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For many years, in the Kazakh village of Sarykamys, people would sleep in bed and never wake up again. This is not the peaceful end of longevity, but the abrupt end that shocks young people as young as 25. Locals call it the “death of shift workers.”
Many of the victims worked in the Tengiz oil field, which was developed near villages along the coast of the Caspian Sea. Environmentalists have linked sudden death to the release of toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide caused by drilling.
Since the development of the oil field, 5.5% of the population of Sarykamys died in 1993. This may be due to the pollution caused by oil field operations. By the early 2000s, doctors said that 90% of the population of the village had the disease. However, official statistics underestimate the number of deaths due to drilling and only count the number of deaths at work.
In the end, all the people in the village were forced to relocate, and it was reported that many residents did not receive proper compensation. Although the oil field is conceived as a development project supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), it is devastating for people living near the oil field. It also embodies a flawed development model. Organizations such as the European Union and private institutions continue to implement this model in many parts of Eurasia.
Our recent study of the 30 largest extractive companies in Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan found that at least 11 have received investment from Western European financial institutions, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. All receiving companies face allegations of human rights violations and poor access to information.
Some allegations are particularly serious, such as the allegations surrounding the Teghout tailings dam in Armenia. The dam is in danger of collapsing and may lead to a disaster similar to the Brumadinho disaster in Brazil. In this disaster, 270 people were killed and the entire village was buried due to industrial waste caused by the dam’s rupture.
Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil company KazMunayGas also has a project funded by Western European institutions. The company is related to a network of abuses of power, including corruption, murder of human rights defenders, torture, mass poisoning of children, and environmental damage.
In Georgia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan, we found many projects worthy of attention and received complaints from local activists, NGOs, and journalists about the abuse of extractive projects. They tell us that human rights are often sacrificed in the name of development. Many such projects have repeatedly violated the rights of drinking water, breathing air and local community life.
In these countries, EU funds can be used without responsibility and will not be linked to EU values. this is a problem. Development is and must be to improve people’s lives and focus on how people living near these project sites are affected. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and similar institutions must begin to be accountable to themselves and commit to complying with the due diligence requirements of the Aarhus Convention signed in 1998 to protect environmental rights. They must act quickly on complaints of abuse of power.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, backed by the European Union, should be particularly condemned because it has invested in at least the eight extractive companies we surveyed. Its support for a project, the Amulsar gold mine operated by Lydian in Armenia, has attracted real attention.
The project plans and seeks to use cyanide to leach gold concentrate, but as a 2018 study found, 85.7% of respondents from communities near the mine reported that they had health conditions due to their work at or near the site Bad. Residents report asthma attacks, lung diseases and headaches.
The community believes that the company operating the mine has ignored this. Residents were assaulted and beaten by police and Lydian security personnel for shouting loudly. In 2020, after receiving international condemnation, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development finally made concessions and announced that it would terminate its investment in Amulsar.
Although the decision of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is welcomed, there are more projects funded by European investors, which can cause tension and damage the environment, especially outside the EU. This fundamentally undermines the EU’s self-positioning as a socially responsible entity that values ​​human rights, including in its commercial activities.
European investors, including the European Union, continue to have important influence over companies operating on the eastern border of the European Union and elsewhere, placing them in a unique position to prevent and resolve human rights violations. They can and must do better by following due diligence requirements and ensuring that opportunities for abuse are minimized from the start.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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