Azerbaijan’s feudal elite seeks help from western taxpayers: OCCRP

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Financial Times published a feature by Tom King and Marina Bowder from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) who dwell upon the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank's intention to shore up the Azerbaijan economy, which is tottering as the oil price tumbles. An IMF team is currently on a “fact-finding” mission at the Azerbaijan government’s request, the article says.

The OCCRP is wondering what new “facts” might emerge. For years, investigative journalists from OCCRP and elsewhere have observed “the first family and its acolytes dominate through opaque business practices and autocratic abuses.”

A WikiLeaks cable sent from global intelligence company Stratfor via SIPRNet, the classified U.S. Department of Defense computer network, commented that Azerbaijan is run like a medieval feudal system: “The [Aliyev/Pashayev] families also collude, using government mechanisms, to . . . create barriers that only the best connected can clear.”

“A low oil price threatens this cozy arrangement and has sparked popular protests. This is no small development given the government’s own hostility towards an oppressed society. OCCRP journalist Khadija Ismayilova has just begun a seven-year jail sentence after regularly exposing the corruption at the heart of the Aliyev regime — joining nearly 100 other journalists and activists behind bars,” the article goes on to say.

Western taxpayers should be appalled that they are being asked to fix the problems of the feudal elite. OCCRP has revealed the regime’s corruption in exhaustive detail.

“Meanwhile, corporate ownership information has been confidential in Azerbaijan since 2012. This means there is no simple way to check who benefits from any transactions with the government. These moves are designed to prevent any public scrutiny or government accountability. A bailout without stringent reform will be caught in the same web of systematic corruption. IMF and the World Bank must avoid siphoning yet more money, this time from western taxpayers, into the coffers of a wealthy autocracy.

The Azerbaijan finance minister’s claim that there is no “urgent” need for support may well reflect the underlying strength of the economy, but it also betrays a desire to avoid a loan with too many strings attached.

One fact remains: if anyone is in the best position to belatedly ensure the economic safety of Azerbaijan’s citizens, it is President Ilham Aliyev himself,” the article concludes.