The Crude Doctrine

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.