FOREIGNERS ARE SHOCKED BY AZERBAIJAN
By Gayane Movsessian

Yerkir.am
May 25, 2007

They cannot understand how one can say something but do something
completely different.

Another drama between the Azeri government and the media is underway
in Azerbaijan. The Azeri National Security Service and the Ministry of
Emergency Situations searched the offices of the opposition newspapers
"Realni Azerbaijan" and "Gundeliq Azerbaijan" and confiscated the
equipment. The apartment of the chief editor of Realni Azerbaijan
newspaper Eynuli Fatulayev was also searched, the editor was arrested
with charges of calls for terrorism.

The Azeri journalists are asking – how can it happen that in
their country that is a member of the Council of Europe and has
undertaken commitments for democratic development and freedom of
speech journalists are arrested, bitten and even shot in front of
the eyes of foreign diplomats, international organizations and law
enforcemene agencies?

The media in Azerbaijan are writing that the Azeri authorities
are completely ignoring the opinions of any international
organizations. And this happens in all spheres, not only with the
media, leader of the public forum For Azerbaijan, one of the opposition
leaders Eldar Namazov says. "We can observe the same situation in
our economic policies when the government is trying to convince us
that the economy is developing only at the expense of the oil industry.

Meanwhile, the existing oil processing contracts show that the oil
industry is going to decline in 2011. Linking the country’s economy
only to the oil industry is a suicide for any country. We have
stagnation, if not a regress in many other sectors. There is not a
single sector in Azerbaijan where the situation would be positive.

Corruption is eroding the entire public administration system. The
judicial system is fully controlled by the government. We have
political prisoners.

Media are constantly under pressure from the government. I do not think
it will be possible to achieve any positive results by improving the
situation in any particular sector.

The government does not need independent media because they do not need
fair trials and free elections. They do not want public control of the
state because that would eliminate corruption. This is a government
crisis," Namazov says.

He believes the Azeri government is violating both its international
commitments and treaties and the Azeri legislation. Europe is not
happy with this situation. The international organizations do not
have a clue that the Azeri government deserves sanctions. At the
same time Strasburg is worried that the Azeri authorities "are trying
to get rid of the Council of Europe monitoring which will result in
greater pressure and more violence against the independent media and
the political opposition."

Namazov points out that the Azeri government is making the most
unexpected, sometimes even ridiculous decisions right before the CoE
Parliamentary Assembly sessions as if trying to push this organizations
to apply sanctions against Azerbaijan.

"The same thing happened on the eve of the last Parliamentary
Assembly session and the other international events where the issue
of Azerbaijan was discussed. This is the Azeri authorities’ strategy
which causes serious concerns in the West."

The Azeri authorities are trying to build their relations with
other countries based on oil – we give you oil, you give us a
carte blanche for repressive domestic policies. And they succeed in
this. "The government is saying that it is fulfilling its Council of
Europe commitments while the situation is completely the opposite,"
Namazov says.

The international and European organizations have been ignoring the
arbitrary actions in Baku’s domestic and foreign policy front for
the sake of oil.

Namazov says he is aware of dozens of cases when representatives of
authoritative international organizations have stated that an issue has
been settled and agreed with the Azeri government while in a couple
of days the government did something completely opposite. "It was
a pain for me to look at these foreigners faces. They simply could
not understand how one can say one thing but do something completely
different".

Meanwhile, the same foreigners are trying to convince us, Armenia
and the Republic of Nagorno Karabagh, to come to an agreement with
the government of Azerbaijan that has been cheating the international
community for so long.

Moreover, they are trying to convince us of the Azeri government’s
"peace loving" nature and its "goodwill". Let us remind our respected
European colleagues that we, the Armenians have already passed through
this as opposed to Europe.