You’re Armenian yourself

If someone wants to mortally insult an opponent, he calls him Armenian. In the course of the periodic worsening of the internal political situation in Azerbaijan, it has become common to put out compromising information regarding the Armenian roots of adversaries. In the last week of April, human rights activists from the Institute of Peace and Democracy and the Center for Human Rights in Azerbaijan fell victim to such an exercise. According to reports from Russia and the West, the attacks on the offices of these organizations, their leaders and members of their families were reminiscent of the 1990 Baku pogroms. There may be grounds for such a comparison, but I think we should make two qualifications: first, this time the assailants were power structures -- members of the Milli Mejlis (parliament) and the media that services them, and, second, the victims were not ethnic Armenians but their own people. Newspapers published articles about how the human rights activists had to be expelled from the country, TV stations broadcast the telephone numbers and addresses of their offices, and calls were sounded to smash the “den of strikebreakers” who had sold themselves to the Armenians, who attended joint seminars with them, and so on. The human rights activists in Azerbaijan, who are called upon to defend the rights of the citizens of that country, were themselves in need of protection, and they appealed to international organizations to “bring to its senses” a government that allegedly strives for “European standards”.

Although on the surface, the antagonism is beginning to decline, I imagine the tension will last until Haydar Aliyev - “the father of all Azerbaijanis”-- recovers. For as the persecuted human rights activists pointed out in their April 30th statement, the Azerbaijani authorities “have decided during this election year to distract the attention of the republic and the international community with a campaign of persecutions and pogroms, and possible arrests of human rights activists”. At this moment, their statement may be close to the truth.

The sudden deterioration in the health of the nearly 80-year-old president of Azerbaijan could provoke the power structures of the country to this kind of agitation. As a rule, each time there is a situation like this in Azerbaijan, various stories are put into motion to distract public opinion. This has always been the case -- there is no need to recount every instance. They are all facts of recent history and we have witnessed them. But let us note that mainly, the tensions that follow deteriorations in Aliyev’s health are one way or another related to Armenia, the Karabakh settlement or Karabakh in general. The present situation differs somewhat from previous internal political excesses in Azerbaijan - it seems that there are no outside, or more importantly - fresh, reasons to overflow with emotion on the occasion of the Karabakh settlement. 2003 is an election year, and in both Armenia and Azerbaijan it has been stated on many occasions that the resumption of the negotiating process will be possible only after the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan are elected.

Aliyev’s ill health is outside this “agenda” and, therefore, in order to keep the public in a state of constant tension it was necessary to find enemies among themselves but related to the most sensitive issue - the Karabakh problem. In a country like Azerbaijan, where authoritarianism is manifested more than in any other South Caucasian republic, it is very easy to find enemies and culprits for all the troubles in the Karabakh negotiating process. Besides Armenia and Armenians in general, in one case these are the former authorities, in the other there are the mediators and third parties, and now there are human rights activists as well.

Hence, let us repeat: the assertions of human rights activists that their persecution is directly connected with the upcoming presidential election may be indeed justified. But it is interesting what sorts of accusations are presented and to what extent are they considered unpardonable in Azerbaijan.

What is happening now in Azerbaijan (accusing people of treason, of any contact with Armenians, and even suspecting distant, long-dead relatives of being Armenian) is not a new phenomenon. Here is what Eldar Zeynalov, the head of the Human Rights Center and one of those who is now being persecuted, wrote two years ago, in the winter of 2001: “They talk about autonomy for the Armenians, but in the press, including the official press, they declare the necessity of ‘cleansing’ Karabakh of Armenians. They talk about guaranteeing the rights of the Karabakh Armenians, but they try people for insults against honor and dignity for saying that someone had an Armenian ancestor; they talk about peace making, but they have their minds set on a charter that mentions the military resolution of the problem.” Here is what the Zerkalo daily says about the current tension: “Within the society itself, an atmosphere of intolerance toward dissent is being cultivated. In recent days, all the TV stations have suggested to the public the idea that the sole culprits in all our defeats on the Karabakh front are the director of the Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan, Eldar Zeynalov and his wife Zalikha Tairova, the director of the Institute of Peace and Democracy, Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif Yunus, and finally, the head of the Azerbaijani Committee of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, Arzu Abdullayeva.

There are calls to deprive them of Azerbaijani citizenship, to expel them from the homeland in shame; TV stations telecast the telephone numbers and the addresses of the offices of the human rights organizations” (The Black-Hundred Pogroms in Baku, Zerkalo, April 30, 2003).

By the way, this article constituted the rare exception among much of the Azerbaijani media, who participated with pleasure in the persecution and by doing so, clearly made the atmosphere even tenser. It’s enough to just look through the recent headlines of virtually all of Azerbaijan’s pro-government newspapers, to understand the arguments of the accusations. And these are not only articles by journalists, but also interviews and statements by government representatives, a number of opposition forces, and even by some human rights activists and NGO leaders: “On Armenian ‘Human Rights Activists’ in Baku” (Ses /Voice/ newspaper, “What Passports and Documents do ‘Human Rights Activists’ Use to Get to Karabakh?” (Markaz /Center/ newspaper), “Armenian Palette in the Azerbaijani Opposition” (Khalkh Gazeti /The People’s Gazette), etc. Olaylar, Iky Sakhil, Yeni Azerbaijan, Sharg, 525 Gazette, and other newspapers are full of such pieces. All these pieces have the same intent - to make those people’s lives impossible in Azerbaijan.

As one can see now from the information presented in the Azerbaijani media, the tide of the onslaught against human rights activists is receding. Statements and pressure by a number of international organizations and virtually all foreign representations in Azerbaijan have had their impact.

Clearly, the point is not the Armenians, and not at all the Karabakh settlement. Most recently, Asim Mollazade, the co-founder of the Fund of Development and Democracy of Azerbaijan, chairman of the EuroAtlantic Center of Azerbaijan, Milli Mejlis member, and vice-chairman of the Popular Front party, stated during a press conference with Armenian journalists that as a representative of the opposition, he is convinced, “The resources for the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh problem are not exhausted yet, and if in the near future the conflict is not settled, the stress within Azerbaijani society caused by the Karabakh war might worsen.” This is a solemn truth.

Laura Baghdasaryan