Seattle Times , WA
March 13 2010
Azerbaijan leader linked to Dubai real-estate deals
An Azerbaijani schoolboy with the same birth date and the same name as
the son of that nation’s president is the owner of nine waterfront
mansions in Dubai. From the Azerbaijan government: no comment.
By Andrew Higgins
The Washington Post
Palm Jumeirah is a Dubai development on a man-made island in the shape
of a palm tree. $75 million in real estate here is linked to members
of the family of Azerbaijan’s president.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates ‘ Even by the standards of a city that
celebrates extravagance, it was a spectacular shopping spree: In just
two weeks last year, an 11-year-old boy from Azerbaijan became the
owner of nine waterfront mansions.
The total price tag: about $44 million, or roughly 10,000 years worth
of salary for the average citizen of Azerbaijan. But the preteen seems
to be anything but average.
His name, according to Dubai Land Department records, is Heydar
Aliyev, which happens to be the name of the son of Azerbaijan’s
president, Ilham Aliyev. The owner’s date of birth, listed in property
records, is also the same as the son’s.
Officials in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, declined to comment on
how the president’s son ‘ or at least an Azerbaijani schoolboy with
the same birth date and the same name as the son’s ‘ came to own
mansions on Palm Jumeirah, a luxury real-estate development popular
with multimillionaire British soccer stars and others with cash to
burn.
Ilham Aliyev’s annual salary as president is the equivalent of
$228,000, far short of what is needed to buy even the smallest Palm
property.
Azer Gasimov, the president’s spokesman, declined to discuss the Dubai
real-estate purchases.
Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic blessed with plentiful oil and
gas reserves yet blighted by widespread poverty outside its glitzy
capital, has long had a reputation for corruption.
The Dubai purchases, which have not been reported before, could
provide a rare concrete example of just how much money the governing
elite has amassed and of the ways in which at least part of this
wealth has been stashed overseas.
The transactions sharpen a dilemma that has shadowed Washington’s
relations with Azerbaijan for years: how to reconcile U.S. security
and energy interests in the oil-rich Caspian Sea nation with what the
State Department, in a report last year on human rights around the
world, described as the "pervasive corruption" of its increasingly
authoritarian regime.
Azerbaijan has sent troops to support U.S. democracy-building efforts
in Afghanistan and Iraq, but at home has retreated steadily from
democratic practices, according to diplomats and experts on the
region.
Transparency International, in a 2009 survey of global corruption,
ranked Azerbaijan at 143 out of 180 nations.
In addition to recording nine properties owned by Heydar Aliyev, the
now-12-year-old schoolboy, Dubai’s Land Department also has files in
the names of Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva.
President Aliyev has two daughters with the same names and roughly the
same ages. Their exact dates of birth could not be established, but
various reports indicate Leyla’s birthday is the same as that of the
Azerbaijani woman who figures in the Land Department records.
In all, Azerbaijanis with the same names as the president’s three
children own real estate in Dubai worth about $75 million, property
data indicate.
Dubai real-estate dealers with knowledge of some of the transactions
said the purchases were made by a buyer representing Azerbaijan’s
ruling family. The dealers said the properties were paid for upfront.
Ali Kerimli, chairman of the opposition party Azerbaijani Popular
Front, said, "We all know that our country is one of the most
corrupt." But when told about the Dubai purchases, he said he was
surprised at the apparent lack of effort to conceal them.
Azerbaijan’s leaders, Kerimli said, "face no danger" because the
judiciary, anti-corruption bodies and most of the country’s media
outlets are firmly under their control.
The rush to move assets overseas is a common feature of many
oil-producing nations, where corrupt elites seek to ensure their
wealth is safe just in case political winds at home change.
The phenomenon is part of the "resource curse," an ailment that has
deformed the economies and politics of corruption-addled,
oil-producing nations from Nigeria to Venezuela.
Kerimli said Washington paid too much attention to security and energy
issues and thus "sent a signal to our country that democratic reform
is not important."
When then-Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baku in 2008, he not only
held talks with President Aliyev focused on energy but also met with
executives of BP and the U.S. oil company Chevron, both of which have
operations there. Azerbaijan and the United States, Cheney said, "have
many interests in common."
The Obama administration has also focused on strategic issues in its
relations with Azerbaijan.
On a visit to Baku in February, William Burns, undersecretary of state
for political affairs, praised Azerbaijan for supporting the United
States in Afghanistan and trumpeted the role of a U.S.-backed oil
pipeline from Baku to Turkey that broke Russia’s stranglehold on
energy exports from the Caspian Sea.
Burns avoided direct criticism of Azerbaijan, noting only: "We also
believe that the strengthening of democratic institutions, rule of law
and respect for human rights will have a positive effect on the future
of this country."
The Aliyev government and its supporters, meanwhile, have tried to
burnish their image, sponsoring trips to Baku by prominent foreigners
and hiring lobbyists to trumpet the country’s achievements.
David Plouffe, President Obama’s former election-campaign manager,
visited Baku last year to deliver a paid-for speech; a few months
later came former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who also received
a fee to speak. Plouffe declined to comment about his trip.
Azerbaijan, which became an independent nation with the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991, has been ruled almost continuously by the
same family. Aliyev took over from his father, Heydar Aliyev,
president from 1993 until his death in 2003.
The family’s long grip on power has provided a measure of stability
and energy-fueled economic growth in a country that shares borders
with Iran and Russia. But it has also left Azerbaijan riddled with
graft and a culture of impunity.
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