Africa-Press – Gambia. An oil pipeline. The African Union Watch urges the European Parliament to revoke its September 14 resolution condemning the East African Crude Oil Pipeline project between Uganda and Tanzania. PHOTO | FILE
The African Union Watch this week joined calls to the European Parliament to revoke its September 14 resolution condemning the East African Crude Oil Pipeline project between Uganda and Tanzania.
In a September 20 statement, the independent pan-African NGO based in Banjul, in the Gambia, slammed the resolution based on perceived environmental and human rights concerns as being “self-serving” ploy and “an interference into African affairs”.
It also pointed out that a similar pipeline was built by Tanzania and Zambia “without experiencing any such challenges” in the early 1970s and is still operating.
“The European Parliament has no direct jurisdictional basis to discuss African implementation of economic development projects. It only uses international human rights instruments as a cover,” AUW chairperson Bahame Tom Nyanduga asserted in the statement.
He added that the only “leverage” that such institutions as the European Parliament had in Africa was based on diplomatic engagements and economic cooperation arrangements between the European Union itself and African states.
The statement dismissed the resolution’s claim that carbon emissions arising from fossil fuels used in the pipeline would have negative effects on climate change, noting that some European countries were also considering resumption of power generation using coal, another high pollutant, because of the consequences of war in Ukraine.
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