The alarmist article by the Associated Press that Azerbaijan Defense Minister Hints at War (Nov 27, 2007) is somewhat surprising.

Image: Azeri scientist Kerim Kerimov’s artistic depiction of the possibly upcoming war between Armenia and Azerbaijan from his own website

The long-standing dispute over the Armenian-controlled territory of Nagorno-Karabakh could spark a new war if it remains unresolved, Azerbaijan’s defense minister said Tuesday.

“As long as Azerbaijani territory is occupied by Armenia, the chance of war is close to 100 percent,” Safar Abiyev said during a meeting in Kazakhstan of defense chiefs from ex-Soviet republics.

His startlingly worded remark was a reminder that Azerbaijan has not ruled out use of force in recapturing Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas.

Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding territory that is also part of Azerbaijan have been controlled by Armenian and ethnic Armenian forces since a shaky 1994 cease-fire ended one of the bloodiest conflicts that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. The six-year war killed 30,000 people and drove more than 1 million from their homes, including many of the region’s ethnic Azeris.

Azerbaijan and Armenia remain locked in a dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh despite more than a decade of coaxing from international mediators led by the United States, Russia and France to resolve the region’s status.

Gunfire breaks out regularly along the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia and in the regions near Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenian Defense Minister Mikhail Arutyunian said he sees no alternative to a peaceful settlement, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

Surprising in a sense that anyone would be surprised from this conventional militant statement by official Azerbaijan. 

According to Azerbaijani media, three Azeri workers died as the stone fence of an Armenian cemetery – underway for destruction – collapsed on them as they were “removing” it to clear the historic site for a commercial road.

During removal of a stone fence surrounding an old Armenian cemetery located behind the Odlar Yurdu University, three employees of the Bakielektrikshabaka OJSC ( Baku electricity network) were trapped in the ruins.

One victim aged 25 and 30 years old, was taken to the hospital and died, the other two are still in the hospital, according to a Trend correspondent reporting from the scene of the accident.

A road is being constructed through the Armenian cemetery. The area was fenced due to construction work.

The Narimanov District Prosecutor’s Office confirmed the reports and said an investigation has been launched into the case.

The above quoted info was originally posted at Azerbaijan’s Trend News Agency’s website. After Hyelog reposted it, the Agency “updated” the story confirming all the three Azeris had died and removing previous references to the Armenian cemetery.  A Google news search of “Armenian cemetery” excerpts the original post of Trend’s report.

It would be evil to be pleased with the death of these employees who have families and are quite young. But one can’t help and wonder whether this is a mere coincidence. As the same Azerbaijani website reported, last year the head of Djulfa’s police was burnt along his family in less than a month after a hundred Azeri servicemen in his district reduced to dust the world’s largest Armenian cemetery.

via Boratoglu’s December 23, 2007 post (I thought today was Nov 24, 2007), BayBak, an ultra-nationalist Azeri website operating in Iran,  says “Armenia sells internal organs of Azerbaiani captives.”

According to BayBak,

Regarding information given to Olaylar by MP Asim Mollazadeh, there are several facts those proves Armenians removed organs of Azerbaijani captives, mainly women’s during and after 1994s conflict.

It is under examination and new evidences will be found about this claim, MP added.

In the invasion of Karanbakh and nearby regions, many people were killed and many captured by Russian backed Armenian forces helping Armenian separatists to occupy Azerbaijani territories.

Boratoglu has also posted a cartoon by Azeri scientist Kerim Kerimov saying it is “photographic documents by my reverend friend Kerim Kerimov [that] show armenia holdings Azeri organism in its right hand.”

Because of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, most discussions and talks about the two nations is their differences and not similarities.

But one thing that these two people, unfortunately, have in common is the high rate of human trafficking.  And since both countries are vehemently patriarchal and don’t care much about their own citizens, it seems that the problem is not going to become any better any time soon.

I just read a disturbing story in Gulnaz Guliyeva’s article about an Azeri teenager who was forced into prostitution (it seems the link doesn’t work any more, but you can read it through a Google capture as retrieved on Oct 18, 2007)

14-year-old Elina (the name is fictitious), who lives in Baku, was in love with a young man, and ran away from home and married him.

The young man turned out to be a drug addict and at one of the moments when he was under the influence, the brother of her husband and the son of her husband’s sister took advantage of the situation and had a sexual intercourse with her. She spent a long time having to satisfy the sexual demands of the men in her husband’s family.

After her husband was arrested for drugs, Elina was left high and dry with a child. Strange as it may seem, but a “Mama Roza” offered to help her, saying that she can work as a vendor in a shop in Turkey.

But when she arrived there, it turned out that she had been sold for prostitution. On her return home, Elina who was left high and dry could not find any other job but prostitution. The next trip was to Nakhichevan, where she had to service businessmen from Iran and Turkey. Luckily, one of her clients of Turkish nationality decided to help her and get her out of this fatal situation. He took in her and her child, solved all her problems and brought her to the centre for psychological rehabilitation.

Few victims of human trafficking get help from strangers like in the case of Elina.  Guliyeva goes ahead to point to the interesting connection of a newly opened pipeline, that the United States refused to build because it isolates Armenia, and human trafficking:

Inside Azerbaijan, trafficking is blossoming in places of intensive economic activities. So-called Mama Rozas (pimps) hire 15-20 girls and take them to various places where intensive construction work or trade is going on. The centre has cases when girls were taken to cities where the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is being laid and to the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic which is often visited by businessmen from Turkey and Iran. This is a well-organized criminal business which is well-aware of the situation in the country and in places where their services are in demand.

One of the scariest things about human trafficking is that people ignore it and don’t want to discuss it. Last week, for example, I wrote a two-page article in Armenian about human trafficking for the newsletter of the the Student Government of the Yerevan State University.  I had talked to their president – a good friend – and he wanted me to write it.  I wasn’t surprised that they decided not to publish the story. So I sent it to Azg, and I am sure they won’t publish it either.

Why is it that when I write a critical piece about Turkey or especially Azerbaijan, oh, I have the blessings of Armenians and a number of newspapers ready to publish my writings.  But when it is a problem of human trafficking or Armenian poverty, for some reason the level of my writing doesn’t appeal as much to Armenian publications (I wonder if I should write an article about human trafficking for History Today).

An interesting article in ArmeniaNow reveals two interesting things on cultural property in the South Caucasus – governments are highly involved in both protection and destruction.

For one, the article says, Armenia has welcomed European observers to monitor Azeri monuments on Armenian territory regardless whether Azerbaijan (which has twice denied such monitoring) agrees monitoring of Armenian monuments on its territory or not. 

The news that the government of Armenia has given its consent to the European observers to carry out a monitoring on the state of cultural monuments on the territory of the republic, regardless of the official Baku’s standpoint on receiving such group of experts, caused an ambiguous reaction in Armenia. It should be noted that the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Terry Davis declared this during his visit to Yerevan on November 5. Commenting on the news, he stressed that such position is in the country’s interests as it can have a positive impact on its international image.

This has invited criticism by those who think Armenia needs to improve civil rights and not “show off” that it is not destroying Azeri monuments as a means of promoting itself as a democratic country.

“Does the Council of Europe have the right to judge Armenia’s image not from the view of adhering civil freedoms, but of the declared interest in preservation of the Armenian nation’s cultural heritage?” wonders a well-known art critic, the Head of Avan’s Museum of History and Archeology Ara Demirkhanyan.

The ArmeniaNow article also shows a possible link between the destruction of world’s largest Armenian cemetery in Azerbaijan (reportedly destroyed in 1998, 2003 and finalized in 2005) and the now-deceased former Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev, who was succeeded by his son.  It is not ruled out that the order was central, concludes an interviewee.

It’s noteworthy that it was in that period when a special archeological expedition started operating on the territory of Nakhijevan. “It [the expedition] was called by a direct order of Heidar Aliyev in 2001,” says the Deputy Head (on scientific issues) of Azerbaijan’s National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Archeology and Ethnography Najaf Musiebli. “That expedition continued its work up to 2003. During the three years large-scale field works were held on the territory of Nakhijevan aimed at revealing historical monuments so far unknown to science. As a result of archeological excavations monuments of ancient settlements were discovered.”

“It’s quite possible that the given archeological party, besides other things, was engaged in making an ‘inventory’ of Armenian monuments that were subject to extermination. This is indirectly confirmed by the timing of its activity,” Demirkhanyan says.

Musiebli’s recently published (November 5) statement in this connection is worth mentioning here: “We have to say that the expedition was not organized by chance. Constant disinformation of the world community by the Armenians that the territory of Nakhijevan is also an ancient Armenian land forced the state to call a scientific-research expedition and as a result of numerous archaeological facts the false propaganda of the occupants was proved.”

After having Azeri student Nakhichevan protest about the Harvard exhibit on the destruction of Armenian monuments in Nakhichevan, the U.S. Ambassador, according to an Azerbaijani newspaper (the most credible source in the world), said, “Nakchivan is the territory of Azerbaijan and we will say it all over the world.”

I don’t know where the uninformed nationalists got the idea that cultural protection has to do nothing but territorial claims, but I guess I can make a wild guess why Harvard became “Hayward” in the most credible Azerbaijani newspaper. “Hay” means “Armenian” in Armenian so since there is an exhibit about Armenian monuments (that never existed in the first place) in Harvard it must be Armenianward, whatever “ward” means for Azeri nationalists.

Report from the greatest newspaper in all of tolerant kingdom of Azerbaijan:

Visiting Historical Monuments, I Understood that Nakchivan is Azerbaijan’s Heart: US Ambassador
07.11.07 22:17

Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend E.Mammadov / Visiting historical monuments of Nakchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan, I understood that Nakchivan is the heart of Azerbaijan, said the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Anne E. Derse, who is on visit to Nakchivan, on 7 November.According to her, the visits of the US representatives to Nakchivan will actively take place. “Nakchivan is the territory of Azerbaijan and we will say it all over the world,” Derse said.On 1 November an exhibition ‘Armenian monuments in Nakchivan’ took place at Hayward University. The Press Secretary of Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry, Khazar Ibrahim, said that such events adversely affect the negotiations process. National Academy of Sciences of Nakchivan officially stated that there are not Armenian monuments amongst the historical and cultural monuments in Nakchivan.

Visiting historical monuments, huh, Mrs. Ambassador? What about visiting a military camp where an ancient cemetery of thousands of dead existed less than two years ago? Oh, that would be too political.

The Azeri Press Agency reports:

UFO sighted in Nakhchivan

[ 18 Oct 2007 12:51  ]

A UFO has been sighted in Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. APA’s Nakhchivan bureau reports that UFO was observed in Nehrem village of Babek region in the evening on October 15.

The village residents say that the object was clearly seen for several minutes. Some filmed the UFO.
The village residents say that such objects were observed several times before, but unlike the others this time it was nearer. /APA/

According to the same news agency, “A high-level Azerbaijani delegation will leave for the US. We [Azerbaijan] should not stop our propaganda a moment.” 

The latter doesn’t concern the UFO but instead lectures by scholars about the destruction of Armenian monuments in Nakhichevan – that, according to Azerbaijan, are lies because Armenians have never lived in Nakhichevan!

But since “Armenian plagiarism…and theft [is] in all fields of human life,” in the words of another Azerbaijani newspaper, the Azerbaijani delegation might as well bring up the issue of UFOs unless it is too late.

Are Armenian UFOs planting ancient graves in Nakhichevan to prove that Armenians once lived there? Who knows!

An Azerbaijani journalist, who is serving 2 1/2 years of prison for having challenged Azerbaijan’s official line that Armenian forces deliberatly massacred a few hundred Azerbaijanis during the Nagorno-Karabakh war in Khojalu, has been given another 8 1/2 years of prison for speculating that Azerbaijan “could support a U.S. attack on neighboring Iran.”

Fatullayev behind bars

[…]

The Court for Grave Crimes convicted Eynulla Fatullayev, the founder and editor of two independent newspapers that stopped publication this spring amid government pressure, on charges of making a terrorist threat and inciting interethnic conflict.

The article in Real Azerbaijan claimed that President Ilham Aliev could support an American military operation against Iran and listed facilities that might face Iranian bomb attacks if the nation were to back the U.S.

There is concern in mostly Muslim former Soviet republics that support U.S. military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan over the possibility that the United States could use their territory for an attack on Iran – a constant topic of rumors.

Azerbaijan has pledged that it won’t assist the U.S. but people living along the border were nervous, pointing to an American-built radar facility and the upgrading of a nearby airport.

Fatullayev, who already is serving a 2 1/2 year prison sentence on a libel conviction, denounced the verdict as politically motivated.

“That’s evidence of political pressure on me as a journalist,” he said.

Aliev, who took over from his father in a 2003 election denounced by opponents as a sham, has faced persistent criticism over the heavy-handed treatment of independent media and opposition parties.

As much as being an issue of freedom of speech, Azerbaijan’s persecution of Fatullayev is clearly not for his views on a possible attack on Iran but for having challenged Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian rhetoric of charging Armenian forces with a massacre of Azeri civilians in 1992 in a village in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The anti-Armenianism is Azerbaijan has no boundaries, and people who challenge it in Azerbaijan pay a huge price, let’s say, at least, 10 years for now.

No, I didn’t Google to find the worst possible photograph of Azerbaijan’s authoritarian president who is now warning Armenia with a war if Armenia fails to return Karabakh that the Soviet Leadership had annexed from Armenia to Azerbaijan in the early 1920s.

This photo is from the Armenia Liberty article that talks about Aliyev’s threats:

Azerbaijan will increase its defense spending by nearly one third next year to build up its strength in a long-running territorial dispute with Armenia, President Ilham Aliev said on Monday.

He told a government meeting that the military budget will grow by $300 million to $1.3 billion in 2008.

“The country will allocate funds to buy new hardware, weapons and ammunition, to create a powerful military-industrial complex and improve the professionalism of the military,” Aliev said. “We are creating a powerful army.”

The message of the 45-year-old president was primarily targeted at Armenia, the main backer of Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The insincere behavior of Armenian occupation forces, dragging out the negotiation process, forces us to devote greater attention to military issues,” Aliev said. “Azerbaijan must be ready to liberate its lands by any means.”

[…]

History Today, world’s premier and perhaps oldest history magazine, has my article about the Djulfa destruction in the November 2007 issue.

The printed magazine, that includes three more photographs, should be available in most western libraries and many bookstores.  The online version features the entire article with one photograph, but you have to pay to view the article in full. 

When, in the summer of 2005, Scottish researcher Steven Sim visited the region of Nakhichevan, an exclave of the South Caucasus republic of Azerbaijan, in order to study medieval Armenian monuments, he found out his trip was in vain – there was nothing there for him to research. After being detained and questioned by security police, Sim was asked why he expected Armenian Christian churches in a region where only Muslims lived. A villager, too, told him Armenians had never lived in Nakhichevan. When the researcher explained that a book had directed him to the ancient Armenian church in the village, an old man blasted out words in what Sim thought was German. The translator explained that the man was talking to him in Armenian, apparently to see if Sim was an Armenian spy. Knowing Armenian in a place where no Armenians ever lived seemed too awkward.
But Sim did not confront Azeris in Nakhichevan about history. Neither did he resist orders to put his camera away in a military zone at the Azerbaijani-Iranian border when his train was passing by world’s largest surviving Armenian medieval cemetery – Djulfa (Jugha in Armenian). Sim might have done otherwise if he knew back then he was going to be the last known outsider in this remote area – on the border with Iran – to glance at the thousands of sacred and beautifully ….