AGENTS PROVOCATEURS
by Khadija Ismayilova

Transitions Online, Czech Republic
Sept 7 2005

The Azeri opposition alleges the government has trying to bribe its
members to act as agents provocateurs. From EurasiaNet.

With two months of campaigning remaining before Azerbaijan’s
parliamentary election, President Ilham Aliev’s administration appears
to be on a collision course with the country’s leading opposition
parties.

The country’s opposition has come under increasing pressure in
recent weeks. Several opposition and youth group activists have been
arrested – some of them accused of planning action aimed at undermining
political stability. Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed by the Popular Front
Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA) against the Ministry of National Security
for allegedly attempting to orchestrate the ouster of party leader
Ali Kerimli suggests that what is already a contentious campaign
atmosphere could become explosive.

At a 22 August news conference, Ramiz Tagiev, a former political
prisoner and advisor to Kerimli, alleged that Security Ministry
agents offered him $1,000 to foment discord within Kerimli’s PFPA. If
party infighting culminated in Kerimli’s ouster as leader, Security
Ministry officials indicated that they would pay him a bonus, Tagiev
said at the news conference. “I was promised full support, money
for recruiting people inside the party and all benefits, after the
successful completion of the operation,” he said.

According to Tagiev, ministry agents told him that the 3 August arrest
of Ruslan Bashirli, leader of Yeni Fikir, a youth group with ties to
the PFPA, was among the “provocations” planned against the opposition
party. Bashirli was imprisoned on charges of attempting to stage a
coup with the help of the Armenian special services. After Bashirli’s
arrest, violent pickets took place for several days outside the PFPA’s
headquarters. Baku police have since faced criticism for doing little
to prevent the attacks.

Tagiev’s accusations do not target the government alone. The PFPA
advisor claims that Igbal Agazade, leader of the opposition Umid
Party, invited him to meet with two Security Ministry agents,
identified as Ilgar Agaev and Elchin Guliev, to discuss the plan.
Agazade, released from prison in 2005 for allegedly helping to incite
the riots that followed President Aliev’s October 2003 election,
has since denied any collaboration with the Security Ministry,
attributing the accusation down to a PFPA bias against his party.

Appearing at the news conference with Tagiev, Kerimli stated that
he had been informed about the actions planned against the PFPA, and
had, therefore, told party members not to respond to the attacks on
PFPA headquarters that followed Bashirli’s arrest. “It is a flagrant
illegality and violation of the law by the country’s special services,”
Kerimli said. “Instead of fighting threats to national security,
the ministry is involved in a dirty struggle against the nation.”

Commenting on the charges, ministry spokesperson Arif Babaev called
Tagiev’s allegations “nonsense.” The fact that the Tagiev-Kerimli
news conference coincided with a visit to Azerbaijan by Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe President Rene van der Linden was
not accidental, Babaev argued. “They [the opposition] always prepare
some ‘provocations’ for such guests,” Babaev said. The PFPA has since
filed a lawsuit against the ministry in Sabayil District Court in Baku.

Some human-rights activists support Tagiev’s charge that the
government is attempting to interfere in the election process.
Isakhan Ashurov, chairman of the Independent Lawyers League and a
member of the opposition Musavat Party, told EurasiaNet that Elchin
Guliev came to his office in June 2005 to arrest Pirali Orujev, a
Musavat activist, on charges of allegedly planning a terrorist act
against Bakhram Shukurov, an appeals court judge and president of
the pro-government Azad Azerbaijan television station.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) strongly
condemned the attacks on the PFPA headquarters, which took place amid a
breakdown in OSCE-sponsored talks between the government and opposition
parties on ways to foster a peaceful campaign environment. Like the
Council of Europe, the OSCE has put strong pressure on President
Aliev to hold free and fair parliamentary elections, scheduled for
6 November.

At a 1 September news conference in Baku, the Council of Europe’s
special representative to Azerbaijan, Mats Lindberg, expressed
optimism for a free and fair vote, noting that, aside from delays in
issuing identity cards and voter cards, the registration of candidates
appeared to be going largely according to plan. “No one has been denied
registration, and it seems that this process will finish according
to schedule,” Lindberg said, the news agency Bilik Dunyasi reported.

Nonetheless, opposition members and activists continue to be harassed
and arrested. In recent weeks, scores of young members of the PFPA,
Musavat and Democratic Party of Azerbaijan have been arrested for
disseminating leaflets urging people to check that their names are
correctly listed on official voter lists. Individual activists in
the regions, particularly the autonomous republic of Nakhichivan,
have been arrested on a variety of minor charges, and in May 2005,
Almaz Gulieva, a British national and the niece of the exiled chairman
of the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, Rasul Guliev, was arrested at
Baku airport on suspicion of carrying a gun.

Of late, opposition rallies have been held with little interference
by authorities. Attendance at the latest demonstration, on 27 August,
was estimated at about 15,000, the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS
reported. “The last opposition rally gathered even more people than
the opposition had in their rally before the [Ruslan] Bashirli case,”
noted Hikmet Hajizade, head of the Far-Center.

The recent arrest of Merab Jibutia, a Georgian citizen identified by
the Azeri government as one of the alleged Armenian agents working
with Bashirli, has further aroused PFPA suspicions. On 26 August,
Azeri border guards arrested Jibutia crossing into Azerbaijan from
Georgia, allegedly to “meet with Bashirli and clarify the situation,”
according to a statement issued by the prosecutor-general’s office.

Fuad Mustafayev, deputy chairman of the Popular Front, argued that
the prosecutor’s statement was flawed: “Why would a person declared
by the Azeri government to be an Armenian spy come to Azerbaijan?
Where would he meet Bashirli? In jail? The authorities have stirred
up trouble, and now . . . are sinking into the lie more and more.”

International organizations have not responded to charges of government
provocation against the opposition. Rather, their focus remains on
encouraging authorities to hold an above-board vote. Said Lindberg:
“We very much hope and expect that the [November parliamentary]
election will be free and fair and that the presidential instruction
in this regard will be implemented in full.”

Khadija Ismayilova is a freelance journalist based in Baku. This is
a partner-post from EurasiaNet.