Ugandan Diaspora Activists Join with 350.org & Groups Across the U.S. to Demand that AIG Refuse to Insure EACOP
AIG is considering insuring the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which is displacing thousands and threatening livelihoods
New York, N.Y. – On July 26th at 12 pm ET, activists from the Ugandan diaspora and from organizations like 350.org, the Black Hive, and DRUM joined together at the AIG office in Manhattan to demand that they refuse to insure EACOP. While the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) would be thousands of miles from NYC, its financiers come from across the globe, including in the United States. So activists have united across the world to target everyone who is funding or insuring EACOP and allowing it to continue.
This U.S. protest takes place during the Summer of Heat, an entire season of sustained civil disobedience protests targeting Wall Street and big banks for their role in fueling the climate crisis. It is also part of a global movement to pressure Global North companies like Total, and the banks and insurers who back them, to drop the EACOP project. Organizers around the world have pressured many banks to drop EACOP — and of the 27 banks who initially pledged to finance the pipeline, only two remain. 29 insurance agencies have also already vowed not to insure EACOP — but AIG has stubbornly refused to rule it out.
Hillary Taylor Seguya, Ugandan climate activist affiliated with Stop EACOP, said, “EACOP is a carbon bomb being built in my backyard. Thousands of communities in Uganda are being displaced because of corporate greed. Today, as Ugandans, as Tanzanians, as Africans, we want to be loud and clear that we shall not allow any pipeline to put oil in our backyards.”
Joseph Senyonjo, Ugandan-diaspora activist, said, “I am here to ask AIG to refuse to insure EACOP, and to insure our future instead. AIG is one of the biggest insurance companies in the world, and they still haven’t ruled out insuring EACOP. So we are here to say: We don’t want carbon bombs, we don’t want fossil fuels. We want renewable energy. Insure our futures instead.”
While diaspora activists are rising up in the U.S. to send a message to EACOP’s funders, communities in Uganda and Tanzania are also rising up to demand better through the newly launched REPower Afrika campaign. The campaign shows that there is an alternative to EACOP — urgent investment in community-led renewable energy. REPower Afrika is spearheaded by local groups and is rooted in community needs, developmental aspirations, and the health of people and the planet.
Activists from frontline organizations, including Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM) and The Black Hive (of Movement for Black Lives), joined the U.S. demonstration and urged passersby to remember that our struggles are one, and that we can still fight for the future we need.
Mohiba Ahmed of DRUM (Desis Rising Up & Moving) said, “We add our communities’ voices to the growing international demand ‘Stop EACOP!’ because we know that our struggles are one and interconnected. Our peoples in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Guyana, and Trinidad are similarly harmed by foreign domination, imperialism, and capitalist projects that reduce our lives to investments, profit margins and coins. Our people and homelands contribute the least to the human-caused climate crisis but disproportionately suffer the most and that is why we will continue to stand in solidarity and fight together with our African comrades to stop EACOP, to stop the plunder of our homelands, to stop the displacement of our peoples and to stop imperialist climate destruction.”
Beth Yirga of The Black Hive said, “We stand with Ugandans and Tanzanians, whose bravery and stories of resistance to stop EACOP are inspiring. The climate crisis we are facing exacerbates the oppressive systems designed to extract the most from our planet and global majority community, and unites us that are most impacted. From Cancer Alley on the riverbanks of the Mississippi River to the lead in Flint, Michigan’s water to the attempts of crude oil extraction in Western Uganda to the ongoing cobalt mining crisis in Congo, the destructive practices of environmental racism on Black communities is collectively held and felt across the world. As we fight to stop climate injustices globally, we also collaborate to imagine and build a world free of the capitalistic pillaging of Mother Earth.”
With the Manhattan sun blazing down after many consecutive hottest months in history, activists could not ignore that the climate crisis has reached the northeastern U.S. as well, even as it continues to have the most extreme impacts in the Global South.
Molly Ornati of 350 Brooklyn, said, “The EACOP pipeline is a doubly destructive disaster — for the people of Uganda and Tanzania, and the planet. The construction of the 900-mile pipeline will disrupt and destroy the homes, land and livelihood of 100,000 people along the route, as well as the surrounding water and ecosystems. Once built, it will be a carbon bomb for humanity. In the climate crisis there are no borders, and we are a global movement, united in support of frontline communities, fighting to stop the greed of fossil fuel finance.”
Activists peacefully blocked the entrance to the AIG building with a banner reading, “AIG, the people say: STOP EACOP.”
Evan Bell of 350 Mass said, “From the pipeline’s path in East Africa, to the corporate offices here, to our government institutions, we need to make our message clear: Stop EACOP! I am willing to do what it takes to make sure AIG does not insure EACOP. I am afraid of the NYPD, especially after their brutal response to campus protesters peacefully demonstrating for an end to genocide in Gaza. But I am more afraid of runaway climate change. I’m more concerned about the current human rights abuses in Uganda and Tanzania. But we are more determined than we are scared.”
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Spokespeople from 350 Africa and the coalition opposing EACOP on the ground are available for virtual follow-up interviews upon request. For more on EACOP go to www.stopeacop.net.
The demonstration was part of “Summer of Heat,” the first time in history that climate activists are holding an entire season of sustained civil disobedience protests targeting Wall Street and big banks for their role in fueling the climate crisis. Summer of Heat continues for five more weeks. To follow along with Summer of Heat and join their upcoming actions, go to https://www.summerofheat.org/.
Media Contact:
Melanie Smith / [email protected]