Why No One Should Believe Reports of Armenians' 'Voluntary' Exodus from Artsakh

Mashinka Firunts Hakopian
Shushan Karapetian

Over the last two weeks, thousands of vehicles have lined a serpentine road stretching for three miles in the South Caucasus Mountains near the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan. At times, the multitude of cars was so dense that it could be seen from space. The travelers — refugees — survived extreme deprivation for nine months and a harrowing military assault against their homeland.

The road, known as the Lachin Corridor, is the sole escape route out of the Armenian Republic of Artsakh, also called Nagorno-Karabakh, situated on territory Azerbaijan claims is its own. As of Monday, more than 100,000 Artsakh Armenians, the Indigenous people of the region, had fled from the land their ancestors lived on for millennia. They face an uncertain future.

Baku's Man in America

Jonny Wrate

 

The Azerbaijani Laundromat — a set of intertwined bank accounts used as a slush fund by the country’s elite to buy luxury goods, pay off European politicians, and launder money — also included payments to an individual working to influence American policy in the interest of Azerbaijan, an analysis of the data shows.

Overall, some €2.5 billion (US$ 2.9 billion) flowed through the Laundromat between 2012 and 2014. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and partners first revealed the scheme last September. A portion of the money was used to advance the Azerbaijani government’s political agenda, with some ending up in bank accounts belonging to European politicians who spoke highly of President Ilham Aliyev’s authoritarian regime even as it arrested journalists and opposition activists.

As it turns out, another recipient of Laundromat money — to the tune of a quarter million dollars — was an influential American oil and gas consultant of Azerbaijani origin who worked to influence US policy in his native country’s favor.

US Lobbying Firm Launders Azerbaijan’s Reputation — And Gets “Laundromat” Cash

Jonny Wrate

Some of the money that passed through the Azerbaijani Laundromat, a secret money laundering scheme and slush fund that saw €2.5 billion (US$ 2.9 billion) flow out of the country between 2012 and 2014, ended up in the hands of a purportedly private Azerbaijani organization that hired a Virginia firm to lobby the US government for more than a decade.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has earlier reported that other monies from the fund were used to advance the Azerbaijani government’s political agenda, with some ending up in bank accounts belonging to European politicians who spoke highly of President Ilham Aliyev’s regime even as it arrested journalists and political activists. The precise origins of the funds are unknown, hidden behind secretive shell companies. But there is ample evidence that the authoritarian country’s ruling elite is behind them.

You Can Visit the Moon, but not Nagorno-Karabakh: the Mind-Boggling Politics of Azerbaijan’s Aliyev Administration

 Christopher Atamian

Haykaram Nahapetyan

Who’s out there? A bewildered Hamlet queries at the beginning of Shakespeare’s greatest of plays. In the case of Azerbaijan, a dictatorial Caviar Republic on the Caspian, the answer is a particular type of insane unscrupulousness that is perfectly in tune with the new wave of right-wing leaders and human rights violators coming to power and ensconced everywhere from Washington D.C. to Moscow. Journalists facing violence, even death, is nothing new but this particular story takes on unique importance because several governments (Belarus and Azerbaijan) have all collaborated directly or indirectly in order to persecute an innocent man—Aleksander Lapshin—as if he were guilty of murder.

“Diplomacia del caviar” en México

Rodrigo Gómez García

Hace un año la Diputada Magdalena del Socorro Núñez Monreal (PT) organizó una jornada en la Cámara de Diputados dedicada al análisis de la Desaparición forzada y el Genocidio. En dicha jornada participó el Embajador azerí Ilgar Mukhtarov exponiendo el caso de Jodyalí –ocurrido el 26 de febrero de 1992-, presentando su visión histórica sobre este acontecimiento patrocinada por el gobierno del Presidente Aliyev, el hijo del dictador de Azerbaiyán Heydar Aliyev, famoso en México por la polémica de su estatua en Paseo de la Reforma.

Overhaul of Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry and Its Significance

Emil Sanamyan

 

The last two months have seen an unprecedented crackdown on one of the pillars of the Aliyev regime in Azerbaijan, the Ministry of National Security (MNS). Since the Oct. 17 dismissal of Minister Eldar Mahmudov, some 250 of his subordinates, including most of the senior staff, have been dismissed. Several dozen of them have been arrested and one of them, the former deputy director of the national counter-terrorism center, was reported to have committed suicide last week by hanging himself in jail.

The Heydar Aliyev Era Ends in Azerbaijan Not with a Bang but a Whisper

Richard Kauzlarich (*)

 

“… [O]ur path is clear…. The system of government and style of society we are developing in Azerbaijan is based on Western values, including democratic pluralism, the free market economy, and a secular republic that respect (sic) universal human rights.”

Heydar Aliyev (quoted by Thomas Goltz in Azerbaijan Diary pg. 477)

On December 3, 2014 the Heydar Aliyev era in Azerbaijan ended. With it went the previously close political relationship between the United States and Azerbaijan. Heydar Aliyev, who was President of Azerbaijan from 1993 until his death in 2003, presided over a foreign policy that emphasized energy relations with the West, and political and security engagement with the United States and a range of transatlantic institutions, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Council on Europe (COE), European Union (EU) and NATO. This policy eventually also led to Azeri military support for U.S. operations in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. His son and successor, Azerbaijan’s current president Ilham Aliyev, has increasingly moved away from his father’s path and now seems to have approved a final rupture with the past.

Aliyev’s Dictatorship is Threat to Regional and Global Stability

Viken Khlgatyan

Armen Sahakyan 

After inheriting the half-a-century-old reins of power in 2003 from his deceased father, Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev has tried to position his country as a reliable producer of energy and counter-terrorism partner for the West. At the same time he has pursued rapid militarization, anti-Armenianism, and the consolidation of a strongman regime.

The Two Faces of Azerbaijan’s Mr. Aliyev

President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan does a masterful political Jekyll and Hyde. A cable from the American ambassador to Baku released on WikiLeaks described him as a Michael Corleone-Sonny Corleone figure — referring, respectively, to the coolly calculating and the impetuously violent brothers of the “Godfather” mafia family. Mr. Aliyev is “pro-Western” in many of the ways the West admires: He is suave, well dressed and well spoken in English; he is ready to send his country’s ample supplies of oil and gas to Europe and to Israel; his Islam is moderate and modern; and he hosts lavish international events like the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012 and the European Games to be held next June.

He is also hugely corrupt, and his authoritarian regime has one of the world’s worst records on human rights.

Causes and Consequences of the Helicopter Attack, and Baku’s Motives for Escalation

The continuous state-sponsored terrorism campaign of the Republic of Azerbaijan against the Republics of Artsakh and Armenia recently culminated in a shooting of an unarmed helicopter belonging to the Air Force of the Republic of Artsakh. The helicopter was conducting a training flight within its sovereign air space. It is intellectually naive to attribute such aggressive behavior to one factor. Rather, there is a host of major drivers of Azerbaijan’s adventurism, which this article will address. They are namely heavy petrol-reliance, increasing domestic illegitimacy of the governing regime, loss of international reputation, the ongoing Ukrainian Crisis, the false parity of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, and the projected perpetual decline of Azerbaijan’s relative regional power and role.

Valores más allá de los millones

 Christian Leblebidjian

En un fútbol cada vez más competitivo y dominado por los intereses económicos, todavía hay gestos que valen la pena destacar. El protagonista en cuestión es Matías Lammens, actual presidente de San Lorenzo. El dirigente estuvo presente anteanoche en la Unión General Armenia de Beneficencia, en el barrio de Palermo, donde recibió un reconocimiento de la colectividad por defender los derechos humanos. ¿El motivo? Haber rechazado como sponsor de la camiseta del primer equipo a Azerbaiyán, que ponía como condición para desembolsar entre tres y cuatro millones de euros que no podía haber ningún armenio en la comisión directiva del club. Ni en la actualidad ni en el futuro.

El futuro de Nagorno Karabagh

Լa región de Nagorno Karabagh, en el Cáucaso, contiene históricamente una población mayoritariamente armenia. No obstante, en tiempos de la Unión Soviética, en 1921, esa región fue arbitraria y caprichosamente asignada a Azerbaiyán. En 1988, la población de Karabagh pidió formalmente separarse de Azerbaiyán. Esa circunstancia provocó masacres y persecuciones contra los armenios que derivaron en un duro conflicto armado hasta 1994. El enfrentamiento terminó con el triunfo del ejército de Nagorno Karabagh. Se acordó un alto el fuego suscripto tanto por la República de Armenia como por la de Azerbaiyán, así como por los representantes de Nagorno Karabagh, república fundada en 1991 con el respaldo de un referéndum y las instituciones propias de la democracia. Desde entonces, ese territorio procura que su existencia independiente obtenga el reconocimiento internacional.

Serzh Sarkisian Speaks about Latest Meeting with Aliyev

Armenia’s President Serzh Sarkisian spoke in an exclusive interview with Armenia’s “Banadzev” (Formula) television program following his latest meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on August 10 in Sochi, initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The full transcript of the President’s interview with ArmNews TV’s Artak Alexanian follows.

How Azerbaijan is Like "The Godfather"

Michael Weiss

 

Few developments speak so well of how far Caucasian dictatorships have come since the grey days of the Soviet Union as the fabulously wealthy and incredibly investment-savvy 15-year-old male heir of Azerbaijan's ruling family.

When he was a mere 11 years old, Heydar Aliyev, the son of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, purchased $44 million in luxury mansions on Palm Jumeirah, the elite artificial archipelago built by Dubai and known for housing both holidaying British soccer players and thieving Russian tax officials. $44 million is, in the words of the Washington Post's Andrew Higgins, who broke the story in 2010, "roughly 10,000 years worth of salary for the average citizen of Azerbaijan." But young Heydar wasn't the only member of his family engaged in Gulf property speculation. His two older sisters, Leyla and Arzu, were also listed as owners in Dubai's Land Department registry. Together, the three Aliyev children invested in $75 million in Dubai real estate, which certainly is impressive considering that their father's official annual income as a public servant is just $228,000. When asked for comment by Higgins, who showed how the date of birth and name for the listed Dubai owner was the same as Ilham's dauphin, Aliyev's spokesman Azer Gasimov replied: "I have no comment on anything. I am stopping this talk. Goodbye."

Aliyev Father and Son, Different Looks at the Conflict

Giorgio Comai

 

In recent months, a number of incidents have taken tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan to very high levels. On the Azeri side, the rhetoric is more and more explicitly anti-Armenian and warlike, as clearly exemplified by the Safarov case and the story of writer Akram Aylisli. Yet, things have not always been such.

Mexico City Journal: Statue of a Foreign Autocrat Sits Uneasily With Some



Elisabeth Malkin

 



When the mayor inaugurated a pretty little garden fronted by a very large statue at the edge of the central Chapultepec Park last summer, it seemed another step forward in his drive to improve the quality of life in this impossible city.       

But a quick check on Google might have spared Mayor Marcelo Ebrard from what happened next.

Speaking off the cuff, the mayor praised the statue’s subject — a complete stranger to many Mexico City residents — as “a great political leader, a statesman.”

La estatua azerí que causa controversia en México

Juan Carlos Pérez Salazar

Pocos de los que pasan frente a la estatua, situada en la avenida Reforma de Ciudad de Mexico, le prestan atención. Sin embargo, el monumento de bronce y mármol está empezando a generar un debate que ya cobra ribetes internacionales.

 

Los que se detienen frente a la placa pueden leer que se trata de Heydar Aliyev, a quien se decribe como "un gran político y estadista, fundador de la moderna república de Azerbaiyán".

Uno de los que se detuvo a leer la placa fue el urbanista Andrés Lajous, quien contó a BBC Mundo que decidió investigar quién era Aliyev, para casi de inmediato empezar a cuestionar a través de Twitter y de su blog que la Ciudad de México tuviera un monumento dedicado a tal personaje.

Two Steps Backwards in the Caucasus

Peter Rutland

 

In recent days there have been two symbolic events that run the danger of igniting hostilities in an already tense neighborhood of the Caucasus. On Aug. 31 a former Azerbaijan Army lieutenant, Ramil Safarov, flew back to Baku after serving eight years in a Budapest jail for killing Gurgen Margarian in 2004. The victim, an Armenian officer, had been a fellow participant in a NATO Partnership for Peace exercise. Safarov hacked him to death in his sleep with an ax.

The Hungarian government transferred the prisoner to Azerbaijan on the understanding that he would serve out the rest of his life sentence in his home country. But immediately upon his arrival in Baku, Lieutenant Safarov was pardoned by President Ilham Aliyev, restored to military duties, promoted to major, given an apartment and awarded back pay for his time in prison. These actions drew universal condemnation from Washington, Moscow and European governments.

Apart from the fact that such a step is an affront to basic notions of justice and the rule of law, even more troubling is the message that it sends to the rest of the world: that the Azerbaijani government thinks it is acceptable to kill Armenians. Apparently, the grievances they suffered in their defeat by Armenian forces in 1992-94 are so profound that even murder is excusable. It is hard, then, to ask the Armenians living in Karabakh to quietly accept the idea that the solution to their disputed territory is for them to return to living under Azerbaijani rule.

To Turn Today's Defeat into a Permanent Victory

Hagop Avedikian

Translated by Vartan Matiossian

 

Monte Melkonian was three times right when in one of the most hot days of the struggle for the liberation of Karabagh complained by phone to the then president of the Committee of Self-Defense of Karabagh, Serge Sargsian, that his combatants had abandoned the positions to go to the burial of one of their dead comrades. «Ասոնք էշ են, է՛շ» ("These are asses, asses"), he said. And when Serge Sargsian asked him why the Azerbaijanis did not advance and occupy our positions, the incomparable Avo [M. Melkonian's nom de guerre] had "explained": «Անոնք ա՛լ ավելի էշշ են» ("Those are even bigger asses")...

Armenia Suspends Relations With Hungary Following Extradition and Pardon of Azeri Criminal

The official reaction of Armenia to the extradition by Hungary of an Azerbaijani criminal condemned to life prison and subsequent pardon of the President of Azerbaijan is the unavoidable follow-up to a diplomatic defeat against the double standards showed by the international community in the interplay between material interests and moral responsibilities. Similar actions to repeal criminal attitudes are also needed to prevent intolerable legal charades within the frontiers of Armenia.