By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
The Indigenous peoples of the ECOWAS sub-region under the auspices of Friends of the Earth, FoE, an Environmental Justice Organization, has dragged some multinational companies operating in the region to the Community Court sitting in Belgium over human rights abuse such as Land grabbing , human , social and environmental violations.
FoE Coordinator Ms Rita Uwaka who led the team to the Court in Belgium, the headquarters of the multinational plantation companies said that it was pertinent that the erring industrial plantation companies to the headquarters in order be dragged to court to get a fair hearing and to compel them to respect the right of the aggrieved people.
Uwaka said, ” It was strategic for us to take the case to Belgium headquarters of the companies and the Seat of EU.
Our demand was to tell you that the operations of your company in Nigeria, Sierra Leone , Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire is causing numerous inconveniences and impoverishing these communities.
“Decisions taken at ECOWAS Commission are respected because these activities is flourishing in different territories , communities where these companies are operating.”
The FOE, Coordinator for Forest and Biodiversity programme of the organization noted that it is their wish that the numerous issues of human rights violation by multinational companies in the sub-region would be given feasibility because the majority of these Communities and territories are affected by the challenges.
Ten cases of human, social and environmental violations associated with agro commodities connected to rubber plantations in South, East , West, and Central Africa with victims in impacted Communities testified on how operations of these companies have impoverished them,set them back and polluted their land, Uwaka stressed.
She explained that the human rights violations perpetrated by these multinational companies most times influence the Judicial systems within their member states to enforce respect for Justice.
Citing an example she said: “we have done so much about oil palm extraction, we have sent it to court at different levels, we were frustrated here in Nigeria, we eventually got victory when we went to The Hague which is the home country of some of these multinational companies.”
We went to the EU Parliament to talk to them to understand the funding that some of these multinationals are receiving from these agro commodities in the sub-region, they are causing harm, and human right abuses in Africa and the sub-region”.
On whether they would consider getting involved in crafting laws that would favor their members in the sub-region, she noted it would be a good step as the concession agreement is not respected in the memorandum of understanding.
Uwaka disclosed an example of industrial plantation company SIAT in Nigeria when they went to field visit two weeks ago and they noticed that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that the Community people drafted for the companies to look at has not been considered.
