Despite their seeming unanimity of purpose, Unocal was in a more dependent position than the U.S. government. The pipeline depended on the recognition of the Taliban regime, while for the Clinton administration, recognition was contingent upon proof that the Taliban could end the civil war, but that looked less and less likely.
On May 13, 1997, Rabbani became the head of a new government in the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif, the only major town that didn’t fall to the Taliban. (Eight months earlier, Rabbani, Dostum and Karim Khalili, leader of Hizb-i-Wahdat (Unity Party), hadformed the anti-Taliban Council for the Defense of Afghanistan.)
The Taliban responded by trying again to take the city, aided this time by Dostum’s second-in-command. As Human Rights Watch reported:
“Gen. Malik Pahlawan… apparently believed he had struck a deal to share power with the Taliban and ousted Dostum in a coup. When the Taliban reneged on the agreement and began disarming local forces, resistance broke out first in Hazara neighborhoods, and the Taliban found themselves trapped in a city that had turned murderous on them. Hundreds of Taliban were attacked in the streets and killed, and at least 2,000 taken prisoner, only to be summarily executed and their bodies dumped in wells or taken to remote desert sites and left lying in the open. Most analysts appear to agree that General Malik was responsible for many of the summary executions of the Taliban prisoners. However, a large number of Taliban forces were reportedly gunned down in the streets by the Hazara Hizb-i Wahdat. Malik fled to Iran, and Dostum returned. Driven back after a subsequent attack on Mazar in September 1997, retreating Taliban troops who may have included Balkh Pashtuns massacred Hazara civilians in Qizalabad, south of the city on the road to Herat.17
The May 1997 uprising convinced Clinton that he should also support geopolitically safer Caspian Sea pipeline routes to hedge his bets. One route, to be built by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), would run west from the Northern Caspian to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossijsk. From there, oil would be transported by tanker through the Bosphorus to the Mediterranean and the world markets.
Another pipeline would run westward from the oil-rich Azerbaijani port capital of Baku through Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.18 Even though Unocal is part of the $8 billion, 11-member Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) consortium, it doesn’t believe that these two routes would have enough capacity.
During U.S. Congressional testimony, Maresca said that a direct route south through Afghanistan, despite the political difficulties, would be easier and cheaper to build, and provide access to higher-value markets than the
17. “Background,” Afghanistan: The Massacre in Mazar-i-Sharif, Human Rights Watch, November 1998, Vol. 10, No. 7 (C), <www.hrw.org/reports98/afghan/Afrepor0- 02.htm#P98_20660>.
18. In August 1996, President Bill Clinton became personally involved with Amoco (American Oil Company) and other U.S. oil companies in this project. (See Dan Morgan and David B. Ottaway, “Azerbaijan’s Riches Alter the Chessboard” (first of three articles), Washington Post Oct. 4, 1998, Page A1. However, for Clinton to make this gesture, Section 907 of the 1992
Freedom Support Act had to be repealed. Government-to-government dealings with Azerbaijan
had been banned because of its blockade of its internal Armenian enclave Nagorno-Karabakh. Because of intense lobbying by past and present politicians on behalf of Azerbaijan, the section was repealed. See Christopher Hitchens, “Greasing the Wheels,” salon.com, Sept. 29, 1997, <archive.salon.com/sept97/columnists/hitchens970929.html>.
10. The Taliban and “petropolitics”
193other routes could.19 Because it represented a higher economic advantage to Unocal, the project was effectively in commercial competition with other pipeline routes. Also, the only other route, through Iran, was prohibited.
Therefore, on July 23, 1997, despite the civil unrest, officials from Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Unocal and Delta Oil (a Saudi company) signed an agreement to build the pipeline and form a consortium by October.20 CentGas (The Central Asia Gas Consortium) was formed at a signing ceremony in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat on Oct. 27, 1997.21 Construction was planned to begin by December 1998 and be completed by 2001. Unocal also proposed building a 1,000-mile, $2.5 billion oil pipeline with a capacity of 1 million barrels per day.
Eight days after the ceremony, the head of Bridas’ Afghan operations Sebastian Otero Asp announced that an agreement with the Taliban to build a pipeline was close, civil unrest notwithstanding. Soon afterwards, Unocal Vice-President Martin Miller waxed pessimistic: “It’s uncertain when this project will start. It depends on peace in Afghanistan and a government we can work with. That may be the end of this year, next year or three years from now, or this may be a dry hole if the fighting continues.”22
In December 1997, Unocal lobbyist Sen. Hank Brown glad-handed with Taliban ministers and invited three of them for several days of industry- government talks in Washington D.C., and at the company’s headquarters in Sugarland, southwest of Houston. Although the British press covered the event—The Daily Telegraph and the BBC—a search of the New York Times and
Washington Post on-line archives turned up no mention of it. In this excerpt
from the Telegraph, the convivial relationship between Unocal and the regime is unmistakable:
The Taliban ministers and their advisers stayed in a five-star hotel and were chauffeured in a company minibus. Their only requests were to visit Houston’s zoo, the NASA space center and Omaha’s Super Target discount store to buy stockings, toothpaste, combs and soap. The
19. John J. Maresca speaking before the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of the
Committee on International Relations House of Representatives on U.S. interests in the Central Asian Republics 105th Congress, Second Session, Washington D.C., Feb. 12, 1998,
<www.house.gov/international_relations/105th/ap/wsap212982.htm>. 20. International Energy Annual, 1997, <www.eia.doe.gov/iea/chron97.html>.
21. Unocal’s share of CentGas was 46.5 percent; Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia had 15 percent; Government of Turkmenistan, 7 percent; Indonesia Petroleum, Ltd. (INPEX, Japan), 6.5 percent; ITOCHU Oil Exploration Co., Ltd. (CIECO) (Japan), 6.5 percent; Hyundai
Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd. (Korea), 5 percent; and The Crescent Group (Pakistan), 3.5 percent. RAO Gazprom (Russia) indicated an interest in a 10 percent share. Unocal would later merge with Phillips 66 of Tulsa, Okla., which would announce a merger with Conoco on Nov. 19, 2001. The new entity, ConocoPhillips, would become the third-largest integrated U.S. energy company based on market capitalization and oil and gas reserves and production; the sixth-largest energy company based on hydrocarbon reserves; and the fifth-largest global refiner.
Taliban, who control two-thirds of Afghanistan and are still fighting for the last third, were also given an insight into how the other half lives. The men, who are accustomed to life without heating, electricity or running water, were amazed by the luxurious homes of Texan oil barons. Invited to dinner at the palatial home of Martin Miller… they marvelled at his swimming pool, views of the golf course and six bathrooms. After a meal of specially prepared halal meat, rice and Coca-Cola, the hard-line fundamentalists—who have banned women from working and girls from going to school—asked Mr. Miller about his Christmas tree.
‘They were interested to know what it was for and what the star was,’ said Mr. Miller, who hopes that Unocal has clinched the deal. ‘The first day, they were stiff and cautious. But before long they were totally relaxed and happy,’ he said…
But it was the homely touches that swayed the Taliban. When the delegation left Texas, one of their entourage stayed behind. Mullah Mohammad Ghaus, the former foreign minister and a leading member of the Taliban ruling council, remained in Texas for medical treatment. Years on the front line damaged his eyesight. Unocal bought him a battery-powered magnifying glass and are paying for him to go to an optician.23
A different account of the Sugarland meeting comes from Dev George, managing editor of Oil and Gas International. In the editorial, “Unocal & Afghanistan,” he credits the agreement to political lobbying: “They were offered US$0.15 per 1,000 cubic feet of gas that passed through Afghanistan, and they agreed after U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphael lobbied them for the Unocal pipeline.”24
Differences notwithstanding, there can be no doubt that Unocal actively pursued the Taliban and was eager to do business with them, despite the Taliban’s brutality and taxation of the opium trade. As the CentGas development manager, Unocal even tried to use Delta Oil representatives to influence the Taliban, because Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries that recognized the regime. Unocal also donated $900,000 to the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Omaha, Nebraska. However, this act of apparent magnanimity came under criticism as a front to funnel aid to the Taliban. The Center set up a training and humanitarian aid program for Afghans—including disaster relief aid after the earthquakes—and opened a school in Qandahar, which began to train 400 Afghan teachers, electricians, carpenters and pipe-fitters to help Unocal lay the pipeline. Unocal aid was over and above the millions of dollars of official U.S. assistance to the Taliban that was labeled “humanitarian assistance.”
23. Caroline Lees, “Oil barons court Taliban in Texas,” The Telegraph, Dec. 14, 1997. 24. “Unocal & Afghanistan,” editorial, Oil and Gas International, Oct. 29, 2001.
10. The Taliban and “petropolitics”
195Finally, it’s worth noting Pakistan’s participation in the consortium because it was both a founding patron of the Taliban and a supporter of Bridas. One month before Bridas signed its deal with the Taliban, the U.S. was pushing Pakistan to switch sides. “We have an American company which is interested in building a pipeline from Turkmenistan through to Pakistan,” said Raphael at an April 21, 1996, press conference in Islamabad. “This pipeline project will be very good for Turkmenistan, for Pakistan and for Afghanistan.”25 She forgot to include the United States.
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto resisted relentless U.S. pressure to support CentGas, but in November 1996 her government was dismissed on charges of corruption. The new government of Nawaz Sharif joined the CentGas consortium, thus abrogating its exclusive support for Bridas, and for the first time putting the country at odds with the Taliban.