In which I am shocked, shocked

… brought to you today from Azerbaijan, what a shocker.

About a year and a half ago - March 2nd, 2005 - Elmar Huseynov was shot in his podyezd (actually, that’s kind of a funny blunder - he was shot twice in the head while exiting the stairwell of his building, which in Russian is called the podyezd, but for all you amateur Russian-speaking pornographers, I’m giving you a great starting place for the title of your next work). It was old school Russian style, which means 1990s and after, or reminiscent of any gangland killing. It was neat, it was discreet, it was very professional.

Now, in Azerbaijan, as in many of the CIS countries, I think it’s fair to say that professionalism is still very much not the order of the day in the private sector (even, or especially, in the criminal sector - see, e.g. Bayart, Ellis, and Hibou) and the government is actively and efficiently engaged in nothing at all, even stealing from its own citizens, or anyone else who comes close.

With one exception: the competent organs (again with the freebies for the amateur pornographers). This turn of phrase (in Russian it doesn’t sound as dumb) was developed in the former Soviet Union to describe the various KGB-type organizations who performed the duties of Santa Claus in an atheist country - you gotta have someone who sees you when you’re sleeping et cetera. Even now, they’re known for being the people who seem to be able to, let’s say, find an address (because they always want to know where to send the party invitation), or do anything else, when they’re properly motivated. These guys still take pride in their uniforms, and in their jobs, and they tend to live in quiet neighborhoods, and have plumbing that works.

So anyway. Last March, when Elmar got popped, there was a general outcry, and calls for a serious investigation. A representative of the international Helsinki human rights committee in Azerbaijan characterized the killing as “terrorism against the press,” but don’t they always? Reno Harnish, the former U.S. Ambassador and a great friend of freedom and democracy, described Huseynov as “a courageous and talented journalist who contributed greatly to promoting civic dialogue.” He didn’t have much to say before that about Elmar, of course - their opinions on thing such as corruption, politics, and the various antics of the Presidential administration were, shall we say, at variance - and nothing afterwards. Even when other opposition journalists were kidnapped and thumped on.
But then a funny thing happened. I used to live around the corner from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Baku, and one day, about a week later, there were extra guards around the building. What the hell, I said; I love a good purge. Well, what had happened was that there had been a kidnapping and extortion ring around Baku. This is not news. In the Caucasus, kidnapping and extortion are as much a part of the national character as anything else: ass fat, cheese, pork shashlik, goofy hats, whatever. The problem was that the kidnappers grabbed the wife of a bank president.

When you rob an Azerbaijani bank president of his lady, that’s serious business. Not because he’s gonna pull a Harrison Ford on you. If he does, you’re probably okay. It’s because guaranteed, that bank president has access to the competent organs - and everyone is going to do what they have to in order to see that things are set right. And so the competent organs shook the pillars of heaven, and the ringleader of the kidnappers fell down: Haji “Two Schwas” Mammadov.

Who was also the head of the Criminal Investigations Department.

Well, there was a general outcry - most of it was on the order of “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” - but things soon settled down and all was well. Until yesterday.

Because at the beginning of this month, the kidnappers went on trial; and yesterday, Haji  Two Schwas said, oh yeah, by the way - I got two bombshells for you. First, it was I who rubbed out Elmar Hueynov. And second, I did it at the behest of ex-Economic Development Minister Farhad Aliyev. This is a guy who had previously claimed that his life was in danger because of his struggle against monopolies in Azerbaijan. The biggest monopoly in Azerbaijan? That’d be oil. And shortly after he got fired (why the hell don’t these morons bail out of their countries as soon as they get canned? Don’t they read the papers?) both Aliyev and his brother, president of the Azpetrol oil company, were arrested under suspicion of preparing a coup against the government.

Is all this a coincidence? Maybe… I mean, the idea that a given Minister would be asking a known thug to whack out a journalist who’d written rude and unkind things about the Minister doesn’t strain my credulity much. Although you’d think the Minister would have more respect for chain of command and go to the Minister of Internal Affairs. Anyway, Haji seems like your go-to guy if you wanted someone put down.
But on the other hand, the idea that the Azerbaijani government just wants to throw as much shit as possible at Farhad Aliyev in the hopes that some of it will stick seems to make sense, too. And they could have offered to let Haji get a milder sentence (as conditions in prisons can be highly variable - someone like Felix Kulov can attest to this - and the inmates pretty much run the show anyway. Or they could have taken a page from the Uzbek playbook  and offered him the opportunity to avoid disfigurement et cetera.

It will be interesting to see how all this shakes out. I kind of wondered why the Azerbaijani government was prolonging the magic on this one; but what the hell, it’s fun to watch so far.