Why does Azerbaijan's independence annoy the West so much?

The First European Games are taking place in Baku. Many athletes from various countries of Europe are participating in them. The most comfortable conditions have been established for their accommodation and the competitions. That’s why the reaction to the Games by some European politicians looks so inappropriate. Somebody is trying to turn a festival of sports into a political battle. This is simple disrespect for the population and the political authorities of the EU. It seems there is a “third force” which is not interested in preservation of the multi-vectored and balanced foreign policy of Azerbaijan. Its foundations were laid by Heydar Aliyev; and it is being successfully implemented by Ilham Aliyev. The internal opposition in Azerbaijan, which is controlled by foreign forces, is trying to destroy the balance in foreign policy and create a bad image of the country in Europe. However, the successful hosting of the European Games, which have already become an important event for Europe, is causing only respect for Azerbaijan in the whole sensible and civilized world. The most important thing is to preserve the positive image and to prove by real deeds that Azerbaijan will never change its chosen path. And the thousands, millions of Europeans from different countries who have witnessed the festival of sports in Baku, are able to reach a conclusion about what is a lie and what is truth.

Vestnik Kavkaza publishes an article by the well-known Azerbaijani journalist, a member of Milli Majalis, Elmira Ahundova, in which she expresses her view on the problem.

In a period of milestone events for our country and the whole of Europe, in which Azerbaijan is involved, clouds are gathering above our heads. This time the media campaign of Western society, together with unfriendly acts by political players, has reached its peak. And I would like to express my opinion on the matter, because representatives of civilized countries are conducting a very severe and uncivilized struggle against us.

As a matter of fact, forty MPs of the European Parliament headed by Ulrike Lunacek have organized hearings in the European Parliament on the problem of “Sports and Human Rights”; a dingy environmental organization Platform London starts a campaign for supporting representatives of NGOs in social networks arrested for fiscal evasion; MPs of the Bundestag adopt a biased resolution on Azerbaijan. Sometimes I think that the main ‘headache’ for the West is not ISIS, the problem of migrants, scandals over total wiretaps of top officials, including the German Chancellor, not the US special services, the global financial crisis, but a small country in Transcaucasia. By the way, it is quite a secular and democratic country. In foreign policy, it follows the norms and principles of international law; in its internal policy, it teaches its citizens to follow the national laws strictly. These laws, like all laws in the world, require that fiscal evasion, abuse of power and financial fraud are a heavy crimes which should be punished, according to the Azerbaijani Criminal Code. Being a member of the Commission for Mercy, I often receive requests from officials who are accused of these crimes, representatives of local administrations, heads of branches of banks and other bureaucrats. Today there are hundreds of such people in prisons! And this is fair, as part of a serious struggle against corruption and various official crimes.

However, the strange thing is that none of the international institutions or politicians in the West make any statements about these prisoners; therefore, they admit the right of our law-enforcement agencies to punish their own citizens according to the law. At the same time, when a representative of an NGO or an opposition journalist is accused of such crimes, hell is raised around the world, as if “they beat our guys!”, human rights and freedom of speech are violated in Azerbaijan. We will speak later about freedom of speech; and now I would like to speak about representatives of the so-called civil society.

It is no secret that for the majority of people who decided to register their own non-governmental organizations, the main thing is not a struggle for some idea, but an opportunity to make money on grants, earn money for the family, and so on. This is not something bad, if an NGO is established according to the law, it is registered by the Ministry of Justice and regularly pays taxes and submits reports on its activities. However, NGOs which got used to huge Western grants which were free from taxation couldn’t have dealt with that. For many years, they have been living a luxury life, pocketing big sums of money from the grants, managing to save some money and pay for their children’s education in foreign universities. Moreover, they often visited the US, Strasbourg, Paris to participate in various human rights activists’ parties where these people spread false negative information about their country. But now this is over. Amendments to the laws adopted by the parliament require improvement of transparency in the financial activity of NGOs.

When NGOs which are secret or direct “agents of influence” were shut down, the strategic centers of the West and international structures which are developing more and more scenarios of “color revolutions” lost a serious pillar in Azerbaijan. For example, a powerful financier and benefactor, the well-known “architect of chaos”, George Soros, felt great in Azerbaijan for a long time. He opened an office of the charity fund “Open Society” and bought the support of many internal NGOs and opposition newspapers. Then there were some problems. At first, a scandal happened in the Azerbaijani office of the Fund; the guys simply stole everything, and the activity of the Fund was restricted. Later, it was found out that the Fund of Soros sponsored anti-governmental activities of some local NGOs. Ramiz Mehtiyev, the head of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan, listed the Soros Fund among donors who financed NGOs which dealt with development of ‘color revolutions’ in his article “The World Order of Double Standards and Contemporary Azerbaijan.” According to a well-informed source, in recent years the Fund has allocated 7.6 million mantas to NGOs of Azerbaijan, according to 625 agreements. Of course, the biggest part of the money was not spent on charity.

George Soros and others are disappointed: they have spent so much effort and money and got no results. Today some “agents of influence” have been detected and are making confessionary statements to law-enforcement agencies. People in Azerbaijan have begun to realize what the so-called human rights activists from the West were; and why they are now criticizing Azerbaijan heavily.

In this context, I would like to express gratitude to our media – progovernmental ones like Baku Worker, Azerbaijan, and independent ones like 1news.az, haqqin.az, APA, Caspian Newspaper, and so on. In recent days they have organized several journalistic investigations, proving that the same people and social organizations of the West stand behind many anti-Azerbaijani actions. And these people have also participated in the organization of such actions not only against Azerbaijan, but also against other countries of the post-Soviet space.  

Another interesting detail: the more compliant in regard to political and legal integration with the West a country is, which involves full or partial refusal to conduct an independent foreign and domestic policy, the softer and more loyal the tone of the critics becomes. And it seems that problems in their own European home don't disturb these critics: the collapse of the policy of multiculturalism and the forcing of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism (thousands of citizens of Jewish nationality leave the same France every year, permanently resettling in Israel), the fiasco of the Western coalition led by the US in the Middle East, the failure of Ukrainian strategy, etc. The concerns of Western politicians with the human rights situation in Azerbaijan seems more than strange against the background of such global problems.

Although it is possible to understand their concern: they succeeded in organizing a small, according to Shukshin's hero, "bardelero" in many post-Soviet territories, but they couldn't do it in Azerbaijan. Diamond cuts diamond, as they say.

So, what disturbs our "sworn friends" from the West, and why are the European and the US media overplaying anti-Azerbaijani hysteria with enviable regularity?

In my opinion, there are several factors – the concern of the West regarding the gradual loss of its former influence on Azerbaijan, anxiety over the fact that this Transcaucasian republic is becoming stronger politically and economically and more 'uncontrolled', that it clearly does not feel elation at the prospect of signing the associate membership agreement with the EU with the risk of a fall in the same situation of uncontrolled chaos, which Ukraine was pushed into by the West with its rash and untested moves. Plus the independent position of Azerbaijan and its healthy skepticism about the prospects of real integration with the EU can play the role of 'domino effect' and make other countries included in the program of Eastern Partnership stop to think. Certain circles in the West do not like us because we don't live not under their thumb, we make friends with everyone we want, we don't want to fight with our neighbors, and if we struggle, it is only against terrorism (thanks to Allah, at least the West recognizes this!).

A well-known Russian expert, Anna Kokoreva, told haqqin.az that the current unbridled criticism by the Western media of Azerbaijan in the first place was caused by the fact that our country pursues an independent foreign policy and maintains good relations with Russia. "And according to the Western countries, all those who support and adhere to neutrality with respect to the Russian Federation have erroneous views and should be criticized," Kokoreva said. "And there's Games in Baku. There is a crisis in the EU, the United States is not doing well either, oil prices are low, while Azerbaijan shows off. Plus from the European Games there is always a flow of funds from tourists, sponsors, etc. So the West is trying to negatively affect the event to reduce the revenue of the country."

But, of course, not only these factors determine the anti-Azerbaijani campaign. It is likely that most of the actions against our country, especially sharply negative publications in the Western press, are paid for by rich representatives of the Armenian lobby abroad. After all, they have something to come into a rage: so much money was spent to ruin Azerbaijan, to chop off its territory, to inflict ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Azerbaijani people, and it is reborn like a phoenix from the ashes. It becomes richer and stronger, both economically and militarily. And it can also declare a small victorious war to release its blood lands. And what's next – a quarter-century of efforts go down the drain? It forced the Armenian oligarchs in the West to push back, to distribute funds for anti-Azerbaijani publications. In contrast to our outstanding compatriots, whether in Russia or Europe, who are reluctant to spend money on public relations of their historic motherlands and protect their interests, the Armenian Diaspora is more than actively involved in the process of deliberate discrediting of Azerbaijan. You may ask, why? The purpose is quite clear and predictable: you see, gentlemen, how difficult the existence of journalists, human rights defenders and other "people of ideas" are in Azerbaijan, how they are persecuted and hounded. How are we, Armenians, able to live with such savages in the same political and legal environment? That's the trick of all this dirty game, not the mythical rights of some representatives of local NGOs who don't pay taxes.

At the same time, events selected for anti-Azerbaijani companies, as a rule, are quite far from politics, and do not imply such hysteria. For example, a great sporting event which is held in all arenas and venues of the capital and its surroundings – the first European Games in the history of the planet.

Guys, you should thank us that a small country on the edge of the continent hosts this great sports holiday for all European athletes and fans! You've been frustrated on this subject for about 20 years, you broke so many copies in search of the answer to Hamlet's question 'to be or not to be', but no countries took the initiative to hold the First European Games. Azerbaijan has claimed responsibility, it said 'to be!', wrote a new page in the history of European sport, set new high standards for future Games.

And now, when European sport has such a holiday, when the number of friends and well-wishers of Azerbaijan is increasing exponentially, you decide to put a fly in the ointment.

But this method is counterproductive. I mean this really childish call for a boycott. Well, a number of European leaders didn't come to Moscow to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Victory, and did the significance of this great date decrease? Or, the first persons of England, France, Germany and other EU countries did not want to arrive in Baku (as analytical group 1news.az writes in its sensational investigation, the decision to abandon a trip to Baku by the EU leaders was adopted under direct pressure from German Chancellor Angela Merkel) . So what, whom they have injured? Just their own teams, who didn't see their leaders in the stands, who did not support the athletes on such a significant day for them. Did it mar our grand celebration? I don't think so. But the level of independence of the first persons of the European Union's decision-making was demonstrated with clarity.

As for the situation with freedom of speech in Azerbaijan, I assure you with full responsibility: no one in the world had such impunity freedom as we have. At the same time, freedom of speech is understood by some media as permissiveness, an opportunity not to criticize but offend the representative of the authorities, deputies, public figures, writers, to delve into their underwear. And it is impossible to cope with such would-be journalists, they know that our courts are very reluctant to use the articles 'libel' and 'the insult of honor and dignity' against them. The officials, following the precepts of the great Heydar Aliyev, generally try not to file lawsuits against the media. So we live in a situation of relatively peaceful coexistence.

But it is encouraging that the level of patriotism in our newspapers and websites has grown significantly.Their reaction to the western smear campaign against Azerbaijan showed this. Most Azerbaijani journalists are outraged by this campaign, they are trying to convey the injustice and absurdity of the accusations against Azerbaijan to their audience in their publications, and many reveal unpleasant facts of the personal or official biography of certain detractors with a professional meticulousness. After reading it you just want to exclaim: "And who are the judges?"

Yes, we have become more intelligent and insightful. The past 25 years of independence have taught us to recognize friends and enemies, to understand which way the wind blows, and what it promises us. We became stronger. And we are not afraid of shouts, we do not flinch from threats and resolutions. We've been through the same things.

Today, the main thing for us is to be close to our president, to protect and support his initiative, his good deeds. However it may sound corny, the union of power and the people is the most important thing. We must be all together, as in that song of Bulat Okudzhava, "not to be lost one by one." Then we are a force. Then we will stand.