Pan Armenian News

ILHAM ALIEV DECIDED TO GET RID OF ARMENIANS WORKING FOR AZERBAIJAN SPECIAL
SERVICES

The political leadership of Azerbaijan ascribes the failures in the
activities of secret services of Azerbaijan to Armenians working for the
State Security Office.

By the order of the new minister of the State Security Office Eldar
Mahmudov, several employees were dismissed from their posts. Dismissals
touched upon only those who had the slightest traces of Armenian origin.
Among people dismissed there were also officers.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ According to Aliev’s propaganda only in Baku there are
currently 30 thousand Armenians who are “full citizens of international
Azerbaijan”. Actually, in Baku there are people of Armenian origin. They are
mainly children from mixed marriages. Those people have long ago forgotten
about their origin and have finally assimilated with the population of
Azerbaijan. But even this factor does not save them from discrimination. The
order of the minister of State Security is an open and gross violation of
human rights. It is hard to call healthy a society where it is quite normal
to dig in the family tree of a citizen and dismiss him or her because of
discovering some ancestor whose surname ends in “yan”. This phenomenon
should certainly attract the attention of European structures and
organizations since Azerbaijan has certain obligations towards them.

It is noteworthy that such things did not happen during Heidar Aliev. In one
of his interviews former minister of State Security Office Namik Abasov
admitted that in the staff of his ministry there were people with Armenian
origins. Abasov said that he had no intension to dismiss them because they
were conscientious and devoted workers. According to Abasov their dismissal
would mean discrimination towards people who were faithful to their
motherland. The new leaders of the State Security Office appointed not long
ago by Ilham Aliev, back their decision with a strange argument. “We live in
Azerbaijan and the presence of people with Armenian origin in the State
Security Office is impossible”, said the head of the public relations
department of the ministry Arif Babayev. This is the style of Adolf Hitler
who yet ten years before the opening of Osventsim started to dismiss Jewish
born people working in law-enforcement structures.

It is absolutely obvious that the decision to dismiss people having Armenian
origins is dictated not at all from considerations of national security, but
from cheap populism and striving to justify failures in work. Since the
appointment of Eldar Mahmudov nothing has changed for the better in special
services of Azerbaijan. The minister decided ascribe the problems in the
system of secret services to Armenians working there. Armenians are
remembered when there are objective difficulties. Things were like that also
two years ago during the riot of cadets in an elite military college. At
that time all the blame was put on one of the college’s directors who had an
Armenian born mother-in-law. When the construction works of
Baku-Tbilis-Jeyhan oil pipeline slowed down, the problem was ascribed to
some Armenian who worked in the Greek subcontract company. When PACE
criticized Azerbaijan for non-observance of democracy norms, Baku
propagandists asserted that it was the blame of reporter Andrea Gross who
was not objective for having worked as an assistant to a Swiss deputy who
was connected with Armenians. When Europe raised the question of Azeri
political prisoners the local press ascribed that to Leyla Yunus, saying
that she was interested in the discreditation of Azerbaijan because her
beloved mother-in-law was half Armenian. After all this, there will be to
surprise at if Azeris blame Armenians for the last year’s Tsunami in
Indonesia or the earthquake in Turkey…

17.06.2005, “PanARMENIAN Network” analytical department