Rally in Azerbaijan Capital Broken Up

[Minstrel Boy]

Rally in Azerbaijan Capital Broken Up

Tuesday December 21, 2004 1:16 PM

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) - Police on Tuesday broke up a rally in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku that had been called to protest official restrictions on freedom of assembly.

About 50 members of the Popular Front gathered near a subway station and shouted slogans including ``Resign!'' ``Freedom!'' and ``Return the freedom of assembly to the people!'' They began moving toward City Hall but were met by police, who dispersed the picketers and detained more than 15 of them. They did not have the permission required to hold a demonstration.

Tension between the government and the opposition in tightly controlled, oil-rich Azerbaijan has increased since an October 2003 election in which Ilham Aliev replaced his father, longtime leader Geidar Aliev, as president in a vote the opposition said was marred by fraud.

Thousands rioted in Baku for two days after the vote. One person died, and 25 civilians and 163 law enforcement officials were injured. Authorities charged about 120 people, more than 40 of whom have been sentenced to prison terms. Seven opposition leaders were sentenced to up to seven years in prison.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4685705,00.html

[MisterP]

1. I believe this is called "resolve" in IMF planning

Palast calls it "step 3.5" in restructuring

[el_gato]

2. Kissinger, Scowcroft, et. al. sit on the U.S./Azerbaijani Chamber of Com.

[Minstrel Boy]

3. Also Brzezinski, Baker, Perle. Armitage & Cheney until 2000.

Here's their website.

And what language was Sibel Edmonds' translating?

From an interview:

CD: Now I know you speak Turkish – but what else?

SE: Because of my time in Iran, I also know Farsi. And Azerbaijani.

...

CD: So you were in the first category, a full linguist?

SE: For Turkish and Azerbaijani I was, yes. But since I hadn't been practicing Farsi for practically 25 years, I was just allowed to be a monitor in that language. I passed all the FBI exams in written Farsi, but not all for speaking. So I didn't do, say, live interviews.

Whatever explosive information Sibel Edmonds uncovered in the FBI translation department, for which John Ashcroft gagged her, came in either Turkish or Azerbaijani.

The stated goals of the US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce, as posted on its website, include:

To serve as a liaison with governmental and non-governmental entities, business organizations, think tanks, and to encourage cooperation and information exchange

To sponsor educational programs, trade missions, seminars, conferences and publications to foster cultural and business interests

Now, what does this sound like, from Sibel Edmonds' interview:

CD: At several points you state that such organized crime networks employ "semi-legitimate organizations" as their point of interface with governments and the "legit" world. Can you explain exactly what you mean?

SE: These are organizations that might have a legitimate front – say as a business, or a cultural center or something. And we've also heard a lot about Islamic charities as fronts for terrorist organizations, but the range is much broader and even, simpler.

CD: For example?

SE: You might have an organization supposed to be promoting the cultural affairs of a certain country within another country. Hypothetically, say, an Uzbek folklore society based in Germany. The stated purpose would be to hold folklore-related activities – and they might even do that – but the real activities taking place behind the scenes are criminal.

Sibel Edmonds has also said:

You get to a point where it gets very complex, where you have money laundering activities, drug related activities, and terrorist support activities converging at certain points and becoming one. In certain points - and they (the intelligence community) are separating those portions from just the terrorist activities. And, as I said, they are citing "foreign relations" which is not the case, because we are not talking about only governmental levels. And I keep underlining semi-legit organizations and following the money. When you do that the picture gets grim. It gets really ugly.... I can tell that once, and if, and when this issue gets to be, under real terms, investigated, you will be seeing certain people that we know from this country standing trial; and they will be prosecuted criminally.


More on my blog from August here:
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/where-drugs-arms-and-oil-intersect.html

[bin.dare]

4. Bush family and Azerbaijan

http://www.rosbaltnews.com/2004/04/10/66188.html

It should be remembered that the late Geidar Aliev in the summer of 2000, four months before the US presidential elections, visited the United States at the personal invitation of George Bush-senior at his ranch. They fished, rode around in cars, in speedboats. Following this visit, the choice of partners for the development of Azerbaijan's oil fields underwent a slight revision. Practically all operations - from geological exploration to the creation of an infrastructure - were given over to American companies that in one way or another were associated with the Bush family. And then the elections came, and it turned out that the patriarch of Azerbaijani politics had put his money 'on the right horse.'

And here is what the head of the Azerbaijani party Umid (Hope) Igbal Agazade, currently in jail under suspicion of organizing mass unrest immediately following the October 15, 2003, elections, had to say about Richard Armitage: 'Two years of co-chairmanship in the American-Azerbaijani Chamber of Trade and Industry were not wasted. He has here an enormous financial network, which can be of great benefit after he leaves government service.'


....

The Kuwait syndrome Another theme which represents an enormous interest for Azerbaijani public opinion is Washington's relationship with Teheran. After all, Iran not only borders Azerbaijan, but more than 80% of the Azerbaijanis in the world live there, with cultural demands that the government does not take into account. For 200,000 Armenians there are schools in their mother tongue, and the same goes for as many Jews. But for 30 million Azerbaijanis, not one.