Moscow Times - 10.17.2003

 

 

 

 

The Moscow Times

Aliyev Jr.'s Victory Sparks Violence 


By Burt Herman, The Associated Press 

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) -- Rioters wielding sticks and rocks clashed with police Thursday on the shore of the Caspian Sea as opposition anger flared after the son of ailing President Heidar Aliyev won an election to keep power in the family. 

At least two people were killed in the worst political violence in the country in a decade. 

Police stormed Baku's Azadliq Square to clear out opposition demonstrators who rampaged through the city in violence that first erupted after polls closed Wednesday. The ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party said a young boy and elderly man were killed in the fighting, and police said more than 50 officers were injured Thursday, some seriously. Pharmacies were turned into impromptu clinics to treat bloodied protesters. 

International observers condemned the election -- in which officials said Aliyev's son Ilham received 79.5 percent of the vote with 91 percent of ballots counted -- as undemocratic. 

Ilham Aliyev's closest rival among the other seven candidates, opposition Musavat party leader Isa Gambar, had 12 percent. 

"This election was a missed opportunity for a genuine democratic election process," said Peter Eicher, head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's observation mission. He cited instances of ballot box stuffing, falsified vote counts and interference by unauthorized people in the voting and counting process. 

Eicher had pleaded with police to not take action against protesters before a clash early Thursday outside the headquarters of Musavat, or Equality, which he said was "sparked by unacceptable police actions." Police said 25 demonstrators were detained and 20 police injured in the earlier violence. 

Ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party executive secretary Ali Ahmadov blamed the opposition for the clashes that left Baku on edge. "Radical opposition members have attempted to forcibly change the results of the poll and are now taking steps to forcibly seize power in the country," he said. 

On Thursday afternoon, opposition demonstrators descended on their party headquarters in the center of town before marching to the nearby square, where Lenin's statue once faced the Caspian on a pedestal now crowned with the blue-red-and-green flag of Azerbaijan. 

On the way, a crowd of demonstrators beat a soldier to the ground, leaving him apparently unconscious, until two men in civilian clothes dragged him to a car. A police car with broken windows stood outside the opposition headquarters. 

As protesters massed on Azadliq Square, some broke stone bricks from the facade of the former Government House, which houses various state offices, to throw at police. 

Police wielding shields and rubber truncheons fired blanks into the air to launch their assault on the crowd of several thousand, beating protesters and also journalists, clearing the square the size of several football fields in 15 minutes as smoke from tear gas grenades rose into the cloudless sky. Demonstrators drove a truck directly into marching forces, who within minutes had pulled the driver from the vehicle. 

After repulsing the demonstrators, police raised their truncheons in the air, pounded their shields and cheered in celebration. 

Shops were closed early and parents rushed to pick up children from school, as tension lingered in Baku through the evening. Groups of riot police closed off streets and trucks packed with soldiers roamed through the center of town. 

Later Thursday afternoon, violence erupted in another square across the city where several hundred police used truncheons to disperse some 100 people. 

Violence had already marked the election campaign in an atmosphere of uncertainty after the virtual absence over the last six months of Heidar Aliyev -- who has ruled for most of the last few decades, first as Communist Party leader and since 1993 as president. Aliyev, who collapsed during an April speech and has not been seen since July 8, is hospitalized in the United States and withdrew his candidacy earlier this month. 

On Thursday, world leaders congratulated Ilham Aliyev on his win, including those close to the Aliyev family such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

Ilham Aliyev remained out of public view Thursday, appearing briefly on state TV receiving congratulations from Turkey's ambassador and pledging friendship between the two countries, which are close culturally and linguistically. 

Aliyev, 41, has pledged to continue his father's policies in the oil-rich country, which is locked in an uneasy cease-fire with neighboring Armenia after a separatist war in the Nagorny Karabakh enclave. A former top official at the state oil company, Aliyev was appointed prime minister in August to ensure power stayed in the family if his father had died before the vote.