Azerbaijan: a Mafia State
Azeri Report
February 22, 2013
By Elmar Chakhtakhtinski
Have you ever wondered how life would be in a nation entirely
overtaken and ruled by an organized crime cartel? Take a look at the
present-day Azerbaijan and you will see a telling example of such
country. The recent events there indicate a complete transition from a
post-Soviet republic into a feudal mafia state, ruled by a gang of
unsavory, backwards, criminal-minded characters.
The insightful US diplomats in Wikileaks cables
()
have already described the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as
someone who resembles, interchangeably, Sonny and Michael Corleone
brothers from the famous mafia movie trilogy “The God Father”. As if
trying to prove this point, the day-to-day behavior of top Azerbaijani
officials increasingly seems to emanate straight from the plots of
gangster movies.
Consider the following facts and judge for yourself:
– One leading ruling YAP party official and a member of the national
parliament, Siyavush Novruzov, has recently said that a certain
dissident does not deserve to be assassinated by the regime because
`he is not important enough’. It is very revealing that his very first
reaction was not that of a statesman saying “Azerbaijani government
never would do such a thing”, but rather a mobster questioning the
“worthiness” of a prospective target for an assassination.
– Another parliament member from the ruling party, Gular Ahmadova, was
caught on hidden cam videos trying to sell a seat in the parliament
for a million dollar bribe and, appearently, she was merely acting as
a dealer for the head of Presidential Administration Ramiz
Mehdiyev. Forget about elections falsifications: here the parliament
seats are up for sale to aspiring wiseguys who want to join the
criminal syndicate’s inner circle.
– One of the key witnesses on those videos, Sevinj Babayeva, who had
been on the run ever since the online release of the videos, was found
dead in Turkey under mysterious circumstances (`whacked’?).
– A local governor in Ismayilli region owned a hotel where he and his
relatives had been running an illegal brothel. This became known to
broader public after local residents, angry at the increasingly brazen
behavior of the governor and his gang, burned down his house and that
hotel during the uprising in January this year.
– In order to prevent the Council of Europe (CE), of which Azerbaijan
is a member, from issuing unfavorable resolutions about Azerbaijan’s
miserable record on human rights and democracy, the Aliyev regime
implemented its own action plan, dubbed `Caviar diplomacy’. designed
to bribe CE officials with caviar and other lavish gifts. The
legitimate states, even authoritarian ones, have to bother with
diplomatic efforts, sanctions and counter-sanctions, and other
political headache. But mafia always chooses to circumvent these
unnecessary formalities and resolve its problems by deploying its own,
much `simpler’ methods: if we can’t make you shut up, we will buy your
silence.
– A leader of a pro-government party, a well-known attack-dog of the
regime, Hafiz Hajiyev, has offered a $12,000 reward to any person who
would cut the ear of the famous Azerbaijani writer Akram Aylisli.
Mr. Aylisly fell out of favor with the regime after writing a
pro-Armenian novel where he also portrayed the regime’s founder Heydar
Aliyev (the father of the current `God Father’ President Ilham Aliyev)
in a very negative light. The executive secretary Ali Akhmadov and
others from the ruling YAP party have questioned Aylisli’s ethnic
identity, demanded tests on his DNA to check if he is a hidden
Armenian, and called for the expression of public hatred towards
him. Their calls were heeded at the government sponsored `protest
rallies’ culminating in calls for `death to Aylisli’ and burning of
the writer’s books. The word “mob”, indicating a primitive,
rough-crowd mentality of organized crime groups, would, indeed, be a
very appropriate term to describe these acts of Azerbaijan’s ruling
gang.
– And, of course, more and more evidence is surfacing about the
president Aliyev’s family owning an endless list of offshore secretive
business holdings and undeclared properties within the country and
abroad. This is matched by the similarly shadowy possessions of his
oligarch-ministers who act as heads of family clans within the mafia
enterprise.
Add to this the fact that all branches of government in Azerbaijan
lack any pretense of legitimacy due to the total falsification of each
and every election for the past twenty years – and you will get a
complete picture of what kind `state’ Azerbaijan is.
President Ilham Aliyev’s recent speech, made after the Ismayilli riots
mentioned above, is very instructive. Don Aliyev’s appearance before
his associates – ministers, governors and other top officials – can
only be classified as “State of the Mafia’ address.
The Ismayilli uprising was sparked by a traffic accident, after which
one of the parties, the son of the governor, started shouting at and
insulting the people in the other car and the local residents that
gathered around them to help. Therefore, in an angry tone, Ilham
Aliyev warned the heads of the clans – his high level state officials
– that they better restrain their children and not display so brazenly
all the loot they collect by plundering the country. He offered
himself as an example of modesty, apparently forgetting the lavish
annual mass celebrations held for his own birthday, and millions of
state money spent on his long-dead father’s birthday `flower
festivals’ and his controversial monuments erected around the
world. Perhaps he meant himself as a role model of a mafia boss who
succeeded in hiding most of the wealth he stole from the public eye.
`No more acts of hooliganism [by children of state officials] will be
tolerated… Those committing such acts will be arrested and their
fathers fired!’, he exclaimed. But don’t ask whether and why this
`hooliganism’ was fine up untill now, and what the law says about
it. And never mind that firing a father from his government job for
the trespasses of his son might be outside of legal framework. The God
Father appoints them and he is entitled to get rid of them when he
pleases. No need to bother with such formalities as justifying the
state prosecutor’s charges, court proceedings, due process, rule of
law. The Boss decides everything: who gets arrested, at what exact
time certain crimes stop being OK, and who gets fired from their
posts.
On the other end of political spectrum, parents are already being
punished for the actions of their adult children. Police has recently
raided the homes of leading opposition youth activists’ parents to
take away their hand-woven carpets, old TVs and other possessions as a
fine for their children’s participation in pro-democracy protest
rallies. Again, a typical mafia-clan approach “if you go against us,
we will get you and your family”.
All these bizarre, despicable events have taken place within a span of
past several weeks, in the 21st century Azerbaijan – a country called
a “strategic US ally’, `an EU partner’, a participant in NATO’s
`Partnership for Peace’ program, a member of the Council of Europe,
the host of Eurovision song contest and European Olympics, and, in the
words of one US Congressman Gerry Connolly, `a role model’ for other
countries.
Elmar Chakhtakhtinski is a chairman of Azerbaijani-Americans for
Democracy (AZAD), a non-profit US organization promoting support for
democracy and human rights in Azerbaijan.