Opposition activists in Azerbaijan accuse America of double standards on rights

US sidles up to well-oiled autocracy
Opposition activists in Azerbaijan accuse America of
double standards on rights

Nick Paton Walsh in Baku

The Guardian

Mehdi, still hobbling after nine months, likened the
torture to having his "brain pulled out by a magnet".
Strapped to an electric chair inside the bowels of the
Azerbaijani police’s organised crime unit, metal
panels were put under his feet, he said. A plastic bib
was tied to his front, and headphones with earpieces
like the metal tip of a doctor’s otoscope were put
inside his ears.

His masked interrogators gave him one last chance to
denounce the Musavat opposition party he supported,
and then switched on the current, he said.

"My nose was gushing blood down the bib. My eyes felt
like they had leapt out of my head. My tongue was
forced out of my mouth by the current. I thought my
teeth would split open. And I felt like my bladder,
bowels and stomach would empty."

After the second burst of electricity, he lost
consciousness. He recalls waking up on a couch in the
same room, with a doctor giving him cardiopulmonary
resuscitation. "I felt like I was floating, like I was
dead," he said.

Mehdi’s chief interrogator began to beat him again.
"Do you want to die here?" he asked. Only the doctor
held him back.

Nearly two weeks later, Mehdi, who asked for his real
name not to be used, was released.

His torture, documented by Human Rights Watch, is one
example of the treatment meted out to activists of
Azerbaijani opposition parties in the wake of
October’s presidential election.

The election, which replaced the infirm authoritarian
Heydar Aliyev with his son, Ilham, was criticised for
irregularities.

President Aliyev junior launched a brutal crackdown on
the political opposition immediately after his
election, arresting hundreds and torturing many,
according to human rights activists. Yet this month,
with pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
undermining Washington’s ability to criticise similar
practices elsewhere, the Pentagon forged ahead with
plans to increase its presence in the Caspian state.

US officials cite the important strategic and
logistical role that the key state in the Caucasus, on
the border with Iran, can play in the "war on terror".
They are also open about the need to protect the £2bn
oil pipeline set to carry a million barrels of Caspian
oil daily to Turkey and the American market by late
next year.

Washington is increasing to 50 the number of military
advisers who are training Azerbaijani troops, while
doubling its annual military aid package next year to
nearly £13m. One European diplomat said the US was
developing a "permanent military presence by stealth".

An exchange programme for Azerbaijani troops with the
Oklahoma national guard is scheduled for 2005, and the
US has built a radar station on the Caspian coast to
aid border control.

American planes can be at Azerbaijani bases under a
refuelling agreement, and there are persistent reports
in the country’s media that the US has helped to fund
improvements to local airfields, which the embassy
denies.

Navy Seals

The cooperation took on a new openness on June 10,
when a squad of elite US navy Seals publicly trained
with Azerbaijani special forces in the Caspian, racing
powerful speed boats along a stretch of sea that runs
between the country’s restless neighbours, Russia and
Iran.

On the same day, the second most important US general
in Europe, Charles Wald, held his second meeting in
three months with top Azerbaijani officials.

The Pentagon insists this presence is not "permanent"
and will not amount to an American base on Azerbaijani
soil. Yet Gen Wald said in March that he hoped
Azerbaijan could improve some air bases so US craft
could "temporarily" use them.

Nato is also increasing its interest in cooperation
with Baku, with President Aliyev hovering among senior
US officials at the summit in Istanbul this week.

Human rights activists and opposition supporters have
accused Washington of double standards on Azerbaijan.

Until September 11 2001, the regime’s human rights
record meant it was under US sanctions and received no
military aid. In February this year, the US state
department reported that the "police tortured and beat
persons in custody" and concluded that the Aliyev
government had a "poor" human rights record,
protesting at the abuses after October’s presidential
election, when police in black masks had brutally
attacked an unarmed opposition protest, hitting some
protesters as they lay unconscious. One man died and
Russian television showed a small boy being carried
away limp.

Opposition officials around the country were rounded
up and many were tortured. Natiq Jabiyev, Musavat’s
elections secretary said the organised crime unit
stripped him naked and plunged nails beneath three
fingers of his left hand. The US state department said
reports of his torture were "credible". Yet sanctions
– lifted for reasons of national security - have not
been reintroduced, and military aid has been
increased.

Local politicians and activists said they were
exasperated by the White House’s support for the
Aliyev regime, and the US actions at Abu Ghraib.

Isa Gambar, Musavat’s leader, said: "The impact of Abu
Ghraib has been very negative. Five out of seven of my
party leaders who are in jail have been tortured. The
Azerbaijani government, trying to justify itself, now
says that torture happens everywhere. The US’s main
objective here is stability, and their other goals [of
fighting terrorism, extracting oil, and developing
democracy] tend to be a victim of this."

Shahla Ismailova, from the Women’s Association for
Rational Development, said: "Oil is the preferred goal
of the US in Azerbaijan, not civil society - even the
rural population understands this."

But the US ambassador, Reno Harnish, said: "Torture is
reprehensible. We have been very public in our
criticism of abuses, [but] 70, maybe 80 or even 90% of
our approaches on this issue are private."

Yet US support for the regime has made Mehdi’s
disillusionment complete. "If this is democracy, then
bring back socialism.

"The US come here and bring us pain, and for what?
Oil."