The Netherlands ignored embassy warnings about violence in Northern Mozambique
The Dutch ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs have deliberately ignored warnings from the Dutch embassy about the security situation in Northern Mozambique in order to allow Dutch participation in a gas project to continue.
despite organizing the embassy in the Mozambican capital Maputo about kidnappings and beheadings in the province almost 1 billion euros. Gas production was halted in April under jihadists attacking the gas project, with dozens of Mozambicans and expatriates killed. This is apparent from documents that were carried out after an appeal to the Public Access Act (WOB) by the NGOs Both Ends, Friends of the Earth Europe, Milieudefensie and SOMO.
A month before the Netherlands agreed to the foreign export credit insurance of Atradius, the export credit insurer of the Dutch state, the embassy in Mapto warned of the escalating violence. “The embassy based on the International Business Directorate to include in its policy whether or not to agree with the LNG project in Mozambique (…) for the deteriorating situation and the conclusion of political damage risks at the EKV (…) for the LNG project in Mozambique (…). pay this EKV”, it reads. “The security situation is deteriorating by the day, a risk that remains underexposed in the acceptance proposal of ADSB (Atradius Dutch State Business, ed.).”
‘Safety situation is acceptable’
The documents also show that the Dutch embassy in Maputo doubted whether the Mozambican army could contain the violence in northern Mozambique. Finance said no reasons to doubt the capacity of the project and the Mozambican security forces. “We consider the risk to the security situation of the project acceptable,” was the response.
On July 1, 2020, the Ministry of Finance gave Atradius the green light for export credit. The policy went into effect on March 25 this year. That was a day under extremes the city of Palma really had, where the compound of the French company TotalEnergies is located. At least 50 people have been killed in an attack on the main hotel in the city where expats from Total and other cases stayed. Total was then forced to withdraw from the area and to declare ‘force majeure’: force majeure. This means that creditors cannot be paid. Van Oord, for which Atradius’ export credit insurance was intended, also had to withdraw.
“Unfortunately, with current knowledge, it has become clear that the security situation has developed differently than estimated,” said a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Good and independent safety analyzes for projects in such complex and risky environments are of enormous importance, but unfortunately risks cannot be completely excluded either.” Although it has been decided to continue, the warnings of the embassy have been heeded, foreign affairs. “The conclusion of this whole process was that the risks were reasonable enough to insure this project.”
It is still unknown how great the damage will be for the state if the project is definitively stopped. “In the past we saw that the damage of such projects is recovered from the host country, in this case Mozambique,” says Niels Hazekamp of environmental organization Both Ends.
Bulletproof vests
Atradius employees themselves are already very concerned about the situation on site. They visited the area in early December 2018, after more than a year under extremes had begun to oppose the presence of Western companies in Cabo Delgado and the structural neglect of the province by the Mozambican government with attacks and kidnappings. The Atradius team dared to make investments for their own safety to visit the area only by helicopter and equipped with bulletproof vests, Atradius later confirmed to activists from Both Ends.
More than 4,000 people have been killed in northern Mozambique since the conflict began in 2017 and more than 600,000 have fled the violence. The EU will send military aid to Mozambique in December.
The documents also revealed doubts about the project at an early stage. “The shrinking global economy and the resulting oil prices are putting pressure on the viability of LNG projects. the costs will increase due to the security situation and the impact of climate change,” warned the Dutch embassy in Maputo. It is still unclear whether the gas will be extracted at a later stadium.
Read also this report by Bram Vermeulen from Northern Mozambique
A version of this article also in NRC in the morning of November 2, 2021