Following the removal of a government
that environmentalists accuse of covering up a major cyanide spill, there are
renewed efforts to secure compensation.
People living near Lake Issykkul in
Kyrgyzstan have succeeded in drawing the new government’s attention to
their claims for compensation for a toxic spill near Central Asia’s largest
gold mine seven years ago. After they blocked a road leading to the mine, the government
swiftly dispatched a commission which promised to look at their demands.
Although the protesters’ demands
are longstanding, their action is part of a broader upsurge of public dissent
following the March revolution, which brought the present government to power.
They clearly hope the administration of President Kurmanbek Bakiev will be more
responsive than that of his predecessor Askar Akaev, which was closely involved
in developing the mine.
The protests began on July 18 with a
demonstration near a loading facility belonging to the Kumtor gold mine, which
was attended by hundreds of people from five villages in the Jetyoguz area on
the southern shores of Lake Issykkul. They say they have never received compensation
for health and ecological damaged caused when a truck carrying sodium cyanide -
used in the gold extraction process - crashed into the river Barskoon, which
flows into the lake.
“If they don’t satisfy our
demands, we will block the highway leading to the gold mine,” warned
Erkingul Imankojoeva, who heads a pressure group called Karek, set up in 1998
to pursue residents’ claims.
This warning was fulfilled on July 27
when around 300 people blocked the main road to the gold field, located high in
the mountains that ring the lake. Organisers say the blockade will continue
until an offer of compensation is forthcoming, with some 3,000 people taking part
in round-the-clock shifts.
As well as compensation for damages, they
want a committee to be set up to look into the impact the cyanide spill had on
human lives and the environment.
After the accident, some 5,000 residents
of the village of Barskoon were evacuated. But the compensation issue was
rapidly muddied by radically different accounts of the damage done by the
sodium cyanide leaking into the river.
Campaigners say four people died and over
2,500 were affected by poisoning to various extents, including at least 800 who
were taken to hospital.
According to Imankojoeva, in the years
since the tragedy, 343 people have died in Barskoon alone - an abnormally high
rate for a small population. She says that many of the 2,000 or more people
poisoned are now disabled, and are seeking damages of around 50,000 US dollars each.
The Akaev government, which had a
majority stake in the Kumtor mine with the Canadian company Cameco as its
foreign partner, rejected this claim and said no one died in the immediate
aftermath, and the leakage of cyanide was not substantial enough to harm the
environment.
Of the 20 tonnes of sodium cyanide, 1.8
tonnes were found to have seeped out of their packaging into the river.
A joint commission of Russian and
Canadian scientists found in late 1998 that irrigation water reaching the
villages of Barskoon and Tamga contained too low a toxic concentration to cause
health concerns; that of 16 people hospitalised in the 72 hours after the spill
“none.are likely to experience long-term health effects in the future”;
and that because cyanide is so fast-acting, “cases reported later have no
credible exposure pathway and cannot be directly related to the spill”.
The commission’s findings are also quoted in a report on the incident by
the Kumtor Operating Company, KOC, which runs the mine.
Local residents dispute these findings,
offering anecdotal evidence of health problems which they are convinced are
linked to the spillage.
Dogdurbek Atageldiev, who is in his
sixties and heads a local environmental group called Altyn Tamyr, recalls how
his health suffered after he watered his garden from an irrigation canal fed by
the Barskoon river, and was rushed by air ambulance to hospital in the capital
Bishkek.
“Our entire family fell ill because
we didn’t know the water was poisoned - we kept on watering the garden. I
was in hospital in Bishkek for a whole year. My skin peeled off like fish
scales,” he said.
Oktyabr Abdiev, 50, from the village of
Kichijargylchak, told IWPR that his daughter has had four miscarriages since
1998, and only had a baby this year thanks to efforts by Bishkek doctors.
Abdiev says his own sight deteriorated drastically after the accident.
Baktygul Imankojoeva, a gynaecologist who
has worked at a local hospital for more than a decade, said she had seen
convincing evidence of an upswing in medical problems. “After the
accident, the number of miscarriages in the villages increased, children began
to be born disabled and the [overall] mortality rate increased,” she
said. In the last seven years, 343 people have died with a diagnosis of
hydrocyanic acid poisoning in the village of Barskoon alone.”
Based on their concerns, local people
feel they have lost out on compensation they believe is due to them.
“We’re all sick. All the
people who come here diagnose us as healthy. They have been promising us compensation for seven years,”
said 73-year-old Soken Orozakunova.
After a Kyrgyz government commission -
separate from the international one - came up with a total figure for damages
of 4.6 million dollars, KOC - wholly-owned by Cameco - reached a settlement
with Kyrgyzstan, which was confirmed by the American Arbitration Association in
New York. Some of the sum - whose total amount is not clear - was earmarked for
direct compensation payments to people in the affected villages, and other
money went on construction projects to benefit the area.
KOC’s external relations manager
Tynara Shayildaeva said that as far as the company was concerned, it had met
all its obligations. “In
1998 all the victims demanded certain sums and our company paid everything,”
she said. “We also complied with all the demands made by the Kyrgyz
government at that time.
“The total compensation sum came to
94 million soms [worth 300 000 dollars at the time]. We don’t claim that
all of that money was used to pay compensation to the people affected. This sum
was arrived at after extensive calculations, and many lawyers worked on it. We
don’t know if that money reached everyone.”
Kalia Moldogazieva, head of the
non-government group Tree of Life, said, “As far as we’re aware
adults received 1,000 soms [25 dollars] each, and children 500 soms each. But
this money was not designated as compensation; the gold mining company talked
of ‘humanitarian aid’.”
The lack of transparency within the Akaev
regime has been a major obstacle to establishing the truth. All the funds that
KOC agreed to make available were funnelled through Kyrgyz state institutions,
and one village administration member who asked not to be named said the government
of the time misrepresented the nature of these payments, “The so-called
compensation handed out by the government was in fact simply one-off
humanitarian aid from KOC. But the government and the local authorities
presented it as compensation for moral and material damages.”
As a result, says the Karek group’s
Erkingul Imankojoeva, it is hard to ascertain what the government did with the
money it received from KOC.
“KOC does not want to hear about
compensation - they say they’ve already paid everything to the state. The
state in turn cites compensation payments made in 1998,” she said.
The year after the accident, there were
protests in which residents accused local government officials of embezzling
the compensation money.
“This matter really isn’t
closed,” said Moldogazieva. “There have been reports issued which
cite total figures. But who received the money, at what time, and for what
purpose is not set out anywhere.”
Kyrgyzstan’s ecology minister in
1998, Kulubek Bokonbaev, told IWPR that a lot of compensation was made available,
although he was uncertain whether it was all actually paid out.
“Kumtor allocated millions to
compensate the victims for damages. Many years have now gone by, and I don’t
remember the exact sum anymore. I do remember, though, that all the ministers
and governors worked on it in a very thorough manner,” he said.
“But I don’t know whether
this money reached people. People are now saying that they didn’t receive
anything.”
At the time of the accident, the mine
project was owned 30 per cent by KOC and 70 per cent by Kyrgyzaltyn, the state
agency in charge of precious metals extraction. Last year, the ownership
structure changed with the creation of a Canada-based company called Centerra.
KOC became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the new firm, in which Cameco and the
Kyrgyz government have substantial shares. According to its website, Centerra
owns 100 per cent of the Kumtor mine.
KOC was initially reluctant to comment on
the latest protests when approached by IWPR, but its public relations manager
Tynara Shayildaeva said, “All this sensationalism is hindering our work.”
She went on to reject claims for
compensation that have been made subsequent to KOC’s 1998 settlement with
the Kyrgyz government, “We believe that the demands for compensation payments
are unlawful, because seven years have already gone by. All claims need to be presented
to the former [Kyrgyzstan government] authorities.”
Former ecology minister Bokonbaev went
for a swim in Lake Issykkul after the spill and drank the water - and he still
insists that the government did the right thing at the time, and that the
claims subsequently made against it were exaggerated.
“I think that the decisions made in
1998 were objective ones,” he told IWPR. “I very much doubt that
over 300 people died from cyanide poisoning. No one died at the time - that was
the finding of the independent international experts.. Why is the Kyrgyz health
ministry staying silent? They should determine how these people died. Maybe they
died natural deaths - after all, we’re talking about 300 people in five
villages, spread over seven years.”
Ever since the spill, campaigners and
pressure groups have consistently claimed that the Akaev government engaged in
a cover-up, massaging the figures to downplay the damage. Identifying and punishing
those officials found responsible for concealing the scale of the damage is one
of the protesters’ key demands.
“For seven years, officials concealed
the fact that people really had been poisoned by cyanide, doctors gave [false]
diagnoses and they falsified the documents,” said Tolekan Ismailova, a
human rights activist who leads the Citizens Against Corruption group. “But
people still have medical certificates saying they were poisoned. We’ve
seen people who were once healthy and worked as tractor drivers or shepherds,
but now walk on crutches.”
Moldogazieva says the government failed
to address the need for longer monitoring of the area, “The international
committee set up in 1998 recommended monitoring the effects of the cyanide in
the accident area for the following five years, but the Kyrgyz government did
not implement this demand.”
Local residents claim that as well as the
impact on health, the spillage was followed by a substantial deterioration in
their agriculture-based economy, and that fruit harvests were all but destroyed
that year and the following one.
“We were left with virtually no
harvest and no livestock - no one bought our apricots, and those animals which
we were unable to treat died,” said one resident. “I’m
comforted by the fact that the state has promised aid, but it has been
promising this for seven years now.”
Another resident, who is a specialist in
agricultural technology, said, “Not only is the livestock dying, but
seven years on, the fruit trees are drying up by the dozen, although we are
watering them as much as ever. The experts used to tell us that we’d have
to wait for the real results of the accident in 10 years time. And this is only
seven years on. We can only wait and hope.”
KOC rejects the claimants’ demand
for a fresh round of compensation, and says the whole premise of their argument
- that the spill incident could have resulted in continuing damage to human
health and the soil - is wrong.
“Long-term compensation was not
envisaged, because people did not demand it at the time. Seven years on, they
are presenting totally different claims,” said Shayildaeva. “Concerning
the [argument] that they have been poisoned by cyanide all these years through
food and drinking water, I can say that this contradicts the science of chemistry.
Cyanide acts immediately, then it stays in the body and that’s all - it
doesn’t poison the human organism over many years. In such circumstances,
one can’t talk about long-term compensation.”
The latest demonstrations take place in a
changed political environment, which may have encouraged people to join them
and might improve their chances of being listened to.
The mass political protests which
culminated in the March revolution have been followed by a whole spate of
smaller ones, often about very localised concerns, as people realised how
powerful an instrument demonstrations could be.
Barskoon resident Kanybek Kelginbaev
believes the whole point of the March protests which brought about regime
change was to establish justice. “How many years have we been lied to and
fed with promises?” he said.
The governor of Jetyoguz district, Zamir
Turdukeev, is himself a product of the revolution since he was appointed by the
Bakiev government. He was cautiously supportive of the protesters’ aims, saying,
“It would be good if everything was resolved appropriately and within the
framework of the law.”
Shayildaeva believes the revival of the
compensation issue has a lot to do with the new political climate, saying, “Everyone
knows that the issue has assumed a political aspect. Everyone kept silent for
seven years, and all of sudden they started raising a hoo-ha. It’s been advantageous
for certain organisations to show themselves off as politically active during
this period.”
On August 2, the protesters were waiting
for a government delegation and warning that if it did not arrive within 24
hours they would march on the gold mine.
But in a sign the government was prepared
to be more flexible than its predecessor in listening to concerns voiced by the
public, Felix Kulov, who is acting first deputy prime minister, ordered a
government commission to be set up to look into the villagers’ claims and
to restore stability to Jetyoguz in light of the demonstrations and road blockages.
The commission, headed by deputy prime
minister Medetbek Kerimkulov, travelled from Bishkek on August 3 to visit the
scene of the protests. After
talks, the protesters ended their blockade of the road when the commission
agreed to review their demands within one month, and would conduct medical
checks on people who say they have health problems.
According to the Kabar news agency, the
issue of compensation by the KOC will be decided during this time as well.
KOC’s president Andrew Lewis said
the company would abide by any decisions taken by the government commission. He
promised to address one of the protesters’ demands - that more of the
mine staff should be hired locally - and also to look at other issues raised,
such as buying foodstuffs locally rather than shipping them from Canada, and opening
a medical centre.
Aida Kasymalieva is a correspondent for
Radio Azattyk, the Kyrgyz service of RFE/RL. Azamat Kachiev is an IWPR trainee journalist in Kyrgyzstan.