Mark Thomas reveals the dangers on an oil pipline

Mark Thomas Monday 14th July 2003 - New Statseman

If a British company proposed to upgrade and relocate Hell to Ethiopia, new Labour ministers would talk of creating jobs and having a constructive dialogue with Satan. By Mark Thomas There is a construction project being planned involving UK multinationals which is condemned by Amnesty International and 78 environmental and human rights groups around the world. If it goes ahead, the project will hasten global warming, destroy democracy, increase corporate power, stifle dissent, cause human rights abuses and create refugees. It also appears to be illegal. All of which means one thing. The deal is supported by the new Labour government. When it comes to dodgy business plans, new Labour's support of them is as predictable as the Church of England's homophobia. If a British company came up with a project to upgrade and relocate Hell itself to Ethiopia, new Labour ministers would be popping up in every trade journal talking of creating jobs and how important it is to have a constructive dialogue with Satan.

The name of the construction project is the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline, and the consortium behind it is led by Blair's favourite oil company, BP. And, as the less naive among you will have already surmised, new Labour is considering using taxpayers' money to back this deal. Once again, the secretive and dubious Export Credits Guarantee Department may subsidise a project mired in controversy and environmental catastrophe, this time to the tune of more than £60m.

The pipeline would start near Baku in Azerbaijan and stretch through Georgia to Ceyhan on the Turkish Mediterranean coast. It would pass through or nearby several conflict regions, some of which have a fragile peace - for example, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Chechnya. In the Kurdish part of Turkey through which the pipeline would be built, thousands have been killed and millions displaced by a conflict that ended when the now-disbanded Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) called a ceasefire. It would not take a huge amount to reignite such a conflict, especially given that the area around the pipeline will be a heavily militarised zone. Countries such as Burma, Colombia and Nigeria know only too well the price that comes with the combination of the military and oil. BP should know, too: in Colombia, critics have accused it of complying with the paramilitaries.

The governments of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey have signed host government agreements over the pipeline which give the consortium's security/military the right to enter any homes in the area if it feels there is a "threat of civil disturbance". Given that the Turkish gendarmes are routinely condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that "civil disturbance" could mean anything from a demonstration to a petition, or even a frown, and that "entry into a home" could mean anything from kicking the door down to murdering a family.

These agreements between BP's consortium and the host governments are remarkable because they hand over control of the area to the company. If the countries introduce new environmental, tax or health and safety laws that threaten the "economic equilibrium" (that is, profitability) of the project, they will have to pay compensation to the company or abandon their laws. So, in the area of the pipeline - 1,760km long and 4km wide - an oil company will have more legal power than the national governments.

Campaigners against the pipeline have written to the European Commission in the first step of a potential legal battle, stating that the deal does or will break EU, international and human rights law. The host government agreements would not be legal in the EU and because Turkey's attempt to join the EU involves harmonising with EU law, it follows that its agreement with BP breaks its accession agreements. However, recent events suggest that even if the project does break international law, Tony Blair is more likely to back it than not. BP is indeed Beyond Petroleum: it is beyond the rule of law and beyond democracy, too. Not content with crushing people's democratic aspirations and endeavours, BP has the audacity to demand our money to help it along. Now, I accept that some of you might wish to support BP and its endeavours to introduce free-trade legislation via these agreements. But why should the British taxpayer underwrite such an appalling deal? If you want to underwrite BP's project, do it with your own money: in fact, send your donations to Lord Browne, CEO of BP, via the New Statesman, and I shall endeavour to make sure he gets them. If those in the anti-war movement really do believe that globalisation and its bitter fruit are the roots of conflict, then they must oppose this project. It is not enough to wait for the bullets to start flying before getting the placards ready.

Mark Thomas is a director of the Ilisu Dam Campaign, which is against the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline

http://www.mtcp.co.uk

Letter from a Chief Executive Officer to Hillary Benn

Dear Hillary,

Congratulations! $250 million of public money for a BP oil pipeline, well done. I must say that when I first saw your name as Minister to head up the Department for International Development (DfID) I was so furious that I nearly wrote to my MP about it. I am sure you know, as a CEO of a multinational so huge that it doesn't pay tax in the UK, that when I say "my MP" I really do mean mine. It was your name that gave me the shock. Not the Hillary bit, the Benn bit. For a moment I thought we had been saddled with some liberal left wing do-gooder at DfID, acting under the illusion that you can help the world's poor by giving them money. Of course you can't. The poor are by definition the worst people to give money too, if they knew how to handle money they wouldn't be poor. The fact that they are poor proves that they shouldn't be trusted with it.

I am not saying that DfID should provide hand outs to the rich. No. The rich are layabouts. Not at all. Public money should go to those who deserve it, namely the absolutely superdooper rich. So imagine my delight when I read of your excellent work approving the $250 million to BP, for the Baku Ceyhan oil pipeline. Well done my boy. Free money for multinationals! Who'd have thought it from a Benn!

Forking out for an oil pipeline is one thing but forking out for an oil pipeline that goes through 11 conflict zones shows the kind of brass neck that Diane Abbot could only look on with envy. To CEO's everywhere you have sounded a clarion call, and that call is "Fill your boots boys 'cos Benn is backing you!" This is why from now on I shall see The Department for International Development as the Department for Corporate Welfare. You, dear Hillary, are the billionaires very own little DSS. For us you are providing a system of benefits just as surely as tax credits do for single working mums, except without the whiff of fried food and the static storm of nylon everywhere.

Naturally you and indeed your officials can deny repsonisibilty. "It wasn't our decision to give BP the money it was the International Finance Corporation, which is part of the World Bank" you can say. And it is absolutely true, it is the World Bank's decision. Though on a cautionary note, I am sure I don't need to mention how foolish it would be to carp on about your role at the World Bank. It is true that you and you alone decide how Britain will vote at the World Bank when it considers whether to back a project like the BP oil pipeline. However, you'll end up about as popular as a buggered butler at Buck House if you shout about it too much.

It is only to be expected that the Committee for International Development stick their nose in and get all "Oxfamy" about the whole thing. A lesser man would have given in to all those environmentalists and human rights whackos who claim that the BP oil pipeline breaks the World Banks own guidelines 173 times. But not you Hillary, you have faced up to your critics in time honoured Whitehall fashion and pretended that it is not happening. In fact I hear through the grapevine that the World Bank hasn't even bothered to read their criticisms.

So the governments of Georgia and Azerbaijan the countries through which the pipeline flows, are experiencing a few difficulties with democracy. "Why", bleat the hand wringing soap dodgers, "is the West rewarding human rights abuse." I see Georgia is delaying the announcement of the election results until they get the right one. If it is good enough for Bush it should be good enough for them. Incidently, do you ever wonder if the critics are right when they say that Western governments who support projects like this are creating the next Saddam Hussein? Maybe they are right ... if so what are we to do? Invest in the arms industry is my advice!

So once again well done. I know you won't want to take the opportunity just yet but I am absolutely sure your "knowledge" and "insight" will become invaluable at board room level in a non executive director sense. You may not know it but I pride myself on being able to spot the next Ken Clarke and my boy I believe it could be you. All the best, your friend in industry.

If any fellow CEO's or minions feel like faxing a letter of thanks to Hillary or even a copy of this one they can do, either via Hillary's private secretary 0207 023 0634 or hbenn@dfid.gov.uk OR privatesecretary@dfid.gov.uk Discuss this article on the website forum - http://www.mtcp.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=3