INSIDE THE COURT OF AZERBAIJAN’S ILHAM ALIYEV
Malta Today
December 18, 2014 Thursday
Other western governments have courted the Azeri dictatorship despite
its abysmal human rights record. But has Joseph Muscat chosen the
worst moment to meet Ilham Aliyev in Baku amidst a brutal crackdown
on dissidents which is causing unease in other western capitals,
JAMES DEBONO asks?
Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the oil and gas rich Caucasian
republic has been touted as an alternative energy source to Putin’s
Russia.
Lately Azerbaijan has also embarked on a marketing campaign in its
bid to project itself as a prosperous forward looking nation, despite
its notoriety for corruption which earned President Ilham Aliyev the
“corruption person of the year” award (granted by the Organized Crime
and Corruption Reporting Project) in 2012.
In April Muscat was in synch with the thinking of other EU nations
when hinting that recent political developments in Russia had
strengthened Europe’s resolve to diversify energy sources and go for
new interconnections. He said the EU’s position in favour of Azerbaijan
would benefit Malta’s own position, given that state-owned Azerbaijani
company Socar forms part of the ElectroGas consortium supplying LNG
to the new power station.
But the PM’s visit to Azerbaijan coincides with a crackdown on human
rights activists which is increasing pressure on western countries
to distance themselves from the Aliyev regime.
Deals in Baku
What is sure is that Malta’s fortunes are now tied to Socar. The
company not only owns 20% of Electrogas, which will provide Malta
with gas for the next 18 years, but will be the consortium’s sole
energy supplier for the same time span.
In October Konrad Mizzi declared that Socar, which is also a trading
company apart from a gas producer, will be buying its gas from Shell,
the oil and gas multinational.
But according to the Prime Minister the aim of his visit to Azerbaijan
is to “secure a long-term gas supply for the new power station”.
Moreover the visit underlines the key role of Azerbaijan in Malta’s
energy supply. For while so far the impression given was that the
agreement with Electrogas is one between the Maltese government
and a private company, the agreements signed in Baku indicate that
underlying this deal is an understanding between two governments.
Turning a blind eye?
Although Malta will be supplied by gas through tankers berthed along a
jetty in Delimara, by 2019 Azeri gas could be reaching Italy’s shores
through a pipeline.
This is because Azerbaijan has embarked on the TANAP project, which
involves the construction of a gas pipeline from Azerbaijan’s Shah
Deniz field through Georgia, Turkey, Greece, and Albania to the
south of Italy. It is planned to supply six billion cubic metres of
gas to Turkey and 10 billion cubic metres to Europe. In the future,
capacity of the pipeline can be increased to 31 billion cubic metres.
The so-called southern corridor could help provide Europe with an
alternative to Russian gas.
It has been described as Europe’s new “energy silk road” by Turkish
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose increasingly authoritarian
government is poised to transit Azeri gas to Europe.
In view of Azerbaijan’s strategic importance, western governments
have taken an ambivalent attitude towards the country’s abysmal human
rights record and massive corruption. In December 2013 Global Witness,
an NGO which investigates corporate corruption, accused Socar itself of
“opaque trading practices” in a report exposing the role of mysterious
private businessmen in the organisational structure of the supposedly
state owned company.
The country currently ranks in 126th place out of 175 in Transparency
International’s Corruption Perception Index, scoring only 29 points
out of a maximum 100.
Speaking truth to power?
Surely Muscat is not the only EU leader to court Aliyev’s dictatorship,
but other western leaders have at least used these encounters to
publically express concern on human rights abuses in the country.
In 2013 former EC president Manuel Barroso had met Aliyev. But Barroso
also used his visit to express concern on human rights in meetings
with representatives of Azeri civil society and human rights activists.
Meetings with Aliyev also come at a risk of being used for internal
propaganda purposes.
In July 2014 Italian Premier Matteo Renzi was seriously embarrassed
when Aliyev tweeted that he was ready to declare war on Armenia and
Italy would support him.
Israel is another country which has built a strategic alliance with
Muslim Azerbaijan.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that Israel has conducted
intelligence operations against Iran from neighbouring Azerbaijan,
to whom it sold weapons systems, including drones and radar.
Talks on a pipeline linking Israel’s own massive gas deposits to the
TANAP pipeline have been stalled by a prolonged diplomatic crisis
between Israel and Ankara.
In its bid to seek international respectability, Azerbaijan has spent
millions on lobbying and public relations, including sponsorship of
Spanish soccer side Atletico Madrid (last season’s Champions League
finalist).
Controversially Azerbaijan was allowed to assume the six-month
rotating chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council
of Europe (CoE) last May, despite years of suppression of criticism
and failure to adhere to the commitments it undertook when joining
the organisation.
The turning point
It was a clampdown on the Azeri opposition last Summer which
resulted in firm condemnation by both US President Barack Obama and
the European Parliament. This may represent a turning point in the
West’s relationship with the Aliyev regime.
Both the United States and the European Union are now taking a stronger
stance against Azerbaijan.
In a September 23 speech in New York City, for the first time ever
President Obama included Azerbaijan in a list of the world’s worst
human rights violators, citing, in particular, “laws [that] make it
incredibly difficult for NGOs even to operate.”
The criticism was Obama’s first such public remark on Azerbaijan, which
coincided with the European Parliament’s earlier call to the European
Council, to apply “targeted sanctions against those responsible for
human rights violations” in Azerbaijan if such abuses persist.
The September 18 resolution demands that the Azerbaijani government
correct its ways and “immediately and unconditionally” release all
political prisoners; a list that, according to local human rights
activists, included 81 people.
According to regional political analyst Eldar Mamedov, the
“increasingly acrimonious exchanges” between the EU and Azerbaijan
are driven by differing ideas in Brussels and Baku about the nature
of the relationship.
A decade ago, when the EU launched its European Neighbourhood Policy,
Brussels expected participants, including Azerbaijan, to gradually
embrace EU standards covering basic individual rights. Azerbaijan, on
the other hand, believes that it can export energy to the EU without
having to adopt western standards of democracy and human rights.
The plight of Leyla Yunus
Muscat’s visit has coincided with growing concern on the fate of
human rights activist Leyla Yunus and investigative journalist
Khadija Ismayilova.
On December 9 lawyer Ramiz Mammadov said the health of Leyla Yunus –
a prominent Azerbaijani human rights activist who has been imprisoned
since last July – is deteriorating rapidly. Yunus, who has diabetes
and hepatitis C, is not receiving any medication for her condition and
as a result, has trouble breathing and can barely walk, says Mammadov.
Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif were arrested on 30 July 2014,
a day after Leyla wrote an open letter to President Aliyev in which
she criticised his regime for targeting human rights activists and
bloggers, urging him “not to go down in history as a ‘tyrant and
a dictator’.”
They are currently being held separately in pre-trial detention. Leyla
has been charged with, among others, treason and tax evasion, her
husband with treason and fraud. They claim the charges levelled
against them are unfounded and politically motivated and Amnesty
International labelled them “prisoners of conscience”.
On November 26 the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz
said, “the terms of Leyla Yunus’ custody threaten her life seriously.
The European Parliament calls for her immediate release. The European
Parliament recognises her courage and commitment to democratic values
and expresses its support.”
The Azeri state-owned media replied by demonising the European
Socialist leader, writing him down as “a reformed alcoholic” who
“has never managed to control emotions”.
Senior EU and Council of Europe officials likewise expressed concern on
December 9 over the detention of Azerbaijani investigative journalist
Khadija Ismayilova.
Ismayilova worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded
by the US State Department. This gave her a level of immunity that
other journalists in Azerbaijan don’t enjoy. Her arrest signals a
turning point in relations between the US and the Aliyev regime.
In the past the regime had resorted to intimidation in a bid to
silence her. In 2012 Aliyev’s police planted hidden cameras in her
apartment and filmed her having sex with her boyfriend.
Now she is to be charged with pressuring her ex-boyfriend and driving
him to suicide, and is facing a seven-year prison term.
A spokesperson for European Union foreign policy chief Federica
Mogherini called Ismayilova’s detention “a step against the freedom of
expression” that is “key to any democratic society.” Muscat’s visit
comes a week after this arrest and as Prime Minister of an EU member
he is expected to voice his concern on these human rights violations.
The spectre of Nagorno Karabakh
Until very recently, Azerbaijan saw President Vladimir Putin’s
Russia as a hostile force trying to undermine its pro-Western
policy and supporting neighbouring Armenia in the conflict over the
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
Nagorno-Karabakh, which once formed part of Azerbaijan, became an
independent enclave run by its Armenian majority, following a bloody
war which preceded the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
After the most serious military confrontation between the two countries
since 1991 Russian President Vladimir Putin intervened by hosting
the two rival Presidents in a meeting in Sochi in August.
The meeting underlined Russia’s role in maintaining stability in
the region.
Aliyev is now praising Moscow and saying, “Azerbaijan and Russia are
two neighbouring friendly countries which are developing together
and are ready to face world challenges”.
He has recently blamed the west for the rise of ISIS by opposing
the Assad regime in Syria. After annexing Crimea and destabilising
Ukraine, Putin has been able to use the Nagorno Karabakh crisis to
remind Azerbaijan of the risks it faces if it drifts further away
from Russian hegemony.
With the west becoming increasingly uneasy over the treatment of Azeri
dissidents, Aliyev may ultimately choose Russia as his political
ally, while still using gas pipelines as leverage on energy hungry
western nations.
According to analyst Mamedov ultimately, the EU could settle for a
purely transactional relationship with Azerbaijan, cooperating in
selected areas of mutual interest, especially in the energy sector,
but eschewing any pretence of shared values.
“It would be the type of relationship that the EU has with Saudi
Arabia.” But in the absence of solid ties with the West, the country
could be left defenceless “if Russia were to become aggressive again
in the South Caucasus.”
In fact the escalation in the conflict with Armenia over the
disputed Nagorno Karabakh region may have ultimately strengthened
Vladimir Putin’s hand in the Caucasus, thus undermining the claim
that gas from Azerbaijan could provide an alternative to Russian
gas. Ultimately Putin may end up controlling both energy sources
(his own and indirectly Azerbaijan’s) as the Aliyev regime becomes
politically dependent on Moscow for its survival.