AZERBAIJAN: THE PIPELINE THAT WOULD FUEL A DICTATOR
[ Part 2.2: “Attached Text” ]
EMMA HUGHES REPORTS FROM AZERBAIJAN, WHERE AUTOCRATIC LEADER ILHAM
ALIYEV IS USING THE COUNTRY’S FOSSIL FUEL WEALTH TO FUND HIS
REPRESSIVE REGIME AND BUY EUROPE’S SILENCE SEPTEMBER 2013
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A billboard of Heydar Aliyev, ‘Father of the Nation’,
by the Heydar Aliyev Park.Photo: Emma Hughes
The government’s dash for gas has not only resulted in a raft
of new gas-fired power stations in the UK; it is also supporting
the drilling of 26 new gas wells in the BP-operated Shah Deniz gas
field off the coast of Azerbaijan. Companies and decision-makers in
London and Brussels are eagerly eyeing these wells and are currently
assembling the agreements and finance for a mega-pipeline from the
Caspian to central Europe.
The proposed pipeline looks something like this: from the BP terminal
at Sangachal the gas would be forced westwards through the South
Caucasus Pipeline Expansion across Azerbaijan and Georgia. From there
the Trans-Anatolian pipeline would pump the gas across the entire
length of Turkey, to the border with Greece. Here a further final part
of the pipeline: the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, will run across Greece,
Albania and finally end in Italy. While each segment has a different
name, in reality they are all part of one mega-pipeline.
And the plans don’t end there. Pressure is building to extend
it to Turkmenistan, Iraq and Iran, creating a significant resource
grab as central Asian and Middle Eastern gas fields would be locked
directly into the European grid.
Such a pipeline could be devastating for the environment, putting an
extra 1,100 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere by 2048 – the
equivalent of 2.5 years of total emissions from five of the countries
it will run through: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Greece and Albania.
And in the country of extraction, Azerbaijan, its construction would
directly undermine the struggle to overthrow the country’s oil
dictator Ilham Aliyev.
A fossil fuel dictator
‘BP is where the president got his power from. Where is his
wealth, where are his police, without BP’s money?’
The ruling family, the Aliyevs, have held onto power in Azerbaijan for
the past two decades through a combination of fraudulent elections,
arresting opposition candidates, beating protesters and curtailing
media freedom. Ilham’s father, Heydar Aliyev, became president
in 1993, following a military coup; he had previously been the head of
Soviet Azerbaijan from 1969 to 1982. In 2003 he was forced to withdraw
from the presidential elections due to ill health and his son stood
and won instead. The elections were widely recognised as fraudulent.
The Aliyevs’ rule has been facilitated by the signing of the
‘contract of the century’ in 1994, which brought 11
corporations, including BP, Amoco, Lukoil of Russia and the State
Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, into a consortium to extract
oil from the Caspian Sea. The money from that oil not only made these
corporations huge profits, but also gave the Aliyev family vast wealth
and important allies overseas. The oil revenue means the regime is
not dependent on taxes, so there is little incentive to pay attention
to citizens’ voices or interests.
Mirvari Gahramanli works at the Oil Workers Rights Protection
Organisation union. She blames BP for the country’s autocratic
president: ‘BP is where the president got his power from. What
is he without the money? Where is his wealth, where are his police,
without BP’s money? They [the Aliyevs] have grown rich from BP
and now as a result they have much more power.’
The money from the oil industry was supposed to be controlled by the
State Oil Fund for Azerbaijan (SOFAZ), which was intended to finance
the transition of the Azeri economy away from oil and to ensure the
wealth was kept for future generations. Instead much of it has been
pumped into construction.
Permanently under construction
Arrive in Azerbaijan’s capital city, Baku, at night and it
seems like one of the most opulent places on earth. The drive from the
Heydar Aliyev international airport whizzes past in a blur of lights
and colour. A daylight walk reveals a different side to the city. The
opulence is still evident in the pristine shopping streets, filled
with bright plazas and innumerable designer shops – most of which are
empty. But walking down a side street is like stepping backstage on
a film set. Dust and debris are everywhere; whole buildings are torn
apart, spewing their dusty interiors onto the street. Baku is a city
permanently under construction.
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Baku’s highest skyscrapers, the Flame Towers. They were built
at a cost of $350 million but appear mostly unused. Photo: Emma Hughes
Just who is benefiting from Baku’s continuous state of demolition
has been made clear by the work of Azeri journalists.
Khadija Ismayilova has linked many of the construction projects with
the president and his family. These include the building of Crystal
Hall, which staged the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012, and the nearby
State Flag Square, which cost $38 million and briefly held the Guinness
world record for the tallest flagpole in the world until its 162-metre
height was overshadowed a few months later by a rival pole in Dushanbe,
Tajikistan. Two-thirds of the cost of the square in Baku came from the
reserve fund of the head of state and the other third from the 2011
state budget, yet it was companies connected with Aliyev that profited.
The list of enterprises the Aliyevs are linked to is extensive. It
includes phone companies, gold mining and an energy infrastructure
company. It is common for big infrastructure projects, financed by
public money from oil revenues, to be distributed to companies that
belong to high-ranking officials, including the president himself.
New laws mean that ownership remains secret, and they are often
registered offshore anyway, so that public accountability is
impossible.
Khadija Ismayilova’s part in exposing the personal profits made
by the Aliyev family has led to her being blackmailed. In the middle
of her investigation into the companies profiting from the flagpole
square she was sent a tape of her and her boyfriend having sex that
had been filmed from a camera hidden in her flat. The accompanying
letter threatened to publish the tape if she didn’t stop her
investigation. She continued and the tape was published on the
internet. It was followed by a smear campaign and harassment by
government officials at public events.
While the authorities attempted to label her a ‘loose
woman’ for having sex outside of marriage, she says the plan
backfired. ‘Society turned out to be more liberal than the
government and I got support messages not just from the liberal parts
of society but also from the Islamic parties because they are also in a
struggle against the government, so they urged me to keep going,’
she says.
In Azerbaijan there are almost no independent media; most newspapers
and nearly all TV channels are controlled by the government. Khadija
Ismayilova’s experience is unusual only in that she didn’t
find herself in prison or hospital – or the morgue. In 2005 the founder
and editor of the critical opposition weekly news magazine Monitor,
Elmar Huseynov, was gunned down in his apartment building. He had
received threats because of his writing and many in Azerbaijan believe
he was murdered because of it.
Expectant protesters
Azerbaijanis are furious at how their money has been squandered.
Despite the opulence in the centre of Baku, citizens have to pay
large sums to use basic services, including healthcare. Much of the
county’s infrastructure is in need of repair.
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Housing near Tibilisi Avenue in Baku. Photo: Emma Hughes
A new generation is finding new ways to organise through Facebook,
blogs and flashmobs. The mood in Baku is expectant; people are
talking about when Aliyev will go rather than if. With Baku hosting
the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012, the rising protest movements
had an opportunity to generate international attention, although
it didn’t stop the government responding with continued
repression. In October, 200 Muslim activists protesting against a
ban on hijabs in secondary schools clashed with the police outside
the education ministry. Seventy-two were arrested – the majority of
whom were still being detained six months later.
In January, in the town of Ismayilli, west of Baku, the drunk son of
the labour minister crashed his SUV into a taxi and then beat up the
driver. In response, local residents set fire to his truck, as well
as other vehicles and hotels belonging to the same family. Volleys of
tear gas filled the streets as a militarised police force marched in.
A state of emergency was declared in the town and neighbouring regions,
cafes were closed down and the internet censored. The troops stayed
for over a month in a show of force. With the regime afraid of change,
it is resorting to ever-greater violence and repression. In the run
up to presidential elections set for October there are increasing
numbers of arrests.
Democracy will not be won easily. Pushing the Aliyev family out
of power will be a difficult process. It is made even harder by the
actions of the government’s allies in the west. On a recent trip
to Brussels, Aliyev promised two trillion cubic metres of Azerbaijani
gas for Europe. At the same meeting European Commission president
Jose Manuel Barroso spoke about the ‘very good exchange’
he had with Aliyev and praised the country for the progress it had
made on democracy and human rights.
It was recently announced that the formal signing of the final part
of the mega-pipeline agreement between the Shah Deniz consortium
and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) looks likely to happen
in mid-October. This means it will coincide with the Azerbaijan
presidential elections and will effectively silence those in the EU
Commission who wish to speak out about Azerbaijan’s political
prisoners and fraudulent elections. Azerbaijani democracy activists
accuse the country’s dictator, Ilham Aliyev, of manipulating
the timing to ensure the EU is not critical of his regime’s
appalling record on human rights and democracy.
Khadija Ismayilova is familiar with Aliyev’s tactics.
‘The TAP signing is perfect timing for Aliyev,’ she says.
‘We will hear hardly anything from the EU about human rights
and election rigging until after that moment.’
Emma Hughes is a Red Pepper co-editor and a campaigner with Platform.
She spent April in Baku meeting democracy activists. More on the
planned mega-pipeline:
or/
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/azerbaijan-the-pipeline-that-would-fuel-a-dictat
www.platformlondon.org