Dozens of villagers in the former Soviet republic of Georgia protested Wednesday against a pipeline for Caspian Sea oil, demanding compensation because it is being built near their land. About 40 residents of Krtsansi, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the capital Tbilisi, tried to enter a closed construction site for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and then blocked a road near the site after they were turned away by security forces, Deputy Interior Minister Irakly Kldiashvili said. Two women accused of organizing the protest were detained, Kldiashvili said on Rustavi-2 television. The protesters want to be compensated because the pipeline is being built near plots of land they have been given to grow vegetables and fruits. Villagers whose homes are close to the pipeline have received compensation. A consortium led by the British oil company BP is building the pipeline to bring oil from the inland Caspian Sea across Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. The 1,760-kilometer (1,090-mile) pipeline is seen as a key way of lessening the dependence of the United States and other Western countries on Middle East oil and reducing Russia\'s dominance of pipeline routes out of the former Soviet Union. (AP)