It is Time to End Aliyev's Regime

Armenian News Network / Groong
July 7, 2017

By Grigor Hakobyan

 
SUMMARY

Constant violations of ceasefire along the Line of Contact culminated
in a failed Azerbajiani military aggression against the Republic of
Artsakh on April 2nd of 2016. The incident came to be known as the
Four Day War in Armenia which ended on April 6, 2016 at the behest of
Aliyev's regime in light of a powerful and devastating Armenian
military response in conjunction with immense pressure by the
international community demanding from Azerbaijan to end the war as
soon as possible. The war resulted in more than one hundred deaths on
Armenian side and several times more on Azerbaijani side which managed
to take over a couple of Armenian military positions in the north and
south of Artsakh.

Additionally, Azerbajiani special forces in conjunction with Turkish
special operators engaged in war crimes against the civilian
population of villages Talish and Madaghis where several people were
shot and mutilated while another one was decapitated alive. Moreover,
the bodies of more than a dozen Armenian servicemen who either fell
during the initial Azerbaijani assault or were captured while wounded
on the battlefield came back dismembered and mutilated. The true face
of Aliyev's regime became known to the world; however, nothing was
done to end the evil regime in Baku.


BACKGROUND

In 1993 after losing region after region in the Artsakh Liberation War
of 1988-1994, a military mutiny under the leadership of high ranking
Azerbaijani officer, colonel Suret Huseynov erupted. The insurgent
forces left their positions in the battlefield, occupied Azerbaijan's
second largest city Gandzak (Ganja) and began their march toward
Baku. In panic, the Azerbaijani president Abulfaz Elchibey fled Baku
seeking refuge in his native village of Keleki in Nakhichevan while
former Soviet KGB general Heydar Aliyev took power in October of 1993
and became the third president of Azerbaijan. After the death of
eldest Aliyev, his son Ilham Aliyev took power and became the fourth
president of Azerbaijan since 2003 until present. Thus, began the
first instance of family succession of power in post-Soviet space.

Since then Ilham Aliyev launched a war of attrition against the
Armenian forces along the Line of Contact in Artsakh while doing the
same on a relatively smaller scale in border areas of Armenian
Republic and Azerbaijan. Despite the fact that Armenian forces have
repelled all attempts of border infiltration by Azerbaijani special
forces the situation remains tense. Continuous war rhetoric from the
top of Azerbaijani leadership and rapid weapons acquisition by
Azerbaijani military have made the likelihood of another war erupting
in the region ever more likely.


ANALYSIS

The perpetuation of Aliyev's regime in Baku can be explained by
several factors at play domestically, regionally and internationally.
Domestically Aliyev's regime is violently suppressing any instance of
free speech and the public's right to assembly. Journalist who dare to
question the legitimacy of Aliyev's regime and shed light on backstage
dealings of Aliyev's clan with regional and international actors such
as oil and gas companies, offshore banks and weapons manufacturers are
persecuted, tortured and put in prison. Any reference or inquiry into
widespread theft of public resources and near monopoly of Aliyev's
regime over Azerbaijan's economy gets suppressed by the regime.  Even
those who manage to flee the country are hunted down, kidnapped across
the border and forcefully brought back to Baku to face prison
sentences on trump up charges of treason or some other offense that
carries lengthy prison sentence.

In the meantime, Aliyev's regime is running out of options as it tries
to balance its foreign policy objectives between the East and the
West, as well as between Sunni led and Shia led political blocks
dominating the Middle East. Both Sunni and Shia preachers sponsored by
Saudi Arabia and Iran are making their way through Azerbaijan
garnering die-hard followers. As a result, thousands of Azerbaijanis
have joined ISIS in the Middle East in pursuit of establishing a
theocratic government in the region with hopes of making Azerbaijan a
part of that vision. Considering that the days for ISIS are numbered
both in Syria and Iraq, thousands of them are coming back to
Azerbaijan to heel their wounds of defeat.

Now these former fighters have become a ticking time bomb waiting to
explode once they feel that the time is right for them to rise and
overthrow a corrupt dictatorship based on ethnic chauvinism that they
have sown themselves for the last twenty-four years. Already various
ethnic and religious minorities in Azerbaijan are being persecuted in
the country for their beliefs and identity. One can only imagine what
will happen to them once religious zealots take over to pursue their
apocalyptic visions of end of times and messianic return.

As recent examples in the Middle East have shown, significant poverty
coupled with corrupt dictatorships terrorizing their own people create
a fertile ground for religious lunatics to take over. Azerbaijan being
one of the most corrupt governments in the world with a third of tge
population living below poverty will not be able to stop the tide of
religious extremism from taking over. Large amounts of weapons and
ammunitions that the regime has accumulated for the past decades to
use in the conflict against the Armenian forces will be enough to
fight a very protracted civil war for everyone involved.


CONCLUSION

It is time for the international community and centers of power to
imagine an Azerbaijan without Aliyev. The country can become another
Syria with dozens of competing factions fighting over territory,
transportation routes and its oil/gas wealth. Anticipating a Russian
invasion from the north, Iranian invasion from the south, and Turkish
invasion of Nakhichevan from the west under the pretext of stabilizing
the country as they have done in Syria are no longer a farfetched
scenario to consider. A clash of regional titans over Azerbaijani will
leave no other option for the people of Azerbaijan but to flee their
country in search of refuge not only in Georgia but in Armenia as
well.

Perhaps it will be prudent for regional and global players to force a
preemptive regime change in Azerbaijan to avert such a scenario before
it becomes too late. It is on the international community to make sure
that those with truly democratic credentials rise to take the helm of
Azerbaijan. It will be upon a democratically elected Azerbaijani
leadership to make an honest effort to serve their people by
establishing democratic institutions, bring transparency to their
governance and work toward normalization of relations with Armenia for
a lasting peace in the region. After all, it is not the people of
Azerbaijan that Armenian forces have fought against, but rather the
chauvinistic, kleptocratic regime in Azerbaijan that has stolen
billions from their own people, while their propaganda machine
conditions them to believe that it was all Armenians' fault that they
are suffering.


--
Grigor Hakobyan is an independent political analyst residing in
Phoenix, AZ, and a former ANCA Fellow in Washington D.C. He is the
founder of a virtual think tank called Ararat Institute for Near Eastern
Studies. He was also a freelance writer for the Central Asia-Caucasus
Institute of John Hopkins University and has interned in Congress for Rep.
Brad Sherman, researching ethnic conflicts and terrorism in Russia,
Caucasus and Central Asia. Grigor also completed an internship at the
International Center for Terrorism Studies of the Potomac Institute for
Policy Studies where he researched international terrorist networks
operating in the Caucasus and Central Asia, preparing congressional
briefings for the Director of ICTS on WMDs. Grigor holds a B.A. in
Political Science from Arizona State University.