Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/434696
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 17 DECEMBER 2014 News 6 In Ilham Aliyev's court Other western governments have courted the Azeri dictatorship despite its abysmal human rights record. But has Joseph Muscat chosen the worst moment to meet Ilham Aliyev in Baku amidst a brutal crackdown on dissidents which is causing unease in other western capitals, JAMES DEBONO asks? FOLLOWING Russia's annexation of Crimea, the oil and gas rich Cau- casian republic has been touted as an alternative energy source to Pu- tin's Russia. Lately Azerbaijan has also em- barked on a marketing campaign in its bid to project itself as a prosper- ous forward looking nation, despite its notoriety for corruption which earned President Ilham Aliyev the "corruption person of the year" award (granted by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) in 2012. In April Muscat was in synch with the thinking of other EU na- tions when hinting that recent po- litical developments in Russia had strengthened Europe's resolve to diversify energy sources and go for new interconnections. He said the EU's position in favour of Azerbaijan would benefit Malta's own position, given that state-owned Azerbaijani company Socar forms part of the ElectroGas consortium supplying LNG to the new power station. But the PM's visit to Azerbaijan co- incides with a crackdown on human rights activists which is increasing pressure on western countries to distance themselves from the Aliyev regime. Deals in Baku What is sure is that Malta's for- tunes are now tied to Socar. The company not only owns 20% of Elec- trogas, which will provide Malta with gas for the next 18 years, but will be the consortium's sole energy supplier for the same time span. In October Konrad Mizzi declared that Socar, which is also a trading company apart from a gas producer, will be buying its gas from Shell, the oil and gas multinational. But according to the Prime Minis- ter the aim of his visit to Azerbaijan is to "secure a long-term gas supply for the new power station". Moreover the visit underlines the key role of Azerbaijan in Malta's energy supply. For while so far the impression given was that the agree- ment with Electrogas is one be- tween the Maltese government and a private company, the agreements signed in Baku indicate that under- lying this deal is an understanding between two governments. Turning a blind eye? Although Malta will be supplied by gas through tankers berthed along a jetty in Delimara, by 2019 Azeri gas could be reaching Italy's shores through a pipeline. This is because Azerbaijan has embarked on the TANAP project, which involves the construction of a gas pipeline from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field through Georgia, Turkey, Greece, and Albania to the south of Italy. It is planned to sup- ply six billion cubic metres of gas to Turkey and 10 billion cubic metres to Europe. In the future, capacity of the pipeline can be increased to 31 billion cubic metres. The so-called southern corridor could help provide Europe with an alternative to Russian gas. It has been described as Europe's new "energy silk road" by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose increasingly authoritarian government is poised to transit Az- eri gas to Europe. In view of Azerbaijan's strategic importance, western governments have taken an ambivalent attitude towards the country's abysmal hu- man rights record and massive cor- ruption. In December 2013 Global Witness, an NGO which investi- gates corporate corruption, accused Socar itself of "opaque trading prac- tices" in a report exposing the role of mysterious private businessmen in the organisational structure of the supposedly state owned company. The country currently ranks in 126th place out of 175 in Transpar- ency International's Corruption Perception Index, scoring only 29 points out of a maximum 100. Speaking truth to power? Surely Muscat is not the only EU leader to court Aliyev's dictatorship, but other western leaders have at least used these encounters to pub- lically express concern on human rights abuses in the country. In 2013 former EC president Manuel Barroso had met Aliyev. But Barroso also used his visit to express concern on human rights in meetings with representatives of Azeri civil society and human rights activists. Meetings with Aliyev also come at a risk of being used for internal propaganda purposes. In July 2014 Italian Premier Mat- teo Renzi was seriously embarrassed when Aliyev tweeted that he was ready to declare war on Armenia and Italy would support him. Israel is another country which has built a strategic alliance with Mus- lim Azerbaijan. Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that Israel has conducted intelli- gence operations against Iran from neighbouring Azerbaijan, to whom it sold weapons systems, including drones and radar. Talks on a pipeline linking Israel's own massive gas deposits to the TANAP pipeline have been stalled by a prolonged diplomatic crisis be- tween Israel and Ankara. In its bid to seek international re- spectability, Azerbaijan has spent millions on lobbying and public relations, including sponsorship of Spanish soccer side Atletico Madrid (last season's Champions League fi- nalist). Controversially Azerbaijan was allowed to assume the six-month rotating chairmanship of the Com- mittee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) last May, despite years of suppression of criticism and fail- ure to adhere to the commitments it undertook when joining the organi- sation. The turning point It was a clampdown on the Az- eri opposition last Summer which resulted in firm condemnation by both US President Barack Obama and the European Parliament. This may represent a turning point in the West's relationship with the Aliyev regime. Both the United States and the European Union are now taking a stronger stance against Azerbaijan. In a September 23 speech in New York City, for the first time ever Pres- ident Obama included Azerbaijan in a list of the world's worst human rights violators, citing, in particular, "laws [that] make it incredibly diffi- cult for NGOs even to operate." The criticism was Obama's first such public remark on Azerbaijan, which coincided with the European Parliament's earlier call to the Eu- ropean Council, to apply "targeted sanctions against those responsible for human rights violations" in Az- erbaijan if such abuses persist. The September 18 resolution de- mands that the Azerbaijani govern- ment correct its ways and "immedi- ately and unconditionally" release all political prisoners; a list that, ac- cording to local human rights activ- ists, included 81 people. According to regional political analyst Eldar Mamedov, the "in- creasingly acrimonious exchanges" between the EU and Azerbaijan are driven by differing ideas in Brussels and Baku about the nature of the re- lationship. A decade ago, when the EU launched its European Neighbour- hood Policy, Brussels expected participants, including Azerbaijan, to gradually embrace EU standards covering basic individual rights. Az- erbaijan, on the other hand, believes that it can export energy to the EU without having to adopt western standards of democracy and human rights. The plight of Leyla Yunus Muscat's visit has coincided with growing concern on the fate of hu- man rights activist Leyla Yunus and investigative journalist Khadija Is- mayilova. On December 9 lawyer Ramiz Mammadov said the health of Leyla Yunus – a prominent Azerbaijani human rights activist who has been imprisoned since last July – is de- teriorating rapidly. Yunus, who has diabetes and hepatitis C, is not re- ceiving any medication for her con- dition and as a result, has trouble breathing and can barely walk, says Mammadov. Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif were arrested on 30 July 2014, a day after Leyla wrote an open letter to President Aliyev in which she criti- cised his regime for targeting human rights activists and bloggers, urging him "not to go down in history as a 'tyrant and a dictator'." They are currently being held separately in pre-trial detention. Leyla has been charged with, among others, treason and tax evasion, her husband with treason and fraud. They claim the charges levelled against them are unfounded and po- litically motivated and Amnesty In- ternational labelled them "prisoners of conscience". On November 26 the President of the European Parliament Mar- tin Schulz said, "the terms of Leyla Yunus' custody threaten her life se- riously. The European Parliament calls for her immediate release. The European Parliament recognises her courage and commitment to demo- cratic values and expresses its sup- port." The Azeri state-owned media re- plied by demonising the European Jose Manuel Barroso (right) with Ilham Aliyev Khadija Ismayilova – her arrest has been a turning point in relations between the US and the Aliyev regime