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PASSIONS AND HISTORY RUN DEEP IN SAFAROV CASE
EurasiaNet.org
Sept 5 2012
NY
September 5, 2012 - 2:51pm, by Arife Kazimova and Daisy Sindelar
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from: RFE/RL The details of the crime seem
anything but heroic: a young lieutenant hacking a fellow soldier
to death in his sleep, with an ax he had stealthily purchased hours
before.
But for many people in the South Caucasus nation of Azerbaijan,
the picture is not so simple.
Not when the assailant is an Azerbaijani whose hometown was brutally
seized by Armenian forces while he was still a teenager.
Not when the victim is an Armenian who allegedly insulted the
Azerbaijani flag.
And not when the circumstances that threw them together were conceived
by Western officials who had failed to consider the depths of the
two sides' regional animosity.
So when Ramil Safarov returned home on August 31 after eight years
in a Hungarian jail for the 2004 murder of Gurgen Margarian at a NATO
Partnership for Peace exercise, many Azerbaijanis were unstinting in
their welcome:
"I think he was a hero, because he protected the honor and dignity of
the Azerbaijani people," one woman told RFE/RL on the streets of Baku.
Another resident of the Azerbaijani capital said Safarov "did the
right thing" in killing Margarian.
On the other hand, Safarov's extradition from Hungary last week
outraged Armenians and surprised many onlookers with the lavish
gestures that followed.
The 35-year-old lieutenant was not only granted an immediate pardon
from his life sentence, he was also promoted to the rank of major,
promised back pay, and presented with a free apartment.
Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev offered no rationale
for the promotion, simply congratulating Safarov on his return to
Azerbaijan and wishing him success in his future activities in the
military sector.
Anti-Armenian Invective
Local newspapers added to the fanfare, with headlines crowing that
Safarov's release "will improve the psychological mood of society"
and calling him "a hero for the entire Muslim world."
Safarov's conviction as a calculating ax murderer did little to temper
most Azerbaijanis' enthusiasm. If anything, the gruesome nature of his
crime only added to his appeal in a country where the public narrative
has been shaped to portray Safarov as the victim and Margarian as
the taunting aggressor.
Many Azerbaijanis repeat the theory that Margarian had urinated on
the Azerbaijani flag or used it to polish his shoes. Others allege
that the Armenian was not even asleep when the attack took place,
and that he had provoked the attack.
No evidence from Safarov's 2006 trial in Budapest suggests either
claim is true. But some Azerbaijani observers say the legacy of the
Nagorno-Karabakh war and a steady diet of government anti-Yerevan
invective have combined to cement an almost pathological hatred of
Armenians in the minds of many Azerbaijanis.
"It's not only the Armenian soldiers and officers who are occupying
our land that Azerbaijanis consider their enemy," says Baku-based
political analyst Zardusht Alizadeh. "It's not only the 'Armenian
terrorists' who were killed in the fighting. Because of a very
skillfully constructed propaganda campaign, it's all Armenians who
are considered the enemy. That's why a man who killed an Armenian in
his sleep is automatically categorized as a hero."
The 1988-94 war over Nagorno-Karabakh -- an Armenian-majority region
within Azerbaijani territory -- ended with the deaths of tens of
thousands on each side and the displacement of hundreds of thousands
more.
It also left the region and surrounding territories under Armenian
control -- for Baku, an unacceptable territorial loss of some 20
percent.
Nearly two decades later, the unresolved dispute remains the focus of
international negotiations whose partners, including the United States
and Russia, have frowned at Azerbaijan's zealous embrace of Safarov.
But Azerbaijan -- whose dynastic leader, Ilham Aliyev, is seen as using
his country's massive oil wealth to buy silence on his authoritarian
practices -- has shrugged off such criticism as hypocritical meddling.
Many in the country argue that the international community remained
silent when a case similar to Safarov's unfolded years earlier
in Armenia.
In 2001, Yerevan granted an immediate pardon to Varoujan Garabedian,
a Syrian-born militant who killed eight people in a 1983 bomb attack
in a French airport.
Garabedian was returned to Armenia after serving 17 years of a life
sentence in France, and received his pardon while still in Yerevan's
airport.
'Radical Elements Are The Only Winners'
Erkin Gaderli, a lawyer and a member of the Republican Alternative
opposition group, says he believes "no one" in Azerbaijan "seriously"
thinks of Safarov as a hero.
But at the same time, he acknowledges that ordinary Azerbaijanis are
confounded by the continued deadlock over Nagorno-Karabakh, and have
fallen into a tit-for-tat relationship with Armenia, with each side
looking to best the other on even insignificant issues.
"There is an emotion growing in society, and it's a reflection of
a deep frustration with the conflict in the occupied territories,"
Gaderli says. "And there is a growing expectation that somehow,
someday this must come to an end. Many people think that something
needs to be done in response to Armenia. So whatever Armenia has done,
for good or for bad, should somehow be retaliated."
There are suggestions that Armenia may already be prepared to raise
the stakes, with the parliament in Yerevan now considering a hastily
submitted bill on recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent
country.
The outcome of such a provocation is worrisome to many who fear the
countries will return to a war footing.
Even without a resumption of violence, some observers find the Safarov
case a depressing development in a year when Azerbaijan has attempted
to buff its Western credentials by playing Eurovision host and joining
the UN Security Council.
In a piece published by the BBC's Russian Service, Thomas de Waal,
a South Caucasus expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, wrote that the affair struck a blow to many activists and
officials in Azerbaijan who have spent years quietly building a
dialogue with Armenia.
With Safarov's hero-sized welcome such critical efforts may now be
lost. "After the authorities in Baku met the killer with open arms,
the country's image has suffered enormous damage," he wrote.
"Unfortunately, the only winners are the radical elements on both
sides."
Editor's note: Written and reported by Daisy Sindelar in Prague with
additional reporting from Baku by Arife Kazimova
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/65867
EurasiaNet.org
Sept 5 2012
NY
September 5, 2012 - 2:51pm, by Arife Kazimova and Daisy Sindelar
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from: RFE/RL The details of the crime seem
anything but heroic: a young lieutenant hacking a fellow soldier
to death in his sleep, with an ax he had stealthily purchased hours
before.
But for many people in the South Caucasus nation of Azerbaijan,
the picture is not so simple.
Not when the assailant is an Azerbaijani whose hometown was brutally
seized by Armenian forces while he was still a teenager.
Not when the victim is an Armenian who allegedly insulted the
Azerbaijani flag.
And not when the circumstances that threw them together were conceived
by Western officials who had failed to consider the depths of the
two sides' regional animosity.
So when Ramil Safarov returned home on August 31 after eight years
in a Hungarian jail for the 2004 murder of Gurgen Margarian at a NATO
Partnership for Peace exercise, many Azerbaijanis were unstinting in
their welcome:
"I think he was a hero, because he protected the honor and dignity of
the Azerbaijani people," one woman told RFE/RL on the streets of Baku.
Another resident of the Azerbaijani capital said Safarov "did the
right thing" in killing Margarian.
On the other hand, Safarov's extradition from Hungary last week
outraged Armenians and surprised many onlookers with the lavish
gestures that followed.
The 35-year-old lieutenant was not only granted an immediate pardon
from his life sentence, he was also promoted to the rank of major,
promised back pay, and presented with a free apartment.
Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev offered no rationale
for the promotion, simply congratulating Safarov on his return to
Azerbaijan and wishing him success in his future activities in the
military sector.
Anti-Armenian Invective
Local newspapers added to the fanfare, with headlines crowing that
Safarov's release "will improve the psychological mood of society"
and calling him "a hero for the entire Muslim world."
Safarov's conviction as a calculating ax murderer did little to temper
most Azerbaijanis' enthusiasm. If anything, the gruesome nature of his
crime only added to his appeal in a country where the public narrative
has been shaped to portray Safarov as the victim and Margarian as
the taunting aggressor.
Many Azerbaijanis repeat the theory that Margarian had urinated on
the Azerbaijani flag or used it to polish his shoes. Others allege
that the Armenian was not even asleep when the attack took place,
and that he had provoked the attack.
No evidence from Safarov's 2006 trial in Budapest suggests either
claim is true. But some Azerbaijani observers say the legacy of the
Nagorno-Karabakh war and a steady diet of government anti-Yerevan
invective have combined to cement an almost pathological hatred of
Armenians in the minds of many Azerbaijanis.
"It's not only the Armenian soldiers and officers who are occupying
our land that Azerbaijanis consider their enemy," says Baku-based
political analyst Zardusht Alizadeh. "It's not only the 'Armenian
terrorists' who were killed in the fighting. Because of a very
skillfully constructed propaganda campaign, it's all Armenians who
are considered the enemy. That's why a man who killed an Armenian in
his sleep is automatically categorized as a hero."
The 1988-94 war over Nagorno-Karabakh -- an Armenian-majority region
within Azerbaijani territory -- ended with the deaths of tens of
thousands on each side and the displacement of hundreds of thousands
more.
It also left the region and surrounding territories under Armenian
control -- for Baku, an unacceptable territorial loss of some 20
percent.
Nearly two decades later, the unresolved dispute remains the focus of
international negotiations whose partners, including the United States
and Russia, have frowned at Azerbaijan's zealous embrace of Safarov.
But Azerbaijan -- whose dynastic leader, Ilham Aliyev, is seen as using
his country's massive oil wealth to buy silence on his authoritarian
practices -- has shrugged off such criticism as hypocritical meddling.
Many in the country argue that the international community remained
silent when a case similar to Safarov's unfolded years earlier
in Armenia.
In 2001, Yerevan granted an immediate pardon to Varoujan Garabedian,
a Syrian-born militant who killed eight people in a 1983 bomb attack
in a French airport.
Garabedian was returned to Armenia after serving 17 years of a life
sentence in France, and received his pardon while still in Yerevan's
airport.
'Radical Elements Are The Only Winners'
Erkin Gaderli, a lawyer and a member of the Republican Alternative
opposition group, says he believes "no one" in Azerbaijan "seriously"
thinks of Safarov as a hero.
But at the same time, he acknowledges that ordinary Azerbaijanis are
confounded by the continued deadlock over Nagorno-Karabakh, and have
fallen into a tit-for-tat relationship with Armenia, with each side
looking to best the other on even insignificant issues.
"There is an emotion growing in society, and it's a reflection of
a deep frustration with the conflict in the occupied territories,"
Gaderli says. "And there is a growing expectation that somehow,
someday this must come to an end. Many people think that something
needs to be done in response to Armenia. So whatever Armenia has done,
for good or for bad, should somehow be retaliated."
There are suggestions that Armenia may already be prepared to raise
the stakes, with the parliament in Yerevan now considering a hastily
submitted bill on recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent
country.
The outcome of such a provocation is worrisome to many who fear the
countries will return to a war footing.
Even without a resumption of violence, some observers find the Safarov
case a depressing development in a year when Azerbaijan has attempted
to buff its Western credentials by playing Eurovision host and joining
the UN Security Council.
In a piece published by the BBC's Russian Service, Thomas de Waal,
a South Caucasus expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, wrote that the affair struck a blow to many activists and
officials in Azerbaijan who have spent years quietly building a
dialogue with Armenia.
With Safarov's hero-sized welcome such critical efforts may now be
lost. "After the authorities in Baku met the killer with open arms,
the country's image has suffered enormous damage," he wrote.
"Unfortunately, the only winners are the radical elements on both
sides."
Editor's note: Written and reported by Daisy Sindelar in Prague with
additional reporting from Baku by Arife Kazimova
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/65867