News From Bangladesh
bangladesh-web.com
Tuesday | June 14, 2005
Political trouble brewing in oil-rich Azerbaijan-another central Asian
Islamic Paradise
A.H. Jaffor Ullah
In the last two years, the world heard earful of news of political
dissensions in several of the ex-Soviet republics. Some of these
nations are located near Euro-Asian border in Caucasus region while
one is in Europe. The protesters wore different colored scarves in
different dissenting nations thus engendering new and catchy names
for each of the revolution.
Take the case of Georgia (Rose Revolution) where in late November
2003 a pro-West politician by the name Mikhail Saakashvili ousted a
tyrannical president Eduard Shevarnadze, an aging ex-communist who
was the foreign minister under Mikhail Gorbachev.
The second revolution took place in Ukraine in December 2004 to
protest a rigged election in which a pro-Russian presidential hopeful,
Viktor Yanukovych, was declared a winner by a slim margin. For weeks,
protesters jammed the central city square wearing orange scarf. The end
result was the declaration of the rigged election null and void. Within
weeks, a new election put the dissident politician, Viktor Yushchenko,
into power and christening the term the “Orange Revolution.”
In late March 2005, trouble brewed in Kyrgyzstan, a tranquil central
Asian ex-Soviet republic, where the despotic president, Askar Akayev,
who enforced an iron clad rule since the summer of 1991 when Soviet
union imploded due to President Mikhail Gorbachev’s implementation
of perestroika and glasnost.
Ordinary citizens and political dissidents stormed the presidential
palace and government offices in capital city of Bishkek. During
the tumult, the deposed president Askar Akayev fled the country to
neighboring nation of Kazakhstan. The country is now under the control
of pro-west politicians.
On May 13, 2005, a political trouble escalated in Ferghana valley,
which is politically controlled by Uzbekistan. In the eastern-most city
of Andijan (in Ferghana), the government troop fired indiscriminately
killing more than 600 protesters and bystanders. Uzbekistan is ruled
iron-fistedly by a dictator named Islam Karomov who is supported
by Kremlin and tolerated by American Administration. Many Uzbek
dissenters moved into neighboring Kyrgyzstan in the aftermath of May
13 carnage. After the putsch, life seems to be returning to normalcy
in eastern Uzbekistan. Only time will tell if the seed of political
discontent sowed in spring 2005 will amount to anything in the future.
A month could hardly pass when we read in the news that a new trouble
brewed up in the oil-rich nation of Azerbaijan, which is located
to the west of Caspian Sea, and which is also considered an eastern
Transcaucasian nation.
The geo-political significance of Azerbaijan cannot be
underestimated. It sits at the far end of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil
and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipelines, situated between the Black
and Caspian seas, containing two, possibly three breakaway provinces,
and borders Iran, Georgia, Armenia, and Russia.
Some background information should come handy to better appreciate
what ails this oil-rich nation inhabited by nearly 8 million people
living in a land about half the size of Bangladesh. Azerbaijanis are
essentially Turkic and Muslim whose nation regained independence
after the collapse of the Soviet Union in summer of 1991. Trouble
brewed in 1994 with the neighboring nation, Armenia, over disputed
region of Nagorno-Karabakh enclave where Armenian people live.
Despite a 1994 cease-fire, Azerbaijan has yet to resolve its conflict
with Armenia. The country has lost 16% of its territory in the conflict
and must support some 571,000 internally displaced persons because
of the conflict.
The sad part of Azerbaijan story is that corruption is ubiquitous
and the promise of nation building from oil revenues remains largely
unfulfilled.
One parenthetical note about Azerbaijanis is that most of them are
Shiites.
Culturally, they are similar to people who live in Azerbaijan province
of Iran whose capital city is Tabriz.
A personal anecdote about Azerbaijani people and their devotion to
religion Islam. In early 1960s when I was a high school student in
Tejgaon, Dhaka, the Soviet Union sent a soccer team to Pakistan for
friendly matches. The Soviet team happened to be the Baku Oil Mill,
which was one of the best team in the communist paradise. A couple
of my friend befriended a team member who had a Perso-Arabic name. He
told us that he is an Azeri. We wanted to give him a gift as a token
of our friendship. He asked for a prayer mat and a copy of Koran
for his elderly parents. I now gather that during Soviet rule, the
Azerbaijanis were not allowed to practice their religion in public;
however, in private people maintained their faith. The response from
the visiting team member asking for a copy of Koran and prayer mat
speaks in volume for a thriving religion in private.
Coming back to the main story, on June 4, 2005, about 10,000 opposition
Azerbaijanis chanted “Freedom!” and carried pictures of President Bush
as they marched across nation’s capital (Baku), urging the government
of this U.S. ally to step down and allow free parliamentary elections
this year.
The spontaneous rally in Baku was the largest of its kind in which
opposition demonstrators shouted “Freedom.” The last time Azeri people
came out to demonstrate against the government was in October 2003 when
one person died and nearly 200 were injured in clashes between police
and demonstrators protesting vote rigging in the presidential election.
Tensions have been building ever since October 2003 demonstration
in this oil-rich Caspian Sea nation in the run-up to parliamentary
elections set for November 2005. Experts from the region predict
that Azerbaijan could see a massive uprising similar to the ones that
toppled unpopular and autocratic regimes in other ex-Soviet nations
of Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan during the past 18 months.
According to news report, supporters of several opposition parties
shouted “Freedom!” and “Free Elections!” while holding placards with
such slogans as “Down with robber government!” Some even carried a
picture of Bush with the inscription: “We want freedom!” Azerbaijanis
know that America has its eye fixed on this oil-rich nation. Therefore,
carrying Bush’s photo while protesting against the repressive regime
meant asking America’s help to topple the present government.
The U.S. Department of State has given a statement in which it welcomed
granting by the Azerbaijan Government of permit to the meeting of
opposition on June 4, 2005, last Saturday in Baku. State Department
spokesperson, Mr.
Sean McCormack, underlined that the political rally ended
peacefully. On behalf of the Bush Administration, he called on the
government of Azerbaijan to grant permit to further demonstrations
of opposition so that the forthcoming fall parliament elections met
international standards.
Why should America have interest in seeing a pro-West government
installed in Baku a la Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan? The
answer lies in the fact that Azerbaijan sits on a massive oil
reserve. Oil output from Azerbaijan is expected to balloon to more
than 20 million tones in 2005. Furthermore, according to President
Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan, which inaugurated the four-billion-dollar
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline in May 2005, is expected to see
output grow further to 50 million tons per year in 2006 Aliyev said
at an oil and gas conference.
It should be noted here that America had backed the BTC project —
an infrastructure initiative that will allow Caspian Sea producers
to get their oil to Western markets without going through Russia –
that is expected to handle the excess output from the oilfield located
on the Caspian Sea.
America is hoping that the BTC pipeline when fully functional
would allow the West to depend less on OPEC nation to fulfill their
energy demand. After 2010 when Azerbaijan will produce less oil,
then Kazakhstan would commit their crude to the BTC pipeline. These
are the reasons why America and the West would like to see a pro-West
government installed in Baku. The present president, Ilham Aliyev,
while maintains good terms with both Kremlin and Washington but fellow
Azeris considers him an authoritarian ruler because he has the virtual
monopoly to power in Azerbaijan.
Some experts in Baku say that the opening of BTC marked the unofficial
start of the parliamentary election campaign. President Aliyev and
other top officials have offered assurances that the parliamentary
vote will be fair.
Opposition leaders, however, voiced their concerns about such
exaggerated claims, and expressed a desire to intensify the pressure
on the government.
Opposition protesters on June 4, 2005, milled on the streets for
electoral amendments designed to dilute the Aliyev administration’s
influence over election commissions on all levels.
In summary, opposition politicians and their supporters took to the
streets in Baku to demonstrate against the present regime on June 4,
2005. The good thing is that Aliyev regime allowed the demonstration
to go through. The parliamentary election is nearing; therefore, the
restive opposition politicians are agitating on the streets of the
capital. The Aliyev Administration hailed the opening of BTC pipeline
as a monumental achievement; however, the opposition politicians
are using the same venue to tell the world that all is not well in
this oil-rich Muslim nation as far as democracy and free election is
concerned. Stay tuned for more development in the political front. My
take is that Aliyev is a seasoned politician who would be difficult
to remove in the near term. In addition, the Bush Administration is
in good term with him. Therefore, there is no urgency in toppling
Aliyev. We maybe entering a New World Order but America still calls
the shots.
Dr. A.H. Jaffor Ullah, a researcher and columnist, writes from New
Orleans, USA