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Azeri regime stifles criticism ahead of European Games. European lender must finally take measures.

UPDATE 1 12h CET 12 June 2015

Platform have taken to the streets of London to protest the opening of the European Games. See a video of the action below, and read more in their book published Friday, All that glitters, which explores how the European Games belong to the Aliyev regime and the British oil company BP and how sport is being co-opted in the service of a dynasty and fossil fuels.

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Yesterday afternoon, Emma Hughes, a friend and rights activist from the UK, was denied entry to Azerbaijan where she had gone to monitor Friday’s inaugural European Games.

Emma is a fierce critic of the Aliyev regime and its business allies in the oil and gas sector. In addition to the European Games, Emma planned to attend the appeal of imprisoned Azeri activist Rasul Jafarov, who is currently serving a six and a half year-sentence on trumped up charges.[1] She was detained at the airport Tuesday afternoon and deported on an early flight today.

Emma works for Platform, a campaign group that targets oil and gas giant British Petroleum (BP), one of the European Games’ official partners and the largest foreign investor in Azerbaijan. “The future of this country is imprisoned, yet BP still works hand in hand with this regime”, Emma said from detention.

The EBRD has in certain instances limited its involvement with countries where democracy is being stifled. The EBRD’s continued investments in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas sector are a blatant disregard of basic democratic rights and a violation of its own mandate.

 

Read also

Europe’s Caspian gas dreams – a nightmare come true for human rights in Azerbaijan
Blog post | May 14, 2015

This latest example of Azerbaijan’s intolerance for criticism (Amnesty International was also barred from entering the country today) should be another red flag for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), an important financier of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas field, whose lead operator is BP.

In spite of its mandate to promote democracy, the EBRD has played a role in ensuring a steady stream of oil and gas revenues [2] for the authoritarian Aliyev regime. The bank approved in January 2014 its most recent loan to Lukoil operations at Shah Deniz, when the number of political prisoners was at its highest. A decision on another loan of USD 500 million for Shah Deniz is expected in July.

The development of Shah Deniz lays the foundations for the Southern Gas Corridor, a series of three import pipelines that are at the centre of the European Commission’s Energy Union. The EBRD actively promotes the pipeline, with bank officials publicly contemplating finance for this massive project.

Given this situation, the EBRD must immediately restrict lending to Azerbaijan’s oil and gas sector.

Indeed, such a move would be in line with its own country strategy and recommendations from the IMF.

The EBRD has in certain instances limited its involvement with countries where democracy is being stifled. In Belarus, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the EBRD lends only to small-scale, private sector activities that do not provide significant support to the regimes.

With regards to Azerbaijan, however, the bank has so far avoided to show the same resolve.

With repression worsening in Azerbaijan and the Aliyev regime showing no sign of changing course, the EBRD’s continued investments in the country’s oil and gas sector are a blatant disregard of basic democratic rights and a violation of its own mandate.

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Continue reading
Will energy efficiency be sidelined in the Energy Union’s implementation?
Blog post | June 8, 2015

Pipe Dreams: Why the Southern Gas Corridor will not reduce EU dependency on Russia
Press release | January 21, 2015

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Notes

1. Rasul was arrested in August 2014 and charged with tax evasion, illegal enterprise and abuse of official power. In April 2015, following investigations and a trial full of shortcomings, he was sentenced to six and a half years in prison, even though reportedly all prosecution witnesses testified in favour of Rasul.

2. Where states do not rely on their citizenry for generating revenue, governments are more likely than others to use indiscriminate violations of personal integrity rights as a policy tool. A 2013 study examined this oft-observed “relationship between a state relying on oil and the violation of personal integrity rights” and found it to be “substantive and significant […] across all specifications and different indicators”.

Italian mayor stands up against EU priority gas pipeline


This blog post first appeared on the Counter Balance blog.

In an open letter [*] to the EU institutions an Italian mayor has voiced the local opposition to the Trans-Adriatic gas pipeline (TAP) in Italy. Civil society organisations and local authorities fear the pipeline will affect the environment and the safety of their communities and demand the EU not to finance the project.

The TAP will run from Greece to Italy via Albania and is part of the Southern Gas Corridor, a series of three pipelines which have to bring gas from Azerbaijan to Italy for the European market. The project is among the top priorities of the EU’s energy security strategy but faces fierce opposition.

The letter is signed by the Mr Potí, mayor of Melendugno, the town where the pipeline will enter Italian soil, and it reflects the positions of local civil society organisations and 40 other mayors from the region who have voted several motions opposing the project throughout the last years. The letter is addressed directly to the European Commission, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) who are most likely to support the construction of the pipeline.

The EBRD is already financing the Shah Deniz II gas field that will supply the Southern Gas Corridor and has stated that it is interested in financing TAP. Also the EIB has recently been approached by TAP AG, the consortium behind TAP which is based in the Swiss canton of Zug, one of the world’s most secretive jurisdictions.

As the pipeline will be crossing dunes, pinewood, rural trials with olive trees and state roads, local administrators and residents fear that it will seriously impact the region which is mainly oriented towards tourism and agriculture. Safety is another concern related to a pressure reduction plant which will be built in the town of Melendugno where the pipeline enters land. An environmental impact assessment has still not been approved for the connection between the pressure reduction plant and the national gas network 50km further on in Brindisi.

For these reasons local authorities have negatively assessed every step of the project but their concerns have not been taken into account by the relevant authorities. The letter calls on the EU institutions and the Italian government to engage in an “open debate on alternatives to TAP” involving all regional stakeholders in order to overcome the “lack of democracy” which has marked the decision making process so far. The selection process for so called ‘EU projects of common interest’ should be revised to better integrate the views of EU citizens and impacted communities in the EU as well as from where the energy sources derive, it is argued.

Interestingly, the letter questions the energy security argument which the European Commission uses to justify the project. Can energy security be increased by depending on an authoritarian regime which doesn’t respect human rights, the letter asks rhetorically. Shouldn’t we focus on more sustainable and commonly owned sources of energy to secure our energy independence, is another such question.

TAP keeps on heating the debates in the South of Italy. In the upcoming local elections all candidates have already expressed their opposition to the project which is immensely unpopular with the local population.

But also outside of Italy the opposition rises in parallel with the doubts over the energy security potential of this project and the cost of it, not only financially but also in terms of human rights and the environment.

The arguments of local authorities and citizens show the incompatibility of the project with the EU’s own human rights and environmental policies. It remains to be seen how the EU will address this policy incoherence and whether it is willing democratise the decision making process and take into account the concerns from the affected people locally.

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* You can also read the Italian version of the letter (pdf)

Will energy efficiency be sidelined in the Energy Union’s implementation?


EU energy ministers are meeting in Brussels today to discuss the implementation of the Framework Strategy for the Energy Union, the EU’s five year energy strategy.

If the last six months provide any indication, then the Commission’s flagship framework for the energy sector is shaping up to be a large disappointment for those hoping it could help Europe make real strides towards decarbonisation, decentralisation, and the decrease of energy consumption in Europe.

Billions of euros are to be spent among others on the construction of mega gas pipelines, the so far commercially not viable carbon capture and storage technology, and on developing the still far from promising shale gas potential in Europe.

The energy efficiency no-brainer

In the beginning of June I shared a panel with the European Commission’s Vice-President for Energy Union Maroš Šefčovič at a conference in Riga which he joined as part of his Energy Union tour through EU countries. In his public appearances, Šefčovič continues to stress that “the cheapest, safest and most secure energy is the one not consumed”. This sentence had appeared in a leaked draft strategy for the Energy Union, but disappeared from the final version.

Energy efficiency has deserved the important role it has as one of the five dimensions of the Energy Union. Especially central and eastern European countries could benefit greatly from an Energy Union that focuses on fully exploiting the energy savings potentials. This is true not only in the housing sector, but as well in the transport and industry sectors, where the energy intensity is still much higher than in old member states.

Let’s be clear, though, that the benefits of decarbonisation are not limited to central and eastern Europe alone. A study published in October 2014 by the World Resources Institute and Ecofys shows that more investment in renewables and energy efficiency in three sectors (housing, industry and power generation) can cut natural gas imports to the European Union by 50% and CO2 emissions by 49%.

Reality defies rhetoric

Despite public reassurement of the importance of energy efficiency, decarbonisation and “remaining no.1 in renewables”, it is the energy security scare that yet again seems to be at the forefront of the EU’s plans. To secure supply, the European Commission and Member States seem only able to operationalise more fossil fuels projects instead of first working out solutions for reducing energy demand quickly.

The crown jewel in the plans so far is the Southern Gas Corridor, a system of mega-pipelines meant to bring gas to Europe from the Caspian region. Numerous arguments against the 35 billion euros project have been brought forward, for instance:

  • According to estimates by the Commission itself, under all scenarios, gas demand in Europe will decrease by 2050 (pdf), raising concerns that the Southern Gas Corridor will turn into a stranded asset.
  • Building such large and expensive infrastructure will therefore lock Europe into a dependence on fossil fuels way beyond a point when carbon emissions should be at a minimum already.
  • The gas planned to be transported by the Southern Gas Corridor will come from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz oil and gas field. Yet cutting gas deals with the country will only strengthen the increasingly oppressive Aliyev regime. Currently eighty political prisoners are behind bars in the country – more than in Russia and Belarus combined.

With that much focus on fossil fuels, Europe cannot hope to achieve a long-term decarbonisation, a decentralisation of energy supply and a decrease of energy demand in all sectors to meet its 2050 climate and energy goals. Other solutions are required for this.

New Member States playing ball

Member states play no small role in watering down the more sustainable aspects of the Energy Union strategy. Already in September and October 2014 and again in February this year, the Visegrad + 2 countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia plus Romania and Bulgaria) have successfully pushed against influence from Brussels on their domestic – dirty – energy mix.

New member state’s spending priorities are also becoming clear with a look at their plans for EU funding until 2020. While the relative increase in energy efficiency funding is significant, it still remains on a low level in absolute terms. And in spite of scaled up opportunities for funding clean and sustainable energy infrastructure, countries are planning to spend only very little on renewables. Instead they have slated significant amounts for gas pipelines and road constructions.

For instance, Poland’s share of fossil fuel support constitutes up to 25% of all energy infrastructure funding. The Czech Republic and Slovakia spend more than 50% of their transport funding on roads.

To make the Energy Union anything more than business as usual, the focus and with it the funding has to shift away from fossil fuels and towards renewables, energy efficiency and decarbonisation.

Transforming development finance? Europe’s multilateral lenders fail on aid transparency


On Wednesday the transparency watchdog Publish What You Fund launched its 2015 Aid Transparency Review (pdf). While Europe’s two multilateral development banks, the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development have improved compared to last year, they both find themselves (again) in the lower half of the ranking.

Here are some thoughts from us on how both institutions stand in terms of transparency and accountability.

EBRD – few improvements in last decade

The EBRD has finally committed to publish information to the IATI Standard in 2015, however it still remains at the bottom of the Aid Transparency Index in the ‘Poor’ category (for the third year in a row). In spite of the declared internal political support for greater transparency and the half-hearted realisation that the D in the EBRD’s name stands for Development, the institution is well off track from meeting modern standards on transparency and quality information disclosure.

The Public Information Policy of the EBRD has undergone three revisions in the last decade without any significant improvements. As a result it is way off the mark, still more concerned with confidentiality and disclosure derogations rather than with transparency, and clearly putting corporate interest before the public interest. By placing the greatest share of responsibility for disclosure of project information onto the client and by miscategorising projects (pdf), the EBRD excuses itself from making the necessary steps to greater transparency.

Thus it would appear that the EBRD is gearing up to jump on the Financing for Development train with a forged ticket. If timely and detailed information on the bank’s projects would be an indication of the quality of its investments, then the EBRD should go a long way in order to demonstrate that it can deliver on the Post 2015 agenda and its own unique Sustainable Development mandate.

EIB – hiding behind policy

While we welcome the European Investment Bank’s improvement in its ATI score in 2015, the bank’s ranking as ‘Fair’ does not mean it is a poster child for transparency and accountability. On the contrary, it is way off track from meeting its aid transparency commitments.

The EIB made a small jump from a score of 24.6 per cent in 2014 to 46.3 per cent this year, because it began publishing to the IATI Standard in 2014. Yet, this is still not even half way to implement the IATI Standard in full, which the bank committed to do by December 2015.

As PWYF’s Road to 2015 website explains:

The end of 2015 is the deadline donors set themselves to fully implement the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) Standard, an open data framework which allows for the publication of timely, comprehensive and comparable information on development finance. Donors agreed this target back in 2011, at the fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.

And even more worries for the EIB’s transparency performance may be expected under its new Transparency Policy that was approved in March this year and lambasted by civil society and a European Parliament Intergroup. Before the new policy was finalised, the European Ombudsman had criticised the bank for failing to comply with its own (old) transparency policy by not providing information on an investigation into allegations of tax evasion in relation to the Mopani Copper Mine project in Zambia. Instead of taking the Ombudsman opinion into account, the EIB introduced a new exception for access to information in its new policy. This exception would allow the EIB to keep secret internal investigations into irregularities such as corruption and maladministration.

The EIB also keeps refusing other development related information. Typically, it does not disclose investment made through financial intermediaries such as commercial banks, even though this type of financing accounts for up to 40% of its lending outside the European Union.

And similar to the incomprehensive information that the EIB publishes to the IATI, the bank seems not to take its commitments to transparency standards very literally. Despite the fact that it subscribed to Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), it refused to disclose information on the taxes paid to the Tunisian budget resulting from an EIB-financed gas extraction project in the South of Tunisia.

Europe’s Caspian gas dreams – a nightmare come true for human rights in Azerbaijan


Today and tomorrow, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is hosting its annual meeting and business forum, where Europe’s pet energy project, the Southern Gas Corridor will surely be a hot topic.

The Southern Gas Corridor, a critical piece of the puzzle to import gas from Azerbaijan to Europe, includes three major pipelines — South Caucasus, Trans Anatolian (TANAP) and Trans Adriatic (TAP) — stretching 3500 kilometres from the shores of the Caspian Sea to southern Italy. The entire corridor is expected to require a total investment of more than 35 billion euros (45 billion dollars) and EBRD officials have publicly considered the possibility to lend to the mega project, while TAP, the last stretch of the pipeline, may receive support from the European Investment Bank.

Another piece is the Shah Deniz oil and gas field, the main source of power and wealth for Azerbaijan’s dictatorship. Located offshore in the Caspian Sea, Shah Deniz is envisaged to be the main provider for the Southern Gas Corridor.

In early July, shortly after the European Games in Azerbaijan will come to an end, the EBRD is expected to approve a 500 million dollar loan for none other than Russia’s Lukoil for its ten percent share in Shah Deniz. Another 500 million are expected to come from the Asian Development Bank.

Repression in Azerbaijan

Europe’s enthusiasm over Azerbaijan’s gas reserves and the mega-pipeline supposed to transport it do not only contradict the fact that Europe’s gas demand has fallen by 9 percent over the last decade. It also stands in stark contrast to the climate of repression in Azerbaijan and its condemnation by the international community, including the European Union.

After years of a deteriorating situation, the Azeri regime has become even more hard line with a crackdown on critics over the last few years. Right now 80 political prisoners are behind bars in Azerbaijan – more than in Russia and Belarus combined.

Just last month, two renowned human rights defenders have been sentenced to prison terms on trumped-up charges of embezzlement and tax evasion. On April 22, the human rights lawyer Intigam Aliyev was sentenced to seven and a half years. Only a few days earlier, on April 16, the same court sentenced Rasul Jafarov, another well-known human rights defender, to six and a half years.

A Bankwatch interactive shows prominent examples of prosecuted human rights activists in Azerbaijan and invites you to send a message to the EBRD and European leaders.

See the interactive

Both sentences were condemned by human rights organisations and intergovernmental bodies like the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Also the European Union criticised “procedural shortcomings” in Rasul’s case and the disproportionate sentence against Intigam Aliyev.

Not only were the arrests of Jafarov and Aliyev and other human rights defenders politically motivated. The flawed investigations and trials also clearly could not prove their guilt, with reportedly all prosecution witnesses testifying in favour of Rasul Jafarov and strong evidence presented against claims that Aliyev had not registered foreign grants.

In addition to prosecuting critics, the Azeri regime has introduced extremely restrictive and arbitrary rules for the registration and funding of civil society organisations in the country, making it impossible for many to continue their work.

Get involved

Send messages via Twitter on #EBRDam to those following the EBRD’s annual meeting.

Dear @EBRD, don’t fund human rights abuses in Azerbaijan, drop the Southern Gas Corridor
Tweet now

Europe’s gas dash fuels human rights abuses in Azerbaijan. @EBRD drop the Southern Gas Corridor
Tweet now

Strengthening the regime

Many Azeris have spoken out about the negative impact fossil fuel extraction has had on their country – giving the dictatorship its money and power with much of the wealth being siphoned off into offshore accounts.

Rasul spoke about this shortly before his arrest. Referring to an earlier mega pipeline project that has equally been criticised, he said:

“Before the oil and gas incomes came to Azerbaijan we had more democracy and freedom. The main income from oil came in 2005 when the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline started to operate. And from that time the situation started to deteriorate. We have problems with journalists being arrested, political prisoners, religious believers – if you criticise the government you can easily be interrogated and prosecuted under fabricated charges.”

In the face of challenges like these, the EBRD usually justifies its engagement by claiming it will have a positive „transition impact” by introducing social and environmental standards that are on par with international best practice. Yet, oil or gas infrastructure is rarely a guarantee of peace and security – rather on the contrary, as the example of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline vividly shows.

Read also

The Oil Road – How a done deal continues to unravel
Bankwatch Mail article | October 8, 2012

The Oil Road is a forensic analysis of how poor farmers, hundreds of communities and entire nations have been forced to make room for BP’s BTC pipeline and, more widely, western energy imperialism with its attendant financial support structures.

From the beginning the BTC project, financed by the EBRD and other public lenders, was touted as a world class model development project and BP, the project sponsor, agreed to standards set by the OECD and the US and UK government’s principles on human rights (pdf).

Yet criticising the BTC pipeline was not tolerated in the three countries involved – Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. While journalists were arrested in Azerbaijan, critics were intimidated, arrested and even tortured in Turkey, where villagers protecting their land were beaten and hospitalised by riot police.

In 2011, the UK government announced that the BTC Company had broken the commitments it had made to international human rights standards. Already in 2010, following a complaint to the U.S. government, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, another project investor, recommended (pdf) that BP needed more precautions to safeguard the pipeline and “to comply with the applicable environmental and social policies and guidelines of the lenders […] and with national law.”

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While billions are being poured into Azerbaijan’s fossil fuel sector, regime critics in the country can only expect repression at the hands of their own alleged representatives.

The European Union and its public lending institutions can apparently ignore this as long as they refer to a threadbare façade of “energy security”.

It is time to end this hypocrisy and to avoid mistakes that were made before by the same institutions and under the same premise.

Guest post: Plight of locals at Kumtor mine brought to Centerra Gold’s general meeting in Toronto


Centerra Gold’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) would have been just like any other conventions that the Canadian miner has had over the last twenty years but not this year, apparently.

On May 8, Canadian environmental grassroots and volunteer-run group Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN) representative Rachel Small took part in the shareholders meeting to raise uncomfortable questions regarding Centerra Gold’s unsettled environmental record and social impact in the Kyrgyz Republic.

Centerra is managing and operating the Kumtor project, one of the biggest gold mines in Central Asia. Since its launch in the 1990s this mining project has been dogged by allegations of corruption and bribery involving Kyrgyz state officials. Centerra has also been accused of violating a number of domestic environmental laws and the regional water accord.

MISN Facebook page states that at the meeting:

“Rachel spoke about studies pointing to excessive water contamination and explained to shareholders that those trying to expose the mine were being tortured. She warned that Centerra’s Kumtor mine could go the way of Pascua Lama, which is a similar mine build beside precious glaciers that was recently shut down mid-construction due to environmental violations. She offered shareholders a pamphlet based on information she had received about the mine, and so many shareholders wanted this information that she ran out of pamphlets! She was told that she was the first ever shareholder to even ask a question at one of Centerra’s AGM.”

See video footage of MISN member and Centerra shareholder Rachel Small raising these concerns and Centerra’s response during the AGM >>

One of the major concerns which was raised by MISN member at the AGM was related to the shocking human rights violations linked to the impact of the Kumtor mine operations on local communities near the project. In its pamphlet (pdf) distributed among Centerra shareholders, MISN highlighted reports of torture which have occurred in October 2013 after community activists staged a protest against the Centerra Gold managed project; specifically, MISN underlined a report which indicates that:

“The Kyrgyz government has largely ignored local grievances, prompting affected communities to stage acts of civil disobedience and encouraging widespread enmity towards Centerra Gold. In one episode, environmental activists from the village of Saruu quietly travelled to the guarded gold mine in July 2013 and documented the destruction of the Davidov glacier. Sweeping arrests followed during and after the protest in October 2013. Scores of community activists have been arrested and tortured by Kyrgyz law enforcement agencies. Despite the strides Kyrgyzstan has made on basic freedoms in Central Asia over the last two decades, the UN Human Rights Committee remains “concerned about widespread practice of torture and ill-treatment, in particular for the purpose of extracting confessions.” The Committee Against Torture meanwhile highlighted “the failure of Kyrgyzstan to investigate fully the many allegations of torture and ill-treatment.””.

Download the pamphlet as pdf >>


Villagers from Saruu filmed how Kumtor trucks are operating at the Davidov glacier in July 2013.

Indeed, the UN Human Rights Council Working Group’s report on Kyrgyz Republic in January 2015 has pointed out that “the use of torture and ill treatment was systematic, aiming at obtaining confessions or extorting money from victims … since the universal periodic review of 2010 complaints of torture increased” (Summary of stakeholders information).

54 more local activists have been forced to flee the country due to arrest warrants by the Kyrgyz authorities in the cases related to anti-Centerra protests. In two particular occasions which took place in February 2014, two dozen policemen raided homes of the wanted activists in the village of Saruu while inflicting physical injuries on elderly women in front of their grandchildren. The police raid in these houses resulted in broken windows and destroyed property. According to the victims, the Kyrgyz police never explained the legal grounds for its violent search. Such actions from the Kyrgyz government have only fuelled frustration and the negative view of Centerra Gold mining operations.

Rachel Small has also raised the question of Centerra Gold’s misconduct over transparency issues linked to the Kumtor mining effect on surrounding ecosystem. MISN referred to the fact that:

“Centerra Gold has consistently dismissed as untrue that operations at Kumtor have had negative implications for the glaciers. Nonetheless, local and international environmentalists have been ringing alarm bells over the glaciers’ melting ice sheet at Kumtor, as well as over Centerra’s withholding information related to the effects of mining operations on the Davydov and Lysyi glaciers.”

In one occasion, Centerra Gold’s contractor has even claimed in response to CEE Bankwatch and hydro-geologist Dr. Robert Moran’s findings that “climate change is a major cause of melting and retreat of glaciers around Kumtor,” citing relevant studies from the World Bank and other international organizations.

However, William Colgan, Ph.D., a researcher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) concluded that:

“[C]limate change is undoubtedly the main factor driving glacier retreat across the Tien Shan range, the Lysyi and Davydov glaciers are special cases because they are impacted by the Kumtor mine. These glaciers are not retreating due to accelerated surface melt alone, but also by increased ice removal at their termini. In the case of the land-terminating Lysyi and Davydov glaciers, this ice removal is a consequence of mining activities, as the ice overburden must be removed to access ore located beneath the glaciers. The perimeter of the Kumtor mine open ice pit appears to have been excavated up glacier at greater than 30 meters per year between 1998 and 2013. Over the same period, nearby land-terminating glaciers appear to have retreated at closer to 10 meters per year. Local mining activities are clearly a larger factor in the recent wastage of the Lysyi and Davydov glaciers than regional climate change.”


A Bankwatch video from 2012 takes an investigative look at the Kumtor gold mine in Kyrgyzstan.

Additionally, communities near the Kumtor mine are now facing a prospect of the toxic dam spill similar to Canada’s Mount Polley spill disaster which resulted in release of 24 million cubic meters of toxic tailing substances and waste water into the local river system in August 2014. The subject of concern over a spill scenario at the Kumtor mine’s tailing pond has also been raised (pdf) in the US Congress last year when Amanda E. Wooden, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Environmental Politics & Policy, Bucknell University) has stated in her testimony that:

“The Kumtor tailing pond is situated between Lake Petrov and the Kumtor River, a tributary of the Naryn River. The unlined tailing pit holds more than 34 million m3 of waste water and tailings from the cyanide leachate and other chemicals used to process gold at Kumtor and relies on underlying permafrost for continuous, permanent, impermeable containment. Therefore, changes in the permafrost underneath this extensive tailing pit at the headwaters to the Naryn river and breach threats to Lake Petrov above the tailing pond are concerns that should be monitored.”

Evidently, Centerra Gold executives weren’t expecting uncomfortable questions to be raised at their AGM but Centerra’s Stephen Lang has invited Rachel Small to discuss the concerns after the meeting.
You can see footage from the AGM made by MISN members at https://www.dropbox.com/s/px9g1owd81wb6jk/SAM_2261.AVI?dl=0

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About the author:

Ryskeldi Satke is a contributing writer with research institutions and news organisations in Central Asia, Turkey and the U.S.

Follow him on twitter @ryskeldisatke

Contact him via email at rsatke (at) gmail (dot) com.