16.01.2018AZERBAIJAN’S ACHILLES’ HEEL AFFLICTION
Posted on January. 15. 2018
By Z. S. Andrew Demirdjian, Ph.D.
Of the three formerly known Transcaucasian Republics of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia, Azerbaijan has the largest area, population, and revenues while Armenia has the smallest. Even though Azerbaijan has the largest population than Georgia and Armenia, it is also fragmented by a myriad of minorities, some of which aspire after independence to exercise their rights as being indigenous to Azerbaijan. See the following map, showing only some of the major minorities in Azerbaijan.
Politically, this situation in Azerbaijan is volatile to explode again at any time. Due to human rights violations, local civic activists maintain that Azerbaijan is marred by a “Gangster Regime.”Let us discuss how the checkered history of Azerbaijan regarding its minorities has important current implications for Armenia.
During the Soviet era, Armenia had always been more developed industrially than Azerbaijan and Georgia. However, for more than a century the backbone of the Azerbaijani economy has been petroleum. Thus, Azerbaijan is faring much better than its two regional neighbors due to it sitting on a heap of black gold.
Despite large revenues from petroleum sales, very little was spent on Nagorno Karabakh in terms of development since the vast majority of this province has been inhabited by indigenous Armenians. In short, to put an end to discrimination and oppression, Armenians declared independence in their ancestral province of Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) in 1988. Since 1994 ceasefire, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a diplomatic stalemate over Artsakh for the past two decades. Azerbaijan has repeatedly violated the cease fire by shelling Artsakh at the point of contact in the conflict zone and thus provoking Armenia to retaliate for the sake of renewed armed conflict.
For over two decades, the frozen conflict has eluded diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute over Artsakh. As a result, Azerbaijan as the third-largest oil producer in the former Soviet Union is spending its huge oil revenues on stockpiling its military weapons in the event of another war.
While from the economic and military defense budget perspectives, Azerbaijan is excelling, politically it is carrying Achilles’ heel of affliction. On a continuum from being mono-ethnic to being poly-ethnic, Armenia is fairly mono-ethnic –while Azerbaijan is characterized by being extremely poly-ethnic because of its multiplicity of ethnic diversity.
In addition to Azerbaijani Turks, the country is made of Talysh, Lezgins, Tsakhurs, Avars, Tats, Molokans, Ingiloys, Mountain Jews, Avars, Khynalygs, Buduqlus, Grysz, Udis, and countless of others. Although nationality-wise each group considers itself Azerbaijani citizen now, they cling ardently to their ancestral distinctive cultures as reflected in their domestic life, crafts, food, music, traditions, aspirations for freedom and independence to mention a few. Most of these minorities are indigenous people of the various parts of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan’s ethnic-unrest time bombs are coming from a number of minorities who are aspiring for self-determination. Two of the largest, most daring, and vociferous ethnic groups are the Talysh and the Lezgins. The Talysh are densely populated along the Iranian border, with their capital in Lenkaran. Their lands are divided by the international border between Iran and Azerbaijan. Thus, the population is divided between Azerbaijan and Iran. During the Soviet era, particularly under Joseph Stalin, the Talysh suffered repression in Azerbaijan. Their culture and language were suppressed. Seldom if ever, they received formal state recognition as a nationality, including in USSR censuses.
To this day, the Talysh dispute official figures about the size of their community. According to results from the 2009 national census in Azerbaijan, the Talysh population is about 112,000 (less than 2 percent of the population), but Talysh leaders say their community is as large as 500,000 people. The Azerbaijani government has always tried to marginalize its minorities who lived in the country long before the Seljuk Turks set foot on their lands.
The Talysh gained international prominence in 1993, when Russia backed a separatist movement called the “Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic” (aka Talyshistan) in southeastern Azerbaijan along the border with Iran led by Alikram Hummatov who became its first president. When international demarcations of territory lines were drawn, Talysh became a border-straddling people, half in Iran and half in Azerbaijan. The new republic was crushed by the Azerbaijani forces just after three months of independence when Heydar Aliyev, the former communist leader of Soviet Azerbaijan, became Azerbaijan’s first president.
Alikram Hummatove was first imprisoned in Azerbaijan as a political agitator and then exiled. The flame for independence from Azerbaijan has not been extinguished yet. The dream, the aspiration of creating a nation for his people is still alive and well. In 2013, Mr. Hummatove, the so-called rebel leader of the Talyshistan, made a number of speeches in Armenia and Artsakh, challenging Azerbaijani unity and rekindling the wish of his people for self-determination, for independence from Azerbaijan.
Another prominent minority in Azerbaijan are the Lezgins. They are predominantly in Lezgia located in the southern Dagestan and northeastern Azerbaijan with their capital in Kumukh. They speak the Lezgian language which belongs to the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. Presently, there are roughly half a million Lezgins, of which probably half live in Dagestan.
According to Azerbaijani records, Lezgins number 178,000 while the Lezgin nationalists claim the number to be 700,000 or more. Tongue in cheek, Azeri officials admit that many ethnic groups are underrepresented by their censuses, a condition that Lezgin nationalists claim is due to the cultural and economic discrimination that minorities face in Azerbaijan.
One of the main grievances that the Lezgins have against the governments in Moscow and Baku is what they object to the artificial division of their ancestral lands that occurred when the Soviet Union dissolved. The normal border between Soviet Socialist Republics along the Samur River became an international border in 1991. The division was more than an inconvenience for Lezgin sheep herders who would bring their flocks to graze in Dagestan for the summer and spend the winter in Azerbaijan was stopped.
Consequently, the loss of the free passage for centuries over the Samur River prevented the ability to migrate. Moreover, many of the traditional Lezgin burial grounds are also predominantly in Azerbaijan further aggravating the frustrations over the division of their lands. There are many more grievances regarding cultural and economic discrimination in Azerbaijan.
Many of the grievances led to the Sadval (Unity) movement in 1990 to press for the unification of the Lezgin territories in Dagestan and Azerbaijan. Later on, in 1991, the activists began to call for a nation-state formation for the Lezgin people, implying independence from Azerbaijan. In 1991, another Lezgin movement called “Samur” was formed in Baku to demand unification of lezgins into a single sovereign unit. Both of the movements also sought the removal of the tight border controls between Dagestan and Azerbaijan. The Sadval separatists have been more willing to resort to acts of violence in order to achieve their goal of unification of the Lezgin people into one state.
At first the government in Baku tried to deal with the Lezgins more diplomatically, fearing a secessionist war. The mobilization of the Lezgins in Azerbaijan was at its highest in the mid-1990s, as a result of Baku’s policy of forcibly drafting Lezgin men into the army for deployment in the Nagorno- Krabakh war. However, Lezgians refused to fight against the Armenians perhaps as a show of solidarity with a fellow minority ethnic group wanting independence from the untenable Azeri rule –or as a show of defiance against the government.
In the late 1990s, Lezgin nationalism seemed to have been in the doldrums, experiencing a calm period. The rather militant activities of the Sadval movement has shifted its focus from demanding independence to the maintenance of an open border between Dagestan and Azerbaijan, obtaining cultural rights for Lezgins in Azerbaijan, and improving the ecological situation north of the Samur River. Tensions have increased of late, however, as Azerbaijan began implementing the change from Cyrillic to Latin alphabets for both Azeri and Lezgin languages in 2001.
The Talysh and the Lezgin movements, although rather smoldering now, but by all means not dead, can be reactivated externally by certain clever ways to champion again for independence from Azerbaijan. Incidentally, another large ethnic group in Azerbaijan is the Avars. In 1994, troops of Azerbaijan clashed with the armed Avars in northwestern Azerbaijan, who aspired for freedom. Avers quest could become again a central issue of the Avar national movement for independence.
If Armenia’s position were reversed with Azerbaijan, the Azeris would have stoked Armenia’s minorities to rise up for independence. When the grievant minorities are motivated and when there is unrest within, Azerbaijan will be weakened, or at least distracted or disoriented by the awakening of their multiple frozen conflicts for freedom.
As the USA stands officially for human rights, such as freedom from discrimination, self-determination, preservation of ethnic cultures, minority rights, democracy, and protection of the underdogs. The protection of fundamental human rights was a foundation stone in the establishment of the United States over 200 years ago. Unfortunately, the U.S. now seldom upholds these ideals. Armenia should accelerate the encouragement, the assistance to minorities who have been subjected to discrimination, forced assimilation, and downright trodden by the ruling class of its neighbor. For example, how can Armenians help these mistreated people in Azerbaijan? Here are some ideas upon which to reflect:
The coalitions of Armenia, Artsakh, and the Diaspora through the formation of a transnational supra structure should spearhead the reaching out to the beleaguered minorities of Azerbaijan. Of the three, Artsakh would have the greatest influence due to their perceived source credibility and effectiveness. That is to say, they “have been there and done that” image; therefore, these minorities would look upon them as the experts for breaking away from the tyranny of Azerbaijan and successfully maintaining their democratically established Republic of Artsakh for over a quarter of a century now.
To keep the fire burning under the Talysh and Lezgin’s activists, Armenian studies centers around the world should periodically invite speakers to lecture on the history, culture, aspirations, and the plight of their people in Azerbaijan. Although the University of Yerevan does sometimes organize speaker events, large-scale congresses, conferences are needed to make some massive difference. The native speakers become highly motivated when they see that outsiders are interested in their quest for justice. Events should be undertaken not as much as for academic scholarship, but for a political agenda and expediency. Armenians cannot afford to lose soldiers and villagers any more. The Armenian leaders have not swallowed their pride yet to eat humble pie. There are other ways to fight the enemy than by bullets.
Conferences should be organized around the themes of the fate of the minorities in the “empire” of Azerbaijan since this country is made of many ethnicities whose homelands were conquered and absorbed by the Turks into what is called the Republic of Azerbaijan now. These minorities should do something before they would share the sad fate of the Caucasian Albanians, now known as the Udis. The Udis were the indigenous Christian people, the natives of Azerbaijan. Due to forced assimilation, only two villages in Azerbaijan and one village in Georgia remain.
In terms of population, the Udis have dwindled from millions to only 3,500. To escape discrimination and joblessness, they are immigrating into Russia and other western countries, leaving behind the old and the sick in their villages.
The Armenian coalition of Armenia, Artsakh and the Diaspora should hold events with pomp and circumstance to honor the independent loving activists as champions of freedom. The minorities in Azerbaijan are hungry for sympathy, understanding from the outside world that would recognize their history, culture, and experiences under the rule of Azeris.
The frozen conflicts, once reactivated, they would begin to champion for reforms and even for independence. The different minorities should bond together. A single wolf would be inconsequential in hunting down a large prey, but a pack would bring down a huge buffalo.
From a political point of view, a country with too many dissenting minorities is a curse. Azerbaijan definitely has the Achilles’ heel of vulnerability. The Armenian nation should seize the opportunity to weaken its ruthless, menacing adversary. The world community should do everything possible to lessen the oppression on these helpless minorities. The protection of human rights transcends international borders. The civilized world needs to support civil rights activists no matter where they happen to be, in Azerbaijan or elsewhere, in order to build for themselves a civil society.
That Azerbaijan’s domestic difficulties are volatile is an understatement. Hardly a day passes without demonstrations taking place in Baku. The present autocratic government of Alieyev is simply pedaling the issue of Nagorno Karabakh in order to divert people’s attention from a weak economy and its minorities’ smoldering fire for freedom and independence. The time is ripe for Armenians to proactively take advantage of the situation.
Directly or indirectly, the minorities, especially the prominent ones, such as the Talysh and the Lezgins, should be encouraged and motivated to stand up for their rights in a regime that forced assimilation has been carried out for many years. These two and other minorities’ strife for their rights constitute the soft underbelly of Azerbaijan’s government. By all means, we are not proposing here the strategy of divide and rule. Every nation must do its share to do the humanitarian act of saving an ethnic group from extinction. Helping other minorities to stand up for their rights is a noble gesture, no matter from what perspective it is viewed. History has exalted movements which campaigned and promoted civil rights and freedom. A civil war in Azerbaijan could and should be waged for civil rights and ethnic freedom to achieve greater equality. In this way, Ilham Alieyev will have no choice but to leave Armenia and Artsakh live in peace and prosperity for some time.
The Armenian Diaspora must organize international forums, conferences, workshops to educate and inspire the minorities of Azerbaijan. Talysh’s struggle for freedom, that deeply vulnerable heel of the Azerbaijan’s Achilles, is one of the best political and humanitarian opportunities to chain the authoritarian beast from getting stronger and more vicious by the day.
Another beneficiary of the minority quest for freedom in Azerbaijan would also be the Armenians. Disordering the enemy by internal strife and conflict is tried and tested way of weakening it. Discord within ones enemy would undermine its ability to fight outside adversaries. So, why not hit Azerbaijan’s Achilles’ heel to weaken and disorient it in its own track? Azeri missile artilleries and drones are killing noncombatant Armenian villagers at this very moment. The reality of the situation dictates the use of the brain rather than the bullet to overcome the beast. Azerbaijan should be fought on multiple fronts. A time-tested strategy that has been used by many ancient and modern people throughout the ages –is based on the belief that a distracted enemy is more vulnerable than when peace, tranquility, and harmony prevail in its society.
http://www.armenianlife.com/2018/01/15/azerbaijans-achilles-heel-affliction/
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