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For
Immediate Release
June 5, 2003
Contact:
Carol Welch, (202) 783-7400 Ext. 237
Global Call for Moratorium on Controversial Caspian Pipeline
Groups in 29 Countries Lobby World Bank and Governments
Over 70 environmental and human rights groups from 29 countries today called for an immediate moratorium on the controversial Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, planned to run from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. Seventy two organizations have written to the major public funders—including the World Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the U.S. Export-Import Bank—arguing that the pipeline will intensify human rights problems along the route, and that the historical lack of freedom of speech and corruption in the region make proper consultation and land compensation impossible.
Led by UK oil giant BP, the oil consortium also includes U.S.-owned Unocal, ConocoPhillips and Amerada Hess (through a joint venture with Saudi-owned Delta Oil). BP and its consortium partners are expected to request approximately one-half of the projected US$3.3 billion cost from public finance sources—what BP CEO Lord John Browne has called “free public money.”
The call echoes the findings of a recent international fact-finding mission to the Turkish section of the pipeline, which found violations of international standards and Turkish law on consultation, compensation and resettlement. Human rights problems—including detentions, arbitrary arrests and state harassment—were encountered as well. The situation is especially problematic in the northeast of Turkey, where 40 percent of the population is Kurdish. The fact-finding mission itself was detained twice by the state gendarmerie during the course of its research.
“This pipeline as currently planned threatens one of Georgia’s most profitable industries, could destabilize an already volatile region and will do little to actually improve the lives of the people most affected by the project,” said Carol Welch, director of international programs at Friends of the Earth. “The World Bank and U.S. export credit agencies should use public money to support projects that promote sustainable development, not to support oil giants and their sketchy projects.”
The moratorium call is the latest in a series of protests against the pipeline. Last month in a legal report Amnesty International criticized the human rights impact of the pipeline . In April groups submitted complaints to the governments of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, charging that BP and its partners were violating the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s “Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises,” a voluntary “code of conduct” formally endorsed by OECD governments.
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