31 July 2000
What's the fighting in Chechnya really about? If the subject comes up most people say, "Because of the oil." Opinion polls show this view is widely held. For the last ten years, with a majestic indifference, the Chechnya pipeline and the country's oil wells have ruined and remade a hundred thousand human lives. He who controls an oil well dictates the rules. Dudayev gave those who fought on his side their own oil well. Those loyal to Maskhadov also received oil wells. And what about those who have just been fighting now?
The tradition is being faithfully observed. The winners get their share of the spoils: the oil wells and those desirable leaks in the pipeline. The most important Chechen "cake" is rapidly being shared out. And the victors, the federal forces, are supervising the process and keeping order.
The Field of Miracles62
It appears no more than the modest entrance to a local collective farm on the far outskirts of Argun. An unimportant road leading across the fields. In the distance a tractor distracts curious eyes. There is even a man gathering something out in the fields.
Now we see what could well be the gatekeeper at a collective farm. He raises and lowers a rope hung with red bunting. Parked next to his miserable hut is an ordinary Zhiguli. Nothing unusual, except that the car is full and four pairs of attentive eyes follow our vehicle as it passes. We shall soon find out who's here and what they're up to.
Actually, we already know where we're going. The road that once led between old pear trees to a farm takes us straight to the local "gold-field". After a rough ride of two kilometres we arrive at the Argun field of miracles. The Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline has been dug out of the earth and sprouts illegal offshoots in every direction. Day and night the oil gushes from holes of various calibres. It pours into natural settling tanks, pits dug in the earth to a varying width and undefined depth. In the local slang they are "barns". It is there that the gas is removed and the primary refining of the stolen oil takes place.
Standing here you can observe the evolution of the entire process. Over there are the old "barns", which are now dry and recovering. Further away are the newly dug and still empty "barns". It looks as though someone has been moving earth and several days must pass before the ground settles again. Then the "barns" will be brought into use.
The main "barns", though, are full. The oil there has a bright green tinge. This means it is ready and at any moment the oil tanker will come to load up. We are not fated to witness that moment, however. Our "farm" gatekeeper has only allotted ten minutes for our tour. The quiet of this remote spot, which shrouds the mysterious pits, is broken by helicopters. They circle above the exposed pipeline and our experienced guides advise us to end our provocative visit and leave now. The helicopter won't ask why we're examining this oil "hideaway"; it will simply open fire. There's too much money at stake to bother asking questions: it's easier to kill us.
That's not the end, though. A few hundred metres away we encounter the local minders. They are Chechen "policemen", disbanded followers of Beslan Gantamirov, who drive a white jeep without number plates but, of course, carry automatic weapons. The doors of the jeep are already open and they're about to fire. The Zhiguli had gone to call the police.
Thank God, a miracle happens. Probably it's just too hot for everyone. The policemen let us go and we speed past the gatekeeper, who looks after us in amazement: why are they still alive?
Such fields of miracles can now be found all over oil-rich Chechnya. The history of oil in the country today is above all a story of theft. The summer of 2000 is no exception and by now everything is back to normal. The pipeline illegally pumps out as much as you have the energy to cart away: this kind of illicit oil extraction and processing is well organised. Yet the most desired object is an oil well. The main battles rage around the wells. Perhaps that's why they didn't kill us for touring the Argun collective farm: it's very insignificant (by Chechen standards, of course) and only for the impoverished.
What is the Chechnya Fuel and Energy Complex?
Officially it is made up of nine branches, all of which are nationalised and belong to the republic:
1 Oil and gas extraction
2 Oil-processing
3 Oil by-products
4 Oil transport
5 The gas sector
6 The energy sector
7 Ecological technology
8 Solid fuels
9 The oil and gas research institute.
However, none of the above is working today. Or, to be more exact, they are not working to the benefit of the public purse. The entire complex is now illegally owned and operated. Oil is still being transported, but the pipeline is in the hands of a variety of criminal groups and their interests are protected by the Chechen police together with the federal forces. Those entrusted to guard the parts of the complex that are not working get rich by pillaging them and selling the parts off at fantastic rates. Although all the oil-refining plants are half ruined, the dismantling of the remaining equipment continues.
The usual pattern is as follows. At night when the curfew is supposedly in force and army posts should fire without warning at any moving object or vehicle, trucks loaded with the dismantled equipment and bearing Chechen number plates drive to North Ossetia and the Stavropol Region. Usually the columns carrying stolen State property are protected by a convoy of contract soldiers from the federal side. As is well known, they couldn't care less what they sell so long as there's a profit. This teamwork is believed to be very well established already.
This combination of federal forces and Chechen thieves not only scares off those in the Chechnya administration who answer for the fuel and energy complex, it also deters soldiers from other military agencies. The companies of the Grozny military commandant, for instance, are responsible for protecting the enterprises on the territory under their control, but they are scared of being caught in someone else's gunfight (something that has happened many times already).
Naturally, the official Chechen authorities have not just looked on gloomily all this time as the plunder flourished and grew. They tried to get the economy working again and make it function within the framework of the law. In November 1999 when the military were more or less firmly entrenched in Chechnya, but the fighting for Grozny continued, the Provisional Directorate for the Oil-Extracting Complex was set up. On 25 May, with Koshman installed as the main Chechen administrator from Moscow, the directorate was transformed into a State-run body, Grozneft. It encompassed 26 plants and 776 oil wells. There were attempts to bring all these enterprises under its control. They were unsuccessful. The local military commanders did not support Grozneft and, therefore, they did not support State policy towards the Chechnya fuel and energy complex.
Today the officially appointed head of Grozneft is Andrei Gusak. Yet he controls absolutely nothing and, since the end of May when he was appointed, he has not once visited Chechnya. He stubbornly refuses even to come to Gudermes to formally take charge of his assignment. Gusak is linked to Zia Bazhaev, the Moscow-Chechen businessman who died in a plane crash this spring, and also to another well-known Chechen figure, Salambek Khadjiev.63 As the generals, among others, bluntly explained to Gusak, if he appears in Chechnya he should fear for his life. After battling tooth and nail, no one is going to surrender their gains without a fight.
The Flaming Torches of Tsatsan-Yurt
All the oil wells in Chechnya are today controlled by someone else, even though on paper they belong to Gusak. Depending on their real owners the wells are of two types: those that burn and those that work normally. Certain wells suddenly catch fire, at others the fire is put out, while others keep working steadily. In the last case, it's quite clear what's going on. If nothing happens then the owner is a respected wealthy man who can afford his own security forces and no one disputes his right to the property. The rest are daily the focus of an uncompromising struggle, in which firearms come into play.
If you travel south-east from Gudermes towards the Kurchaloi district, where Ahmad Kadyrov, the present head of Chechnya, comes from, you immediately understand where the capital of the local illegal oil market is. There is not a road in Chechnya where you cannot buy home-refined petrol, but in this district the oil tankers and stalls stand at every road junction and before each home.
We are driving along a concrete road towards a roaring torch. This is oil well No 7 (its official name) outside the village of Tsatsan-Yurt. For two months now it has been casting its evil orange-yellow flame into the atmosphere day and night. The nearer you get to No 7, the more people there are at the roadside selling petrol and paraffin. They are also to be seen in Kurchaloi, the district centre, and in Novaya Zhizn, a settlement in the foothills of the mountains, and the market is flooded with petrochemical products in quantities that greatly exceed the local demand.
Finally a heavy rumble grows ever nearer, comparable in intensity to the roar of a jet engine. Any normal person would see that you couldn't live next to this elemental force. However, the houses around are filled with adults and children. They are poor families and have nowhere else to go, even for a short while.
The burning oil wells are the fiefdoms of those bands that are not fully in control of their acquisition. When it becomes clear to the owner that he is not strong enough – usually his security guards are too few – then he sets the well on fire (not with his own hand, of course) in order to deter any others from pressing their claims. No one worries about the people who live next door to the well or the children growing up there.
Usually it is the federal forces that start the blaze. The villagers who live next to these flaming torches are convinced that they are encouraged to do this, or simply ordered to do so, by Chechen criminals. After the job has been done, the clients drill a new well a mere 100 metres away and set up their own "field of miracles" there. If the fire service come and begin to put out the blaze the locals take it as a sign that a new owner has appeared. He has either beaten or bought out those who were muscling in, and has even been able to order the fire to be extinguished – which costs ten times more than starting it.
Some statistics. In November-December, when there was fierce fighting, only three oil wells were burning in Chechnya. When the fighting moved up into the hills and the time to share out the booty had come, there were 11 such fires. Later still, there were 18. By spring the total had reached 34. Now it's only 22, but during the last few weeks the numbers have again been increasing. Every day these burning wells emit up to 6,000 tonnes of oil into the atmosphere, to a total value of $1 million. How many tens and perhaps hundreds of millions must be accumulating in those criminal coffers, if they don't mind losing a million, treating it like so much small change?
The super-profits made by the illegal Chechen oil market are also indicated by the fields of burnt fuel oil that surround all the wells and by the "samovars" (mini oil refineries). After the petrol has been siphoned off, as we all know, there remains the fuel oil, one tonne of which is worth 3,000 roubles. But no one in Chechnya has any interest in fuel oil and so it is either poured on the ground or burned – they don't mess around with it. Naturally, these thieves have no thought for the ecological damage they're doing, that's not their style.
The road from oil well No 7 is crowded with "samovars", small mini-refineries that, like a distilling apparatus, consist of two cisterns, with a burner under one and several small tubes. From time to time the military raid these tilting structures outside the village houses. They blow them up, shoot holes in them and wreck them. Impressive reports are sent back to the General Staff about operations to curb the illegal oil business in Chechnya. The generals applaud. The power ministries announce to the public their latest success in the battle against "international terrorism".
In reality it's not like that. The federal forces do not touch the oil wells, the source of the bandits' lawless rule. They stubbornly fight against the consequences and just as persistently leave the cause in place. Perhaps they have their own interest? Are some among them taking a share? You must agree that if this were not the case and the military were ordered to set up posts next to all of the oil wells and to only give Grozneft employees access, then . . .
The special oil interests of those in uniform are also indicated by the lack of fighting around the wells. There are no destroyed buildings here. Each side has protected these settlements, both the feds and the Chechen fighters. The federal forces would come here for "cleansing operations" only when there is popular indignation at the barbarity of these criminal groups.
For instance, in Tsatsan-Yurt the leader of the village is considered to be Ali Abuyev, former head of the local administration. During the last "cleansing" operation the federal forces took him away. Before his arrest, the men of the village, under Ali's direction, capped the accursed No 7 with an oil tank sawn in half. Ali is not a Wahhabite or a Chechen fighter; he is neither for Kadyrov nor for Koshman. He was his own man and was defending the right of his village to a normal life. A brave and decent person.
But listen to what the Chechnya police colonels have to say about him! He was a very devil from the Wahhabite hell, and a friend of Khattab, they tell you. So he will stay in prison for as long as the war continues. When you ask for evidence, they reply: "We had special reports from our agents." In other words, anonymous denunciations by scoundrels who want to reduce Ali's efforts to naught. And that was how things turned out. Ali was arrested, the well was set on fire, the land around was dug up for "barns", and "samovars" appeared. Life in Tsatsan-Yurt was brought under the bandits' control.
Finally, we reach the last link in the illegal Chechen fuel and energy complex. As you leave Tsatsan-Yurt, you find that the famous oil market has resumed its work outside the eloquently named Islam Café, just as before the war began. This is a transit point. Oil and petrochemical products are brought here and sold to wholesale dealers – right under the nose of the nearby military post.
Who is Getting Rich?
One of the newly appointed Chechen officials (he asked me not to mention his name) comments: "Every night thousands of tonnes of oil and petrochemicals are illegally transported out of Chechnya – and we can't afford to buy paperclips." Chechnya today is one constant and bloody battle for control over oil wells and illegal refineries, but the republic itself does not benefit one jot from all this. It has the resources neither to restore its industry nor to build houses for the homeless. Its oil is helping all kinds of people, but not Chechnya itself.
The crisis is intensified because not only has the economic chaos in the republic been artificially created, it is also energetically supported from Moscow. There is still not a single functioning bank here. Not one solitary legal source of finance. All the oil money is either stuffed under the bed or kept outside Chechnya. Even the attempts to organise a financial system are frustrated by the frank sabotage of high officials in the federal government. Moscow benefits not only from the lack of banks in Chechnya but also from the absence of tax authorities, courts and a civilian prosecutor's office. The super-profits from the oil business must keep flowing in the right direction, and no State cordon can be allowed that might impede the funds or divert them to the Treasury.
It is quite clear that everything I describe could continue only if two conditions were met. One, people running these deals must have protection. (The federal forces provide that.) Two, the bodies officially appointed to run the Chechnya oil complex must be unable to work. (Also achieved.)
So if someone assures you that the lawlessness in the oil sector is entirely due to the temporary inconveniences caused by a change in regime, don't believe them. The real problem lies in sabotage and a chaos that is directed from above. Thousands of lives have already been sacrificed so that the only things that change along the pipeline are the faces of the owners. Many lives have yet to be sacrificed on the altar of the oil revolution in Chechnya. How many? The answer can be measured in millions of dollars.
CHECHNYA