Azerbaijan - A Repressive, Corrupt Country That The West Loves: There Must Be Oil

In many ways, Azerbaijan is an outlier nation. The former Soviet republic is an overwhelmingly Shia Muslim state that has poor relations with its Shia neighbor Iran, but it enjoys warm ties with Israel. Moreover, geopolitically, Azerbaijan seeks closer ties with democratic nations like the United States and Western Europe, but it maintains repressive control over its own people; indeed, the country?s leaders are suspected of having committed grave human rights abuses.

And although it is a tiny country, just 9 million people on the Caspian Sea -- mostly farmers and fishermen -- lately Azerbaijan has been on the forefront of a lot of important people?s minds.

For example, British Prime Minister David Cameron said at an oil and gas summit last January in the capital city of Baku that "Azerbaijan is at the heart of a region whose energy resources will play a vital role in the world economy in the years to come.?

With all of its contradictions, Azerbaijan is a complex country to fully figure out; its tangled friendships and autocratic policies are often puzzling. But its recent obsession with its oil reserves is as undiluted and unwavering as anything the country has ever done.

Azerbaijan has 7 billion barrels in proven reserves of oil and produces just over one million barrels per day. (Liana Jervalidze, a research fellow at the International School of Caucasus Studies, Ilia State University, and a former official with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, said Azerbaijani geologists believe the actual magnitude of reserves could be much higher.)

Follow us

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ), the government entity that manages oil and gas revenues, currently has a treasure chest of $30 billion, a figure that is expected to grow to $34 billion by the end of 2012 and soar to $50 billion over next five years. In 1999, SOFAZ?s assets totaled less than $300 million.

Azerbaijan is also aggressively investing in its energy sector to keep it pumping. Since 1995, Baku has poured in $120 billion to upgrade infrastructure. And working with Western partners like BP plc, Total S.A. and Exxon-Mobil Corp., Azerbaijan is constructing massive pipelines to transport natural gas from the Caspian Sea, through Turkey, towards markets in Europe (thereby excluding Russia and Iran from the equation entirely).

Indeed, it?s these relationships and the support that these alliances have from Western democracies that are raising eyebrows. For all of Azerbaijan?s geopolitical and strategic importance, the country is a repressive, corrupt state with a poor human rights record, precisely the type of government that Western powers attack as illegitimate when it is in, say, Syria.

Listen to the way Matt Bryza, an official with the U.S. State Department, tiptoes around the excesses of Azerbaijan?s president Ilyam Aliyev, who took power in 2003 after a tampered election: "We don't see Ilham Aliyev as a dictator. We see him as the leader of a country with an emerging democracy that has a long way to go to become a healthy democracy."

Among The Most Corrupt
Of course, oil makes strange bedfellows and there are other repressive autocracies that the West is friendly with only because of their energy reserves; Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Qatar immediately come to mind. But none of them are as corrupt or repressive as Azerbaijan.

Aliyev became President upon the death of his father Haidar Aliyev, who had been named to the top post during a military coup two years after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In the 2003 election, Ilham garnered nearly 77 percent of the popular vote, even as activists staged loud and wildly popular demonstrations against what they viewed as a tainted election. International monitors by and large agreed, ultimately condemning Aliyev?s cronies for a variety of violations, including voter intimidation and irregularities in vote counting.

In part because of this and what has followed, Azerbaijan is considered one of the most corrupt countries in the world, according to Transparency International, the anti-corruption watchdog. Out of a field of 183 countries, Azerbaijan was ranked the 40th most corrupt; the only European nations above it on the list were Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Among other infractions, Transparency International cited the failure of Azerbaijani oil and gas companies to provide corporate disclosure; payments demanded in exchange for state medical services on entry into universities; the widespread bribery of public officials, customs officers and police officers, as well as kickbacks paid to politicians.

Opposition forces and international observers have also criticized parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan. During the 2010 parliamentary contests, European election watchers charged Azerbaijani authorities with ballot stuffing and crushing dissent by clamping down on media freedoms and preventing many opposition candidates from voting. Tellingly, not a single opposition candidate won a seat.

occupy congress juan williams victor martinez alcatraz cruise ship martin luther king jr. zappos