"This is the world's most scrutinized and controlled project," retorted a senior French official in Chad to representatives of Chadian human rights organizations who went to see him in March 2001, "There is absolutely nothing to worry about." Indeed, the international campaign on the Chad/Cameroon Oil and Pipeline project, involving African and Northern non-governmental organizations (NGOs), has been very successful in terms of getting the project to include numerous precautionary measures designed to ensure environmental and social responsibility. For example, the pipeline was re-routed to avoid some of the biodiversity rich areas, an Oversight Committee including civil society representatives was established in Chad to ensure that the oil revenues be used for poverty alleviation, and the role of civil society, local communities, and indigenous peoples has been highlighted in official documents. Furthermore, an International Advisory Group (IAG) has been established whose task is to monitor the environmental and social impacts of the project as well as "governance" issues, which include human rights. At least on paper, all these measures indicate a serious departure from the previous laissez-faire approach of the World Bank and the private companies it supports, whereby recipient governments, no matter how corrupt, are left to manage the projects according to their own interests.

Despite these impressive changes on paper, there are serious doubts about what all this amounts to in practice considering Chad and Cameroon's political climates. The most recent U.S. State Department Reports on Human Rights confirm that both governments continue to commit serious human rights abuses with impunity and that citizens do not have access to an independent judicial system.

Chadian and Cameroonian NGOs demanded a moratorium on project funding until human rights and environmental safeguards were in place. However, the governments, the oil companies, and their international financial backers were in a hurry and the project was approved in June 2000.

The fears of the NGOs were soon thereafter confirmed when the Chadian government used a part of a signing bonus from the oil consortium for weapons purchases. Despite World Bank claims that the Oversight Committee is working, no regulations concerning its functioning have been published. In addition, the government's draft implementation decree proposes a decision-making process based on a simple majority system, which would assure that the government has a majority voice. Furthermore, it severely reduces the area of intervention for the Oversight Committee and requires that it only report to the government.

Construction of the pipeline of Cameroon will destroy biodiversity, especially in the littoral rainforest which is inhabited by the indigenous Bakola people. As required by its environmental policies, the World Bank requested that the government create a protected area to compensate for the loss of biodiversity. However, the off-set area, the Campo Reserve, is now being threatened by a French logging company with close connections to the Cameroonian government.

The IAG, headed by a former Senegalese Prime Minister, is about to make its first field visit to Chad and Cameroon. The effectiveness of the group will depend on its ability to cut through the public relations efforts surrounding its visit and establish independent relationships with the affected communities and the NGOs on the ground.

Independent of the IAG's work, the World Bank's Inspection Panel has just registered a claim presented by a Chadian member of parliament representing the oil-producing region and 120 local residents. The claim states that local people and their environment have or are likely to suffer as a result of the World Bank violating its own policies. After World Bank management has had a chance to respond to the allegations, the World Bank Board of Executive Directors will decide whether the Inspection Panel should be allowed to investigate the claim. Given the controversial nature of the project and the climate of political oppression in both countries, the World Bank's credibility would be seriously damaged if it should fail to investigate the allegations made by the claimants who are risking jail, torture, and assassination for speaking up.

Perhaps the most positive outcome of the international campaign on the project has been the strengthening of civil society organizations in Chad and Cameroon. Despite enormous difficulties and danger, there are plans for a coordinated NGO-effort to monitor the oil fields and pipeline construction with the goal of preventing a humanitarian and ecological disaster. These efforts deserve the international community's full support.

Environmental defender Grigory Pasko appears to be another victim of an increasingly repressive Russian State. Despite being released in July 1999, a military court decided to retry the case against Pasko. The trial is currently underway in Vladivostok, Russia.

First arrested in 1997, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB's successor, accused Pasko, a military journalist from Vladivostok, of espionage and revealing state secrets. The charges came after he wrote several articles and television reports for the Japanese press. His stories implicated the Russian military in radioactive waste dumping in the Bay of Chazma and Sea of Japan. Pasko, whose case was heard in a closed military trial, was held in solitary confinement in a pre-detention center for a year and a half. Had he been found guilty, he would have faced up to a 20-year prison term.

Grigory Pasko

On July 20, 1999, the military court, citing a lack of sufficient evidence to support the espionage charges, released Pasko. It was not a total reprieve however, as the court found Pasko guilty of "abuse of office" and sentenced him to three years imprisonment. He was not required to serve any of the time since the court decided that military officers had facilitated his "abuse of office."

However, his ordeal is about to begin again. In November 2000, the Military Court of the Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok ordered a new trial against Pasko. The court decided that the July 1999 decision did not correspond to the facts of the case, and that the case should be retried. His trial began on March 22, 2001. Human rights experts are unclear about the likely outcome of the case.

Pasko was one of the first in what has been described as a landslide of espionage cases against academic researchers, scientists, and journalists. Two other closed court cases are currently being heard, one against Valentin Moiseev, a diplomat, and the other against Dr. Igor Sutyagin, an academic researcher. At least six other cases are pending.

Scientists and researchers conducting research and publishing articles on environmental issues have become a particularly vulnerable group. They have been subject to a rising level of intimidation and harassment from the state. Environmentalists, journalists, and scientists, who call international public attention to the failure of the Russian State to adequately address its environmental problems, have been labeled enemies of the state. The Russian government is particularly sensitive to any criticism of environmental hazards or health risks associated with its nuclear program. As recently as July 1999, Russian President Vladimir Putin made statements in the press claiming that environmental groups were working in collusion with foreign intelligence agencies.

The most troubling aspect of the cases against Pasko and the other environmentalists is that they are being charged in direct contradiction to a 1993 Russian Federal Law. Article 7 of the Russian Federal Law explicitly states that no information on environmental conditions that endanger human life and health can be classified as a state secret. A 1995 law concerning the protection of information further supports the principle of open information about environmental issues.

According to one insider of Russian politics, the Russian security services may be targeting environmentalists in retaliation for their role during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many of them, like Pasko, exposed the military's mismanagement of the nuclear industries.

Amnesty International believes that Pasko was exercising his right to freedom of expression, and Pasko was adopted as a prisoner of conscience in 1997. During his time in jail, he received over 24,000 letters of support.

More information about Pasko's case can be found at http://shr.aaas.org/aaashran.