Page 2 of
2 Power
nexus skews Kyrgyz dam
demand By Eelke P
Kraak
One indeed wonders whether another
expensive dam in the south of the country that
produces more hydropower in summer will really
address the energy shortages that the north faces
during the winter. As one senior World Bank energy
specialist put it in an interview: "More hydro is
nonsense; the Kambarata cascade is economically
not feasible." This suggests that other rationales
may be driving the project.
Political
theorist Timothy Mitchell in his 2002 book Rule
of Experts argues that, "large dams offered a
way to build not just irrigation and power
systems, but nation-states in themselves." [3]
Indeed, a large-scale project like the Kambarata,
if successful, can provide a sense of legitimacy
to a regime that lacks authority. The symbolism of
a large dam, including
distraction from a
troubled economy at home, and the power over
regional foreign affairs it offers, could explain
the attraction of the Kambarata-I.
Besides, a project that will cost more
than $2 billion is likely to have significant
kickbacks for some Kyrgyz elites. Huge rents are
expected, and this is one of the reasons why
development partners oppose the dam. The smaller
Kambarata-II has reportedly been used as a
corruption vehicle by the son of the president,
according to news reports, so this tendency is
nothing new.
Finally, historian David
Worster argues in his book Rivers of Empire
that large hydropower works tend to lead to the
concentration of political power. [4] Even if the
dam is bad for the economy at large,
hydropower-related elites and decision-makers are
likely to benefit.
Yet precisely because
of the high symbolic value of the dam, it may move
ahead. The dominant national discourse has
rebranded Kyrgyzstan as a hydropower nirvana with
huge amounts of untapped potential: the water
tower of Central Asia. Personal and local
rationales seem to have been discursively aligned
with this broader water development discourse. But
a discourse does not build a dam, unless someone
pays, too.
The geopolitics of
hydro-finance Financial constraints halted
construction in 1991 and finding sufficient funds
remains a problem for the nascent Kyrgyz Republic.
Especially for something as delicate as a dam on
an international river, finance is subject to a
broader geopolitics.
Kyrgyzstan is a
rather poor country, with a per capital gross
domestic product of less than $850 and its economy
has largely been stagnant in recent decades:
financing a dam from state coffers alone hardly
seems an option. Because of the regional
sensitivity of hydropower works, development banks
such as the World Bank and the Asian Development
Bank are unlikely to step in either. In any event,
their maximum lending to a low income economy like
Kyrgyzstan is only $50 million per year.
But February 2009 seemed to herald a
breakthrough, with Russia announcing that it would
fund the dam through an extensive aid package.
Kyrgyzstan was to receive a $150 million grant, a
$300 million concessional loan, and a $1.7 billion
credit, enough to roughly cover the costs of the
Kambarata-I as well as president Bakiyev's
re-election campaign. Russia also agreed to write
off all of Kyrgyzstan's debt. Not surprisingly
Moscow expected a quid pro quo for this generous
offer.
According to a report from the
usually well-informed International Crisis Group,
the implicit deal was that Kyrgyzstan would close
the American airforce base Manas, near the
capital, Bishkek. The Americans had rented the
base to support the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and
their presence in Russia's backyard has long been
a thorn in Russian eyes.
In return for the
credit, Russia also obtained a 50% stake in the
Kambarata cascade. This is significant, because
control over the dam would give Moscow virtual
control over the entire waters of the Syr Darya
River: not only the river in Kyrgyzstan, but also
the downstream flow through Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. This reminded many in
Central Asia of the colonial past.
Not
surprisingly, the Uzbek leadership in Tashkent was
not pleased with this arrangement. President
Karimov stated at a regional summit on water and
energy in 2009: "Third countries which would very
much like to take part in this discussion are also
pursuing their own aims." Nonetheless, he could
not fully voice his opposition, because Uzbekistan
depends on Russia, too.
But as critical
geopolitical theory suggests, the outcomes of
international affairs are often tightly linked
with national politics. By April 2009, Bakiyev had
fallen out of favour with Moscow and the credit
line was interrupted. This was widely believed to
have been caused by the failure to close the
American air base at Manas. The US had reopened
negotiations on the base, offering to quadruple
annual fees. Although Bakiyev insisted that the
closure was never part of the deal, Moscow
remained adamant. When a popular uprising ousted
Bakiyev a year later, many saw the hand of the
Kremlin behind it.
One of the first
actions of the new government was to fly to Moscow
to discuss, among other things, the Kambarata
credit. It remains to be seen whether the dam will
actually materialise. The general manager of the
power utility that runs the project told in me in
an interview in 2011 that they have been looking
for alternative ways to finance it: capital
investments from Russia, Kazakhstan, and
Kyrgyzstan; a loan from the Eurasian Development
Bank; but preferably cheap credit from the Chinese
Exim bank.
The Chinese may be interested
in building a transmission line from the power
station to their energy-hungry province of
Xinjiang, across the border. This would have
altogether different implications for the water
and energy politics of Central Asia. For now, the
project is on hold. Meanwhile, despite Moscow's
displeasure, the US retains the key Manas air
base.
The geopolitics of financing the
Kambarata illustrates how the interest of
countries like the US, Russia and China can be
brought into line with those of the Kyrgyz energy
elites to rationalise projects that would be
deemed irrational by conventional standards. The
logic behind big dams is often outside the realm
of simple economic cost-benefit analysis and the
greater good of the population, but may be shaped
by the interaction between a wider geopolitics and
the business interests of local elites.
The dam and the making of a water
war The consequences of this contradiction
could be significant indeed. The vox populi in
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are reproducing some
hard-nosed securitisation discourses of the global
community. Echoes of the warning of imminent water
wars circulate in popular media and internet
forums.
In contrast, diplomats of both
countries have treaded cautiously, meeting on
multiple occasions to discuss water and energy.
Although no formal agreement has been accepted,
abundant rainfall years cause no problem and ad
hoc solutions have been found thus far in
water-scarce years. There seems to be a clear
distinction between popular geopolitics and formal
geopolitics.
Indeed, reality is not as
grim as the popular geopolitical imagery suggests,
but this spatial representation is the immediate
product of elite constructions of the river and a
fundamental conflict of interests in which
Kyrgyzstan's hopes for big dam construction
serving the national interest are directly opposed
to Uzbekistan's construction of the river as a
common good flowing from god. To Uzbekistan, the
waters of the Syr Darya are nothing less than a
historical right and even the suggestion of
marketising the supply is outrageous.
Both
dominant discourses serve the goals of domestic
elites, but produce contradictions on a regional
scale. It is a matter of concern that the
Kambarata dam as a space of conflict rather than
one of cooperation can have regional consequences
beyond the concentration of power among Kyrgyz
hydropower circles.
The dam programme in
Kyrgyzstan derives legitimacy not from
cost-benefit analysis per se. In fact, no formal
cost-benefit analysis has been conducted for the
Kambarata-I dam. Actual concerns with the state of
the country's energy sector are combined with a
hegemonic water development discourse, the
interests of elites, and a wider geopolitics of
project finance in order to rationalise the
project. The logic of the dam ultimately has more
to do with the distribution of power and rents
than with development.
Eelke P
Kraak is completing PhD research at the School
of Geography and the Environment of the University
of Oxford. His previous degrees include a BSc in
natural sciences from the University of Utrecht in
the Netherlands and an MPhil from the University
of Oxford. His research interests are
hydro-politics, water security, and dams. He has
conducted fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan, as well as in Ethiopia and Uganda.
Eelke previously worked for the Netherlands
Embassy in Moscow and the Boston Consulting
Group.
Notes 1. A
good if dated overview of the conflict with
perspectives from both sides can be found in
Sievers, E. W. (2001). See also "Water, conflict
and regional security in Central Asia." New York
University Environmental Law Journal, 10, 356 and
Kemelova, D, & Zhalkubaev, G. (2003). "Water,
Conflict, and Regional Security in Central Asia
Revisited." New York University Environmental Law
Journal, 11, 479-502. 2. Kaplan, R D (2001).
The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the dreams of
the post Cold War (p. 224). New York: Vintage
Press and Homer-Dixon, T. F. (1999). Environment,
scarcity and violence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press. 3. Mitchell, T. (2002). Rule
of experts: Egypt, techno-politics, modernity.
Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 44.
4. Worster, D. (1985). Rivers of empire: water,
aridity and the growth of the American West.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5. See, for
example, Toal, G. (1996). Critical geopolitics:
the politics of writing global space.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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