Protest crushed in Azerbaijan

Caspian oil pipeline unveiling today


1,760-km crude conduit from Baku to the Mediterranean avoids Russia


Saturday May 21: Police in riot gear crush a Bush-inspired pro-democracy demonstration, cleaning things up (as many as 149 arrested) for the pipeline ceremony today

Is President Bush aware that people in central Asia are taking him seriously? If so, he has a funny way of insisting that his allies in Azerbaijan uphold his pretty words. Several days before the arrival in Baku of US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman and other dignitaries for dedication of the $3.2 billion, U.S.-backed Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, the government of Azeri president Ilham Aliev denied permission for then violently broke up a pro-democracy demonstration in Baku.

According to EurasiaNet:

On May 21, an opposition coalition sponsored a demonstration, calling for guarantees of a free-and-fair legislative vote. The Azerbaijani government refused to sanction the rally, and police used force to break it up. Dozens were injured in the confrontation, including several journalists covering the event who were wearing special vests designed to identify them as members of the press and thus protect them from harassment. Arrest estimates ranged from 45 to 149.

Before being set upon by club wielding riot police, some opposition demonstrators could be seen holding portraits of US President George W. Bush. During a May 10 speech in capital of neighboring Georgia, Bush indicated that the United States would back democratic change in all former Soviet states. "Across the Caucasus, in Central Asia and the broader Middle East, we see the same desire for liberty burning in the hearts of young people. They are demanding their freedom -- and they will have it," Bush told the crowd assembled on Tbilisi’s Freedom Square. "We are living in historic times when freedom is advancing, from the Black Sea to the Caspian." In organizing the Baku rally for fair elections, opposition leaders seemed to be acting on Bush’s Tbilisi’s comments.

Here is the extent of US rebuke to the Azeri action, given Monday by State Department spokesman Richard Boucher:

We regret that Azerbaijan's Government refused a request by the opposition to hold a peaceful rally. It's also regrettable that the police used force to disband small groups of protestors and detain participants in an unsanctioned rally.

We again call on the Government of Azerbaijan to honor the right of its people to assemble peacefully and freely and to ensure that those detained in the rally -- during the rally are afforded due process immediately.

The government's approach to the rally and the decision to detain protestors, we think, violates the spirit of President Aliyev's May 11th decree that affirmed the people's constitutional right to peaceful assembly, a right that any democracy must justly cherish and safeguard. We strongly support the right of people to assemble peacefully and freely as is a normal part of the democratic process.

Nicely measured words, avoiding totally any notion that the demonstrations were put down ahead of the oil pipeline ceremony. Meanwhile, no readers of the AP release about the pipeline that came out Tuesday afternoon will be troubled by any notion that there is protest against the brutal single-party rule in Azerbaijan. This is because no such mention is made in the story, and likewise, Saturday's crushed protest did not merit mention either.

Want to know more about what is going on in Azerbaijan and other central Asian countries? Read the stuff posted by the Central Asian and Southern Caucasian Freedom of Expression Network at CASCFEN.org.

Here are links to some of the items posted:

Letter about attack on a journalist during the May 21 demonstration

Freedom House decries detention of activists, mysterious deaths, and other insults to human rights

A report by Reporters Without Borders shows that the murder of Elmar Huseynov, editor of the independent weekly Monitor, was a contract killing ordered because of his work as a journalist.

US troops to Azerbaijan? Is Iran next?
As Deep Blade Journal posted last month, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made a hushed visit to Baku on April 12. Note the proximity of Azerbaijan to Iran, perhaps in the crosshairs of the next US strike. What was Rumsfeld really doing there?

According to a piece at Ocnus.Net, US troops are already on the ground in Azerbaijan. And there are more to come, it's just a matter of when:

Azerbaijani government sources confirmed that the agreement between Baku and Washington on locating U.S. ``temporarily deployed mobile forces'' was indeed finalized during U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's stealth visit to Azerbaijan on April 12. Rumsfeld and Azerbaijani Prime Minister Artur Rasizade and Defense Minister Safar Abiyev -- acting on behalf of Aliyev -- struck the agreement right at Baku's international airport. The sources said that Rumsfeld, not satisfied with Baku's initial agreement, pressured the officials to set a quick fixed date to begin major deployments of U.S. forces to Azerbaijan. Aliyev, however, wants to delay the major U.S. forces' arrival -- or at least the formal announcement of it -- until later this year.

Though the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan denied a major deployment was in the offing, it is explained at a UN site concerning development in Azerbaijan that

The so-called Caspian Guard will reportedly be headquartered in Baku and comprised of American troops trained for rapid response missions for regional crises. The guard is part of Rumsfeld's overall strategy to re-craft America's overseas military units from bulky Cold War bases to more deployable units flexible enough to put together different force packages for different operations. While specific information on the unit is hard to obtain, a recent report in the Wall Street Journal quoted Chief of U.S. European Command, General James Jones addressing the U.S. Congress about the guard. Jones said the U.S. plans to allocate some $100 million to cover the guard's first 10 years of activities.

The guard will reportedly be one of the U.S. European Command's 10 posts, with the Caspian region included in its area of responsibility. The command center will boast the most up-to-date radar equipment and also focus on dealing with potential terror attacks on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline.

Deep Blade Journal will keep close watch on these developments. They could signal that a US and/or Israeli attack on Iran might be brewing quickly, engaging US troops and warplanes in more action than a little pipeline protection.