On the eve of the new year of 2017, the Azerbaijani leadership received a remarkable “Christmas gift” from Europe. The European Stability Initiative (ESI) NGO has recently published the second part of its report named “Caviar Diplomacy: the European Swamp”.
Let’s note that in 2012, the ESI published a report on “Caviar Diplomacy”, which uncovered the mechanism created by the Baku authorities to bribe high-ranking European politicians lobbying for the interests of Azerbaijan. And although the report caused a great resonance, however, no drastic changes took place then. Apparently, the Caspian black caviar, jewelry and generous cash rewards, which flew to “elected” politicians of the West, outweighed the democratic principles and humanitarian values of Europe.
As a result, corruption, in fact, has become the major tool of the Azerbaijani diplomacy. However, it isn’t surprising, because it took deep roots in Azerbaijan yet during the Soviet reign of the current President’s father. It is known that, as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev launched a kind of conveyor system of bribing the owners of high offices of the Kremlin, through which valuable gifts flew to Moscow, thanks to which he paved his way to the post of First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. As we can see, the rich experience of his father was useful for Ilham, but in new political conditions. The Azerbaijani crown prince inherited from his father not only the power, but also the vicious methods of work that are alien to human morality. Baku’s totalitarian regime was not limited to gross violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms in its own country. To protect itself from harsh criticism and possible political consequences, official Baku actually exported corrupt practices to the structures of the Council of Europe. The foreign policy, aptly named “caviar diplomacy”, took the ugliest forms in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), where the Azerbaijani authorities, through “huge financial investments”, forced foreign politicians to be silent.
The point of this scandal is connected with the exposure of the PACE members, whom official Baku bribed so that they failed Christopher Strasser’s report on the situation of human rights in Azerbaijan. The ESI report included the texts of correspondences of Azerbaijani MPs with some PACE members from different countries, who actively defended in this structure the position of Baku on denying the facts of human rights violation. One of the corrupt MEPs was Luca Volonte, who visited Azerbaijan and received generous cash transfers for several years. In 2011, his task was to launch a campaign of criticism against Christopher Strasser for his report on political prisoners in Azerbaijan, resulting in its failure. While in 2012 Azerbaijan, which fiercely rejected such accusations, managed to hush up the scandal, this time the ESI presented stronger evidence of its accusations, including the activity of those who actively denies the facts of corruption. Currently, the police is studying Volonte’s correspondence with the Azerbaijani MPs, which clearly testifies to his bribery and implementation of the direct instructions by his Baku bosses. For the four years of cooperation with the Azerbaijani authorities, about 3 million Euro was transferred to Volonte’s accounts. Euro. It is no accident that the report “Caviar Diplomacy – 2” begins with such a title – “Human Rights are for Sale”.
It is important to note that the leaderships of Armenia and Artsakh have repeatedly warned the European structures about the danger of turning these structures into ordinary markets, where democratic values, or more precisely – the human morality are sold for caviar and money. By its dirty methods Azerbaijanhas actually undermined the system of democratic standards created in Europe for decades. We can say that justice as the supreme value became a bargaining chip, which the dirty European officials paid for the generous handouts by the Aliyev regime. As a result, they turned a blind eye to the flagrant violations of human rights in Azerbaijan and kept criminal silence. But, the “silence of lambs” was far more dangerous in the situations related to the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict.
Today, when the second part of the report by the European Stability Initiative is published, the name of the current Chairman of the PACE, Spanish MP Pedro Agramunt, has emerged in the wake of the scandal. It turns out that in addition to Volonte, Baku intensively cooperated with him, calling to block Strasser’s report and the issue of political prisoners in Azerbaijan in general. It was Don Pedro that before and after his appointment as the head of the organization conducted openly anti-Armenian activities and frustrated the speeches of the PACE members from Armenia, actively promoting the adoption of pro-Azerbaijani resolutions on Nagorno Karabakh.
Four years ago, the political leadership of Azerbaijan managed to emerge unscathed. What will happen this time? At least, the ESI is determined. The report suggests the demand to raise the issue of depriving the Azerbaijani delegation the right to vote at the PACE January session. It also stresses the need to raise the issue of political prisoners in Azerbaijan and to put once again the report by Strasser to the vote or to appoint a new rapporteur on this issue, recommending, at the same time, the Prosecutor’s Offices of France, Spain, Germany and other countries to investigate the facts of bribing MPs from these countries by Azerbaijan.
Leonid MARTIROSYAN
Editor-in-Chief of Azat Artsakh newspaper