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Azerbaijan: The Pipeline That Would Fuel A Dictator

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  • Azerbaijan: The Pipeline That Would Fuel A Dictator

    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

    azer1

    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.

    azer4

    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.

    azer3

    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:www.platformlondon.org

    http://www.redpepper.org.uk/azerbaijan-the-pipeline-that-would-fuel-a-dictat
    or/

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