Open Letter to Secretary Kerry: Why US is Betraying Its Friends and Values in Azerbaijan?

Dear Secretary Kerry,

I am writing you to ask why under your watch America’s values and friends are being betrayed in Azerbaijan.

This process has been going on for a while. But it seems to have culminated last week, when Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland traveled to Baku and announced that the US and Azerbaijan plan to create a “joint structure for democracy and human rights”. This announcement might be seen by some as a symbolic final nail driven into the coffin of the US support for democracy in Azerbaijan.

Unfortunately, none of the jailed dissidents were mentioned by Ms. Nuland in her public speech in Baku. Instead of unequivocal demands for their immediate release, we heard the Assistant Secretary effectively doubling-down on the US support for the official Baku with pledges of friendship and cooperation. Not surprisingly, the regime too doubled-down in its crackdown. Immediately after Assistant Secretary Nuland’s visit, additional charges were leveled against the imprisoned RFE/RL journalist Ismayilova, renewed hostile actions were taken against other RFE/RL employees, pre-trial detentions of the internationally renowned rights defender Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif Yunus got extended, and a draconian sixteen months jail sentence over a trumped up traffic accident was handed down to the opposition leader Jamil Hasanli’s daughter.

Another indication of how the Azerbaijani government perceives the “dialog on human rights” can be seen from your telephone conversation two months ago with its leader, lham Aliyev. According to State Department’s disclosure, during the call you expressed concerns regarding the deteriorating situation there. However, Mr. Aliyev’s police forces raided the local offices of the US Congress-funded Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) shortly after he hung the phone. The station’s Baku offices have been sealed shut by the authorities ever since and its employees were subjected to forced interrogations.

Some among the hundred or so Azerbaijani political prisoners, like the mentioned above journalist Khadija Ismayilova, an independent election monitor Anar Mammadli, and a rights activist Rasul Jafarov, are detained under charges directly linked to their work with the US-government funded organizations. In his sixty page anti-American diatribe published in official press, the head of presidential administration Ramiz Mehdiyev openly accused the US in creating a “fifth column” in his country. He named Khadija Ismayilova as an American agent and she was promptly arrested shortly afterwards. Mr. Mehdiyev claimed in his piece that the US government is fomenting color revolutions in Azerbaijan, as it did in Ukraine and elsewhere. Why would the US then lend legitimacy to the regime that issues such abhorrent claims by establishing a joint human rights commission with it?

The dictatorship in Baku has now been emboldened to the point of attacking not just Azerbaijani dissenters, but also US citizens, their family members and American institutions. One after another, the local offices of such American organizations as NDI, IRI, IREX, and Peace Corps were shut down. Some had their bank accounts frozen and employees detained. According to an article in Foreign Policy magazine, the US Embassy in Baku denied protection to the local rights group leader and husband of an American servicewoman, Emin Huseynov. He had to take a refuge in the Swiss embassy instead. A US citizen, Said Nuri, also complained about the lack support from the US Embassy when he faced troubles with authorities during his trip to Azerbaijan that seem to be related to his past as an Azerbaijani dissident.

The absurdity of creating a bilateral human rights structure with a regime that for decades demonstrated its utter disregard for basic freedoms and rights should have been self-evident. Previous such dialogues and “structures” between Baku and its Western partners did not yield any improvements on this front. Quite the opposite: the country has been continually backsliding on all fundamental indicators of democracy. Azerbaijan now has more political prisoners than Russia and Belarus combined – the two countries that face US sanctions over human rights. And there are increasing calls for the US to go beyond empty verbal criticism and take some tangible action, including asset freezes and travel bans against the Azerbaijani officials implicated in gross rights violations.

Yet this disgraceful regime, headed by a person recognized as the world’s most corrupt person of the year (by OCCRP, in 2012), is touted by its paid lobbyists and the US officials alike as a “strategic American ally”. There is simply no sound justification for this. Continuing on this path is bound to be disastrous both for Azerbaijan and for the US reputation and interests in that part of the world. When that time comes, those concerned should, perhaps, recall Ms. Nuland’s trip to Baku and raise the question asked in the beginning of this letter.

Sincerely yours,

Elmar Chakhtakhtinski
Chairman
Azerbaijani-Americans for Democracy (AZAD)