A Swedish civil society network has reported the country’s big state pension funds – the AP Funds – to the police for investing in a manner that is harmful to people as well as the environment.
In a press release, the network states that the funds are connected with a number of major fossil fuel projects in Cabo Delgado in Mozambique that will cause “extensive environmental damage, escalation of violence, and forced displacement”.
Altogether, the investments of the AP Funds in these gas projects or the value chains connected with them amount to SEK 17bn.
“The AP Funds are misusing the pension money of the Swedes,” human rights lawyer Parul Sharma, a member of the ‘We report the AP Funds’ network, says.
“Their fossil investments are abusing human rights and simultaneously jeopardizing the environment and, hence, future prospects for many Swedes who have not yet reached retirement age,” she adds.
Mass displacements
According to the network, the gas projects in Cabo Delgado have forced more than 500 families to be displaced, and many of them have not been sufficiently compensated.
“This is a human rights violation that has been made possible by the AP Funds,” the press release reads.An ongoing conflict in the Cabo Delgado region has forced almost one million people to flee.
The network claims that the projects have caused an increased militarization of the area.
According to Anabela Lemos, founder of the organization Justiça Ambiental in Mozambique, people who try to resist the gas projects are threatened, repressed, and in some cases even killed.
“These projects are catalysts, for all this would not be possible without investments from countries in the Global North like Sweden. The pension funds are an income source to finance these destructive projects,” she says in the press release.
“This must stop, and the pension funds must be held accountable for what they have financed,” she adds.
The network consists of a number of civil society organizations, including Afrikagrupperna, Friends of the Earth, and Extinction Rebellion’s action group for the AP Funds.
Source: AM Watch