The authorities of Azerbaijan spend millions of dollars to convince politicians in Europe and the United States that an oil-rich country is a reliable partner and try to distract attention from criticism of its authoritarian regime and human rights violations.
Almost 50 years ago, the Beatles group releases a song “Money cannot buy me love.”
However, the Azerbaijani authorities, who get considerable revenues from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, aim to prove the opposite.
On October 30, about 600 influential people from Washington gathered in the columned halls of the National Building Museum for a five-course dinner and show sponsored by the Azerbaijan-America Alliance. The evening was hosted by alliance Chairman and former U.S. Congressman Dan Burton. The event’s “honorary host committee” included four U.S. senators and 13 members of Congress.
According to Joshua Noonan, an expert on Azerbaijan in The Conway Bulletin, who attended the reception in Washington, said that it was a useful event for them as former congressmen, media managers and “many lobbyists” attended that event.
Caviar Diplomacy
This generous reception is part of the aggressive strategy of the “caviar diplomacy” of Baku, which includes using numerous gifts, treats and other things to persuade the opinion of influential people towards Azerbaijan.
Former US ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Kauzlarich told Azattyk that “such events only emphasize the contrast between reality and fiction about Azerbaijan.”
The term “caviar democracy” appeared in the headline of the May 2012 report of the European Stability Initiative (ESI), organization specializing in the issues of South Eastern Europe and the enlargement of the European Union. The author of the report and ESI chairman Herald Knaus told Azattyk that despite the deterioration in sphere of the human rights in Azerbaijan, the Council of Europe “is less and less insistent and increasingly quiet in its criticism,” and in this connection they “tried to understand and describe how the process of pacifying this institution works and how it happened.
“SYSTEMATIC AND VERY AGGRESSIVE”
According to Gerald Knaus, Baku’s efforts are “systematic” and “very aggressive.”
Caviar diplomacy includes a systematic approach to finding friends, inviting people in large numbers. Every year dozens of members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) are invited to Baku by pro-government NGOs or directly by the government. “This includes a lot of very aggressive lobbying, promises, and then – offering positions as lobbyists, to people who previously held very important positions in the Council of Europe, in order to send a clear message “if you are on our side, you can become a well-paid lobbyist” mentions Herald Knaus.
The ESI report mentions that among others, former deputy from the German Christian Democrat party and former PACE member Eduard Lintner, who was a member of the PACE observation delegation at a referendum in March 2009, at which the rule on limiting the presidential term was abolished which gave the opportunity for Ilham Aliyev to remain president indefinitely.
The report of the PACE delegation said that the widely criticized referendum showed the desire of the people of Azerbaijan to have greater stability and elements of subsequent democratization. By the end of 2009 Edward Lintner left PACE and became chairman of the Society for the Promotion of German-Azerbaijani Relations (GEFDAB), a shadowy organization described as a de facto lobbying group for Baku.
CONNECTION WITH ELECTIONS
Last month in the presidential elections, during which Ilham Aliyev won an easy victory and was elected to the third presidential term, GEFDAB sponsored an observation mission by a Belgian registered NGO. Latter found the elections fair, democratic and transparent.
Baku’s actions in Europe seem to have a progressing result in January, when PACE rejected by a vote of 175 against to 79 in favor, a tough report prepared by special rapporteur Christoph Strasser identifying 85 political prisoners in Azerbaijan and calling for their release. German MEP Christopher Strasser has not been given a visa to enter Azerbaijan since he was named special rapporteur in 2009
According to experts, “caviar diplomacy” of Baku was connected with the presidential elections last month. According to the ESI report on elections in Azerbaijan, no more than 50 organizations sent observation missions to Baku, of which 49 mostly obscure and many of them connected with Azerbaijani-funded NGOs such as Lintner’s GEFDAB, praised the ballot.
The only organization that called elections non-democratic and not corresponding to international standards was the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), after which they threatened sharply reduce cooperation with the OSCE.
A human rights defender working in London and former US diplomat in Baku Rebecca Vincent calls the actions of many European deputies “unethical” and says that such a policy of Azerbaijan “makes it very difficult for some European organizations.
LOBBYING IN THE USA
The work of the Azerbaijan-America Alliance, apparently, repeats the actions of Baku in Europe – despite the fact that the alliance is officially an NGO. It was set up by Anar Mammadov, the Azerbaijani oligarch and the son of Transport Minister Ziya Mammadov. Based on the information on the website of the alliance it is clear that he strictly follows the positions of the Azerbaijani authorities.
One of the organization’s goals is to expand the support group of Azerbaijan in the US Congress, which was founded in 2004 and currently includes 46 congressmen.
According to the website of Opensecrets.org monitoring lobbying in Washington, the alliance paid Fabiani & Company lobbyists $ 1.8 million in 2013, $ 2.4 million in 2012 and $ 1.8 million in 2011.
Despite this, according to Joshua Noonan, this policy of Baku is unlikely to have the same impact in the US as it seems to have in Europe, and will not affect policy at a deep level.
Robert Coalson and Anna Klevtsova were involved in the preparation of the material