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Azerbaijan after Heydar Aliev

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Alec Rasizade
Alec Rasizade*
Affiliation:
Historical Research Center in Washington, USA, [email protected]
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Extract

The 15 October 2003 presidential election went down in the history of Azerbaijan as a turning point for three reasons. First, it provided a legitimacy for the transfer of power from ailing President Heydar Aliev to his son Ilham. Second, it demonstrated the unwillingness of the so-called “international community” to risk jeopardizing geostrategic and economic interests by unequivocally condemning blatant falsification of the ballot. And, third, by failing to condemn falsification of the ballot, the international community has signaled to other entrenched Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) leaders that they have little to lose by following the Azeri example. However, the developments one month later in Georgia evidently worried them that the popular protests that forced President Shevardnadze from power could have adverse repercussions for incumbent leaders across the region.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 137 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. The full text of amendments was published in the government daily Azerbaycan (Baku), 24 August 2002.Google Scholar

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35. The government investigation report, published in the newspaper Bakinskiy Rabochiy on 26 August 2000, claimed that Guliev is not a political opponent of President Aliev, but a convicted criminal who robbed his own country and thereby has managed to fund his opposition activities, and reproved the governments of “those countries that criticize corruption in Azerbaijan, but refuse to comply with repeated requests for his extradition.”Google Scholar

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58. Robert Ebel, “Projecting the Invasion Impact,” Washington Times, 22 April 2003.Google Scholar

59. Section 2 of the Act begins with this passage: “Congress makes the following findings: (1) The ancient Silk Road, once the economic lifeline of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, traversed much of the territory now within the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; (2) Economic interdependence spurred mutual cooperation among the peoples along the Silk Road and restoration of the historic relationships and economic ties between those peoples is an important element of ensuring their sovereignty as well as the success of democratic and market reforms.” Silk Road Strategy Act of 1999 (Washington: GPO, 1999), p. 3.Google Scholar

60. Given the limited space for historic validation of this disheartening truth, I would refer the reader to Anatole Lieven, “The (Not So) Great Game,” National Interest (Washington), Winter 1999/2000, pp. 69–80.Google Scholar

61. S. L. Myers, “Putin Tells Russians of Clouds with Reform-Plan Lining,” New York Times, 17 May 2003.Google Scholar

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63. “The Incredible Half-Billion-Dollar Azerbaijani Oil Swindle,” Fortune (New York), 6 March 2000, pp. 78–85.Google Scholar

64. Rauf Arifoglu, “Aliyevlere yeni bir zerbe,” Yeni Musavat (Baku), 29 October 2002.Google Scholar

65. Mireille Aznavour, “Forum économique de Davos,” Le Monde (Paris), 6 February 2001.Google Scholar

66. Quoted from comments by my anonymous referees.Google Scholar

67. For a line-up of former top U.S. government officials in the pay of oil corporations, including Lloyd Bentsen, James Baker, John Sununu, Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Armitage (who is now undersecretary of state) and other prominent personalities who chair several U.S.-Azerbaijan lobby groups, see: Dan Morgan and David Ottaway, “Former Top US Aides Seek Caspian Gusher,” Washington Post, 6 July 1997.Google Scholar

68. “Minsk grupunun teklifleri,” Xalq (Baku), 21 February 2001.Google Scholar

69. Theresa Pais, “Gukasian: No Return to the Past,” Los Angeles Times, 4 April 2001.Google Scholar

70. Caucasus Report, 5 December 2003. <www.rferl.org/caucasus-report>..>Google Scholar

71. The clause reads, “United States assistance under this or any other act… may not be provided to the government of Azerbaijan until the President determines and so reports to Congress, that the government of Azerbaijan is taking demonstrable steps to cease all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.” Freedom for Russia and Emerging Eurasian Democracies and Open Markets (FREEDOM) Support Act, 24 October 1992 (Washington: GPO, 1992), p. 82.Google Scholar

72. Accusations of the NKR harboring Armenian and Kurdish terrorists were presented, for example, in a story run by a government newspaper: Novruz Vekilov, “ASALA Qarabagda mesken salir,” Xalq (Baku), 2 December 2001.Google Scholar

73. See Thomas de Waal, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War (New York: New York University Press, 2003).Google Scholar

74. In the “New Age of Democracy” speech on 10 April 2003, as U.S. troops were entering Baghdad, G. W. Bush articulated his ambitious doctrine, which calls for introducing or imposing democracy in this region that has never experienced it before: Washington Post, 11 April 2003.Google Scholar

75. Read, for example, Thomas Goltz, Azerbaijan Diary (New York: Sharpe, 1998); his “Letter from Baku,” National Interest (Washington), Summer 1997, pp. 37–45; and similar “success stories” in almost every issue of Azerbaijan International magazine, published in California.Google Scholar

76. Newt Gingrich, “The Next Challenge for Bush: Transforming the State Department,” Washington Times, 24 April 2003.Google Scholar

77. President Clinton described Heydar Aliev as “our indispensable man in Baku” in his 22 April 1999 speech at NATO's 50th anniversary celebration in Washington (Washington Post, 23 April 1999), which reminds one of the title of Graham Greene's 1958 novel Our Man in Havana. Google Scholar

78. Claudia Rosett, “Potentate Jr.: An interview with Azerbaijan's Dictator-in-Training,” Wall Street Journal, 6 November 2002.Google Scholar

79. RFE/RL Newsline, 30 September 2003. <www.rferl.org/newsline>..>Google Scholar

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