Caspian Sea Pipeline Has Its Origins in Turbulent Waters
Opposition leaders complain that the U.S., which has made forceful statements in recent months for democratic transition in the former Soviet republic of Belarus, has not done so on Azerbaijan because of pipeline politics.
"Western countries fear that if they change the power in Azerbaijan, they will forfeit stability and risk losing their economic interests here," said Rauf Mirkadyrov, editor-in-chief of the independent Zerkalo newspaper.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-azerbaijan27jun27,0,2255105,full.story
Caspian Sea Pipeline Has Its Origins in Turbulent Waters
U.S. fears political upset in Azerbaijan could threaten a strategic new oil route skirting Russia.
By Kim Murphy
Times Staff Writer
June 27, 2005
BAKU, Azerbaijan — The opening ceremony of the new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline here last month was a virtual Who's Who of the region. The presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey were on hand. So was U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.
The only dignitary missing was Russia's energy envoy, Igor Yusufov. He called in sick. As the 1,100-mile pipeline has been pieced together from the Azerbaijani capital here on the Caspian Sea, through Georgia, and on to a Mediterranean port in Turkey, the U.S. has secured an advantage nearly as important to its strategic interests in the region as the democratic revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine: a transport link for billions of barrels of new Caspian Sea oil through U.S.-friendly terrain, bypassing both Iran and Russia.
President Bush, in a written message to the gathered leaders, called the pact for the pipeline between regional governments and a private oil consortium led by BP "the contract of the century."
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said the $3.4-billion pipeline, which is due to ship 1 million barrels of oil a day by 2008, represents "a geopolitical victory for Azerbaijan and its allies … that will seriously change the balance of power in the region, bringing prosperity and strengthening independence."
The subtext may have been the real reason for Yusufov's absence: the pipeline known as BTC significantly loosens Russia's stranglehold on energy supplies out of the former Soviet Union and boosts the economic muscle of the nations on its borders, which are struggling to emerge from Moscow's powerful influence. Analysts expect it will transport up to a fourth of the world's incremental new oil supply in 2005 and 2006.
But this strategic success story depends largely on where the pipeline begins, in this former Soviet republic of 8 million perched on the geopolitical razor's edge between Russia and Iran.
For years, the U.S. and major Western oil interests quietly supported Heydar A. Aliyev, the ex-Soviet-era communist boss who seized power two years after Azerbaijan's 1991 independence declaration. He handed down power to his son, 43-year-old Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded him as president in a widely criticized election held after his death in 2003.
The younger Aliyev has been a staunch supporter of the West's oil ambitions in Azerbaijan and its military campaigns on its borders. At the same time, he has clamped down on the independent media, allowed the arrest and torture of political opponents and had public protests violently quelled.
Turbulence has rocked the republics on Russia's borders over the last two years — popular movements have toppled authoritarian regimes in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. In the same vein, Azerbaijan is facing parliamentary elections in November that could shake the foundations of the republic and help determine the success or failure of American policy in a region Washington sees as vital to its interests.
Unlike in Ukraine, where a generally pro-Western opposition faced a pro-Moscow prime minister for the presidency, both Aliyev and opposition leaders are seen as accommodating to Washington's interests. The problem, analysts say, is that clashes between the two camps could threaten the security of new oil supplies the U.S. sought as a reliable alternative to the turbulent Middle East.
Aliyev is under increasing pressure from the U.S. and Europe to improve on the 2003 presidential balloting that led to major complaints of vote-rigging and protests that resulted in one death and 200 injuries.
This time, opposition leaders say a failure to ensure an open campaign and free balloting will surely lead to major street protests — whose outcome might not be as peaceful as the "rose" and "orange" uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine that swept in new democratic governments. Not only are Aliyev and his allies unlikely to step aside without a fight, the opposition itself is fractured, underfinanced and has among its adherents, at least in the north, elements of radical Islam.
Damage Control
The government of Aliyev, in a clear attempt to head off trouble, has opened indirect talks with the opposition and pledged to hold democratic elections. On June 4, the government sanctioned the first legal opposition street rally since the violent protests of October 2003. An estimated 10,000 critics of the government flowed into the streets, and even more protesters marched in a second rally on June 18, carrying photos of President Bush with the words, "We Want Freedom!"
"We are reasonable people. We have quite a lot of experience in our life. And we know that revolutions will only bring worse. But the Azerbaijan government is pushing people into the streets," said Isgander Hamidov, a former minister of the interior who spent 10 years in prison as a dissident under the elder Aliyev's government.
Two months ago, the National Democratic Party leader was arrested again; Hamidov said he was tied up, beaten and had his fingers squeezed in a closing door until they were broken. Then, he said, authorities offered him $150,000 to leave Azerbaijan with his family. He refused.
"Why should we have political prisoners and have to fight to set them free? Why should we have to battle against bribery and corruption? Why should we have monopolies [among the friends and relatives of the government] on business? Why should the law exist nowhere but on paper?" Hamidov said. "I'm afraid that if a revolution happens in this kind of anger and hate, the experience will be awful. Terrible."
Many believe that the still-relatively-popular Aliyev would have won the 2003 elections even without the apparent vote-rigging that resulted in his winning 76.8% of the vote. But the new president's failure to implement pledged reforms, and the continuing domination of the economy by stalwarts of his father's regime, including the brothers and cronies of the elder Aliyev, has left many Azerbaijanis angry and disappointed.
Opposition leaders complain that the U.S., which has made forceful statements in recent months for democratic transition in the former Soviet republic of Belarus, has not done so on Azerbaijan because of pipeline politics.
"Western countries fear that if they change the power in Azerbaijan, they will forfeit stability and risk losing their economic interests here," said Rauf Mirkadyrov, editor-in-chief of the independent Zerkalo newspaper.
"At this point, half the community is in a revolutionary mood. And the other half, I would say the majority half, hasn't lost hope fully. They still believe things can be changed with political and economic reforms. But day by day, the second half is losing its members," said Zafar Guliyev, a political analyst with the Turan news agency in Baku.
Change in the Capital
The skyline of this city of 2 million signals an economic revolution. Along the Caspian shoreline, new high-rise apartment buildings and mid-rise offices in various stages of construction stand in rough filigree against the skyline.
Much of that is thanks to the estimated 900 million tons of oil sitting just offshore, suddenly deliverable to market with the opening of the BTC pipeline.
Oil revenues are expected to reach a total of $100 billion — perhaps up to $160 billion, if oil prices remain high. The nation's GDP is expected to grow an astounding 14% this year and 17% in 2006. The federal budget alone next year will rise from $1.8 billion to $3 billion.
Already this past year, the government created 120,000 new permanent jobs both public and private, and pledges to reach a target of 600,000. Government salaries and pensions have gone up.
"In 1993, Azerbaijan was ruled by unskilled people and traitors. Azerbaijan's existence as a state was under threat. There was chaos in the land. But now there is stability and peace, and Azerbaijan is one of the most dynamically developing nations in the world," Aliyev told several thousand supporters at a rally last week.
"If someone tries to make instability in Azerbaijan, we shall prevent it — not only will we prevent it, but the Azerbaijani people themselves will reject it. Our politics are based on the will of the people," the president declared.
But the boom has yet to reach many of the more than 40% of Azerbaijanis who still live in poverty and have little hope of moving into one of the pastel high-rises by the Caspian. Cardiologists in Baku earn $20 a month. The average salary is $150 a month — at that rate it would take a lifetime to buy one of Baku's new high-end apartments.
"The oil money, it's not for us. We are ordinary people; we'll see nothing," said Mulayim Tamrazova, who is supporting three children and an invalid sister-in-law on her $75-a-month salary at the local gas supply department. Moreover, she said, the government doesn't pay on time.
"They pay us for one month, then they wait for two or three months, then they pay for another month. Today is the 15th of June, and I haven't gotten my salary yet for May," Tamrazova said. "But we're used to it. We're not alone. The whole nation is living like this."
Meanwhile, the elder Aliyev died with rumored personal assets of billions. His brothers are also wealthy oligarchs, and friends of the regime control powerful revenue-generating ministries.
Journalists who write frequently about corruption have found themselves the targets of dozens of libel suits filed by government officials — most of them upheld by often obsequious courts. Actions by various tax and municipal authorities have closed down most original opposition newspaper offices in central Baku, leaving them to operate in ramshackle quarters on the outskirts of town, if at all.
On March 2, longtime investigative journalist Elmar Huseynov was shot to death outside his apartment, prompting international demands for an independent investigation.
Huseynov, a reporter who for years had dogged government officials with his inquisitive and critical stories, had been the subject of 34 libel cases filed by complainants including members of parliament as well as the minister of defense and the mayor of Baku (whom he criticized for shutting down cheap public tramlines and closing corner kiosks that were the livelihoods of many Baku merchants).
Over the years, his newspapers faced governmentordered shutdowns and freezes on their bank accounts. Huseynov would be arrested, only to emerge from jail to open his newspaper or magazine under a new name.
When the libel judgments reached a cumulative total of $200,000 in November of last year, government agents arrived at Huseynov's apartment and hauled off his stereo and a few other valuables.
"He had been offered money a lot of times not to write about these or those people, or this or that matter, but he refused," said his widow, Rushana Huseynova.
Then one night in March, Huseynova said she heard the sound of several shots downstairs, then the doorbell, shortly before 9 p.m. She opened the apartment door, and noticed that the lights in the hallway and in the street downstairs had been turned off.
Then she saw her husband.
"They shot him downstairs. He was very strong, and he could rise, and he came to the door. He rang. I opened the door. He was bleeding even from his nose. He couldn't pronounce a word, because there were seven bullets in him. He slipped, and I took him and put him on the floor. He lived about two minutes, and he was gone."
Suspects Arrested
The government says it has arrested two Georgian nationals in connection with the attack, although it has not specified their roles or motives.
"The Azerbaijani president expressed his negative attitude towards this event. He called this event the murder of freedom of expression in Azerbaijan," said Nazim Isa Isayev, deputy chief of the political department of the presidential administration. "The president thinks it's honorable work to find, arrest and punish the perpetrators."
But Huseynova and many opposition figures are skeptical the authorities will solve the case. "I am 100% sure that the commissioners of this murder are the Azerbaijani state. They are responsible for the crime," Huseynova said.
Now, many wonder if Huseynov's murder could make it even harder to hold free elections. For their part, government officials fear the opposition will stage protests no matter how the election unfolds.
"We have no guarantee that opposition members will accept the results of the election, even if they are conducted fairly and democratically. In fact, we are expecting that they will paralyze the election," Isayev said.
The government is pledging a tough, but legal, line. All are mindful of the violence that shook Uzbekistan in May, when protesters in Andijon were confronted by police in a clash that reportedly killed hundreds.
"Azerbaijan has chosen the way of democratic development. If the elections are fair, it's natural that in the case of mass violations of law in the streets, the security services of the government will be called on to defend Azerbaijan justice," said Ramil Kasanov, head of the youth wing of the ruling party, Yeni Azerbaijan.
"In this case, the authorities will not be defending their own rights," he said. "They will be defending the rights of the people who voted for them."
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