Your trusted source

For years, Azerbaijan has spent enormous sums and splendid gifts on public relations to ‘wash the face of the regime.’ However, the current decline of oil prices exposes this strategy to risk, writes Daniel Iriarte for the Spanish online newspaper El Confidencial (End of ‘caviar diplomacy’?) http://www.elconfidencial.com/mundo/2016-01-14/el-fin-de-la-diplomacia-del-caviar_1132593/. 

According to the article, a 63-year-old employee for economic affairs at a Baku school, Alik Novruzov, committed an act of self-immolation in front of his workplace. The reason of that desperate step was his inability to pay up the bank credits. He is not the only citizen to find himself in such a state. Dozens of thousands of Azerbaijanis are currently facing a troubling financial situation because of a second devaluation of the national currency, manat, in late December. The main reason of the devaluation is the fall of oil prices, which hit to the Azerbaijani currency reserves – from 15 million dollars in 2014 it reduced to 6.200 million in November 2015.

As 90 percent of the incomes of Azerbaijan depends on hydrocarbons, the decline of the crude prices became a devastating blow to the country’s economy. According to the deputy Tax Minister, Natig Amirov, the oil prices had been calculated 90 dollars for a barrel, that is, almost the double of the actual price.

Nicolás de Pedro, a researcher at Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) specialising in post-Soviet area, told El Confidencial that Azerbaijan faces the same difficulties and uncertainties as the other post-Soviet states did, which are in structural dependence on hydrocarbon export. “If the oil prices fail to rise, Aliyev regime’s reducing abilities to avail itself from resources will become more and more evident in 2016. It will disrupt the stability of the regime, which will predictably become more ruthless towards the opposition and domestic criticism,” the expert said.

Iriarte highlights that the cuts will also tell on the diplomatic sphere. Baku has already declared about its plans to close its embassies and commercial offices in Columbia, Uruguay and Cuba, as well as the honorary consulates in Genoa, Bratislava, Santa Fe and Kharkov. The opening of diplomatic missions in Thailand, Afghanistan, Iraq and Oman was postponed, as well. However, according to the author, the most important aspect is that the deficit may have significant consequences on the ‘caviar diplomacy,’ the disproportionate investments of petrodollars in the public relations campaign to ‘wash the image’ of the president Ilham Aliyev’ regime, which is considered to be one of the most corrupts and repressive ones in the world.

The Spanish journalist notes the hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012 and the European Games in summer 2015 as achievements of Azerbaijan’s PR-campaign. In order to avoid any inconvenient coverage of the country’s dubious human rights situation, the regime banned the Amnesty International and the Guardian’s special correspondents from entering to the country. Baku will attempt to repeat the same practice this year, too, by hosting the European Grand Prix of Formula 1.

According to the article, the Azerbaijani government spent 4 million dollars on PR in 2014 and 2.3 million in the previous year only in the US. This was mainly done through the Azerbaijan-America Alliance, a nominally independent organisation, which in reality lobbies Aliyev’s regime. The European Azerbaijan Society is another similar organisation based in London. The mentioned organisations have been headed by the son of the Transport Minister of Azerbaijan, Anar Mammadov, and by the son of the Minister of the Emergency Situations, Tale Heydarov, respectively. According to a diplomatic cable from the US Embassy in Baku filtered out by Wikileaks, ‘the "society" purports to be an independent advocacy group, but its talking points very much reflect the goals and objectives of the [Azerbaijani government].’

According to the article, Azerbaijani officials call this strategy ‘caviar diplomacy,’ whose aim is to shower politicians and influential people with gifts and benefits, this often turning them into propagandists of the regime.  A member of the Council of Europe told the Guardian that the ‘gifts are mostly expensive silk carpets, gold and silver items, drinks, caviar and money.’ The term came into a wider use after the European Stability Initiative (ESI), a think tank, published a demolishing report criticising the influence on the Council of Europe won by Baku with that method.

According to Iriarte, this international support actually ‘mortifies’ the dissidents and political prisoners. He cites Azerbaijani activist Emin Milli’s recent interview to the magazine Foreign Policy, “If one congressman writes a letter or says something positive about Aliyev or his regime, they show it on TV 20 times a day.”

De Pedro says Azerbaijan brought its incomes to the maximum due to the EU’s wish to gain access to the Caspian energy resources in order to reduce the dependence on Russia. “This is the reason why the campaigns of the civil society organisations condemning the rights abuses in Azerbaijan, as well as the scandals with the ‘caviar diplomacy’ had little echo in Brussels and other European capitals,” the expert highlights. He adds that in the current context, Azerbaijan’s advantage is that no one wants a new crisis, everyone is afraid of new Libyas, new Syrias, therefore the maintenance of stability at any cost is the dominating direction of the EU policy.

According to Iriarte, this partially explains why so little attention is paid to the repression campaigns against political dissidents in Azerbaijan despite the December report of the UN Committee against Torture condemning the Azerbaijani officials’ impunity. De Pedro highlights that ‘the serious and real risk is that those disrupting and perverting the democracy values in exchange for “caviar” or other form of bribery or reward not only harm the image of the EU in Azerbaijan, but also contribute to the undermining of their own project of the European Union, something that bears serious risks. This is why the European governments should be less favourable to any bribery, be it in the frameworks of the EU or the Council of Europe.”