By Orkhan Sattarov, head of the European Bureau of VK
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev made a speech at the PACE in Strasbourg on June 24. Criticism from British and Irish MPs about violations of human rights in Azerbaijan confirmed that forecasts about a difficult chairmanship for Azerbaijan in the Council of Europe and prospects for new activation of traditional criticism of its government were justified.
Responding to Irish MP Michael McNamara’s accusations, Ilham Aliyev noted with irony that the pot shot of the Irishman “reading his question from a paper” had nothing in common with protection of human rights. Aliyev added that he was well-informed about the ones behind the political put-up job. On the eve of the Azerbaijani president’s speech at the Council of Europe, the PACE Bureau passed a resolution project developed by McNamara to appoint a special rapporteur for political convicts in Azerbaijan. Circumstances of passing the resolution project are very interesting. Elkhan Suleimanov, an Azerbaijani deputy, told journalists about them. “According to the rules, a break in a session of the Assembly is being made at 1 p.m. PACE chairlady Anne Brasseur invited the head of the Azerbaijani delegation, Samed Seidov, to a dinner in honor of Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedjarov in advance. Samed Seidov headed to the dinner almost at 1 p.m. Representatives of the Turkish delegation went to make a break as well. Using the situation, Gross and McNamara addressed the chairlady to consider the issue of cancelling the Bureau’s decision on the resolution project. Brasseur, who had expected the developments, put the question to a vote, and the Bureau’s decision was cancelled and sent to the Committee for Human Rights and Legal Affairs,” Suleimanov said. The issue will be discussed at the next PACE session in autumn 2014.
The Azerbaijani delegation demanded the Council of Europe to activate efforts to free Azerbaijani lands and pass sanctions against Armenia within the framework of the PACE. The PACE Executive Committee in Strasbourg discussed a resolution project on sanctions against Armenia for occupation of Azerbaijani territories on June 22. Elkhan Suleimanov, a member of the Azerbaijani delegation to the PACE, is the author of the document, APA reports. The resolution project includes demands to impose sanctions against the Armenian delegation until withdrawal of forces from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, to deny Armenia the right to vote and expel it from the administrative structures of the organisation. According to the procedure, the PACE Executive Committee decided to send the resolution project to the PACE Bureau for consideration. The final decision on the resolution project will be made at the PACE Bureau on June 27.
Should the resolutions with sanctions against Armenia not be approved, Azerbaijan will have demonstrative and undeniable facts of double standards in the Council of Europe and even the passing of McNamara’s resolution at the autumn session would have no political value in that case. Approval of Suleimanov’s resolution at the PACE would be a clear achievement of Azerbaijani diplomacy, boosting cooperation between Baku and the Council of Europe in all other sectors, including the problem of “political convicts.”
The list of people starting the political put-up job includes a set of international non-governmental organizations, European MPs (mainly greens and socialists) and Azerbaijani public activists, some of whom settled in the West, while others have been making regular tours throughout EU countries.
Berlin may be called the unofficial capital of Azerbaijani critics. There have been regular round-table conferences on problems of human rights in Azerbaijan during preparations and hosting of the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku. In early June 2014, Azerbaijan and Russia became the main targets for condemnation in the German capital. Christoph Strasser, the German ombudsman well-known for his failed attempt to pass the report on political convicts in Azerbaijan at a PACE session, is one of the main critics. McNamara, the Irish deputy behind the new resolution on political convicts, is another activist. At the Berlin protests, it was noted that the moment was optimal to put pressure on Azerbaijan in the Council of Europe while Russia was deprived of its right to vote at the PACE.
Choosing the German capital as a platform for preparing a new attack on Azerbaijan is unsurprising. It is the political center of the united Europe where Azerbaijani opposition activists gather. Politicians there decide against whom and when to hit with the human rights club, the favourite method of Western states to put pressure within the framework of their value policy. There are reasons to assume that such a decision-making process is directly dependent on Western political interests and the attitude towards the political elite of any post-Soviet state. Russia, Belarus and Azerbaijan usually get the biggest strikes. Kazakhstan has fewer such problems due to its geographic and political distance from the EU. Until recently, Ukraine was getting its portion of “human rights flogging.” Ever since the start of the Euromaidan revolution and the ousting of the old government, it has not been an object of big interests for EU democrats. Neither the burning of the House of Trade Unions in Odessa nor the bombing of cities in the center of Europe have caused any concerns at the Council of Europe.
It is symptomatic that the Open Society Institute, a structure of George Soros specializing in “orange democratization” of the CIS and generously financing opposition NGOs in Azerbaijan, sponsored the meeting in Berlin. Azerbaijani critics rely on data from the said NGOs when making resolutions at the Council of Europe.
Following the Berlin meeting, an unscheduled session of the U.S. Congress Helsinki Commission, chaired by Senator Ben Cardin, held an unscheduled session in Washington on June 11 to discuss human rights problem in Azerbaijan. One may wonder why the unscheduled session on Azerbaijan was so urgent. Coincidentally, the activation in Europe and the U.S. sponsored by Soros followed the harsh response of Baku to threats by U.S. Ambassador Richard Morningstar about the chances of a Maidan in Azerbaijan.
So what is the reason for the campaign to discredit the Azerbaijani government, permanently pursued by certain political factions in the West? Is it a full-fledged campaign against the country or is it the personal disappointment of an unsuccessful rapporteur for political convicts, Christoph Strasser, and opponents of the Azerbaijani government in Azerbaijan?
The selectiveness of human rights organizations and the European legislators aligned with them in choosing targets for criticism and different approaches to protection of human rights in different countries, depending on the political-economic interests of the West, rule out an ideological background of confrontation with the Azerbaijani government as the main motive. So Irish MP McNamara is basically a successor to Strasser in implementing the bee-in-the-bonnet idea of appointing a special rapporteur for political convicts in Azerbaijan, proving that the coordinated process may have different implementers, while the goal remains unchanged.
Relations between Azerbaijan and the Europe Union are quite controversial. Despite obvious mutual economic interests in the oil sector, the political element of Azerbaijani-EU relations is less univocal. The government of Baku has never wanted to join the European Union, despite official claims to follow the European integration course. On the one hand, Azerbaijan feels oppressed by the example of Turkey, which has been trying to enter the “European Club” for decades. On the other hand, the continuing crisis of the eurozone and mass unemployment in the crisis economies of Europe’s south makes Azerbaijan, a financially successful state, wonder what real dividends it may expect from hypothetical membership of the EU.
“Azerbaijani-European integration” has turned out to be pretty different from the formula Washington and Western European capitals wanted to see. The ruling elite of the South Caucasus republic clarifies that it is interested in implementation of European standards, first of all, in the technological and the social sectors. However, political and economic submission to Europe at the expense of its own sovereignty and financial interests, the transformation of the country into a conductor of Western interests in the region quite obviously differs from the goals of the government, taking into account internal and external political risks. Baku looks at Europe mainly as a consumer market for its raw materials and an economic space with attractive investment opportunities.
The political authorities of the country are aware that the problem of the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven district is the main challenge the country faces, and the West cannot resolve it due to lack of political will and efficient instruments to affect the processes in the region. Georgia in the times of President Saakashvili is an excellent example of a “democratic lighthouse in the South Caucasus.” Tbilisi never received aid from the EU and the U.S. during the August war in 2008 and its repercussions. Europe had to swallow the bitter pill of Crimea and remain helpless after Russia’s austere reaction to the Kiev turnover. Expecting support from Europe in an effective resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict would be naïve.
The regular attempts by Western institutions to interfere in the domestic political life of Azerbaijan are repelled severely, causing conspicuous annoyance in Washington and Brussels. “Developing a civil society” according to Western recipes (putting up with uncontrolled financial injections of Western foundations into local organizations) does not suit Azerbaijan. America’s training of “Western-type” radical youth organization that may rock the boat of interior political stability in the country, the way it has already happened in the Orange and Maidan scenarios in CIS countries, has recently been prevented.
All this has practically provoked open confrontation between the Azerbaijani government and U.S. Ambassador Richard Morningstar. A speech by Ali Guseynov, one of the key members of the ruling party, seems exemplary in this context. He said in an interview with Russia TV: “When the Maidan events started, we said that they did not look like civil disorders and were to a greater extent artificial. As it turned out, the events were U.S.-provoked. The radical actions of the opposition proved the existence of foreign interference too,” Guseynov said, ruling out chances of such events in his country.
Baku keeps the West off not only in the internal political field, but also in its foreign policy. For example, Baku treats quietly, even frostily the Eastern Partnership, an instrument made in Sweden and Poland for close political and economic integration with the EU by five post-Soviet countries. Top Azerbaijani officials have many times stated openly that signing an association agreement with the EU is not interesting for their country either economically or politically.
Finally, the EU and Azerbaijan often have different views on the energy sphere. Azerbaijan actually rejected Nabucco, which was a European hope for weakening the Russian gas monopoly. For obvious reasons, the exporter-country doesn’t want to invest huge sums of money in constructing the entire gas pipeline from Baku to the final consumer. “You need gas – you build the pipeline,” Baku stated, and buried the project which Europe wanted so much. Instead of it, Azerbaijan and Turkey started their own gas project – TANAP. They agreed on financing of the pipeline construction within their national borders. This situation seriously disappointed Western partners, which suddenly began to speak about the drawbacks of the young Azerbaijani democracy, ahead of the Eurovision which was held in Baku in 2012.
Azerbaijani human right activists sponsored by the West visited Berlin many times and criticized the government. They had free access to leading German mass media and met MPs of the Bundestag. At the same time, an Azerbaijani-language internet television was founded in Berlin. The sources of its financing are unknown.
Clearly the “disobedient” policy of Baku, which often contradicts the interests and recommendations of its Western partners, is the main reason for the disputes in the relations between the sides. One of the headstones of the foreign political concept of Azerbaijan is improvement of strategic partnership between Baku and Moscow; the West is dissatisfied with this tendency very much. Azerbaijan doesn’t want to risk its relations with Russia in favour of a doubtful foreign political position.
For example, unlike the majority of the countries of the Council of Europe, Azerbaijan stood against banning Russia in the PACE. The EU reacted nervously to the recent agreement between Rosneft and SOCAR on establishing a joint enterprise for production and exploration of oil and gas on the territory of Russia, Azerbaijan and third countries. Fears about provision of energy security, which is very important for Azerbaijan, occurred due to the signing of this agreement. And it could be a good motivation for Europe to restore putting pressure on Azerbaijan, including using “the democracy club.” Washington worries about Baku’s shift toward Russia very much, especially in the context of careful talks on possible access of Azerbaijan to the Eurasian Union at some stage. Manipulations in the Council of Europe and strengthening of “democratic rhetoric” in the West are a direct consequence of the continuing struggle for political influence in the South Caucasus, which is closely connected with energy projects. So in this situation the information and diplomatic pressure on Baku will grow. And the peak of the pressure will coincide with a very important event for the country’s image – the European Olympic Games in 2015.
