Mexico is planning to dismantle the statue of dictator Heidar Aliyev.
Baku threatens with suspending ties
17:32, 23 November, 2012
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 23, ARMENPRESS: Azeri Ambassador to Mexico Ilgar
Mukhtarov has declared that in case of dismantling Heydar Aliyev’s
monument in Mexico Azerbaijan will apply to the court.
As reports Armenpress Mexican `Reform’ newspaper wrote on this
occasion that Mukhtarov had referred to the agreement signed on August
26, 2011 according to which Aliyev’s monument should be installed in
Chapultepec Park, which is Mexico’s own Central Park. In the interview
with Mexican La Razon newspaper Ambassador threatened `If Mexican
Municipality decides to remove the monument Azerbaijan will suspend
its diplomatic relations, close the Embassy and stop 4 billion dollar
investment’ which according to him `will be shameful for Mexicans’.
Ambassador declared that they are not expecting a positive result from
the special committee on this issue as the goal of the committee was
initially known and that some members of the committee were initially
against the installation of Aliyev’s statue. `The decision of Mexican
Prime Minister is very important for me because the future of
relations between Azerbaijan and Mexico depends on it’ Mukhtarov said.
For installing Aliyev’s monument in Mexico Azerbaijani government has
spent about 5 million dollars on the renovation of Mexican parks.
Earlier the New York Times has reported that when the mayor
inaugurated a pretty little garden fronted by a very large statue at
the edge of the central Chapultepec Park last summer, it seemed
another step forward in his drive to improve the quality of life in
this impossible city. But a quick check on Google might have spared
Mayor Marcelo Ebrard from what happened next.
Speaking off the cuff, the mayor praised the statue’s subject – a
complete stranger to many Mexico City residents – as `a great
political leader, a statesman.’ The statue portrays Heydar Aliyev, who
ruled Azerbaijan with a stern hand after the breakup of the Soviet
Union. A K.G.B. general and Communist Party boss, who died in 2003,
Mr. Aliyev made himself the center of a cult of personality, his image
gracing villages across the tiny country.
But the statue – a gift, along with the garden, from Azerbaijan – has
put the mayor in a bind. The United States State Department repeatedly
pointed out Azerbaijan’s poor human rights record under Mr. Aliyev,
which included serious abuses and the suppression of democracy. A few
weeks after his bronze figure materialized along Mexico City’s Paseo
de la Reforma, newspaper columnists, radio hosts and human rights
activists began to press for its removal.
`In Mexico City, on our main avenue, our Champs Élysées, there are
statues of Gandhi, Churchill – and Aliyev,’ said Denise Dresser, a
writer and academic who sits on a citizens’ commission that oversees
projects for Chapultepec Park, which is Mexico’s own Central Park.
(Gandhi is actually a few hundred paces inside the park, in a more
contemplative spot.)
Officials in Mr. Ebrard’s cabinet were tongue-tied. They argued that
it was not Mexico’s place to pass judgment on other countries’
leaders. That unleashed a spate of commentary in which writers threw
out the names of undesirable strongmen who might one day find a
pedestal on Mexico City streets under such reasoning. (Pinochet!
Mubarak!)
Mr. Ebrard looked for a way to stem the damage that is tarnishing the
end of his term. The mayor, who has been open about his presidential
ambitions in 2018, will hand the city over next month to a successor
from his own left-wing party, whose landslide win this summer was
widely seen as a vote of approval of Mr. Ebrard’s stewardship.
`It’s a mistake, and we should have evaluated that this could be
problematic,’ Mr. Ebrard said.
From: Baghdasarian