Why We Better Keep an Eye on Azerbaijan

While the military occupation of Iraq continues to evoke considerable opposition and distrust among the Iraqi people (even with the capture of Saddam Hussein), the Bush administration has opened a diplomatic offensive to promote democracy in the Middle East. With an estimated four trillion dollars worth of oil lying off the western shores of the Caspian Sea, the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan figures prominently in American plans for the region. Western oil companies are constructing a three billion dollar pipeline that will pump crude oil nearly two thousand miles from Azerbaijan through Georgia (now considered in the democratic camp after protests drove Eduard Shevardnadze from office) to Turkey . In response to this Western investment from the British and Americans, Azerbaijan was a member of the Bush administration's coalition of the willing, providing support and opening its air spaces to the invasion of Iraq . However, the democratic process has a long way to go in Azerbaijan as evidenced by this fall's presidential election.

As part of a State Department Eurasian teaching exchange, I arrived in the capital city of Baku on the evening of October 15 th , the Azeri election day. When I inquired about the election results, my cab driver was apprehensive and told me that the winner of the presidential vote would not be announced until the next day. But already opposition parties were raising objections to irregularities in the voting process, and street demonstrations were being put down by the authorities. The reservations expressed by the opposition were not surprising considering the brief but turbulent history of democracy in the Republic of Azerbaijan .

Following a declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the Popular Front mounted a determined effort to topple the government of former communist leader Ayaz Mutalibov, installing nationalist academic Abulfaz Elchibey as president However, military setbacks against the Armenian forces in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh produced considerable discontent with the once popular president, paving the way for Heydar Aliyev, the former head of the KGB in Azerbaijan and a member of the Politburo in Moscow until his ouster by Gorbachev, to be elected head of state in October 1993.

An astute politician, Aliyev denounced his Communist Party membership, bolstered his power base in the Naxcivan region, and pursued a more aggressive policy against the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, where a cease-fire was declared in 1994. Fostering a cult of personality in which his portrait adorned every public building and classroom in the nation, Aliyev in 1999 won a second term as president, although opposition parties questioned the election's legitimacy. Diagnosed with a heart condition, the president traveled to Cleveland for surgery and was not seen in public for almost a year; he died a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, he remained a candidate for reelection in 2003, until his withdrawal in favor of his son Ilham, whose playboy reputation has been erased by the regime's media machine.

Initially appointed by his father to head the state oil company, Ilham was elevated to the post of Prime Minister earlier this year by the Azeri rubber stamp parliament when the elder Aliyev's health apparently took a turn for the worse. The ruling New Azerbaijan Party produced a ubiquitous photograph and poster of the grand old man of Azeri politics instructing his young son, who poses with a hand under his chin while carefully contemplating the wisdom being handed down to him by the nation's leader. It is a reassuring image for those who fear the disorder which accompanied independence and the Soviet withdrawal, but it is symbolic of dynastic rule to the opposition parties of Azerbaijan .

The official election results released by the government election bureau stated that Ilham received approximately 80 percent of the vote, while Isa Gambar, the leading opposition candidate was only able to garner 12 percent of the electorate. On October 16 th opposition parties, maintaining that Gambar had actually polled somewhere near 70 percent of the vote, called for massive protests against the government, and crowds gathered at the Parliament building in Baku . The protests were violently crushed by a police response in which at least two people, one a young child, were killed. Government television termed the protest and ensuing violence as the work of hooligans. Coverage focused upon property damage and interviews with injured policeman. The beating of protesters, which I witnessed in the company of an election monitor from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), was not a topic for official government television. Instead, for the next week, we were treated to nightly footage of two young men jumping on the top of a taxi and rampaging mobs attacking property; promoting the government's case for hooliganism.

My departure from Baku to Lankaran, on the Caspian Sea just north of Iran , was delayed as my host family was unable to journey to the capital, for travel was curtailed by government concerns that the protest ranks would be increased by supporters from the hinterland. We were able to travel by bus on October 17 th , but our five hour journey was stopped several times by government troops who appeared to be looking for anyone who might have been injured in the tumultuous events outside the parliament building. The weekend of October 18-19 th was supposed to be a festive occasion in Azerbaijan , celebrating the nation's independence. Fearing further unrest, official celebrations were cancelled, least they be used to question government policy, and my host family and I spent a quiet weekend at home.

Terming the protests unconstitutional, the government began to arrest opposition party leaders and journalists. Meanwhile, the state television featured constant images of Ilham Aliyev receiving messages of congratulations in a coronation-like atmosphere. The police beatings of October 16 th disappeared from public discourse. The OSCE elections monitors prepared a preliminary report asserting the “overall election process still fell short of international standards in several respects.” The American Embassy in Azerbaijan issued a statement of concern about “post-election violence and what appears to be a wave of politically motivated arrests.”

Despite such statements of regret, the Bush administration has continued its support for the Aliyev dynasty in Azerbaijan . After all, government apologists in Baku often make comparisons between the Aliyev and Bush families. While the United States rejoices at the capture of Saddam Hussein and apparent liberation of the Iraqi people, the citizens of Azerbaijan continue to suffer under high unemployment and rates of poverty under the rule of a despotic dynasty. If the decision to align with the West only lines the pockets of British/American oil companies and the Azeri elite, the American failure to really support democracy in the Middle East may again suffer the type of blowback witnessed in Afghanistan . And this time around America may lose the precious oil reserves upon which we have become increasingly dependent.