The Voice of Mirza Xazar

Two extensive reports on human rights practices and democracy prepared by Cyprus MP Christos Pourgourides and Azerbaijan reporter Andreas Gross were discussed at the PACE session yesterday.

In the report, Azerbaijan together with Belarus was cited as a country where pressure is being exerted upon people who are involved in protecting of human rights (NGOs, lawyers, journalists). Azerbaijan, Russia and Ukraine are mentioned there as countries facing the problem of court independence, and the problem of political prisoners is not settled, Turan news agency informs. Azerbaijan is also mentioned in the context of tortures and cruel treatment and, Sardar Jalaloglu (deputy leader of the Democratic Party — REGNUM) is sited as an example as he was caused damage “not only because of brutal treatment by police officers, but because of unjust investigation as well.” Gross’s report calls Azerbaijan among the countries where pressure is exerted upon the media and journalists are attacked. Particularly, murder of the Monitor magazine Elmar Guseinov was mentioned.

Azerbaijan is also mentioned among the countries where there are no possibilities for peaceful and non-violent change of power, which is an important criterion for functioning democracy.

(IA REGNUM)

Eurasia Insight:
AZERBAIJAN: PRESIDENT PRESSES GENERATIONAL CHANGE WITHIN GOVERNING PARTY
Rovshan Ismayilov: 4/10/07

A series of startling developments concerning Azerbaijan’s governing party indicate that President Ilham Aliyev is solidifying his hold over the South Caucasus country’s government.

The first sign that all was not calm within the governing Yeni Azerbaijan Party (YAP) came on March 15, when Sirus Tebrizli, a founding member of YAP and its deputy chairman, made highly charged public comments, in which he called for the exposure of “traitors in the ruling party.”

“These people [traitors] had always surrounded [former president] Heidar Aliyev and now they keep providing Ilham Aliyev with false information about the situation in Azerbaijan,” Tebrizli said. He even named the head of the presidential administration, Ramiz Mekhdiyev, as the “leader of the traitors’ group.” The outburst prompted an emergency session of YAP’s Political Council on March 27, during which Tebrizli was expelled from the party for violating party rules, according to a report distributed by the APA news agency.

On March 16, a fight erupted in parliament after MP Husein Abdullayev, who ostensibly was a pro-government legislator, began vehemently denouncing the government’s performance. When Abdullayev refused to heed the parliament speaker’s command to be silent, another MP, Fazail Agamli, acted to physically restrain the renegade legislator. Abdullayev, who is reputedly one of the richest oligarchs in Azerbaijan, promptly sent Agamli sprawling. Three days later, Abdullayev was arrested and stripped of his parliamentary immunity.

Meanwhile, President Aliyev’s image has taken a hit during the ongoing trial of Ali Insanov, a former health minister and founder of the YAP who was arrested on corruption charges in 2005 shortly before the country’s parliamentary elections. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Throughout the trial, Insanov has accused Aliyev of wrong-doing. Making a closing statement on April 10, Insanov claimed that Ilham Aliyev had “abducted power,” adding that the younger Aliyev had been improperly appointed prime minister, putting him in line to succeed his father, Heidar, who was comatose at the time and could not sign the appropriate executive order. Insanov also hinted that the incumbent president was corrupt, and used illicit earnings to purchase a vacation home in Miami, the Russian news agency Regnum reported. A top YAP official and Aliyev loyalist, Ali Ahmedov, dismissed Insanov’s accusation as “gibberish,” the Turan news agency reported.

A March 25 report in the opposition newspaper Yeni Musavat claimed that Jalal Aliyev -- the president’s uncle and an arch-conservative MP -- wanted to split with YAP and establish his own political party. The new party, Yeni Musavat speculated, would attract members of the governing elite who have grown disenchanted with President Aliyev’s leadership style, including Tebrizli, Abdullayev and others. Jalal Aliyev, in March 28 comments distributed by the Turan news agency, vigorously denied the Yeni Musavat report as “absolutely groundless.”

Some independent political analysts suggest that recent developments are part of a plan, implemented by the president, to replace the governing party’s old guard with younger officials whose policy views are more in line with his own. Alesker Mammadli, a political expert and lawyer, suggested that, after three-plus years at the helm in Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev has consolidated power to a sufficient degree that he now feels he can push his father’s loyalists from power.

“People like Tebrizli, Insanov or Abdullayev were confident that the president needed them. However, Ilham Aliyev does not want such dependency, and is substituting them with the people personally devoted to him,” Mammadli said.

A commentary distributed March 31 by the Today.az website attributed the latest events to “nothing more than a generational shift within the ruling party.”

“Those who expected radical cadre changes from President Ilham Aliyev upon his election to the presidency in 2003 were disappointed with the slow pace of reforms,” the commentary continued. “President Aliyev let the passage of time, and a regular political process in the country, shape his cadre policy.”

Mammadli indicated that it was unlikely that Ilham Aliyev’s would face serious opposition from within the ruling elite in the near future, explaining that all of the president’s most dangerous potential rivals for power had been removed, including Insanov, Abdullayev and former economic development minister Farhad Aliyev, who was arrested in 2005 on treason charges. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. “[Former president] Heidar Aliyev never had bright and strong personalities in his team and these people are not able to become serious political leaders in Azerbaijan now,” Mammadli said. “The most dangerous ones -- Farhad Aliyev, Ali Insanov and Husein Abdullayev -- are imprisoned. The majority of others, while having lost political power, will do their best to keep at least their freedom and their capital.”

Ilgar Mammadov, an independent Baku-based political analyst, believes that even if a schism occurred within the YAP, the anti-presidential faction would be hard-pressed to attract enough support so that it could mount a serious challenge to Aliyev’s authority. “The only person who has ‘YAP roots’ but who theoretically could become an ‘agent of change’ is Farhad Aliyev. But he is in prison,” Mammadov said.

Editor’s Note: Rovshan Ismayilov is a freelance reporter based in Baku.

(www.eurasianet.org)

Azerbaijan and the US Sponsored War on Iran

By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, April 9, 2007

In a timely decision, Azerbaijan recently granted NATO the permission to use two of its military bases and an airport to "back up its peace-keeping operation in Afghanistan" including support for NATO's "supply route to Afghanistan". NATO's special envoy Robert Simmons insists that the agreement has nothing to do with US plans to wage aerial bombardments on Iran.

Media sources in Baku have intimated that this timely agreement is directly related to ongoing US-Israeli-NATO war plans. Its timing coincides with US naval deployments and war games in the Persian Gulf.

The airport and two military bases are slated to be "modernized to meet NATO standards". Washington has confirmed in this regard that it would "support the modernization of a military airport in the framework of the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) signed between Azerbaijan and NATO.

Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan released a statement to the effect that "Azerbaijan's territory will not be at the disposal of any country for hostile acts against neighbours [Iran] " (See Mardom Salari (Farsi), BBC translation, 5 April 2007).

This announcement by the Azeri Defense Ministry was in response to an off-the-cuff statement by US Undersecretary of State Matthew Bryza, at a press conference in Georgia (March 30) to the effect that "The United States hopes for permission to use airfields in Azerbaijan for military purposes."

"A lot of planes overfly Georgia and Azerbaijan on the way to Afghanistan. Should it prove necessary, we would like to be able to use an airfield in Azerbaijan," the US diplomat said, answering a question concerning the modernization of a military airfield in Azerbaijan with the Americans' help. (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 2, 2007)

Maj. Eric Lehman, GSSOP Task Force commander (Left), briefs Mr. Matthew Bryza, deputy
assistant secretary of state for Eurasian affairs(Center) and Ambassador Richard Miles (Right)
during convoy ambush training July 29th 2006 at Krtsanisi National Training Center about
25 kilometers south of Tbilisi, Georgia

According to Azerbaijani political scientist, Zardusht Alizade, the NATO/US military agreement with the Baku government pertains to several Azeri airfields, which could be used to receive and service US/NATO aircraft:

"Baku may also help the United States with data on ballistic missile defense'... Moreover, the words of the Azerbaijani authorities do not always match their deeds, and the statement of the Defense Ministry may be anything but the last word on the subject. "If the US Administration appeals to Aliyev and the latter summons the courage to turn the request down, all the better for him," Alizade said. "I do not really think that he will want to peeve Washington." According to the political scientist, the consequences of this step may be quite dire. Tehran has already proclaimed its readiness to strike at strategic objects nearby which are important for the United States. "Iranian capacities are not to be underestimated. A single division of its armed forces can occupy all of Azerbaijan without a second thought. I only hope that this is some sort of political game and that the United States does not really intend to strike at Iran," Alizade said" (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 2, 2007)

Strategic Caspian Sea Maritime Border with Iran

Azerbaijan is also strategic in view of its maritime border with Iran in the Caspian sea. In this regard, the U.S. Navy is involved in supporting the Azeri Navy, in the area of training. There is also an agreement to provide US support to refurbish Azeri warships in the Caspian sea.

The US sponsored Caspian Guard Initiative was launched in 2003 to "coordinate activities in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan with those of U.S. Central Command and other U.S government agencies to enhance Caspian security." The initiative was implemented under the cover of preventing narcotics trafficking and counter- terrorism, It ultimate objective, however, is to provide USCENTCOM with a strategic naval corridor in the Caspian sea basin.

The US has also participated in joint Naval exercises with the Azeri Army’s 641st Special Warfare Naval Unit, headquartered at the Azeri Naval Station outside Baku.

More generally, both the US and NATO are in the process of deepening their military cooperation with Azerbaijan. In recent developments, military-political consultations between the US and Azerbaijan are scheduled to be held in Washington in the second half of April, according to a US Embassy source in Baku. (APA News, 4 April 2007)

"the consultations will cover issues on strategic cooperation, Azerbaijan-NATO relations, the mutual activity of both countries in Iraq and Afghanistan and some other issues.[Iran] (ibid)

The timing of these consultations is crucial. They coincide chronologically with a process of advanced military planning.

Azerbaijan could be the object of retaliatory strikes by Iran, if the country's military bases are used by NATO-US forces as a launch pad for waging war on Iran.

Media sources in Baku have suggested that retaliatory bombings by Iran could include Azeri oil fields and oil and gas pipelines. The strategic Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, which links the Caspian Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean could also be a target. The Baku Ceyan pipeline is controlled by an Anglo-American consortium led by British Petroleum (BP).

In early April, Iran deployed troops and military hardware along the Iranian-Azerbaijani border. According to an April 4 report of the Azerbaijani news agency Turan:

"Military experts think that the deployment of troops and hardware pursue defence ends. This means that the troops are being pushed forward to repel attacks... .... The start of an information [propaganda] war is obvious. An intelligence expert has told Turan that recent publications in the media saying that Iran has drawn up a list of facilities in Azerbaijan that will be bombed in case of a US attack [on Iran] are a glaring example of this. Most likely, the reports were prepared and passed to the mass media by the Iranian secret services to exert psychological pressure on Baku. The goal is to deter Baku from supporting Washington in a military conflict with Tehran. (Turan, 4 April 2007)

The Iran War Theater's "Northern Front"

US and allied naval deployments are concentrated in the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean. The March NATO/US agreement with Baku, while building upon previous military cooperation agreements, specifically reinforces what might be described a "Northern Front" whereby Azeri military bases including airfields and naval facilities in the Caspian sea would be used by NATO and US forces in the case of US sponsored attacks on Iran.

If this were to occur, several Central Asian countries could be drawn into the conflict, leading to a process of military escalation. The latter could also extend into a ground war in which Iran would target US, British and NATO facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

(www.globalresearch.ca)