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WHY IS THERE A STATUE OF BRUTAL AZERBAIJAN DICTATOR IN MEXICO CITY?
International Business Times
Oct 4 2012
BY Jacey Fortin | October 04 2012 12:55 PM
Mexico has a brand new dictator
Not to worry; this has nothing to do with drug cartels, military brass
or even President-Elect Enrique Pena Nieto, the young and charismatic
centrist who will take office in December.
This new dictator is a dead man who once ruled with an iron fist on
the other side of the globe. He is now immortalized by a statue at the
newly-renovated Azerbaijan Park in downtown Mexico City.
His name was Heydar Aliyev, and he presided over Azerbaijan from 1969
-- when the South Caucasus state was still a Soviet Republic -- to
2003, when he passed away and was succeeded by his son Ilham.
>From his days as a Communist kingpin through his re-emergence as a
modernist Azeri politician, Aliyev was never one to tolerate dissent.
The elections he won were widely panned as illegitimate, and he had
a long record of suppressing dissent.
Azeris are struggling under the legacy of Aliyev, whose son has adopted
the same authoritative style of rule and still reigns as president in
the capital city of Baku. Suppression of the media and over-zealous
security forces are as problematic as they ever were.
Many Mexicans are wondering why on earth an oft-maligned autocrat
should be memorialized in their capital city.
Aliyev's larger-than-life statue casts him in bronze, sitting in
front of a marble cutout of Azerbaijan. The late leader looks out
onto a tree-lined sidewalk on Paseo de la Reforma, a central avenue
in Mexico City that also boasts various embassies, the Mexican stock
exchange building, and the Modern Art Museum.
Surrounding the controversial monument is a newly refurbished green
space, for which Azerbaijan recently footed the bill. The country
also paid to beautify another park downtown, where a statue of a
weeping woman now stands to memorialize the casualties of the 1992
Nagorno-Karabakh War.
The total cost of these efforts was about $5 million.
Call it a global ad campaign.
Oil-rich Azerbaijan has a history of paying for parks -- and thereby
gaining the rights to erect monuments -- all around the world. Today,
you can find statues of Aliyev in various countries including Iraq,
Moldova, Egypt and Romania.
Some Mexican human rights activists refused to accept the new monument;
a handful of them marched to the park to stage a protest last week.
"It's like a personality cult, transferred to Mexico," said one
demonstrator, Homero Aridjis, to the Associated Press.
"It's as if they brought a dictator from Mars. Are we going to be a
center for monuments to dead dictators? Who's next? Hitler? Stalin?"
His outrage is not shared by everyone.
In fact, the vast majority of passersby are not offended by the
statue. That's because here in Mexico City, nearly 8,000 miles away
from Baku, barely anybody knows who Aliyev is.
What residents do know is that Paseo de la Reforma now has a beautiful
new public space whose crowning feature happens to be a statue of a
foreign leader -- and to them, there's nothing wrong with that.
Herminio Batalla, who recently brought a newspaper to the park so
that he could enjoy the autumn air, told the BBC that he was happy
with his surroundings, even though a bronze Aliyev was perched
prominently nearby.
"I must admit, I don't know who he is," said Batalla. "But I think
it's great they've donated all this money to improve the park."
http://www.ibtimes.com/why-there-statue-brutal-azerbaijan-dictator-mexico-city-810897
From: A. Papazian
International Business Times
Oct 4 2012
BY Jacey Fortin | October 04 2012 12:55 PM
Mexico has a brand new dictator
Not to worry; this has nothing to do with drug cartels, military brass
or even President-Elect Enrique Pena Nieto, the young and charismatic
centrist who will take office in December.
This new dictator is a dead man who once ruled with an iron fist on
the other side of the globe. He is now immortalized by a statue at the
newly-renovated Azerbaijan Park in downtown Mexico City.
His name was Heydar Aliyev, and he presided over Azerbaijan from 1969
-- when the South Caucasus state was still a Soviet Republic -- to
2003, when he passed away and was succeeded by his son Ilham.
>From his days as a Communist kingpin through his re-emergence as a
modernist Azeri politician, Aliyev was never one to tolerate dissent.
The elections he won were widely panned as illegitimate, and he had
a long record of suppressing dissent.
Azeris are struggling under the legacy of Aliyev, whose son has adopted
the same authoritative style of rule and still reigns as president in
the capital city of Baku. Suppression of the media and over-zealous
security forces are as problematic as they ever were.
Many Mexicans are wondering why on earth an oft-maligned autocrat
should be memorialized in their capital city.
Aliyev's larger-than-life statue casts him in bronze, sitting in
front of a marble cutout of Azerbaijan. The late leader looks out
onto a tree-lined sidewalk on Paseo de la Reforma, a central avenue
in Mexico City that also boasts various embassies, the Mexican stock
exchange building, and the Modern Art Museum.
Surrounding the controversial monument is a newly refurbished green
space, for which Azerbaijan recently footed the bill. The country
also paid to beautify another park downtown, where a statue of a
weeping woman now stands to memorialize the casualties of the 1992
Nagorno-Karabakh War.
The total cost of these efforts was about $5 million.
Call it a global ad campaign.
Oil-rich Azerbaijan has a history of paying for parks -- and thereby
gaining the rights to erect monuments -- all around the world. Today,
you can find statues of Aliyev in various countries including Iraq,
Moldova, Egypt and Romania.
Some Mexican human rights activists refused to accept the new monument;
a handful of them marched to the park to stage a protest last week.
"It's like a personality cult, transferred to Mexico," said one
demonstrator, Homero Aridjis, to the Associated Press.
"It's as if they brought a dictator from Mars. Are we going to be a
center for monuments to dead dictators? Who's next? Hitler? Stalin?"
His outrage is not shared by everyone.
In fact, the vast majority of passersby are not offended by the
statue. That's because here in Mexico City, nearly 8,000 miles away
from Baku, barely anybody knows who Aliyev is.
What residents do know is that Paseo de la Reforma now has a beautiful
new public space whose crowning feature happens to be a statue of a
foreign leader -- and to them, there's nothing wrong with that.
Herminio Batalla, who recently brought a newspaper to the park so
that he could enjoy the autumn air, told the BBC that he was happy
with his surroundings, even though a bronze Aliyev was perched
prominently nearby.
"I must admit, I don't know who he is," said Batalla. "But I think
it's great they've donated all this money to improve the park."
http://www.ibtimes.com/why-there-statue-brutal-azerbaijan-dictator-mexico-city-810897
From: A. Papazian