Azeri campaigner sees hidden agenda in Armenians defectors

Ekho, Baku
5 Jun 04

The two Armenians who fled Azerbaijan during the armed conflict
in Karabakh in 1990 and have returned to Baku asking for refugee
status in order to go to the West and leave Azerbaijan disgraced as
a country dangerous to Armenians, Azerbaijani human rights activist
Eldar Zeynalov writes in the Ekho newspaper. Should Azerbaijan accept
the men, it might urge thousands of Chechens to follow suit and harm
Azerbaijan’s relations with Russia, he said. According to Zeynalov,
the Azerbaijani authorities have a hand in this story seeking to keep
the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Baku under
control. The following is the text of an article headlined “About the
defectors: Who needs them and what for?” by Eldar Zeynalov, director
of the Human Rights Centre of Azerbaijan, in the Azerbaijani newspaper
Ekho on 5 June 2004. Subheadings have been inserted editorially:

Azerbaijan still dangerous for Armenians?

The press keeps discussing the theme of the two Armenian defectors,
Roman Teryan and Artur Apresyan, time and time again, although less
intensively than two months ago when they turned up in Baku [from
Armenia]. Based on an opinion about me as a “defender of Armenians”,
some newspapers with a reputation for printing scandal have addressed
me on several occasions. I did explain my attitude but the press
never reported my words.

My stance, based on international law on forced migration, could
not be clearer than it is. A refugee is a foreigner who underwent
discrimination in his home land, which posed a threat to his life,
health or property, and who seeks asylum in another country that he
thinks is safer.

Are these Armenians foreigners to us? They argue that they lived
in Baku before the events in Karabakh. If so, they are our former
compatriots and can certainly apply for reinstatement in their
previous citizenship. All the more so that our authorities have been
treating them with overt sympathy. It was really dangerous for them
to live in Baku in 1990. How about today? Floundering in statistics,
the authorities keep saying that some 20,000 or 30,000 Armenians still
live in Baku. Why not let in another two, what is wrong about it? All
the more so that these good Armenians risked their life advocating
Azerbaijan in Armenia.

However, if such loyal returnees from Armenia and our former citizens
cannot live here, a great number of questions arise that need to be
answered before we rush slap-bang to help them move to the better-off
parts of Europe. If a person left Azerbaijan in 1990, was recognized as
a refugee, then came back home but cannot stay here, it is tantamount
to our authorities signing a confession that nothing has changed
since 1990 and it is still dangerous for Armenians (at least males)
to live here.

Returnees’ hidden agenda?

The “defectors” themselves must have been thinking as much, given
that they had asked from the very start for entry into a third state,
seeking asylum abroad before they turned to Azerbaijan. The question
arises how to define a situation with the two Armenians who actually
came to our country to set it up by making it deport themselves
to a third state and thereby prove that Azerbaijan is dangerous
for Armenians to live in and human rights are not observed here?
Strange as it may seem, this fact was disregarded above all by media
outlets normally specializing in exposing real and imaginary Armenian
provocations.

There is another point. Well, assume Azerbaijan and Armenia are
dangerous for them. Why then should they go to Germany or the
Netherlands while hundreds of thousands of Armenians who are afraid
to live in Azerbaijan and do not care about “mother Armenia” have no
problems living in other CIS states, for instance Russia, Ukraine and
even Belarus? Having no language or cultural barrier, living next to
their friends and relatives, what else would they need to be happy?

What they seek is probably a comfortable seat on the back of a Western
state. They have tried to do it on their own but to no avail. Now they
are trying to ride into paradise on another vehicle. The vehicle is our
state which is expected to blemish itself by giving them a paper with
umpteen seals affixed to certify that it is bad here. The organization
that took on the task is a specific state body, the one in charge
of safeguarding the state border that these guys crossed legally,
once they are not in jail. This body sheltered those nice guests in
an “inn” on the top of a building at the head of Parliament Avenue
[National Security Ministry], called a news conference for them and
did a lot more to promote this story.

Interests of national security

Did the state pursue any interest in getting involved in this fishy
business? Taking a closer look, one can see that from the very
outset, both the “defectors” and the state officials, and even the
non-governmental organizations that joined in (not all of them,
by the way) are coming down heavily on the office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) like a ton of bricks. If the UNHCR
office refuses to grant the Armenians refugee status, its will prove
to be inefficient; if it does, it will disgrace our country. Public
statements by local UNHCR office staff may give a cue to what all this
rush is about. It is the UN plans to give up its responsibility in
June for establishing the status of those seeking refuge in Azerbaijan.

Indeed, there is a dozen staff sitting at the UNHCR office, with only
a few of them doing the job of interviewing and inquiry. On the other
hand, the government has special services and a whole state committee
for refugees. So it is right up their street, all the more so that
the UNHCR office, the International Organization for Migration and
other international organizations have talked themselves hoarse and
run themselves off their feet coming and training our officials who
must deal with such things as part of their remit.

Fancy 8,000 Chechens turning up at our offices tomorrow to ask for
refugee status based on our very well written law. Should we grant
them the status, we would thereby recognize that the thing going on in
Chechnya is a real war and genocide of Chechens rather than a police
operation. We could also spoil our relations with the mighty northern
neighbour [Russia]. Should we deny the status or deport them, the
Chechens would sue Azerbaijan at the European Court and, I can assure
you, they would win the case (precedents can be found in Georgia).

So let the UNHCR office fiddle around with all that and be the whipping
boy. Ah, they do not care for it? Okay we will play a dirty trick
on them in the form of the Armenian defectors. Tomorrow they [UNHCR
staff] may see hungry Azerbaijani people coming from tents to smash
their windows. The day after tomorrow, a bellicose non-governmental
organization may stage a pogrom and accuse the UNHCR office of
inefficiency in getting our refugees back home and therefore being
Armenian agents. Unsmiling tie-wearing guys from a serious office
would keep watch over the process, throwing in their instructions
once in a while. That would go on until the local UNHCR office “became
reasonable” and came back under the control of our authorities, as it
used to be. It seems that they see no other scenario for the future,
unfortunately. There may be a far cry between the stubborn Ukrainian
and the pliable French.

All this looks very funny viewed from aside, my dear sirs. Would I
take part in this show? No, thanks!