Fortune and fantasy on Africa's oil frontier
Fisherman at Bume, pipeline terminus. Photo by Christiane Badgley
One thing is certain: the controversy surrounding the “model” oil development project has hardly died down.
This video looks at ongoing compensation problems around Kribi, Cameroon. The Cameroonian Oil Transportation Company, COTCO (ExxonMobil), is responsible for compensating locals for lost lands and revenues.
Traveling from the fishing village of Bumé where locals have been suffering since pipeline construction crews destroyed their fishing grounds, to the Bagyeli pygmy villages in the rainforest, where the Bank-mandated, “Indigenous Peoples’ Plan”, has been stalled for years, I met one angry resident after another.
Today people are especially frustrated as they feel they have no recourse. The government is unresponsive; COTCO (ExxonMobil) is unresponsive. There’s nowhere for people to go with their complaints. It seems the world has forgotten about the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline.
Christiane Badgley has been producing and editing documentary films for the past twenty years, with much of her work focused on the U.S. criminal justice system and post-colonial African politics and history.
Christiane
You and your team and doing a wonderful job to highlight the ongoing problems with the Chad/Cameroon Pipeline (CCP)project and the closer you get to the oil fields in Chad the worse it becomes.
The CCP is an environmental and safety timebomb tenfold the size of the Exxonvaldeez.
Exxonmobil ,Chevron,Petronas and the World Bank are guilty by their failures and inactons to even answer the allegations laid on the table which are TOO numerous to report here .
The CCP has been operating in a legal void since it was commissioned in late 2003 and will continue in the same manner for another 35/40 years. It is devoid of any Environmental Protection Plan and devoid of any oil spill plan.
One word summary of the the CCP is BOONDOOGLE.
Christiane Badgley,
Important work… Do you know Dr. Scott MacEachern. He did the archaeological survey for the pipeline and has written numerous articles about it. Contact me at jwalz@rollins.edu for further information from the anthropological/archaeological perspective.
Cheers,
Jonathan Walz