The Crude Doctrine
Page 2 of 3
|
|
Last August, a month after Heydar Aliyev vanished from public view, a letter from him instructed Parliament to elevate his son to prime minister. Ilham, 41 at the time, was known until recent years as a playboy with a weakness for women, gambling, and expensive cars. Yet over the past decade it had become clear that Aliyev père intended to groom Ilham as his successor. The son assumed a series of high-profile positions, including one as a senior executive at the state oil company. To bolster his gravitas, he jetted around, camera crew in tow, to tête-à-têtes with oil-industry-friendly pol-iticians such as Cheney and French president Jacques Chirac. Both Aliyevs remained candidates for president until only a couple of weeks before the October election, when the father dropped out, endorsing his son. Heydar died two months after the election.
Despite the election-night violence, thousands mobilized the next day to protest. The re- gime had reported a preliminary victory for Ilham Aliyev, claiming 80 percent of the vote. Tempers flared, and the demonstra- tion soon turned into a riot, with protesters beating police officers and the security forces retaliating ferociously. News footage shows soldiers pummeling bloodied victims. Fleeing protesters run a gauntlet of swinging truncheons. Security forces grin, pump fists in the air, and, like latter-day gladiators, drum their plastic shields in celebration. The violence left at least one protester dead, according to Human Rights Watch and the U.S. State Department, and more than 300 others seriously wounded.
Robbed of the opportunity to have their voices heard via the ballot box, Azerbaijan's democracy advocates pinned their hopes on pressure from the international community. From several quarters, it came. One group of 188 observers, fielded by the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe, expressed "outrage at the election fraud, intimidation, and political repression," adding that "if the word 'elections' is to retain its meaning, the events of October 15 in Azerbaijan must be described by a different term."
The United States had spent more than $2 million to support fair elections in Azerbaijan. It hung posters throughout the country, bearing the U.S. Embassy seal and depicting ballot cheaters behind prison bars. But the American response to the violence was muted at best. The day after the protest, in a phone call to Ilham Aliyev, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage noted Ilham's "strong performance at the polls and reiterated [America's] desire to work closely with him and with Azerbaijan in the future," according to a statement. The call was widely reported by Azerbaijan's government-dominated media as a congratulatory handshake from the regime's patrons in Washington.
The State Department, in response to bad press, later issued a clarification indicating that "the bulk of the conversation consisted of Mr. Armitage reminding Mr. Aliyev of the importance of government restraint." But if Armitage's call included any such tough love, the dose wasn't strong enough. In the days that followed, the government arrested, beat, and tortured dozens of opposition figures, including the Azerbaijan Democratic Party's Sardar Jalaloglu and Natiq Jabiyev. Close to 1,000 people were jailed, among them not only opposition politicians, but also journalists and even election officials who refused to go along with the vote fraud. Nearly all of the Musavat Party's top deputies were imprisoned. One Musavat supporter told Human Rights Watch that he had been strapped into an electric chair: "I felt the current going through me -- my artificial teeth fell out. My tongue came out and my nose started bleeding." Testimony gathered by Human Rights Watch suggests that many other opposition figures were tortured.
Yet the Bush administration quickly resumed business as usual. During a December visit to Baku, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld congratulated Ilham Aliyev on winning the presidency. At a press conference, Rumsfeld dodged questions about the election. In November, with U.S. backing, the World Bank approved the loan for the BP pipeline through Azerbaijan. Financing from the U.S. government's Export-Import Bank and OPIC came through a few months later.
The Bush administration contends that it has worked hard to promote democracy and human rights in Azerbaijan, routinely bringing these issues up with senior officials. But "building a democracy is not like pulling down a Lenin statue," embassy spokesman Tristram Perry told me; rather, he said, it takes time and energy to overturn the legacy of the Soviet Union. As examples of the progress that the Aliyev regime has made, he pointed out that "there are at least 10 new buildings in the capital since I arrived a year ago" and volunteered that as an observer during the October elections, he was impressed by the lack of cheating at his particular polling station.
"It's not a question of us being interested in Azerbaijan only because of oil or its strategic interests," a State Department spokes- woman adds. "We're very eager to see the country become democratic and West-leaning, and to make sure that it follows international practices of human rights and democracy. That's not to say that reform is an easy thing. It's going to take a long time." She argues that the United States is not soft-pedaling the regime's abuses, pointing out that they were detailed in the State Department's most recent human rights report, issued in February.
During a visit to Baku in March, Armitage finally seemed to show concern about the repression by holding a meeting with opposition leaders. Yet in a press conference, he downplayed the postelection crisis. The human rights situation is "not as good as it could be or should be," he said. But "we have no doubt that it will change and will change for the better."
Key members of Parliament from Ilham Aliyev's party, for their part, deny that anyone was tortured or wrongly arrested, or that the elections were falsified. They label opposition officials "fascists" and dismiss the Human Rights Watch report as the work of a small, insignificant organization working on behalf of Azerbaijan's archenemy, the Armenians.
