipelago.
But Total’s crimes go beyond Mozambique, to many other Southern countries. One of their planned projects, the East Africa crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) has been the subject of major campaigns by civil society and even a lawsuit in France by Friends of the Earth France. According to the StopEACOP Campaign:
“Stretching for nearly 1,445 kilometers, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) would have disastrous consequences for local communities, for wildlife and for the entire planet – we have to stop it. The project threatens to displace thousands of families and farmers from their land. It poses significant risks to water resources and wetlands in both Uganda and Tanzania – including the Lake Victoria basin, which over 40 million people rely upon for drinking water and food production. The pipeline would rip through numerous sensitive biodiversity hotspots, and risk significantly degrading several nature reserves crucial to the preservation of threatened elephant, lion and chimpanzee species.”
In Myanmar, Total was providing the oppressive military junta with the majority of its revenue, from its Yadana gas project. The military junta is known for ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population, and mass human rights violations including rape, sexual abuse, torture and disappearances of protestors. Recently Total claimed it would stop its operations in Myanmar, but again, it will be getting away with the destruction it has left in is wake.
Total has also been active in the Taoudeni basin of Mali in the Sahel since 1998. Since 2013, over 3000 French troops have been in Mali, and 4 other Sahel countries, with France using the same rhetoric as they and Rwanda have done in Mozambique: to rid the area of ‘jihadists’.
In Yemen, the Balhaf LNG site of which Total owns 39% was exposed for housing the base for the Shabwani Elite, an UAE-backed tribal militia since 2016. Officially a counter-terrorism group, they have unofficially become known as a group created to protect fossil fuel interests. The site also has also been exposed to house UAE notorious ‘secret prisons’ holding Yemeni detainees.
in the week of the announcement, many organisations from around the world held a social media storm, where tweeted about Total’s actions and ‘hijacked’ their twitter, facebook and linkedIn accounts.
It is inhumane that Total and its shareholders use their profits to have oysters and champagne in Paris’ restaurants, while this money comes by violating the rights of human beings, their bodies, the environment and the climate.
In Mozambique, Total must stop the gas exploitation entirely, but it cannot slink away from the mess it has already made. It must take responsibility and provide reparations for all the lives destroyed, all the lands grabbed, and the livelihoods lost.
Total must stop its destruction all over the global south, and the world, but that by itself does not erase years of abuse and dispossession overnight! Total and the fossil fuel industry gas industry must be held accountable for the impacts and human rights violations faced by affected communities and be obliged to fully compensate the communities and remediate the damage caused!
Anabela Lemos says Mozambique should not move forward with gas projects
This interview was originally published in Jornal Savana in Portuguese on 10th December, 2021.
At the beginning of November, a great controversy erupted, mainly on social networks, as a result of statements made by Anabela Lemos, an environmental activist, who argued that Mozambique should not proceed with the natural gas exploration project. But what arguments support this position, at a time when most social sectors in Mozambique, including civil society, see gas as a great opportunity to develop the country and fight poverty?
In an interview conducted by Boaventura Monjane*, Anabela Lemos, founder of “Justiça Ambiental” and one of the loudest voices in the environmental movement, responds to the question, arguing that insisting on this type of extractivist mega-projects will always contribute to serious violations of human rights, will cause irreversible damage to the environment, and will deepen the climate crisis. She also claims that Mozambique’s position at COP26 was largely inadequate.
At the beginning of November, in an interview to a television channel, Anabela Lemos stated and defended that Mozambique should not proceed with the natural gas exploration project in Cabo Delgado. Her statements provoked several reactions, mainly on social media. Can you explain this position?
By choosing to explore natural gas, Mozambique is following the same path followed by other African countries such as Nigeria and Libya that have also tried to develop through the exploration of fossil fuels. In all the examples we have on the continent, these projects have led to an increase in corruption, conflict and militarisation, national debt, poverty and a general deterioration in the standard of living of local populations, without having generated sufficient benefits for the country. This is not a position of radical activists. Even the World Bank has acknowledged, in its Extractive Industry Report, that the oil and gas industries in developing countries have not only failed to improve the lives of the poorest people, but have made them even worse off.
Mozambique is one of the countries most affected by climate change, and is looking to boost one of the industries that contributes most to this crisis, in the midst of a global movement calling to end the exploitation of fossil fuels. This is a contradiction and therefore we have to fight for our right to say no to environmentally destructive and socially unjust projects.
What do you mean by the right to say no?
The fight for the right to say no aims to challenge the usual way in which mega-projects are allowed in our countries, where public consultations or negotiations are carried out in the final stages of the project only to agree on small details and compensations. The right to say no aims to bring about a drastic change in the way affected people and civil society are brought into these debates. If the option of saying no is on the table, it is an indication that the people have power, and this opens up space for creating real debates about the best paths for development for the country.
This right started being demanded in several popular struggles of communities directly affected by extractivist projects, whose negative impacts affect these communities. People lose their land, livelihoods, access to rivers and the sea, ability to support themselves and to survive. The environment is destroyed and the people who survive are harassed. When everything is exhausted, corporations leave, leaving a trail of destruction and a huge debt for the State and the people.
For us perhaps the greatest reference to the right to say no is an inspiring struggle of a community in South Africa, in the Eastern Cape province. The community association Amadiba Crisis Committee, together with a team of lawyers and a South African civil society organisation, took its Ministry of Mineral Resources to court. And they got the higher court to recognise that a titanium mining project in that region could not proceed without the consent of the local community.
Does JA! fight against any and all development projects? After all, didn’t the industrialised countries develop with these types of projects?
We say no to any project that we believe will bring more negative than positive impacts for the people and the environment. Unfortunately, we are part of a national and global context in which governments are captured by the interests of large transnational corporations, and therefore the projects that are coming to our country will invariably benefit local and global elites, as they are not intended to solve the needs of the people.
Regarding the argument that industrialised countries developed with these types of projects, this is a misconception. European countries, for example, controlled virtually every component of the global value chain. They got rich from patents, from research, from manufacturing the equipment, from exploring, processing, and transporting resources. They became rich because they controlled and owned all the significant companies and markets at that particular time. And they got rich mainly because they colonised and exploited countries in the Global South. No African country that is already exploiting its fossil resources has developed from the exploitation of these, as it controls absolutely nothing in the value chain or any other critical component of this industry. So, regarding the gas, we’re actually being exploited once again.
Regarding the climate crisis, there has been a lot of debate about the right of less developed countries, such as Mozambique, to exploit their fossil fuel reserves to boost their economic growth. Don’t you think that industrialised countries should have a greater responsibility to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, rather than countries that have contributed little to these emissions?
Certainly. That is why we speak of historical responsibility, because it was the countries of the North that created the climate crisis, and the countries of the South, such as Mozambique, are suffering the greatest impacts. This means that the past and present actions of industrialised countries are creating damage and losses as we saw with cyclones Idai and Kenneth, with direct and indirect economic losses projected at $3 billion.
As a country, we don’t have to lead the way in terms of climate action. But this does not mean that in Mozambique we should explore gas or any other fossil fuel, and contribute to global emissions. We can pretend we’re fighting for a right, but given the climate crisis and the other impacts I’ve already mentioned, we’re basically fighting for the right to jump into an abyss.
But we can be an example of a country that is looking to its future and the future of planet earth, by moving towards a more sustainable economic model, while demanding that the Global North drastically reduce its emissions and pay the South a climate debt. This financing will allow the country to develop and be able to provide clean, just and decentralised energy to the entire population.
In Mozambique, and in many other African countries, energy poverty still affects the majority of the population. Many families still depend on polluting energy sources that are very harmful to health, such as firewood and charcoal. How does JA! propose to resolve these issues in Mozambique?
In a country like ours, the priority is certainly to create a strategy of decentralisation and diversification of energy sources, analyse the country’s energy potential by different areas and geographies, and build a system based on justice and the right of everyone to have access to a safe, healthy and clean energy source. Part of these studies already exist, completed by JA! and other researchers, but they continue to be largely ignored.
In September 2021, Friends of the Earth Africa published a “Just Recovery Renewable Energy Plan for Africa” which shows that it is not only urgent but completely feasible to reduce emissions, transform our energy system and make a just transition in our continent.
The plan, based on the work of renowned academic Dr Sven Teske of the University of Sydney, outlines how the continent can dismantle existing dirty energy systems and achieve 100% renewable energy for all by 2050. This plan would require more than 300 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable energy by 2030, as agreed by the African Union, and over 2000 GW by 2050. The plan also highlights the potential to create 7 million new jobs in renewable energy on the African continent. It is not just a technical plan, but a vision of how renewable energy systems can serve people and protect biodiversity.
Don’t you think that a lot could be done if each of us, individually, had greater environmental awareness? I’m talking about reducing consumption levels, not throwing garbage on the floor, saving water – with these types of actions wouldn’t we be able to achieve major changes?
It is always good for individuals to practice sustainable habits and protect the environment. But individual actions, as important as they are, must somehow aim at more structural changes in society, because if they are not intended to bring about a general change in how we understand the system and what attitude we take, they have no real impact.
Furthermore, we need to recognize the ecological footprint (a method of calculating the pressure that the human population, and each of us in particular, exerts on natural resources and the planet) of the majority of the Mozambican population; with the exclusion of our own elites, it is absurdly small. The huge ecological impact of industries makes any action at the individual level completely meaningless. Mozal, for example, consumes more water and electricity than all domestic consumption in the city of Maputo. And it is a company that did not even pay dividends to the Mozambican State throughout 2019.
So the big problem here is that industrial consumption and the linear model of extraction (production – use – disposal) are not compatible with ecological balance. We need circular systems that are capable of reusing all the components produced, as raw material in other processes. Of course, reducing consumption levels, especially in rich countries and our domestic elites, is fundamental for this to be viable.
Looking at the impacts of extractivist mega-projects in Mozambique, many claim that their positive impacts are not felt due to high levels of corruption. How do you see this issue of corruption?
The debate about corruption in our country is on the rise and we all see the impacts of corruption on a daily basis. This scenario must be urgently reversed and we need to fight it at all levels. But we also need to recognise that corruption is intrinsically related to the economic viability of extractive projects. If it weren’t for corruption, they wouldn’t advance. Buying off some government officials to sponsor this type of investment project will always be cheaper than bearing all the real costs of fair compensation for land expropriation, decent wages, damage to health, restoration of the degraded environment, and the impacts of climate change, among others things.
By solving the problem of corruption, would it be possible for Mozambique to be able to exploit the gas in a way that would benefit the country and the majority of Mozambicans?
The problem of corruption will not be resolved within the current development model that we have in the country. But beyond that, there are economic trends around fossil fuels that are undeniable, for anyone seeking to examine. Coal is a declining resource, with several countries (including China) already with divestment strategies and phasing out coal projects. Fifteen years ago when we started betting everything on coal, the scenarios were absurdly optimistic. We believe that gas extraction will follow a very similar path to coal. According to calculations by the Global Energy Monitor, there are already close to $100 billion in gas investments at risk of becoming stranded assets. Coal had a slow transition to become an unproductive asset, but with gas this risk will be faster and more abrupt, because it is a less labour-intensive industry.
As if this were not enough, current gas exploration contracts provide enormous benefits to private companies during the first decades, and only later will the country gain from exploration. All of this should be worrying for Mozambique, as we have major infrastructure problems, socio-economic instability and conflicts that are causing delays, putting gas projects even more at risk of becoming unproductive assets and having a minimal contribution to the country’s economy. Other studies such as those carried out by CIP, which do not focus on the risk of unproductive assets, still project weak gas contributions to the country’s economy, due to tax exemptions, tax havens, low gas prices, high operating costs, among others. And this, of course, without even counting the costs of militarisation and security that will fall on the State.
At the national level, some see environmentalists or human rights defenders as having anti-development agendas or accuse them of being manipulated by outside interests. How do you, Anabela Lemos and JA! deal with these criticisms?
The reason for the attacks on JA! because of our views is because our views are very upsetting to the interests of the elites – both national and international. There is no interest in having in-depth debates on these issues because then we will arrive at the undeniable facts that these projects do not bring development. There is a lot of information available and studies to be done that confirm our positions.
We are always available to debate views and alternatives, but we don’t waste too much time on strategies that are based on hearsay and misinformation and are intended to avoid deeper discussions.
What do you think of proposals like the one tried in Ecuador, in which more than 300 million dollars were pledged to stop the exploration of 846 million barrels of oil beneath the Yasuní National Park, one of the richest areas of tropical forest in the world. Do you think this solution would be viable for Mozambique?
Yes. With this kind of funding, and access to patents and technology that are unfortunately mostly owned by the Global North, countries like Mozambique can focus on energy transition.
It is very clear that funding for this exists. Data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) state that around $50 to $100 billion USD are lost each year due to tax evasion. Data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) show that $89 billion USD are lost in illicit financial flows. Data from the Tax Justice Network shows that $600 billion USD are lost every year due to tax fraud. Friends of the Earth International figures show that the wealth of the 53 richest people around the world could provide 100% renewable energy for Africa by 2030. We clearly know that this money exists, so we need to fight to demand the political will necessary to make the changes we need. This fund could also come from the payment of climate debts by industrialised countries.
The UN climate summit in Glasgow, UK, has just ended. World leaders have pledged to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy by 2050. Do you find this goal realistic? What did you think of Mozambique’s position at that summit?
Mozambique’s position at COP26, given that we are one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, was largely inadequate. We should have brought a discourse relaying respective demands around the right to life, the right to develop our country without exploring fossil fuels, and the right to the climate debt. COP26 is a suicide pact for Africa that African negotiator Lumumba Di-Aping warned us about at the 2009 COP. Twelve years have passed and African leaders want to set the continent on fire.
The 2050 goal is completely unrealistic. As we often say at JA!, these negotiations are debating how many people we agree to let die, how many forests we accept to destroy, how many islands will be submerged, so that fossil fuel companies and captured governments can continue to increase emissions and their profits.
Rich countries do not take responsibility for creating the climate crisis. They also fail to meet the financial commitments for countries in the Global South to embark on a just transition. Furthermore, we are shocked that they have reached an agreement on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement – carbon markets. This undermines emissions reduction targets because it allows polluters to continue to pollute, giving them an escape route. A study published by the “Glasgow Agreement” during COP26 demonstrated how there are at least 800 new fossil fuel projects under exploration. COP26 was nothing more than an insubstantial conversation to safeguard the interests of those who want to continue to pollute.
A photo of an activist holding a sign that said ‘Stop funding gas in Mozambique’ also raised a lot of controversy and debate on social media. It is known however that a group of activists in the UK have filed legal action to force the government to withdraw from Cabo Delgado gas. Is JA! involved in this campaign?
The British agency United Kingdom Export Finance (UKEF) has pledged more than $1 billion for gas projects in Mozambique. The gas industry in Mozambique has already had irreversible impacts even before any gas has been extracted. People have lost their homes and livelihoods, and the climate impact of the construction phase, which is not even complete, is already significant. It is essential that people know this, because corporations, pension funds, investors and even governments of various countries (with tax money) are financing these projects. This is unacceptable and a big risk for the Mozambican people. And that’s why we support Friends of the Earth groups in the UK, who are working in solidarity with us, and challenging their own government in court to stop funding Mozambique’s gas because of its negative impacts. We need an energy transition. Instead of gas, we want people-centred renewable energy.
This interview was originally published in Jornal Savana in Portuguese on 10th December, 2021.
Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FoE EWNI) are challenging UK Export Finance’s (UKEF) decision to fund a mega gas project in Mozambique. They will be in court on 7-9 December. Below JA! explains the reasons for supporting this court case.
The $50 billion gas industry in Mozambique has created an irreversible mess before any gas has even been extracted. People have lost their livelihoods and homes, and the climate impact just from the construction phase, which has not yet been completed, has already been significant. It is crucial for the global public to know this, because corporations, pension funds, investors and even governments around the world (with taxpayers’ money), are financing these projects.
UKEF alone has agreed to finance over $1 billion of Total’s $24 billion Mozambique Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) Project, one of three already in construction.
Evicted and betrayed
Industry players are well aware of the issues the industry has created and will create in future: JA! and our partners and friends in the UK and around the world have told them several times, in letters, in parliament, at shareholder meetings and protests and now, in court.
To make way for Total’s Afungi LNG Park, which will house the support facilities for the industry, the company has displaced thousands of people from fishing and farming communities around the site, to a relocation village far from their land, and 10km inland from the sea, leaving them without livelihoods. Since the relocation plots were so small, many people opted for inadequate compensation, following a consultation process that violated several Free, Prior and Informed Consent principles. JA! works closely with communities on the ground in the gas region, and have seen how the only jobs created for locals were menial, unskilled and temporary. Communities’ complaints to Total about irregular compensation payments were waved away.
Sparking violence and death
Cabo Delgado, the site of Total’s project, is in the midst of a deadly conflict, and the gas industry has contributed to this violence. Fighting between the armies of Mozambique and Rwanda, insurgents and mercenaries has turned Cabo Delgado into a war zone. While the government and the industry insist that the cause of the violence is religious, the reality is much more complex. For years now, social tensions have grown as already-poor local communities see their province’s wealth being plundered by national, and international economic and political elites and extractive companies. All the while their complaints and basic human rights and needs are ignored and disregarded. This violence has made 800,000 people refugees, and thousands have been killed. Many of the people displaced by the industry have had to flee to other cities or nearby provinces, and do not know if they will ever be able to return to their homes. Journalists and activists have disappeared, some never to be seen again.
After a deadly attack on Palma village in March, Total claimed ‘force majeure’, pausing its project indefinitely and pulling its staff out of the area. It has since not made any compensation payments to community members and has stated that it will not be fulfilling its payment obligations to contractors, including local businesses.
Severe damage to global climate
The climate impact of the project will be extremely high and is totally misaligned with the Paris Agreement. The environmental impact assessment shows that just the construction phase of one LNG train (liquefaction facility) will increase the greenhouse gas emissions of Mozambique by up to 14%. There are plans to construct six.
The country’s record gives little assurance that gas, or any fossil fuel for that matter, will bring any benefit to the people. Even though the country has been a fossil-fuel exporter for many years, still only about 30% of the population has electricity access, and it remains one of the poorest in the world. 95% of the gas will be exported to India, France, the UK, China and Indonesia among other countries.
The Mozambique government have demonstrated before that they will not invest profits into the wealth of their country. Historically, they have provided tax relief to fossil fuel exporters and plan to do so again – costing Mozambicans around $5.3 billion. The Mozambique government cannot be relied upon to support the communities suffering at the hands of the fossil fuel industry.
What does JA! do to fight this?
JA! works closely with communities who are affected by the gas industry. We are watchdogs – watching what Total and the gas industry is doing to local people, and working with these communities to fight the industry at the grassroots level. We support communities with making complaints, maintaining communication with the industry and educating them about their rights.
We take these voices to an international level with our close partners where people around the world can hear – activists, the public, the media, the courts and those in power.
What is the solution?
In March 2021, the UK government announced the end of overseas fossil fuel financing, but this came too late for the Mozambique LNG project, agreeing to funding in July 2020. Though it is heartening that during COP26, several countries involved in the Mozambique gas industry committed to end overseas fossil fuel financing after 2022, however, this doesn’t get them off the hook for the destruction they are already funding – they need to cancel their current financing agreements with Total and the gas industry, and with the Mozambique LNG project on hold, this is an ideal opportunity. But Total cannot just run away from what they have done. They need to make reparations for the mess they have already created.
Countries in the Global North need to pay their climate debt to Mozambique, cancel historical debts and provide sufficient climate financing for a move to alternative energy sources, renewable energy technology without intellectual property patents, and education on these technologies.
What can the UK people do to help?
You can support the court case, by sharing it on social media and following Fo
Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FoE EWNI) are challenging UK Export Finance’s (UKEF) decision to fund a mega gas project in Mozambique. They will be in court on 7-9 December. Below JA! explains the reasons for supporting this court case.
For four years, the people of the province of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, have been devastated by gas and violent conflict between insurgents, military and mercenaries. Eight hundred thousand people have become refugees from the violence, and thousands have lost their livelihoods and been displaced by the gas industry. To make things worse, they are now in the hands of the Rwandan army, which is notorious for horrific torture of Congolese and Rwandan alleged dissidents in military detention centres. And they have gone rogue.
According to Mozambican President Felipe Nyusi, the 1000-strong Rwandan army’s mandate since July has been to “restore peace and stability”.
But since the Rwandan state became involved, things have gone even further awry than they already were. Already, on 14 September, Rwandan businessman and chairman of the Rwandan Refugee Association in Mozambique, Révocat Karemangingo, who was exiled from Rwanda in 1994, was assassinated in Maputo.
Three months before, Rwandan journalist Ntamuhanga Cassien who had applied for asylum in Mozambique, was arrested by Mozambican police, and has not been seen since.
If experts and activists who have linked the murders to the Rwandan state are correct, even though the government has repeatedly denied it, this should not come as a surprise. The Rwandan government is known for killings of political opponents and journalists both inside and outside of the country, including South Africa and Kenya.
In July this year, Amnesty International and a consortium of journalists exposed that Rwanda was one of the countries using the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group’s Pegasus software. Since 2016, the Rwandan government has used the software to unlawfully surveil the phones of 3500 activists, politicians and journalists.
The Rwandan army itself has a terrible human rights record – in 2014 Human Rights Watch reported they had been fighting alongside the Rwanda- backed M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Over three days in 2016, M23 soldiers killed 62 people in anti-government protests.
Even though locals around Palma have highlighted the more professional conduct of Rwandan solders in comparison to the Mozambican soldiers, the Rwandan operation relies on local intelligence and information in order to be effective. But they are not doing the dirty work of actually acquiring this intelligence themselves. It has been the Mozambican soldiers that have carried out the interrogations, arrests and intimidations to obtain information. This has been one of the causes in the increase of disappearances, unlawful arrests and torture, sometimes targeting outspoken and critical civilians within the gas affected communities.
So if the Rwandan government doesn’t care about its own citizens and civilians in the DRC, why would it put its money and army on the line for foreign nationals? And who else has an interest in them being in Mozambique?
One of the factors that can’t be ignored is Rwanda’s dynamic relationship with France, and that French company Total is one of the leaders of Cabo Delgado’s $50 billion gas industry. Total owns 26% of the Mozambique Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) Project.
It is in the process of constructing the massive Afungi LNG Park, which will house the offices and support facilities for its project as well as ExxonMobil’s Rovuma LNG project and their contractors. The gas giants are building an industry that is pushing the debt-ridden country further into poverty and not benefiting the people. Until now, it has only brought destruction.
The French government has over $520 million invested in the Mozambique gas industry through a loan from the French export credit agency (BpiFrance) for the third project, Eni’s Coral South LNG. The four largest French banks, Crédit Agricole, Société Génerale, BNP Paribas and Natixis are also involved in the industry as financiers or financial advisors.
It is the construction of the Afungi Park that has forced thousands of local people out of their homes, and away from their farmland and fishing grounds creating an angry and further disenfranchised population.
And now that the insurgency has ruined Total’s plans, it has just closed shop and stopped compensation payments to communities. After a brutal attack on Palma town on 24 March, Total decided to claim ‘force majeure’ and pull its staff out of the area, pausing the project indefinitely and saying they would return only once the area was safe.
Even then it was clear that the military had Total’s best interests at heart, not the people’s. On the day of that attack, there were 800 soldiers defending the Afungi Park while civilians have said there were only a handful of soldiers protecting Palma village. Currently, Rwandan soldiers have been using the Afungi Park as their base.
It certainly won’t be the first time that French interests, politics and violent conflict have gone hand in hand with a Total project. Some examples that come to mind include Myanmar, where the military junta is known for ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population, and mass human rights violations including rape, sexual abuse, torture and disappearances of protestors. Since the coup of February 2021, Total has been directing revenues from its Yadana gas project in Myanmar to the junta, its biggest source of income.
Total has also been active in the Taoudeni basin of Mali in the Sahel since 1998. Since 2013, over 3000 French troops have been in Mali, and 4 other Sahel countries, with France using the same rhetoric as they and Rwanda have done in Mozambique: to rid the area of ‘jihadists’.
In Yemen, the Balhaf LNG site of which Total owns 39% was exposed for housing the base for the Shabwani Elite, an UAE-backed tribal militia since 2016. Officially a counter-terrorism group, they have unofficially become known as a group created to protect fossil fuel interests. The site also has also been exposed to house UAE notorious ‘secret prisons’ holding Yemeni detainees.
So, Cabo Delgado, where the gas region sits nearly on the border between Mozambique and Tanzania, fits neatly in Total’s mixture of politics, gas and conflict.
So back to Rwanda – Out of all potential pawns, or proxies, for France, why pick them?
France has been embarrassed, but not enough for a full apology, about the exposure of the severity of its role in the Rwandan genocide, after a March 2021 report claimed France bears ‘overwhelming responsibilities’ for the horrors that killed over 800 000 people in the Tutsi minority. However, in 2005 complaints laid by human rights groups pushed French prosecutors to open an investigation into French soldiers’ actual complicity in the genocide, which seemed like it was going to be dropped in May this year. No former French soldiers have faced trial.
While Rwanda claims this military mission to Mozambique is self-funded, others say it is Mozambique footing the bill, and yet others, say that this might be one of France’s covert means of reparations, or an olive branch trying to fix bad Franco-Rwandan relations, by offering Rwanda a crucial job: protecting French gas assets. When asked by a journalist, the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, neither confirmed nor denied whether it is financing the troops, although financing does not always come in the form of cash. It could be through aid or other means that are harder to track.
It’s part of a pattern of Rwanda becoming France’s new darling: in 2019, the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) signed a reported $11.6 million a year contract with French football club Paris St. Germain as its official tourism partner. ‘Visit Rwanda’ is boasted on the the back of the men’s training and pre-game warm up kits, in the club’s stadium and on the sleeves of the womens’ team kits, with the club having renewed its contract in 2019, also reported to be $11 million a year. A point to consider is that hospitality company Accor is paying PSG $58 million a year to be its official hotel partner.
There is the possibility that these teams are giving the RDB a friendly discount. What is more likely is that the sponsorships are being subsidized by a third party.
It is clear that there are a few parties getting something out of Rwandan troops being on the ground in the gas region – Total, Mozambique and Rwanda. But certainly the one gaining the most is France – its financial assets are being well protected on the ground and it is able to maintain the international ‘non-complicit’ image it wants to regarding the genocide while still nurturing a relationship with Rwanda. It would also be a way of having military protection of its assets while not being visible. This is definitely in their interests following France’s recognition of its disastrous mission in Mali by cutting the number of troops in June this year, and now, after the death of the 52nd French soldier in eight years, French President Emmanuel Macron has said they will have no more soldiers in the Sahel by the beginning of 2022. The deployment of Rwandan soldiers would mean they will have another army in public view and decrease the political risk of failed military interventions, especially ones linked to human rights violations.
But one group that is not benefiting, are the people of Mozambique, most of all – the communities of Cabo Delgado, who are pawns, dying and devastated so that local and international elites can save political face and defend their gas assets and bonuses by any means necessary.
Today, the 7 September 2021 has been exactly 17 months since Mozambican journalist Ibrahimo Abu Mbaruco disappeared in Cabo Delgado. His last message was to a colleague saying that the army was coming towards him.
Ibrahimo worked for Palma Community Radio and had been reporting on the violence in the area. Since then, what effort has the government put into finding him and bringing him back to his family? Absolutely nothing.
Since 2017 Cabo Delgado has been ravaged by a fatal conflict between insurgents, the Mozambican military, Russian and South African mercenaries and now the Rwandan and South African armies as well, that has created 800 000 refugees. This violence is deeply linked to the gas industry that has exploded over the last few years. The industry is headed by Total (France), Eni (Italy) and ExxonMobil (US), and is one industry filled with a great amount of treachery in the Mozambican and other states involved, which forms part of the corruption trial currently in the Mozambican courts.
Over the last few months several media outlets have arrived in Cabo Delgado, after at least three years of the area being closed to international journalists.
It is a good thing that Mozambican and international media has finally been allowed there, since free media is a crucial part of any democracy. However, journalists who actually live in Cabo Delgado and were the first to report on the happenings since 2017, have not been allowed to work in the conflict areas, unless they are from state-owned media outlets.
In an article in O Pais 26 August, Cabo Delgado-based journalist Hizidine Acha wrote that journalists from the area are being humiliated by having to report on the topic from a distance, even though they are the ones who know the terrain and the local language. They fear that the lack of reporting in local languages might lead to disinformation among the communities. The article quotes journalist Emanuel Muthemba as saying, “Journalists from here have to be on the front line, because we have basic knowledge about the reality of the province, the people and the languages spoken by the population, which is very important,”; and journalist Assane Issa says “speculation grows that we are not capable of doing this type of coverage – that only those from the country’s capital are. But this is not true, because we are the ones who have been reporting on the daily life of the province.”
In fact, the article continues saying that recently 20 local journalists were invited to cover the conflict, but for reasons they were never told, were never actually able to leave Cabo Delgado’s capital and largest city, Pemba.
But even if they were able to report, the government has made it clear that they will not make it easy. On 11 April, on the ‘Day of the Mozambican Journalist’, even though his general rhetoric has been about free press, President Felipe Nyusi sent a document to O Pais, saying, journalists must report with “rigour, professionalism and patriotism”. He said “the Mozambican journalist should not be a reproducer of wishes contrary to our unity.” And he followed this in May saying that journalists have to be “disciplined”: “To have discipline is to report only the truth, to combat fake news and not to incite violence and hatred.”
This is not freedom. This is a threat. This is saying that journalists have the ‘freedom’ to write or to film or to record for radio, as long as this is in aligned with the state’s narrative. Or else.
The public media and many international journalists are reporting on the violence in the province as only a humanitarian issue created by violence caused by insurgents, and not on how many of these refugees were actually already displaced from their villages, and had lost everything, because of the Afungi Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) Park that Total is building to house the support facilities for the industry. Reporting in this way allows the gas industry off the hook for the part they have played in this humanitarian crisis and conflict, including how Total has left the displaced communities who were relying on them for compensation and aid with nothing as they pulled out of the country when claiming force majeure.
International journalists are protected by having foreign passports. But who is protecting local journalists from non-state outlets, like Ibrahimo, or like Amade Abubacar from the Nacedje Community Radio who was arrested, tortured and held without charge for 3 months in 2019 after interviewing a group of displaced people? Or the journalists of Canal de Moçambique whose office was bombed in 2020 after exposing corruption between the government and gas companies?
In April 2020, Reporters Without Borders and 16 other press freedom organisations wrote an open letter to President Filipe Nyusi, who ignored it, just like the military and relevant government officials did not even bother to respond, and the police treated it like a joke. On 8 June 2020, Ibrahimo’s brother contacted the local police to inform them that he had called Ibrahimo’s phone and it rang. He reported it to the public investigators responsible for finding him, the National Agency for Criminal Investigations. They promised they would look into it, but since then there has been silence.
But we must not stop fighting!
In January, the African Union (AU) launched the Digital Platform for Safety of Journalists in Africa. At the launch, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was AU chairperson at the time said: Media freedom “requires that we rigorously defend the right of journalists to do their work, to write, to publish, and to also broadcast what they like, even if we disagree with some or all of it.. The digital platform for the safety of journalists in Africa is an important tool in promoting the safety of journalists and other media workers across Africa.”
Now they must put their money where their mouth is, by holding the Mozambican government accountable for its violent media oppression and pressurise it to stop, and they must recognise how part of this oppression is to protect the gas industry. The platform was supported by the United Nations, and both they and the AU have the responsibility to find out what has happened to Ibrahimo, and must use their power to do so.
It is clear that Mozambican journalists cannot rely on their state for their protection – the very people who are obliged to protect them, but sadly are reliant rather on non-governmental organisations and media groups – both international, and local, who themselves are putting their safety on the line just by speaking out. When journalists are told they need to report with “patriotism” and “discipline”, it is clear that, just as history has shown, they cannot know that they are safe. They cannot know their colleagues will not be arrested and tortured or that their offices won’t be attacked. They cannot know that they, too, will not disappear and be another Ibrahimo.
We must not stop pushing to find out, where is Ibrahimo?
Entrevista a Damião Simango, membro do secretariado, responsável pelas relações internacionais e porta-voz da OTM-CS
Justiça Ambiental (JA!):
Caro Damião, obrigada por esta oportunidade de conversa. Sabemos que a Organização dos Trabalhadores de Moçambique – Central Sindical (OTM-CS) é a maior entidade representativa dos trabalhadores no país. Pode nos falar um pouco do que é a OTM e como se estrutura?
Damião Simango (DS):
A OTM é a central sindical mais antiga e mais representativa de Moçambique. Estamos em todas as províncias e em alguns distritos. Congregamos diversos sindicatos nacionais (15) que incluem o sindicato dos funcionários do estado, e também a associação dos trabalhadores da economia informal. No total, e pelas estatísticas de 2018, somos cerca de 145 a 150 mil membros. Na sua estrutura, a OTM também tem uma estrutura representativa das mulheres e outra dos jovens.
Existem outros sindicatos independentes, como o dos professores e jornalistas. Outra importante federação sindical é a CONSILMO, a Confederação Nacional de Sindicatos Independentes e Livres de Moçambique.
JA!:
Qual é a vossa missão?
Damião Simango (DS):
A OTM é uma congregação que dá a voz aos trabalhadores em Moçambique. Lutamos pela defesa e promoção dos nossos direitos e interesses sócio-profissionais, junto às entidades empregadoras e através do contacto permanente com organizações do Estado e outros actores sócio-profissionais e económicos.
JA!:
Indo directo ao assunto, aproximamo-nos do dia do trabalhador, 1 de Maio. Na situação em que vivemos actualmente, devido à pandemia do COVID-19 e as medidas tomadas para tentar contê-la, de que forma o trabalho da OTM é afectado por esta situação?
Damião Simango (DS):
Esta situação impacta-nos de muitas formas. Por exemplo, em condições normais, nesta altura provavelmente estaríamos nas negociações em torno do salário mínimo, mas estas foram suspensas por causa do COVID-19. Estas negociações estão previstas por lei, que prevê que anualmente deve haver um reajuste nos salários mínimos.
Claro que, por um lado, podemos compreender a fragilidade das empresas neste momento devido à pandemia, no entanto, a nossa preocupação é o trabalhador. Gostaríamos de, em contrapartida, particularmente durante a pandemia, ter a garantia da manutenção dos postos de trabalho e pagamento dos salários.
Devemos notar que, apesar de não se aumentarem os salários, a pressão sobre os salários já baixos dos trabalhadores aumentou – não só devido ao incremento dos preços dos produtos essenciais, como também pelo surgimento de novas demandas e despesas extraordinárias, como as máscaras, materiais de limpeza e higiene, etc.
JA!:
E quais são as vossas principais preocupações face ao cenário actual?
Damião Simango (DS):
Neste momento da pandemia, o que mais nos preocupa é o futuro dos trabalhadores. Em Moçambique não temos, por exemplo, um subsídio de desemprego ou uma segurança de rendimento para estas situações, principalmente para os grupos mais vulneráveis. Apenas o subsídio de emergencia básico previsto pelo INSS (Instituto Nacional de Segurança Social), e o subsídio de acção social previsto pelo INAS (Instituto Nacional de Acção Social), que varia entre Mts 540 e Mts 1050. Portanto se esta situação se prolongar por mais 3-4 meses, o que isto vai significar para os trabalhadores? Isto preocupa-nos muito, devido ao impacto que provavelmente terá nos trabalhadores e, consequentemente, na sociedade. Alguns impactos disto poderão ser um intensificar da pobreza, desigualdade, violência doméstica, criminalidade, entre outros.
JA!:
Recentemente, um grande número de organizações e indivíduos da sociedade civil, incluindo a OTM-CS, publicou um documento de posicionamento a respeito do Estado de Emergência. Este documento contém algumas propostas concretas para o governo, incluindo na área de emprego e protecção social. Quais são as vossas demandas neste momento? (Este posicionamento pode ser consultado em: https://aliancac19.wordpress.com/)
Damião Simango (DS):
De forma ampla, nós exigimos que o governo desempenhe o seu devido papel de protector social, que se torna mais urgente que nunca devido à situação de crise. Queremos que não sejam tomadas nenhumas medidas sem que se pense concretamente como é que os grupos sociais irão implementá-las, em particular as camadas mais vulneráveis.
O INSS tem evoluído bastante nos últimos tempos. Por exemplo há alguns anos, para se registar no INSS, teria que ser através da entidade empregadora. Isso já evoluiu, agora o trabalhador informal pode se registar no INSS de forma independente. Mas é preciso continuar a evoluir, principalmente no sentido de ampliar a abrangência da protecção social, que alcança ainda poucas pessoas, e adoptar medidas concretas para lidar com esta crise.
Sabemos que os empresários tudo farão para proteger as suas empresas, e alguns poderão até mesmo aproveitar-se desta crise para lograrem outros intentos que em condições normais não poderiam. Temos noção que a CTA (Confederação das Associações Económicas de Moçambique) tem um grande poder de influência sobre o governo, e já há tempos que temos observado uma pressão por medidas que contribuem para a precarização do trabalho e do trabalhador. No entanto, temos que perceber que as medidas propostas pelas empresas e demais entidades empregadoras não serão suficientes para lidar com esta crise, é fundamental que o governo intervenha com medidas de protecção social. O que nós exigimos, portanto, é que o governo possa dar uma resposta concreta a estas questões, e que as medidas negociadas não sejam em qualquer circunstância em detrimento dos direitos dos trabalhadores e da sua protecção social.
JA!:
Esta crise causada pela pandemia COVID-19 vem evidenciar também uma série de outras crises, de desigualdade, pobreza, precariedade do trabalho, etc, tanto a nível de Moçambique como a nível global. Como é que vê a interligação destas crises com o sistema sócio-económico predominante, o capitalismo neoliberal?
Damião Simango (DS):
As crises são oportunidades – isto pode até soar mal, mas é verdade. As oportunidades apresentam-se de diversas formas, e esta é uma delas. Temos a oportunidade de repensar o papel do Estado e, de forma mais ampla, o modelo de desenvolvimento que seguimos. Antes, a maioria das pessoas estava convencida que este modelo, por ser o mais praticado actualmente, é o que responde às nossas necessidades. Agora é hora de despertarmos, e percebermos que este modelo não nos serve. E foi, neste caso, o sector da saúde que evidenciou isto – vemos milhares de mortes nos Estados Unidos, principalmente da população mais pobre, porque têm um sistema de saúde privado.
Precisamos de resgatar um papel fundamental do Estado, que é o seu papel protector da sociedade, garantindo a sobrevivência do seu povo. Este papel, que tem sido fragilizado devido ao modelo económico vigente, não se pode perder. É agora o momento ideal para o Estado desempenhar o seu papel protector, independentemente das pressões impostas pelo sistema de mercado.
Sabemos que o sector empresarial conta com forte apoio, fundos e especialistas para defender as suas posições. Nós não contamos com o mesmo apoio – mas sabemos o que queremos! Queremos a sociedade e os trabalhadores protegidos pelo Estado. Não haverá qualquer saída viável, justa e produtiva desta crise sem os trabalhadores.
Muito obrigada pela vossa disponibilidade para conversar conosco, e estamos em solidariedade com a vossa luta!
JA4change 