We are headed for the village of Hacalli, which Mayis has visited many times over the past five years. The pipelines cross its land and there has been a long-running dispute over compensation – as there has in a number of villages along the route in Azerbaijan.
But today Mayis is tired and the roads are confusing, so it is taking us a while to find Hacalli. Outside the nearby village of Lәk, we spot the marker posts running at right-angles to us, heading west. By the roadside stands one of BTC’s block valves: positioned every few kilometres along the pipelines, these valves can shut off the flow of oil in an emergency. The small, square compounds are surrounded by high steel fencing and a concrete blast wall covered with smooth, pale grey cement. An outer fence is surmounted by CCTV cameras at each corner.
Mayis’s brother Mehdi pulls over to ask for directions from a man in a bright orange BTC jumpsuit, standing next to the compound entrance. Not having taken photographs, we think little of the encounter as we follow his instructions to take the first left in Lәk.
Two ponds mark the beginning of Hacalli. Black-winged stilts feed in the shallows, while swallows flit across the water’s surface in pursuit of insects. A combine harvester rusts nearby. Mayis explains that in Soviet times land like this was either in a kolkhoz, a production cooperative, or a sovkhoz, a state farm. Three years after Heydar Aliyev returned to power, a Land Commission was set up in each village to divide up the farmland. The process, overseen by local Aliyev appointees, was notoriously corrupt. Large machines such as this combine were ‘privatised’, and in many cases left to rot.
We stop in the village. Each house is surrounded by a high wall, made either of large round river boulders or creamy grey cement blocks. Our host Mehman welcomes us into his compound. He is probably five foot six, strongly built, with another black flat cap, an eagle nose and a neatly clipped moustache.
Walking through a muddy yard containing an elm tree and piles of straw bales, we take off our shoes at the door and enter a long, thin room. With large wooden-framed windows on three sides, this room is very cold – we are glad to have been offered slippers. The walls are sparsely decorated: just a large poster of the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and some prints of black-and-gold Arabic calligraphy.
Mehman’s diminutive mother comes out from behind a curtain and greets us. His three children hang around, including a six-year-old bundled up in a furry jacket, hat and striped gloves.
Mehman and Mayis converse intently in Azeri; Mayis translates. Many families in the village, he says, have been affected by the forty-four-metre-wide pipeline corridor. During the construction period, when the topsoil was removed, deep trenches dug across the land, and the army of machines came to weld the pipes and crane them into the ground, these smallholders who live mostly off their farms were unable to use their fields. Once the project was complete and the topsoil reinstated, the land was returned to the farmers. Every landowner was supposed to receive compensation for not being able to grow their crops for several years, equivalent to their lost income; but fourteen families in the village did not receive any compensation at all. It seems that BP made some payments, but to the wrong people.
Mayis draws a diagram in his notebook to demonstrate the issue. ‘BP claimed Mehman’s land was over there – far away from the route. But it is not there, it is right here on the route.’ The sums at stake are substantial for the families of Hacalli. According to BP’s compensation guidelines, most of them should have been paid around $4,000, equivalent to over a year’s salary. Such sums are insignificant to a company of BP’s size; but, like any corporation, it seeks to maximise profits, and in this instance saved money by not making additional payments.
BP has repeatedly refused to deal with the issue, insisting that Mehman and the others’ claims are groundless. They say that the issue is one of local corruption, and so not their responsibility. While the company clearly faced a challenge in arranging payments to villagers, Mayis believes they are acting arrogantly. ‘BP took their land. It must make sure it compensates the right people. They can’t just say “We gave somebody the money, now they can sort it out between themselves”.’
The fourteen families took their complaint to both the local court and the Azeri supreme court, but both rejected their cases. The judicial system is widely recognised to be both corrupt and politicised. The families wanted to push the issue into the international legal arena. So Mayis, together with the Corner House and Kurdish Human Rights Project, is trying to take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights. Mehman explains, ‘We’ve been to court several times already. And Dawson came here, he sat on that sofa too.’
The name ‘Dawson’ can be heard throughout the small villages on the Azeri plains, Georgian mountains and Turkish plateau, where opinions differ over his identity: sometimes he is a British minister, sometimes a European diplomat, sometimes a lawyer. ‘Dawson’, in fact, is Duncan Lawson, a British civil servant then in the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). His visit along the route resulted from years of pressure by Nick Hildyard of the Corner House.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has adopted guidelines on responsible business practices for multinational enterprises (MNEs). Complaints about a breach in guidelines can be made to the OECD’s National Contact Point, the NCP, in the country where the multinational company is headquartered. For BP this is of course Britain. This NCP is a civil servant based in an industry-related department. In the UK’s case, this was Duncan Lawson, working out of the DTI. Thus, during the public campaign challenging BTC, Hildyard had raised Hacalli’s problems with the NCP at the DTI , invoking the OECD’s MNE guidelines. The acronym-heavy structure gives an insight into the inaccessibility of this complaints process.
Together with allies in the region and across Europe, Hildyard has been driving a complaint against BP for violations across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey since 2003. For years the British government dragged its feet, hoping the complaint would go away. After challenging repeated attempts to dismiss the issues, Hildyard pushed ‘Dawson’ at least to visit the pipeline. Eager to please a British government department, BP promised to cover costs and drive the civil servant to all relevant locations, but Hildyard insisted on a strict equity protocol. So ‘Dawson’ spent half his time with BP, and half hosted by local campaigners.
We have with us a thick document – BP’s official response to Lawson’s report, a heap of A4 photocopies in its see-through plastic sleeve.
One of these is a copy of a handwritten note in Azeri, signed on 10 November 2005 by various BP officials and the village’s Executive Power – a state representative appointed in every community by the president to oversee the village. The letter states that the land complaint issue is groundless, and has been thrown out of court. This sheet of paper was carried back to BP Azerbaijan’s offices at Villa Petrolea, where it was translated and typed up. Gathered together with other Azeri paperwork, it was sent to BP’s head office in London to be collated with similar documents from Georgia and Turkey. Packaged neatly, the final response was handed to the DTI in December 2005.
Bizarrely, BP then refused permission for this response to be shared with the complainants: Corner House, Mayis and the others who had raised the original concerns. Only in February 2009, after three years and threats of legal action, was the document released – with strict guidelines that it must not be digitised or shared with others, including community partners in Turkey. In March 2009, Hildyard gave us hard copies, with which we have returned to Hacalli.
A man runs across the yard outside and enters the house out of breath, introducing himself, between gasps, as the village mayor. He has received a call from the BTC worker who gave us directions to Hacalli, and who claimed he had seen two foreigners in a car with a map, who had come to plant mines along the pipeline. The mayor tells us that the local police force, the Ministry of National Security, and the Executive Power are all on their way to interrogate us.
Unsure what
to do, we turn to Mayis, who sits up sternly, straightening his back and his tie. Presenting a confident façade, he announces to us, rather cryptically, ‘We will explain in cold blood’.
A police major enters the house, ruddy-cheeked, in a uniform bedecked with insignias, and a large fur hat. We remain sitting, but shake his hand. He sits across the coffee table from us, and tells us to accompany him to the police station. Mayis refuses, stating that we have done nothing wrong, and that we would only go if the officer produced a written warrant for our arrest.
Outside, three squad cars block the entrance to Mehman’s compound, and several police guard the gate. Two more men enter the house. One is a quiet man with a mouth full of gold teeth: the village’s Executive Power. The other, evidently the more senior, wears a pinstripe suit and black overcoat, and exudes anger. Sitting down opposite Mayis, he announces that he is from the MTN, the feared Ministry of National Security, successor to the KGB in Azerbaijan.
Apparently, we have been near strategic infrastructure, and our presence is highly problematic. He is here to investigate and needs our documents. Now!
Mayis: Why should I show you my passport? Show me your documentation that you can demand it first.
MTN: No! You need to show me your documentation first. We already took your brother’s ID when we saw him waiting in the car outside.
Mayis: Why should I? And you need to give my brother’s ID back.
MTN: Bill Schrader of BP signed an order that everybody must be stopped and checked who asks questions, takes pictures or is looking around near the pipeline.
Mayis: I’m sorry to be rude, but this instruction signed by Schrader is paper for the toilet. For me, the important document is the constitution of Azerbaijan. As citizens, we have a right to move in the country freely. Who is Schrader? We have our own president, Ilham Aliyev – not Schrader.
MTN: Please don’t use rude words like that. Do you not know what BTC is? This is very strategic territory; you cannot be here. There are pipelines going to Supsa, Erzurum and Ceyhan. You don’t have any right to visit the strategic villages without permission from relevant bodies.
Mayis: You can’t teach me about BTC. I have spoken about it to members of the German Bundestag, the European and the Italian parliament. Who are these ‘relevant bodies’? If people know that Schrader has to give permission for going places, this will cause problems for Azerbaijan in Europe. Why are you creating a bad reputation for Azerbaijan by acting like this?
Throughout this fierce exchange between Mayis and the secret policeman across the small coffee table with its white lace tablecloth, everybody else – Mehman, and his wife, mother and three children – stand stock still around the room. The major, still wearing his furry hat, pours himself tea.
Mayis explains that his name is Mayis Gulaliyev, but refuses to show his ID and demands to see their documents. We hand our passports to the MTN official, who scribbles our names down into his notebook with a blue biro. To our amazement, his notebook is a 2007 BP pocket diary – a diary two years out of date. Here is a senior state security policeman using cast-off stationery. Perhaps it tells us something about the proximity of company and state. We ask the official’s name.
MTN: I am Nazim Babayev, deputy head in the Gәncә branch of the Milli Tәhlukәsizlik Nazirliyi security police – the second office in the country. You are not allowed to stop near the pipeline.
Mayis: Where are the signs? Do you have signs saying ‘Drive quickly’ or ‘Don’t stop’? Are there signs saying ‘This is territory of national security – you cannot be here’? Is there a sign above the village warning ‘Closed area – village of strategic importance’. No, there isn’t. So I have the right to come here, to travel under the constitution.
During these exchanges, Mayis takes a position of moral authority, facing down the police by explaining that they are denigrating the constitution while he is defending it. Fighting abuse by invoking the constitution echoes the struggles of Soviet and Eastern European dissidents such as Sakarov and Havel.
Mayis argues it out, until after a long time Nazim and the police major back down, realising that they are not going to succeed in intimidating him. They try to laugh it off. ‘I already know who you are, Mayis, I have seen you in the newspapers.’
It is made clear that we are to be detained inside the house while BTC security officers decide whether or not to take the issue to the State Special Protection Service of Azerbaijan. This is the elite military unit, directly under the command of President Aliyev, whose responsibilities include guarding the BTC and SCP pipelines.1 With that the officials leave, and a ripple of relief spreads across the room. Mayis’s body relaxes, and he slumps back into his armchair. Mehman’s family, silent during the questioning, erupt: ‘We have never seen this many police here before. If somebody dies and we call 1,000 times for them to come, these people will not come. And now they send three cars and fifteen police!’
Two police cars remain parked outside, blocking the gateway. With the smell of something delicious wafting in from the kitchen and hungry bellies as the adrenaline subsides, Mayis gleefully translates that, since we are under house arrest, we will have to have lunch here.
Over vegetable fritters and stewed apricots, Mayis explains that he is very conscious of his body language during interactions like this, that every move helps prevent him from being cowed. He wears a tie, so that it is clear he is from Baku, and did not rise when the policemen came in; nor did he shake their hands. ‘Because otherwise they take your hand behind your back and handcuff you, just to show their power. And then you’ve lost.’
Mehman, smiling and ebullient when we arrived, is now quiet and anxious, afraid of repercussions. He farms his land, but also works part-time as a maintenance man in the village school, and his wife is the school cleaner. They are worried that the Executive Power will make them lose their jobs.
This man – the quiet man with the gold teeth – is Mubariz Mammador. In November 2005, he had countersigned BP’s letter to ‘Dawson’ stating that the villagers had no grounds for compensation. Significantly, while village mayors are elected by their communities, the Executive Power in every village is appointed through the presidential apparatus. This system created by the Aliyevs gives the regime control over what is effectively a parallel power structure throughout society, with authority over local issues including schools, elections and land. The local Executive Power is involved in policing the pipeline, including suppressing dissent, and has authority over these people’s livelihoods.
Apparently, after each of Mayis’s previous visits, the Executive Power put pressure on Mehman and his friends to drop their complaints. ‘If they are angry because of our complaints, they can take our jobs. Also, they can easily claim that we have narcotics, and then arrest us.’ Mehman’s neighbour Zahed, who also received no compensation for his land, adds that the police have come to his home at night several times to harass him. ‘Very few of us have telephones of any sort, so it is hard to communicate – to tell Mayis what happens here.’
Finally Mehdi, stuck outside with the police throughout the detention, enters and announces that the last squad cars have now left. It seems they were called away, and left no indication as to what would now happen – so we presume that we are free to go. ‘I told the police, “Please don’t wait here for me – you should be out there making money for your families by the roadside!”’ Everybody bursts out laughing, understanding his reference to the police’s habit of randomly stopping motorists and demanding bribes.
He continues, to more laughter, ‘When they arrived and said they were looking for foreigners who were planting mines, I told them, “You have reported Feyzalla’s bombs”!’ A policeman working in nineteenth-century Tsarist Russia, Feyzalla was the hero of a popular Azeri novel. When ordered by his superiors to find bombs, he reports a whole delivery of spherical explosives that turn out to be watermelons.
We make our way out to the disputed fields, with both of us and
Mehman and Zahed crammed into the back of Mehdi’s Lada, bumping down the street past the old combine and the village pond, out onto the wide flatness of the wheat and clover fields. The land stretches away to purple hills in the distance.
A track of pale brown earth takes us through the crops. Startled by us, a flock of larks scatters. There, to our left and right, are the yellow markers of both BTC and SCP in close parallel, running across the land. The 300-kilometre post stands nearby. The crude being pumped under us left Sangachal almost two days ago, and was drilled from beneath the deep Caspian waters within the last week.
With Mehman’s instructions we pace out his land: 100 metres in one direction, 30 metres in the other. The pipeline corridor runs right through his field. ‘This is my land, and the pipeline clearly runs through it. If this is not my land, someone should show me where mine is.’
The wind blows cold from the east, as the larks call out to each other. We walk back towards the white Lada, following the three men in their flat black caps.
The events in Hacalli on that Easter weekend in April 2009 expose the nature of ‘security’ imposed by this industrial infrastructure, and the restrictions placed on local villagers in standing up for their rights. No one was tortured, and the overall dynamic might not appear traumatic; but Mayis is correct when he argues that the MTN and BTC guards along the route increase ‘fear in our society – you can see it in their faces. How can you fight against corruption when you are intimidated like this?’
In effect, the land and villages alongside the pipeline have been turned into a security zone. Just as Mehman had feared, months later the Executive Power caused him to lose his job, having him fired as the maintenance man in the village school. Feeling a level of responsibility due to our presence, we try to support him from afar through these harsh times. We know that we responded to a request to visit Hacalli, to hear their complaints, but remain troubled over our role in Mehman’s life.
The Oil Road Page 15
