No public money for new oil - UK taxpayers fund destruction and fuel future conflict

Around one-hundred campaigners today built a 150m pipeline in the City of London, in protest against plans to use UK tax-payers' money to help fund a highly controversial 1,750km oil pipeline through Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The pipeline will cause huge social and environmental disruption and will fuel conflict in an unstable area. The Baku-Ceyhan Campaign, which includes Friends of the Earth, the Kurdish Human Rights Project, the Corner House and PLATFORM, opposes the proposal.

The pipeline was painted with slogans opposing the project (such as 'No Public Money for New Oil') in English, Kurdish and Georgian and was accompanied by Kurdish dancers and a belly dancer.

The protest targeted the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which is partly funded by UK taxpayers, and which plans to help fund the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, despite its remit to promote sustainable development. It also targeted British oil giant BP, which leads the consortium promoting the pipeline. A simultaneous protest will take place in Tblesi, Georgia.

A recent fact-finding mission to Turkey has recorded widespread human rights abuses of people who oppose the pipeline proposal. Members of the mission were trailed throughout and prevented from meeting with local people [1].

The EBRD and International Finance Corporation of the World Bank (IFC) is holding a consultation on funding for the pipeline, which will carry oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.

The Baku-Ceyhan Campaign objects to the proposal because the pipeline will:

• Make climate change worse. The pipeline will transport oil which, when burnt, will be equivalent to thirty per cent of the UK's yearly carbon dioxide emissions.
  
• Create local pollution. Oil spills are inevitable. The pipeline runs through areas prone to erosion and earthquakes.
• Damage unique and sensitive natural habitats, including Georgia's primeval beech forest, and threaten the hugely important Borjomi mineral water aquifer
• Increase tensions in a turbulent region. Eastern Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia have all experienced recent conflicts. The pipeline will require substantial security, and will be a prime target for terrorist attack.
• Increase human rights abuses and repression. An area the pipeline would cross in Turkey has been devastated by a 15 year conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish guerrillas which has left 3 million people displced and villages and hamlets destroyed. Turkey has been widely condemned for human rights abuses.
• Distort the economies of the three nations due to an over reliance on oil and increase in corruption.