bulfaz Elchibey, former President of Azerbaijan.

A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

"Russia Will Break Up Anyway"
Interview with Abulfaz Elchibey, former President of Azerbaijan and leader of Democratic Congress and People's Front.

After living in seclusion in the Nakhichevan community of Keleki for four years, former President of Azerbaijan and leader of the Democratic Congress and People"s Front Abulfaz Elchibey landed in the epicenter of national politics as soon as he returned to Baku. He drew attention immediately by making shocking statements -- about the need to review all of the oil contracts Azerbaijan had signed with foreign countries and about the creation of a new political organization, "United Azerbaijan," with the policy goal of reuniting Northern and Southern (Iranian) Azerbaijan. Then the Fifth Congress of the Azerbaijan People"s Front recently nominated Elchibey as its candidate for the national presidency.

(Akhundova) Many people in the republic who remember your hasty departure from Baku and your inability to put down the rebellion of Suret Guseynov"s detachments feel that you are not firm enough or tough enough to serve as president. What would happen if you were elected again and the situation of June 1993 were to be repeated? Would you try to suppress the rebellion by force this time, as Boris Yeltsin did in October 1993, for example, or Heydar Aliyev did in March 1995?

(Elchibey) I could not act the way they did. It is possible that Boris Yeltsin kept Russia from suffering more massive upheavals when he chose to use force at that time, but his methods were undemocratic. In time he will have to answer for this, and so will those who shed the blood of civilians. This was a historic crime.

(Akhundova) The other side, however, had also chosen to use force, just as our special forces did in March 1995 when they rebelled against the government. Are you saying that it is wrong to fight force with force?

(Elchibey) There is no question that a rebellion has to be suppressed, but if the use of force can lead to civil war, other methods have to be considered first.

Akhundova) What would be the outcome? Another resignation?

(Elchibey) That is possible. How many years was Levon Ter-Petrosyan in office? Under pressure, however, he was forced by his opponents to resign. On the other hand, he did leave peacefully, without any bloodshed. Those are the realities of the transition period, and precedents of that kind will continue until the onset of political stability and the establishment of a civil society. I do not want Azerbaijan to become another Afghanistan or Algeria.

(Akhundova) What kind of relationship do you have with the present head of state, Heydar Aliyev? How would you rate his policies, particularly his decisions on economic reform and the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict?

(Elchibey) There are rumors in some circles that Heydar Aliyev and I have stayed in touch secretly and that we pursue one set of goals in public and another in private. They are all false. I have criticized him vehemently. I thought he would be able to prevent civil war. The main objective at that time was to save the republic. What happened? The policy of the current government drove more than a million people out of the republic, in the same way that Armenia lost at least a million of its people. That is why I ask people who talk about the economic "successes" of Azerbaijan or Armenia, "How can you call it a success when people have to leave the country to get enough food to eat?"

(Akhundova) Do you feel that the economic reforms are not progressing?

(Elchibey) You live here yourself, and you can see what is happening. The economic reforms might be progressing, but what about the methods? Reforms require careful forethought. The land reform is a good example. The supply of rural land is being plundered today, and the land is falling into the hands of outsiders. Meanwhile, what is going on with the industrial enterprises? Their privatization has, on the other hand, been delayed. In an atmosphere of production stoppages and unemployment, facilities stand idle and become dilapidated, and the equipment becomes unusable. The price of this kind of enterprise drops to a fraction of its earlier value. Aggressive businessmen buy these enterprises for a song. Some of them only want the land and do not care about the plant or factory with its machine tools and other equipment. They want to build houses or hotels on the land. There has been no progress in settling the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict either. The authorities give the refugees nothing but promises: You can have the land in spring, you can have it in fall.

(Akhundova) What are your predictions for the near future?

(Elchibey) I think political forces in Armenia will get more radical soon and will create an atmosphere of war hysteria in the country. The elections will contribute to this. The Armenians will not launch a full-scale war, however, because they do not have the military strength for this kind of war. Moscow will not help because the United States will not let it. In other words, the war will be stopped by the same forces that started it. It is naive to think that the Armenians and Azerbaijanis are fighting each other. Were the units that simultaneously seized six Azerbaijani rayons Armenian? What a fairy tale! This was all done by Russian troops. Today it is in Russia"s interest to keep the Karabakh conflict going. It will be kept alive for another year or two. It is no coincidence, after all, that Ter-Petrosyan submitted his resignation now, just as the two sides had been willing to reach some kind of compromise. Russia did not want this to happen because it would have lost control of the region. International forces, in which Russian troops were not allowed to play the dominant role, should have been sent here.

(Akhundova) After you returned you also criticized the current leadership's oil policy, which many people in the world have called quite successful. Why?

(Elchibey) Because this policy is squandering our main national resource. I once objected to Russia's involvement in Azerbaijan"s oil contracts. I had just one reason, and it had nothing to do with politics. Almost 2,000 wells in Azerbaijan were not working at that time because of technical obsolescence and the shortage of funds. Around 41,000 wells are idle in Russia for the same reasons. That makes me wonder what the Russian companies can do here if they cannot surmount technical obsolescence and start operating tens of thousands of wells in their own country.

(Akhundova) You could also say this about the United States, however, and its companies are actively involved in the development of Azerbaijan's oil resources. The U.S. Congress still has not repealed the discriminatory Section 907 and refuses to give our republic government aid. Armenia, on the other hand, has been flooded with this kind of aid.

(Elchibey) You are absolutely right. I have always said it is wrong to mix oil with politics. Oil is an economic issue, but if you have to turn oil into a factor and token of big politics, you should at least be consistent. If partners refuse to make concessions and treat you badly, you are fully entitled to break the contract. The oil belongs to the people of Azerbaijan, but the oil production facilities are being run by people who treat Azerbaijan with hostility, who will not repeal discriminatory laws, who refuse to help Azerbaijan"s people, and who want to make billions in profits here for themselves. I would say this to them: I do not need your help or your amendments. I will work the oil fields myself and I will sell my own oil.

So much was being written at one time about the conquest of the Near and Middle East by American, French, and English capital. Much of it was true, incidentally. Europe and the United States got rich while children in Saudi Arabia were begging in the streets. Today the same neocolonial methods are being used in my native Azerbaijan.

(Akhundova) Now that "the train has left the station," as the saying goes, and the contracts are in effect, it would be interesting to hear your views on the pipeline issue. It seems to me that you were opposed to the Russian route.

(Elchibey) The northern route can be used as long as there is not too much oil. I objected to Russia"s monopolization of the network of export pipelines carrying oil out of Azerbaijan, but it is an acceptable route as long as it is not the only option.

(Akhundova) You once said that Azerbaijan was wrong to join the CIS. What do you think of the Commonwealth today?

(Elchibey) A serious error was committed during the construction of the edifice known as the CIS. It could have remained standing if it had been conceived as a commonwealth of independent states -- I am stressing the word independent -- in which the rights of each state, of Armenia, of Georgia, and of Azerbaijan, would be defended. The Abkhaz population in Abkhazia is using Russian troops to drive out the Georgian population. What kind of commonwealth is this? Russia is using the CIS as a way of keeping the old empire in a new form and is inventing various mechanisms for this. The CIS leaders have not made a single serious attempt to settle the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict or any other conflicts within the territory of the post-Soviet zone. I once called the CIS a big kolkhoz without a charter. That kind of kolkhoz inevitably falls apart, and this has essentially happened.

(Akhundova) How would you rate Russia"s current policy in the Caucasus? Do you advocate total independence for Chechnya?

(Elchibey) I believe in the independence of Chechnya and of the whole Caucasus. Did the Caucasus always belong to Russia? Free nationalities lived there and were annexed by Russia by force. Today they are entitled to recover the freedom and independence they lost.

(Akhundova) No one would agree to this voluntarily, however.

(Elchibey) That means that the freedom will have to be won through bloodshed, as it was in Chechnya.

(Akhundova) Are you worried that the possible centrifugal tendencies in the Northern Caucasus resulting from Chechnya"s secession could provoke the same inclinations in Dagestan and give rise to a Lezgin problem? It would also be much more difficult to persuade the Armenians of Nagornyy Karabakh to remain part of the Azerbaijan Republic.

(Elchibey) Those would be the problems of the Caucasus, and not of Russia. When the Caucasus encounters those problems, it is quite probable that it will decide to form some kind of confederation. This will benefit all of the nationalities of the region -- the Avars, the Armenians, and the Lezgins. It would be a confederation of nationalities with similar traditions and a similar mentality and way of life. What, for example, do the Ingush want? They want independence and a chance to decide their own future.

(Akhundova) But they want to remain part of Russia. In any case, Ruslan Aushev is always saying this.

(Elchibey) Ruslan Aushev is an intelligent man. If he frankly admitted that he wanted to secede from Russia, he would not last another day. Ruslan Aushev also says that he will remove Ingushetia"s procuracy and Ministry of Internal Affairs from central jurisdiction if he is re-elected.

This is the first step toward greater independence. What about President Shaymiyev of Tatarstan? He is not in a hurry either, but he is gradually winning more and more independence from Moscow, step by step and by peaceful means. This is a common policy. At some point, however, even Tatarstan will feel strong enough to demand more sweeping powers, such as the right to have its own ministry of foreign affairs.

(Akhundova) Are you saying that centrifugal processes are unavoidable in Russia itself?

(Elchibey) They are unavoidable.

(Akhundova) Do you see the danger of the breakup of such a huge nation as Russia? It could cause major upheavals throughout the post-communist zone.

(Elchibey) I do not agree. Vast empires were fine in the Middle Ages. They have lost their value today. In fact, it is easier to govern small states. Russia is still a big empire.

(Akhundova) Many people, including many in Russia, would say that your ideas are utopian.

(Elchibey) The idea that the Soviet empire would collapse and that independent states would spring up in its place once seemed utopian to many people, but I believed in this. Today there is a confrontation between two sets of forces in Russia: The pro-imperialist, great-power forces and the democratic forces with an eye on the future. There are many people like Yegor Gaydar in the government, in parliament, and in various political parties. They are the future. I think the imperious tendencies and militant hysteria will subside and civil attitudes will prevail. I have always said that we are not against Russia per se. We are against the forces in that country that dream of a return to the past and are still trying to dictate their own will to nationalities and states. We do not share their aims.

[RussThai] [South East Asia] [Former USSR] [Search the Web/Site] [Links] [Information]
[Home Page]