Azerbaijan’s Implosion is in the wings
Posted on November. 25. 2020
“Azerbaijan is sitting on a time bomb.
There are nearly a dozen secessionist
movements inside Azerbaijan.”
Appo Jabarian
Z. S. Andrew Demirdjian
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 independence to exercise their rights as being indigenous to Azerbaijan. Politically, this situation in Azerbaijan is volatile to explode again at any time.
Let us discuss how the checkered history of Azerbaijan regarding its minorities has important current implications for Armenia since these minorities also dream and some quest for freedom and independence. Therefore, Armenia can fight Azerbaijan indirectly, in ways other than with guns.
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, currently it accounts for 44.5 percent of the country’s GDP.
Presently, Western oil companies are able to tap deepwater oilfields untouched by the Soviets because of their poor technology. According to many analysts, Azerbaijan is considered as one of the most important areas in the world for oil exploration and development.
Thus far, Azerbaijan has concluded over 28 production-sharing agreements with various Western oil companies. In addition to its oil pipeline from Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan, the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline construction work has begun on three new pipelines designed to flow new supplies of natural gas from Azerbaijan to consumers in Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, and Italy.
Despite large revenues from petroleum sales, very little was spent on Nagorno-Karabakh (i.e., The Republic of Artsakh) 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 in 1988.
Against the Armenians’ movement for secession, Azerbaijan tried to quell the move with armed force. Since 1994 ceasefire, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a diplomatic stalemate over Artsakh for the past several 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, which seriously erupted on Sunday, September 27, 2020.
For almost three 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, which were used in the infamous September 2020 war.
While from the economic and military defense budget perspectives, Azerbaijan is excelling, but 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 waiting in the wings to seize the opportunity for independence.
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. Let us take Talysh as an example. 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 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 Mr. Alikram Hummatov who became its fist president. When international demarcations of territory lines were drawn, Talysh became a border-straddling people, half in Iran and half in Azerbaijan.
The new Talysh republic was crushed by the Azerbaijani forces just after three months of independence when Mr. Heydar Aliyev, the former communist leader of Soviet Azerbaijan, became Azerbaijan’s first president.
Mr. Alikram Hummatov 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. Hummatov, 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.
The flame for independence was reignited for a short time. Like the Talysh, the Lezgins are waiting for the right time to strike for independence.
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.
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.
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 the brave Armenians of Artsakh as the experts for breaking away from the tyranny of Azerbaijan and successfully maintaining their democratically established Republic of Artsakh for almost a quarter of a century now even though there was a fierce war between Artsakh and Azerbaijan very recently.
Incidentally, some of the Talysh leaders have instructed their people not to get involved in the war against the Armenians.
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.
Conferences should be organized around the themes about 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.
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 who would recognize their history, culture, and experiences under the rule of Azeris.
The minority leaders of Azerbaijan should be considered for the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity.
The frozen conflicts, once turned active, they would begin to champion for reforms and even for independence. The different minorities should bond together.
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.
Since virtually every country has minorities, the tendency is not to rock the boat. Therefore, an independent league of specifically formed by minorities of the world for the protection and advancement of their rights as small ethnic groups becomes imperative.
By and large, minority treaties refer to the treaties, League of Nations Mandates, and unilateral declarations made by certain countries applying for membership in the League of Nations and United Nations. Most of these treaties entered into force as a result of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The treaties conferred basic rights on all the inhabitants of the country without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion.
In spite of all these treaties, the minorities of some countries, such as Azerbaijan and Turkey, are suffering from discrimination, lack of religious freedom, territorial rights and other freedoms.
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.
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?
Just weeks ago, Azari artilleries were killing noncombatant Armenian villagers and the inhabitants of Stepanakert (capital of Artsakh). 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 and tranquility prevails in its society.
As a result, we need to open another front to to fight the Azeris in ways other than resorting to the use of guns. We need to fight the evil regime with any weapon we can get hold of without sacrificing our brave soldiers.
So, it behooves the Armenians to also resort to organized ways to awaken, motivate, and educate the minorities of Azerbaijan to rise up for their unalienable rights as the indigenous people of an artificially created fake country in 1918 without due regard for human rights of the minorities.