Delphine Djiraibe (Chad, 2004)

Delphine Djiraibe is a human rights attorney and environmental defender in Chad, and the recipient of the 2004 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Delphineís activism began at an early age but became her professional vocation when she co-founded and served as President of the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (ATPDDH). One of only two such organizations at the time in Chad, the ATPDDH was founded in response to the violence and widespread disregard for the human rights of the Chadian people surrounding the 1990 coup led by current Chadian President Idriss Deby.

The $3.7 billion Chad/Cameroon Oil and Pipeline project is Africaís largest infrastructure investment today. The World Bank, which was critical to funding and overseeing the project, refers to the Chad/Cameroon Project as its model for poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and ìthe use of revenue for development.î Ms. Djiraibe has devoted herself to ensuring that the project is subject to environmental and social standards and that the profits from the project are allocated to Chadian education, health, infrastructure, and regional development.

Ms. Djiraibeís multifaceted campaign surrounding the Chad/Cameroon Oil and Pipeline Project encompasses fighting governmental corruption, ensuring that the Chadian people benefit from the pipeline and its resulting profits, and preventing environmental devastation resulting from its construction. Despite significant opposition from the government, including a public relations campaign against her, Ms. Djiraibe refuses to stop her courageous campaign.

Ms. Djiraibe helped create a coalition of Chadian civil society organizations which called on the World Bank to place a moratorium on project financing until the Chadian government provided the legal framework to protect human rights and could ensure there was adequate institutional capacity to address any environmental problems that might arise. The Bank approved the project anyway. However, due to Ms. Djiraibeís work and the international pressure exerted, the Bank took some unprecedented steps, such as insisting that the Chadian government adopt a revenue management law and establish an oversight committee to monitor the use of oil revenue funds.

Now that the pipeline has been completed and oil is flowing, Ms. Djiraibe is determined to make sure that the hard won safeguards agreed to by the World Bank, Exxon and the Chadian government are implemented and respected. As of yet, these mechanisms have not been entirely successful. A regional development plan supposed to have been put in place before construction still does not exist. Already some of the first moneys to come from the project were spent by Chadís President Deby to purchase arms. No money has yet been allocated to improving the health or education of the Chadian people.

In addition to her work on the pipeline, Delphine is concerned about Chadiansí access to justice in a country where the rule of law is routinely disregarded, and is in the initial stages of created a Center for Conflict Resolution, an alternative dispute resolution body for family and land disputes.

For more information, please contact Sarah Pray (202) 463-7575 x269, pray@rfkmemorial.org