Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 16 – The Komi, one
of the Russian Federation’s numerically small nations of the north, are demanding
that that country’s oil giant, Lukoil, stop its destructive exploitation of oil
reserves in the Izhemsk district of their republic – and, what may be even more
significant, local officials are supporting the people rather than the
corporation.
In a case of life imitating art –
their moves recall Edward Topol’s “Red Snow,” a 1997 Russian émigré novel about
a northern nationality challenging Soviet power – the Komi, whose nation
numbers fewer than 300,000, 150 Komi
held a meeting two weeks ago to protest Lukoil’s numerous violations of the law
in its new development work in the republic.
In addition to outraged local
citizens, the Bellona environmental defense organization reports, there were representatives
of local and all-Russian environmental groups and the head of the local
Izhemsky district of the Komi Republic.
Lukoil representatives were invited but did not show up (bellona.ru/articles_ru/articles_2014/komi_lukoil).
The Komi meeting came in response to
Lukoil’s launch of additional construction without getting the necessary
government approvals. According to
Bellona, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back of local patience, with
participants in the session complaining about the disappearance of clean water
and much of the wild foods on which they rely.
This session, Bellona continued, was
very different from “dozens even hundreds of such meetings in various regions”
of the Russian Federation. It was calm
and people did not demand financial compensation alone. Instead, they pressed
for the protection of their right as a people to a clean environment.
The main thrust of this meeting can
be summarized in the following way: “For 16 years, you [in Lukoil] have earned
billions of rubles” and we the people have received nothing except a polluted
swamp. “We the indigenous residents aren’t
going to leave. Here are grandfathers and great-grandfathers lived, here are
the graves of our fathers and grandmothers.”
“What trace will we leave after ourselves,”
the speakers asked. If things with Lukoil go on as they are, that legacy will
be a destroyed environment, sick children, and increasingly widespread
alcoholism. “For this barbaric attitude to mother nature, we are already
paying.” Those making a profit have come and will leave, but we the Komi will
be left.
The district government took up the
appeal of the Komis on April 11, and many of the local residents feared that
their representatives would buckle under pressure from Lukoil. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the district
government voted unanimously to support the call of the Komi meeting to stop
Lukoil’s work, to bring those who had violated the law to justice, and to hold
public hearings on what should be done next.
The district government also created
a special commission to consider the complaints of the Komis about Lukoil’s
violations of the law and proposed including representatives of environmental
groups as well as residents and demanded that the commission have unrestricted
access to Lukoil properties.
Nikolay Rochev, a deputy of the
Izhemsk District Council said that “this is a political decision,” one that
reflects not just the views of the population but that of “a representative
organ of power, and means that Lukoil must stop. The company can certainly appeal, but he said
that the local government could withdraw its licensing allowing Lukoil to
operate.
He said that the company must stop “acting
like colonizers and treating us like Papuans. Here is where an indigenous
people lives. We expect that that the
company will work with us as partners with equal rights.”
This past Sunday, representatives of
the 16 population points which had taken part in the earlier meeting met with
ten Lukoil representatives. The meeting
lasted three hours, and the oilmen promised that everything would be put
right. But the Komis are not sure of
that and adopted unanimously another decision, 172 to 0.
It declared that “we, the
Komi-Izhemtsy, are the indigenous people, and this is our land. We no longer
want to put up with the thieving exploitation of our natural wealth and the
ecological irresponsibility of Lukoil.
We must be partners with equal rights in the carrying out of any
projects on our lands.”
According to Bellona, “Lukoil and [the
Komi] understand their dispute goes far beyond the borders of a single administrative
district.” The company will try to
reverse the decision of the local authorities “at any price,” and it may
succeed in the short term. But what the Komis have done will certainly
stimulate others to follow – and that could change the relationship between
corporate power and the rights of the people across the Russian Federation.
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