Party conferences are exactly where Britain’s stance towards corrupt dictators should be up for debate, jazz receptions or not
Whichever way you turned in Brighton last week there was a limp sandwich or warm glass of wine at hand. The Labour party conference brought with it the usual deluge of lobby group drink receptions. Should delegates have steered away from Fujitsu’s business connector’s reception or WWF’s Coca-Cola-sponsored water policy event they may have stumbled upon the European Azerbaijan Society’s (TEAS) jazz reception.
Fronted by lobbying guru Lionel Zetter, the London-based European Azerbaijan Society exists to raise “awareness of Azerbaijan” and foster “closer economic, political and cultural links between that country and the nations of Europe.” In reality this means it is representing the interests of the mega-rich and repressive Aliyev regime. Over the last two weeks TEAS have held jazz receptions at the Lib Dems and Labour party conferences, next week it will be the Conservatives’ turn. TEAS are using Azerbaijan’s long association with jazz music to promote not just the country’s music, but also the idea that it is a nation that Britain should do business with.
Life in Azerbaijan is starkly different from TEAS facade of drinks and jazz. Azerbaijan’s ruling elite have used the country’s oil and gas wealth to establish a repressive system where police constantly monitor people, there is almost no press freedom and even the most peaceful of protests are violently broken up. In the past 18 months the Azerbaijani government have conducted what Human Rights Watch calls “a deliberate, abusive strategy to limit dissent” as it attempts to stifle opposition in the run up to the Azerbaijan presidential elections. In January in the town of Ismayilli, batons and teargas were used to break up demonstrations and in March water cannons and rubber bullets were fired on a protest in Baku – afterwards police arrested seven members of the youth movement NIDA for planning to incite violence, despite the demo remaining peaceful throughout. Human Rights Club have spent the last few months documenting political prisoner cases, they estimate there are over 100 political prisoners in Azerbaijan’s jails – two of whom were expected to be election candidates until their incarceration forced them to withdraw.
TEAS is as close to the regime as you can get without it being run by a member of the Aliyev family. The organisation was created in 2008 by Tale Heydarov; his father, Kamaladdin Heydarov, is Azerbaijani minister for emergency situations. A US embassy cable leaked by Wikileaks described Heydarov as possibly “more powerful than the president himself … Heydarov controls more visible assets and wealth within the country than the president”.
TEAS have long enjoyed a cosy relationship with UK MPs. They founded the “Conservative Friends of Azerbaijan”, which has 25 Tory parliamentarians in it and they’ve also donated to the Labour pressure group Progress . In addition they provide secretarial support to the Azerbaijan all-party parliamentary group – whose remit they have successfully framed to include no mention of human rights or democracy. They have also funded several UK MPs on all expenses paid trips to Azerbaijan including Mark Field, Gerry Sutcliffe, Stephen Hammond and the speaker at next week’s jazz reception – Christopher Pincher.
Azerbaijan has had a “special relationship” with Britain for many years, thanks to the country’s oil and gas wealth and in particular its importance for BP. In 1994 BP led a consortium of international oil companies in signing the “contract of the century”, which gave BP the right to extract Azeri oil. This single deal was hugely important for BP whose daily extraction rate of 1.5 million barrels of oil was in danger of halving when the contract was signed. Azerbaijan is still important to BP – out of its 20 top-producing wells of gross hydrocarbons 11 are situated off the coast of Baku.
Last week BP signed another mega deal with Azerbaijan , as a lead company in one of the world’s biggest ever gas sales agreements – worth up to $ 100bn over 25 years. BP plans to pump the gas from 26 new gas wells in the Caspian Sea, over 4,000km to Europe via the yet to be built Euro-Caspian Mega Pipeline. This huge piece of infrastructure would create militarised strips of land that cross whole countries, where the pipeline was guarded with force, and normal civic rights are suspended. People living along the pipeline would experience increased surveillance, restrictions on access to community land and enforced censorship of locals.
Securing increased gas revenues is crucial for the Azerbaijani elite now that oil production has peaked. The people of Azerbaijan, however, are unlikely to see many of the profits. As the uncovered data in Offshore Leaks revealed, Azerbaijan’s fossil fuel wealth has a nasty habit of ending up in offshore accounts.
Of course party conferences are exactly where Britain’s stance towards corrupt dictators – even ones offering gigantic gas deals – should be up for debate. In his speech at the Labour conference Douglas Alexander considered what progressive internationalism could look like. The prioritisation of human rights over the pursuit of fossil fuels is a crucial part of such a policy – and no amount of boogie, blues or bebop can distract from that.
Comment is free | theguardian.com Why UK politicians should be wary of Azerbaijan"s overtures | Emma Hughes
