AZERBAIJAN: ATTENTION TURNS TO GOVERNMENT-NGO RELATIONSHIP FOLLOWING ALIYEV’S RETURN FROM WASHINGTON
Rovshan Ismayilov
EurasiaNet, NY
May 3 2006
During his recent visit to the United States, President Ilham Aliyev
said his government would reach out to the non-governmental groups in
an attempt to hasten Azerbaijan’s democratization pace. For that pledge
to be put into practice, both the government and NGOs will have to
make adjustments in what to date has been an adversarial relationship.
Azerbaijani leaders have tended to view NGO activities warily out
of apparent suspicion that civil society initiatives are a cover
for an attempt to topple the government. Such suspicions were on
display during the parliamentary election campaign last November,
when officials took measures to hinder NGO participation in the
electoral process. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
NGO representatives continue to complain about government
restrictions. In particular, the government is keeping many groups in
legal limbo by not taking action to officially register them. “Civil
society groups, especially youth groups experience problems with
registration,” said Farda Asadov, the executive director of the
Open Society Institute-Assistance Foundation Azerbaijan. [OSI-AF is
affiliated with the New York-based Open Society Institute, which also
operates EurasiaNet].
Azerbaijani officials deny that the government is hampering NGO
activity. Hadi Rajabli, an MP from the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party and
chairman of parliament’s Social Policy Committee, maintained that the
government had corrected problems in the NGO registration process. “We
do have more than 2,000 organizations and their influence [in the
policy-making process] is confirmed by laws,” Rajabli said. “Some
organizations prepare draft laws and we discuss them in committees. But
their opinion is not necessarily the absolute truth, and it is up to
us whether we pay attention or not.”
Rashid Hajily, director of the Baku-based Media Rights Institute
(MRI), strongly disputes Rajabli’s claim about improvements in the
registration process. “The same registration difficulties exist now
as before,” Hajily said. “Authorities are very selective in the issue
of the state registration of NGOs. For example, since November 2002
we [MRI] have applied for registration more than 10 times and have
failed each time. The Ministry of Justice did not provide us with
logical reasons of their refusal.”
The registration issue will be one of the main benchmarks for
measuring Aliyev’s effort to improve government-NGO ties. Some
NGO activists remain cautious about Aliyev’s commitment. Over the
past year, the “general state of democracy in Azerbaijan has taken
a turn for the worst,” argued Hajimurad Sadaddinov, the director
of the Azerbaijan Foundation for Development of Democracy and the
Protection of Human Rights. At a May 1 appearance in New York,
sponsored by the International League for Human Rights, Sadaddinov
claimed that government manipulation prevented him from winning
during last November’s parliamentary elections. [For background see
the Eurasia Insight archive]. However, he held out hope that, in the
aftermath of his Washington visit, Aliyev will take steps to improve
the country’s civil society image. Specifically, Sadaddinov said he
expected the government to release individuals classified by human
rights groups as political prisoners.
Meanwhile, Asadov and other NGO representatives say that
non-governmental organizations can do a few things to build trust
and widen the channels of communication with the government. A top
priority for NGOs should be improving the transparency of their
operations. Given a shortage of funding in the domestic arena,
many NGOs rely heavily on foreign grants and donations. At the same
time, financial disclosure has been problematic. According to Azay
Guliyev, an MP and head of the National NGO Forum, the country’s
roughly 2,000 registered NGOs received a collective total of $2.1
million in foreign grants and donations. But Guliyev believes the
official figure drastically underestimates the real amount going to
NGOs. Part of the problem is connected with the registration issue,
as unregistered NGOs cannot issue officially recognized accounting
reports. But other NGOs, for a variety of reasons, are not as open
as they could be on the use outside funding.
Asadov said NGOs should also be more assertive in offering solutions
to existing policy dilemmas, as well as engage in coalition-building
to enhance their ability to influence policy debates. Unity would both
raise organizations’ public profiles and make NGOs more difficult for
the government to ignore. NGOs “fail to establish a dialogue with
the government in most cases due to the authorities’ reluctance to
communicate,” Asadov said.
Despite the difficulties, Asadov said there have been a few instances
of successful governmental-NGO cooperation, including the participation
of an NGO coalition in the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative
(EITI). “Now we have NGOs working together with the government in
the EITI commission, ensuring transparency of oil revenues,” Asadov
said. In general, he added, officials still seem reluctant to reach
out to NGO representatives.
A particular problem area concerns youth-oriented groups. Asadov said
many older, well-established NGO activists are reluctant to encourage
the development of a younger generation of civil society advocates.
“Due to limited funding, some organizations [NGOs] monopolize
particular spheres, preventing some youth groups from participating,”
Asadov said.
Government harassment has been a far larger obstacle to the development
of youth-oriented groups, NGO activists argue. Officials appear to
be especially suspicious of youth activists’ involvement in civil
society-related projects, in part due to the prominent roles played
by young people in Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003 and Ukraine’s
Orange Revolution in 2004. [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive]. Underscoring that suspicion was the 2005 arrest of Ruslan
Bashirli, head of the Yeni Fikir youth group, on charges of conspiring
to carry out a coup attempt. Human Rights activists say Bashirli
is a political prisoner. [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive]. Bashirli’s trial, which began in April, is closed to the
public. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Some youth initiatives have managed to overcome official suspicion.
For example, a Baku-based youth movement, Alumni Network, is pressing
ahead with a campaign, dubbed the Future Does Not Come on Its Own,
which strives to pressure the government into using profits from oil
and gas exports to promote education. In particular, the group wants
the government to fund 500 scholarships for deserving Azerbaijanis to
study at top-notch universities around the world. “We want Azerbaijan
to be a country of well-educated people, who will ensure the prosperity
[of the nation] when oil production declines,” said Emin Abdullayev,
an Alumni Network leader. The group has gone so far as to prepare a
draft presidential decree on the scholarship idea.
Another youth group, the American Alumni Association (AAA), has
gained prominence by promoting public debate on several issues,
including easing traffic congestion in Baku, education reform and
the allocation of oil and gas revenues for the public benefit. Ramin
Isayev, a Harvard University alumnus who currently works as a manager
of a foreign oil company in Baku, is working on a draft policy paper
concerning the utilization of energy revenue. The paper is based on
a March 18 public hearing, sponsored by the group.
“With the inflow of huge oil revenues, our country has an opportunity
to rapidly develop,” Isayev said. “However, if we do not manage oil
revenues and these opportunities in a wise manner, then we might miss
these opportunities and disappoint our current and future generations.”
“Since I am one of those few relatively more fortunate ones, who
made a successful journey from a refugee camp [He is refugee from
Armenia] to Harvard, I also feel great responsibility for making sure
that more and more people in our country are able to fulfill their
dreams – we may call this the American Dream, the Azerbaijani Dream
– the dream of a normal human being,” Isayev added. When finished,
the group hopes the policy paper can assist in a broad NGO push to
influence the government’s State Oil Fund strategy. [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Isayev, Abdullayev and other youth activists say they are driven
not by political concerns, but by a wish to ensure the long-term
prosperity of the nation. “I expect our policy paper be received
very enthusiastically by the government, since we make only economic
policy recommendations and we have no political agenda. This is a
wonderful opportunity for our creative government officials as well,
to build for the sake better future for all,” Isayev said.
Editor’s Note: Rovshan Ismayilov is a freelance journalist based in
Baku. Havilah Hoffman, a EurasiaNet editorial assistant in New York,
also contributed material to this report.