AZERBAIJAN
A well-known historian
of Transcaucasia cautioned that "...the history of the Caucasus
peoples, when taken at the level of political narrative, is
nearly incomprehensibly complex...."1 The area that is now modern Azerbaijan is still a cross-roads
of empires, and since the dissolution of the USSR and the discovery
of oil beneath the Caspian Sea, its society has been evolving
very rapidly. Like other Middle Eastern societies, it is multi-layered
and often opaque, particularly to outsiders. Family, clan and
regional loyalties both co-exist and conflict with the newly
emergent nation-state. In addition, seventy years as a Soviet
republic has made Azerbaijan, although Islamic, quite distinct
from its Islamic neighbours. Finally, there are the inevitable
internal contradictions, legislative as well as social, of a
post-colonial society.
It is hoped that
the following report adequately respects the ambiguities of
this transitional period, taking into account the brief period
of time that has passed since independence.
IWRAW interviewed
representatives of external agencies, representatives of local
non-governmental human rights groups, and individual political
and social activists on a visit to Baku in August 1997. Every
Azerbaijani who contributed information for this report did
so at some personal risk. In addition to general information
obtained from published books, articles and UN agency documents,
this report attempts to convey, with as little distortion as
possible, the concerns these individuals expressed at that time.
AZERBAIJAN
For the past few
months, world press reports have tantalised readers with accounts
of developments surrounding control of the vast oil and gas
reserves in Azerbaijan, until recently a relatively obscure
Transcaucasian republic in the former USSR. Arresting phrases,
such as "the most concentrated mass of untapped wealth known
to exist anywhere is in the oil and gas fields beneath the Caspian
and the lands around it...,"2
have stirred global interest in who the big winners will be,
how competition for control of the oil flow will alter the already
complex geopolitics of the region, and, as one commentator has
said, whether the rush will end up turning Central Asia into
"a strategic volcano."3 Not surprisingly, fewer people have been reading about the
economic and social crisis taking place within Azerbaijani society.
Three times since
1991 the United Nations has renewed a declaration of emergency
conditions in the southern Caucasus, and although it was agreed
not to declare another emergency after May 1997, the situation
in Azerbaijan is still quite serious. Over sixty percent of
the population of Azerbaijan is impoverished. Daily life is
conditioned, not by the remote promise of state oil revenues,
but rather by the collapsing Soviet system, a multifold crisis
which has been exacerbated enormously by the added social and
economic pressures of nearly a million refugees and internally
displaced persons (IDPs) from the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh
and the other areas of Azerbaijan that have been occupied by
Armenia.
In addition to its
famous oil reserves, Azerbaijan is rich in agricultural resources
and has a well-developed industrial sector. However, production
during the Soviet period was typically over-specialised by central
planning,4 and the disintegration of the USSR hit hardest in the Apsheron
peninsula, where industry was mainly concentrated.5 Fully ninety-five percent of the industrial
enterprises in Azerbaijan were integrated into a united cycle
of production and distribution within the USSR. There are few
reliable figures about the Azerbaijani economy, but according
to a UNHCR Situation Report, during the period 1991 - 95 machinery
production decreased by over eighty percent, and chemical and
petrochemical production decreased by eighty-five percent. Capital
investment in industry in the same period decreased by nearly
ninety-five percent.
Unemployment, though
underreported at the time, was a growing problem in Azerbaijan
during the 1980s. The collapse of the USSR, however, transformed
a chronic problem into a critical one. Agricultural production
was disrupted in much the same way as in industry and manufacturing.
In addition, over 300,000 working places were lost in the territories
occupied by Armenia, creating an influx of unemployed farm workers
who, with their families, began crowding into urban areas. Despite
some claims that the macroeconomic indicators are beginning
to show a turnaround this year, productive activities remain
stalled, and the society continues turning to other means of
survival.
Although the state
is still the main employer, the Government report to the ESCR
Committee is disingenuous about the employment situation in
the country. Large numbers of employees in defunct factories
and other state enterprises are not registered as unemployed,
although they are on permanent unpaid leave. In addition, very
few unemployed workers register with the state as unemployed,
because the compensation they would receive doesn't make it
worthwhile, and the state employment service has virtually nothing
to offer job seekers. What is more, state salaries in real terms
no longer provide a living wage. Most people who are still employed
by the state must supplement their income in other ways. Azerbaijan's
traditionally vigorous black market continues to thrive, and
small-scale buying and selling has dramatically increased. Buying
into the bureaucracy is another survival technique. It is common
knowledge that for a certain sum, and perhaps subsequent payments
to a supervisor, an individual can buy a state job, as a policeman,
for example, or a nurse, or even a governor. The desirability
of these state jobs has nothing to do with official salaries.
Bribery, or informal payoffs in one form or another, have become
one of very few ways to earn a living.
The health service
is no different from other state services, where informal fees
supplement state salaries. Many stories circulate in Baku about
friends or acquaintances being refused emergency medical care,
by an ambulance driver or a nurse or an intake worker in a hospital,
unless these officially free services are paid for in advance.
Women pay to deliver their babies in state maternity houses,
and state doctors depend on "gratitude" from their patients.
Systemic corruption is not new -- indeed, President Aliyev complained
publicly and often about the need to clean up corruption when
he was First Secretary of the Communist Party in the 1970s6
-- but in the current period of institutional crisis, without
Moscow to provide central authority, demand production figures
or impose discipline in other forms -- the state system has
been deeply corroded by a process that has been referred to
by economists as "hidden privatisation."
The Aliyev leadership
A former university
professor in Baku remarked that it must be difficult for foreigners
to grasp how it felt for Azerbaijanis to live through this period.
While most people agree that an independent Azeri nation is
a long-awaited achievement that brings with it many benefits,
they also feel extremely vulnerable. Not very long ago, Azeris,
Ukrainians, Tajiks, Georgians and many others perceived themselves,
like it or not, as part of a powerful and united Soviet state.
Distinct ethnic identities always existed, but there is now
considerable fear among the majority Azeri population of separatist
movements, and fear among nearly everyone that the new state
is in a struggle for its survival. Despite their desire for
genuine economic reform -- and lack of confidence in the current
government to bring this about -- many people feel nonetheless
that President Aliyev is the best insurance they have for surviving
the chaos of this period.
However, critics
say that President Aliyev's popularity is linked to his regime's
careful control of information. Although the new Constitution
forbids censorship of the mass media, the state censor is very
active. Freedom of the press, is observed, but only to an extent.
The appearance of a free press reassures the outside world,
but carries relatively little risk, since few Azerbaijanis outside
of Baku read newspapers. Also, journalists tend to censor themselves;
otherwise they risk detention or physical violence.
State-controlled
television, as in Soviet times, continues to be an important
tool for central government to control opinion in the rural
population. Former President Elchibey, who was forced out of
office in 1993 by Aliyev, will have to contend with the negative
television campaign already being waged against him if he wishes,
as he has declared, to compete against Aliyev in the upcoming
presidential elections. In addition to the misinformation directed
against him, he is obliged to campaign without the Constitutional
protection of free speech, since the Criminal Code currently
bans criticism of the President.
The opposition contends
also that the Aliyev propaganda machine regularly manufactures
death threats and attempted coups, and thereby sustains the
President's reputation as the nation's great protector. The
regime wages an ongoing campaign to discredit the opposition,
including accusations of sabotage against human rights activists
identified with the opposition, in order to sustain public insecurity
and the widely held belief that the current leadership is the
only viable leadership.
Patronage politics
Commentators say
that when Aliyev was chosen First Secretary of the Azerbaijan
Communist Party in 1969, Moscow expected him to clean up an
entrenched patronage system that was considered responsible
for Azerbaijan's poor economic performance in relation to other
Soviet republics. It was not until Aliyev was expelled from
the Politburo in 1987 that his past performance as a 'reformer'
in Azerbaijan came under scrutiny. While Aliyev attacked corruption
publicly, he managed to establish for himself, in only a few
years, a far more powerful patronage network than he had been
assigned to dismantle. Despite pressure and criticism from Moscow
in the Gorbachev years, rejection by the Baku intelligentsia,
and the advent of a reformist government for a brief period
after independence, the Aliyev network has survived,7 and continues to dominate a highly centralised
political and economic system.
During a recent
ceremony to mark an agreement between Socar, the Azerbaijani
state-run oil company, and the US company RV Investment Group
Services to develop six gold, silver and copper mines, the President
was quoted as saying "Azerbaijan is rich not only in oil and
gas, but in gold, silver, copper, tin and zinc. We have not
been able to mine these deposits for a long time, but now we
intend to mine all our riches."8
Critics say there is no reason to believe that profits from
the country's oil and mineral resources will be used any differently
than they have been in the past, when oil became known in Azerbaijan
as "a family business."
Despite the growing
numbers of executives, geologists and high-level technicians
visiting their country, and the vast sums of money being negotiated
to extract Caspian oil, there seems to be little confidence
among the Azerbaijanis interviewed by IWRAW that these high-level
deals will have much positive effect on the lives of ordinary
people, unless a genuinely reform-minded leadership emerges.
President Aliyev is credited with brilliant statesmanship in
his use of oil to leverage a position of advantage in the conflict
over Nagorno-Karabakh, and for elevating Azerbaijan's regional
status as a newly independent republic. Many Azerbaijanis fear,
however, that he is paying too high a price, and that this rapid
flurry of oil and mineral agreements will lead to prosperity
for only a few, rather than long-term development for the nation
as a whole.
Article 2 - Obligations
of States parties
The government of
Azerbaijan has acceded to the major human rights conventions,
but sources say that awareness of these conventions is extremely
rare, even among intellectuals.
Legislation
The focus of national
legislation thus far has been to create a favourable environment
for outside investment. The discussion of Article 2 in the Government
report9 illustrates the
nature of the Parliament's legislative priorities. The ESCR
Committee has asserted that this is one of the most important
articles of the Covenant, but paragraphs one and two of Article
2 are not discussed at all. The lengthy discussion of Article
2, paragraph 3 in the Government report essentially ignores
the ongoing refugee crisis -- in housing, health, education
and employment -- and focuses, not so much on the rights of
refugees and stateless persons, as on the rights of the expatriate
community. Sources felt that this section of the government
report was speaking to the concerns of the growing number of
specialised technicians, executives and other foreigners, particularly
in the oil and mining industries, considered by the current
government to be vitally important to the nation's future.
A high-level UN
source defended Parliament's slow pace of progress in drafting
progressive legislation by commenting that few people in government
had any previous experience with the legislative process. The
representative of an external NGO who observes the workings
of Parliament was not so forgiving, commenting that there has
been no lack of outside help, and that the nation's lawmakers
"can only play at being neophytes for so long." He added, by
way of example, that legislators were unnecessarily preoccupied
with dispensing rewards to individuals with personal bureaucratic
grievances.
Only specialised
professionals are knowledgeable about current legislation, and,
according to one lawyer, the legislation is so opaque that it
is difficult to interpret. Another lawyer in private practice
noted that a parliamentary bulletin does exist, but it is only
available through semi-private firms that photocopy and sell
it, mainly to lawyers.
The new Constitution
A new Constitution
was adopted by referendum in November 1995. Those who commented
said that, the national referendum notwithstanding, only a tiny
fraction of the population, at least up to now, have even the
vaguest idea what it contains. There also seems to be agreement
among both the political opposition and human rights activists
-- whose roles are not particularly distinct at this point in
time -- 1) that the Constitution contains a number of important
special protections, and 2) that these protections are consistently
violated. It is said that there has been almost no new legislation
to put the provisions of the Constitution into effect. In some
cases, legislation passed after the adoption of the Constitution
violates its provisions.
For example, the
Constitution provides for an independent judiciary. In practice,
the Ministry of Justice prepares a list of candidates, who are
voted into office by a simple majority of the Parliament, which,
of course, is controlled by the President's party. Another example
-- according to the Constitution, an accused person is entitled
to a lawyer, but the existing Criminal Code states that a detained
person can only obtain a lawyer when the police investigator
gives his permission. Similarly, the Constitution provides for
the right to assemble, but a Mayor's Decree in Baku states that
public meetings can only be held with the permission of the
mayor. And violations of the free speech provision in the Constitution
have been documented extensively by international as well as
local groups.
There is no Constitutional
Court, and thus no possibility of appeal to a higher authority.
Privatisation
Providing and protecting
the mechanisms for an equitable distribution of state assets
is the greatest single opportunity the political leadership
has had to demonstrate its commitment to using "all appropriate
means" "to the maximum of its available resources" to promote
the realisation of the substantive rights contained in the Covenant.
However, numerous observers, both foreign and local, who have
tried to see into this relatively impermeable process, believe
strongly that thus far it has not been free and fair.
While some small
industries have privatised, sources say that there has not been
an honest attempt to privatise larger manufacturing or industrial
enterprises. Wherever privatisation has occurred, sources say
the entities have been released or sold to former directors,
or to the President's family or inner circle. The State commission
that was established to organise and control privatisation is
not subject to any effective audit or control.
Local human rights
organisations have complained vehemently that the state controlled
media has not given citizens enough information about how the
privatisation process works. No concrete procedure has been
made known, so most people simply sell their vouchers to speculators.
The activities of opportunists or criminal networks are protected,
however, since there is no requirement to publicise the identities
of anyone who purchases vouchers.
Moreover, human
rights groups contend that, extreme poverty, particularly in
the rural areas, makes it virtually impossible to conduct a
fair privatisation process, especially using the same sort of
voucher system that failed so miserably in Russia. It is said
that most people sell their vouchers to pay off debts, or simply
to buy food.
Articles 6, 7 and
8 - The right to work, to just and favourable conditions of
work, and the right to form and join trade unions
The Baku oil industry
The 'golden age'
of Baku oil in the early part of this century receded during
the Soviet period, as the oilfields were depleted through overexploitation
and underinvestment in exploration.10 After World War II the centre of USSR oil extraction moved
to the Volga basin and the Ural mountains. In the 1960s, development
of the Siberian oilfields began, making the USSR the world's
largest producer. By the 1980s the oil industry in Baku had
declined and was contributing only about three percent of the
total Soviet production.11
Oil came into prominence
again during the first year of the Aliyev presidency with "the
contract of the century" in September 1994. This thirty-year
agreement, valued at more than seven billion dollars, was concluded
with a consortium of foreign companies -- four American, one
British, Norwegian, Turkish and Russian. Since that time several
additional agreements have been concluded with foreign companies.
However, serious geopolitical problems have prevented the Azerbaijan
government from realising more than a fraction of the profits
it anticipates. These problems include conflict over the routing
of the pipelines, and the legal issue of whether the Caspian
is a sea or an inland body of water. If it is considered an
inland body of water, it would be subject to joint exploration
rather than demarcated into coastal zones belonging to specific
states.12 Many in Russia are quite militant about joint exploration,
in order to preserve what they consider Russia's fair share
of Caspian oil.
The World Bank Azerbaijan
Poverty Assessment 13
While World Bank
and IMF economists have been impressed with the Azerbaijan government's
ability to control inflation, and with the level of foreign
investment it has attracted, they are nonetheless concerned
that Azerbaijan is in danger of becoming an 'oil-specific economy,'
in which very little development takes place in other sectors.
Local sources expressed alarm at the tendency in government
to assume that oil would be a panacea to cure the country's
economic and social ills. The Poverty Assessment supports this
perspective with the argument that oil revenues are not a substitute
for jobs, which can only be created in sufficient numbers through
support and development of all sectors of the economy.
Assuming that the
bulk of state oil revenues are channelled into national development,
rather than diverted for personal gain -- which has tended to
be the case in the past -- development of oil and mineral resources
are not activities that significantly increase employment. The
recent World Bank study of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijan Poverty
Assessment, refers to a different World Bank study covering
ninety-seven developing countries during the period 1970 - 89.14 This study found that countries with high
export earnings based on natural resource wealth have been growing
more slowly than those without such natural resources. "...The
competitiveness of the non-oil sectors of the economy has been
found to be a problem in almost every country that has experienced
a rapid expansion in foreign exchange earnings from petroleum
exports."15
According to the
Covenant, States parties have an obligation, which is not dependent
on available resources, to actively promote a social and economic
environment in which people not only can work, but can become
skilled at what they do, and can form a base of power through
free association with other workers. Oil wealth may finance
abundant social services, but if the Government does not place
equal priority on employment creation in a society that has
become largely unproductive, it is not promoting human rights
and fundamental freedoms.
It has been little
more than six years since the August 1991 coup in Moscow and
the subsequent independence of the Azerbaijani republic. It
is easy to make unrealistic demands on a state system that needs
a period of time to evolve and to produce a first generation
of civil servants. However, to borrow the rather euphemistic
language of the Poverty Assessment, it will not be long before
the 'transitional' poverty Azerbaijan is experiencing will evolve
into 'structural' poverty. In layman's terms, this means the
emergence of a sizeable and entrenched underclass. Thus it is
critical for the leadership to demonstrate political will in
a serious attempt to restructure both the industrial and the
agricultural sectors of the economy, in order to bring the society
out of poverty, and out of the vicious cycle of corruption that
currently threatens it.
Government policies
and interventions for productive employment
From the standpoint
of employment creation, state policies and mechanisms that will
encourage the formation of small to medium scale enterprises,
in both the service and industrial sectors, are enormously important.
However, current practices discourage the establishment and
the sustainability of such enterprises. The Poverty Assessment
points out that small-scale entrepreneurs are "burdened with
informal 'taxes' levied by a variety of officials for their
personal profit...."16
The problem of corruption
came up in virtually every interview IWRAW conducted. One individual,
a lawyer who is often hired to help clients through the labyrinth
of legal and administrative obstacles, said that many people
in Baku were deceived at the promise of a free market. Early
on they invested in or tried to start up new enterprises, only
to go broke when they came up against the expense of doing business
without special connections. Other informants echoed this man's
comments, claiming that the few small and medium scale entrepreneurs
who are thriving are doing so within a 'protectionist' system.
Navigating the tariffs, taxes and payoffs that are built into
the cost of doing business in Baku and elsewhere in the country
depends largely on having the right connections. One of the
reasons women are said to have particular difficulty becoming
entrepreneurs is that they rarely have the connections one needs
to import goods, produce products or license and operate a commercial
enterprise at competitive prices. A June 1997 UNHCR Situation
Report states that existing taxation legislation is also a handicap
to the development of small-scale businesses among the country's
large displaced population.
Much less publicised
internationally than the oil rush has been the influx into Azerbaijan
of entrepreneurs from neighbouring countries. Again, the concern
is that the government is being short-sighted by attracting
foreign investment at the expense of local entrepreneurs. A
Baku newspaper recently reported that Azerbaijani companies
find it more profitable to invest their capital abroad, and
as of May 1997 have invested USD$749 million in the Turkish
economy alone, while the volume going to Western countries is
even greater.17
Thus, sources maintain
that, at least up to now, there has been very little evidence
of a serious government commitment to the legislative and sectoral
reforms that would promote domestic small to medium scale enterprise
development. Because of the rapidly growing expatriate population
in Azerbaijan, a small, upscale entrepreneurial class is indeed
emerging, but most people feel that the political patronage
system still precludes very much 'trickle down' benefit from
the economic growth that has been occurring thus far.
There was some hope
that the foreign companies moving into Azerbaijan might introduce
new labour practices in addition to providing employment opportunities.
Unfortunately, sources say that foreign companies do not employ
local labour to any great extent. In fact, considerable ill
will has already been generated by Turkish-owned construction
companies, restaurants, banks, and other businesses that employ
Turkish nationals for skilled positions, while hiring Azerbaijanis
mainly as unskilled labourers. The general perception is that
there has been very little Azerbaijani penetration into these
enterprises.
Women in the oil
industry
In Soviet times,
women played a relatively important role in the oil producing
industries in Azerbaijan. Their importance increased during
the Second World War, when women replaced men in nearly all
professions. As the numbers of women in higher education and
technical institutes rose after 1945, women became part of the
'technocratic elite' of the republic.
The prestige of
the oil professions, which included high wages and social benefits,
attracted thousands of women. According to the representative
of an association of women oil workers, some of those benefits
have been retained, even in the present economic situation.
One informant said
that foreign firms now employ women mostly at the secretarial
level, or at best as personnel managers. She claimed that these
new firms are reluctant to hire women in professional technical
positions, and even more so at the managerial level.
At the state oil
company, the highest executive level position women currently
occupy is that of department head, but very few women hold these
positions. In the Soviet system, largely because of a quota
system, it was not uncommon for women to become deputy directors.
Street vendors
A city ordinance
prohibits hawking, but a growing number of hawkers, mainly women,
line the sidewalks at the metro stops and along busy streets.
According to one human rights activist, the police often chase
them away, occasionally beating them with sticks and destroying
their merchandise. As in higher forms of commerce, the hawkers
who can pay off the police tend to be the ones who remain to
carry on with their trade. Sources criticised government's failure
to recognise or support the informal economy, particularly as
it has become the main source of survival for so much of the
population.
Much of the discussion
of employment in the Government report18 exemplifies a similar reactive or regressive
tendency, a problem which some commentators attribute to the
government's (and the society's) "identity crisis," and the
continuing influence of the Soviet way of thinking. Thus, most
of the explanation concerning the employment situation is out-of-date,
a formalistic analysis of a state employment sector which, although
it was once the only sector, other than the black market, hardly
exists any longer except on paper.
Gender and age discrimination
Professional women
IWRAW interviewed felt that gender and age discrimination in
foreign firms and joint ventures was not observably different
than the discrimination women experienced in locally managed
firms. In part, this was attributed to the general practice
in foreign firms of employing Azerbaijani managers to hire and
supervise local personnel. Nonetheless, regardless of any existing
non-discrimination legislation, there is nothing in practice
to discourage employers both foreign and domestic from discriminatory
advertising, hiring and promotion practices. It was also noted
by informants that employment discrimination against women over
thirty or thirty-five years of age makes the worst of a bad
situation, since the country suffers from a serious brain drain,
and there are many qualified, unemployed women professionals
in the country.
Article 10 - Protection
and assistance for the family
Protection during
pregnancy and childbirth
Sources claim that,
as state funding dwindled for supplies and salaries in the public
health sector, an informal fee-for-service system has become
pervasive, so that by now only privileged women give birth in
maternity houses. The cost runs anywhere from USD$100 to $400,
far beyond the means of the average family. By now most women
contract the services of midwives and give birth at home.
Sources also claim
that state maternity houses post lists of fees for services,
tests, medicines and supplies. One informant remarked that a
number of these clinics have good quality, foreign made equipment
obtained from humanitarian agencies. Fees are charged nonetheless,
and the income is deposited in bank accounts controlled by the
clinic administrators, who operate the houses as private maternity
hospitals. As in other sectors of the state system, jobs in
the maternity houses are often "sold" by corrupt administrators,
who therefore do not always hire the most qualified professionals.
The government report, by limiting its discussion to the serious
decline in the state salaries of medical professionals, is again
disingenuous, because most maternity houses are operating with
a full staff who do not depend for their income on state wages.
According to a Baku
newspaper article that appeared in April 1997, Parliament discussed
a bill on public health policy which proposes three systems
of medical services -- federal, municipal and private, and authorises
all three to charge fees for their services. The bill relegates
all decisions concerning fees "to the responsible organ," and
contains practically no restrictions. However, the bill stipulates
-- and this is the only category excluded from the new fee system
-- that free medical care will be guaranteed to pregnant women
in federal and municipal clinics and hospitals.19
The status of this important legislation is unknown, but if
it has been described accurately by the Baku press, it raises
the question of how Government can reconcile such a radical
abdication of responsibility for public health with its stated
commitment to provide "universal access to a basic package of
medical services."20
Adoption
In the course of
an interview with the representative of an organisation established
specifically to monitor the rights of children, adoption emerged
as a special concern.
In February 1997
Parliament adopted an amendment to existing legislation on marriage
and family which lifted the restriction against adoption by
non-citizens. The problem IWRAW was asked to bring to the attention
of the ESCR Committee is that there is no clear mechanism for
adoption, so that, given the current economic crisis, the easing
of restrictions has made some children unnecessarily vulnerable
to the increasing threat of sex traffickers. There are now two
state agencies monitoring adoptions -- the Ministry of Health
and the Ministry of Education. They are both authorised to supervise
maternity houses and orphanages, but it is claimed that there
is a struggle, or at least a confusion, between them over control
of adoptions.
The source said
that neither his organisation nor any other independent observer,
to his knowledge, has been given official permission to monitor
the situation.
Article 11 - The
right to an adequate standard of living
The severe agricultural
problems Azerbaijan is currently experiencing are attributed
to its transition from Soviet style central planning and communal
farming to the new state policy of small-scale production. With
fertile soil and a variegated climate that would allow for cultivation
of a wide variety of crops, grapes, cotton and tobacco alone
at one time accounted for over half of all production.21 Although production problems and large-scale
unemployment existed in Azerbaijan for many years before independence,
the collapse of the Soviet marketing structure, combined with
the influx of refugees and IDPs after 1988, resulted in a drastic
decline in productivity and a steady migration of the rural
population into urban areas.
The State has declared
its commitment to privatisation, although the transition from
large-scale communal farming to smaller, mainly family farms,
has been fraught with difficulties. Before the transition began,
roughly 2,000 people worked a variety of jobs on the average
state farm, so that many of the new independent farmers have
experience as teachers, bookkeepers or machine repairmen, but
no real farming experience. The new private farms -- most of
them between one and ten hectares -- are being apportioned to
heads of extended family households. At their current level
of productivity, these are subsistence farms that rarely have
enough surplus for marketing. For those who do manage a surplus,
serious disruption of the marketing routes has created a situation
where, as one NGO put it, disorganisation is supreme.
It has been suggested
that, given the fertility of the land and the previous level
of agricultural development, a privatised agricultural sector
could recover relatively easily and greatly increase productivity
-- provided it received the kinds of inputs small farmers require,
particularly credit and marketing facilities. 22 Unfortunately, because of economic constraints, central government
has retreated from the agricultural sector. Although this has
inadvertently hastened the process of decentralisation and helped
to deregulate the market, critics say that small-scale farmers
are not getting the kinds of assistance that government, despite
its economic constraints, could provide.
Markets
There are virtually
no local markets and no marketing board. Most farmers still
lack trucks, so produce is moved by wholesale buyers and distributors.
(International markets are still practically non-existent, with
extremely restricted flows through Georgia and Russia.) A major
grievance directed at government is that farmers lack basic
information that would help them to make rational plans and
to protect themselves from unscrupulous traders. Farmers simply
do not have information about prices in Baku or even neighbouring
villages, so they are at the mercy of the wholesale buyers.
Critics say that
government inhibits productivity and rural development in other
ways, mainly through the multiple forms of corruption and protectionism
which continue unabated at all official levels.
Local government
Observers say that
the rural privatisation process has been controlled, not at
the national level, but rather at the district level, by executive
committees. These committees are composed of governors who are
appointed by the President, and their deputies. Although the
President maintains political control of the districts through
the governors, the governors and their associates dictate what
happens in their districts. Thus the privatisation process has
been extremely variable. For example, in the district of Masalli
in the southeast, at least 5,500 small farms had been created
by mid-1997, while in Seki, a district to the north whose governor
is considered 'old guard,' only one farm had been privatised.
Farmers complain
that they don't have security of tenure, because no process
has been established yet to register private farms. Sources
say that local governments do not register ownership, or provide
any practical services for that matter, partly because nobody
in local government has been trained to do so, but also because
there is resistance on the part of most regional governors.
According to the
new Constitution, local elections were to be held throughout
the country in November 1997. Parliament very recently decided
to postpone these elections, thereby postponing for a time the
inevitable conflict that is expected to ensue between the governors,
sometimes referred to as the President's "storm-troopers," and
locally elected representatives.
The European Union
(EU) Technical Assistance Programme
Two years ago the
EU established an agricultural assistance programme in Azerbaijan
through the sale of wheat and flour, which raised USD$16 million
to assist the wheat and grain sector in the form of a credit
union for small farmers. This important project has been called
"a disaster," because government has insisted that every small
loan application to the programme be reviewed by central government.
Apparently, although this is unconfirmed, any ministry can ask
to join the queue and have a say in the granting of the loans.
The EU has refused to accept these terms, and the $16 million
for credit to small farmers is apparently still sitting in the
National Bank of Azerbaijan.
Article 12 - The
right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental
health
A medical doctor
IWRAW interviewed objected to the unsystematic manner in which
Article 12 was discussed in the Government report, in particular
the report's haphazard approach to life-and-death problems.
For example, the random listing of unsourced statistics concerning
the leading causes of infant mortality (paragraph 155), is followed
by the declaration that the water supply in many urban settlements
failed to meet hygienic standards (para 156), and then by the
statement that in 1994 a certain number of children, of unspecified
age, somewhere in the country, were vaccinated against diphtheria,
whooping cough and tetanus (para 157). This kind of disordered
presentation showed just how chaotic and ineffective the public
health system was, and how seriously the government lacked a
coherent national health policy.
This doctor, a paediatrician
with over thirty years' experience, agreed with the statement
in the government report that contaminated water was a major
threat to national health. However, she said the report should
have gone even further and also have stated that every summer
cholera bacteria are found in the water supply, and that people
regularly face the threat of a cholera epidemic.
She said that while
government conducts endless health tours for international agencies,
and political candidates make endless promises about improved
health facilities before they get elected, the government fails
to take basic and systematic measures to prevent the outbreak
of disease. The doctor declared that "it is all very well for
the government to report that a large number of children were
vaccinated for various diseases in 1994, but it would be much
more reassuring to know that vaccination campaigns were conducted
regularly, in a systematic fashion, and targeted for children
at the appropriate ages, rather than have to wait for an epidemic
to flash out, as it did between 1996 - 97." This informant's
heartfelt opinion was that the government could not justify
exposing the population to an outbreak of disease by appealing
to the constraints of the national budget.
This informant also
wished the ESCR Committee to be aware that tuberculosis in Azerbaijan
is on the rise among both children and adults, and that it is
a national health issue that has only received sporadic attention.
Until fairly recently, there was no tuberculosis in the country.
A medical check-up for a TB patient costs roughly the equivalent
of USD$20. The average person earns less than that amount per
month.
Sources complained
that the government's insistence on sustaining the fiction of
an intact state system led to an exceedingly anomalous discussion
of the important issues. One person exclaimed that "everyone
knows it is impossible to provide qualified medical care at
no cost if the average doctor's salary is under fifteen dollars
a month." Virtually all doctors now expect some form of "gratitude"
from their patients. In the current 'hidden' fee-for-service
health care system, hospitalisation is becoming extremely rare,
since few people can afford to pay for hospital tests, x-rays,
and the like. What is more, many state hospitals no longer even
have such things as film for x-rays, or chemicals for running
tests.
Relief Efforts
Government's inability
to assume so much as a co-ordinating role in the delivery of
public health and welfare services has created something of
a crisis in the relief community. Relief agencies provide all
the help displaced people receive, but, as many people see it,
government ministries and individual ministry officials have
hindered more than helped relief efforts. A June 1997 UNHCR
Situation Report described the work of a reproductive health
field co-ordinator, who conducted a study of women in five IDP
settlements. Through a questionnaire, this co-ordinator discovered
that IDP women overwhelmingly considered family planning as
their primary health concern. The Ministry of Health, however,
has been unable to overcome the bureaucratic hurdles that would
allow, not the government, but UNFPA to supply condoms for the
Ministry of Health and NGO reproductive health programmes in
the country. UNHCR had to step in to fund the purchase of a
six month supply of condoms to share among existing reproductive
health programmes.
Articles 13 and
14 - Education
The representative
of an agency that has been working in Azerbaijan since the first
UN emergency remarked that, in the current international struggle
for the hearts and minds of the Azerbaijanis, the Iranians and
Saudis were focusing their efforts on the young and were supporting
religious education as the secular state system was collapsing.
In another interview, a secondary school teacher explained that
he was lucky to be working in one of the new private schools
that had opened in Baku, where it was possible to be innovative
and where the administration was receptive to new teaching methods
and curriculum. Indeed, there is abundant support from all quarters
for the warning in a recent UNDP report that the crisis in secular,
coeducational state education in Azerbaijan could have more
lasting consequences to the society than any other aspect of
the current economic crisis.
It has often been
said that Azerbaijan is a very educated country. As in other
former Soviet republics, free primary and secondary education
was guaranteed, and there were no significant gender differences
in primary through tertiary education.23 The country's strong educational system and traditional respect
for education have been used as positive indicators of the country's
future economic prospects. But Azerbaijan's educational advantage
is rapidly eroding. "All aspects of the system are undergoing
a critical period of stress."24 A system which was once uniform has become radically diverse,
in quality, levels of financing, access and all other factors,
so much so that generalisations about education in Azerbaijan
are virtually impossible.25
The representative
of a rural-based NGO related the story of an Azeri who now works
for his organisation. The man was formerly a rural teacher who
was earning the equivalent of USD$ 15 per month when he finally
quit the profession, the last teacher to leave his school. Sources
claim that while most primary schools in the cities have weakened
but may still be functioning, most primary schools outside the
urban centres have closed. Dedicated parents who are able to
do so are resorting to homeschooling. As the Poverty Assessment
cautions, conditions are extremely variable, depending on the
degree of community or parent participation, among other factors.
According to a 1995
UNDP report, agricultural workers and teachers share the distinction
of being the lowest paid workers in the country. Until at least
1995 they also made up the second and third largest group of
state employees. State teachers as of mid-1997 were earning
roughly USD$10 - 15 per month. In addition, many of the special
benefits they enjoyed in the past, such as free electricity
and transportation, have been phased out, creating an atmosphere,
if not hostile, at best uncomprehending.
Although the government
attempted to improve education's share of the state budget in
1995 and 1996, expenditures for education in real terms had
fallen by 1996 to less than twenty-five percent of their 1992
level.26 Compounding the
strain on the educational system has been the influx of refugee
and IDP children, and the simultaneous loss of about twenty
percent of available schools, which are used as emergency housing
for the displaced.
Not surprisingly,
the drastic decline in state funding for education has had a
disproportionate effect on the poor. Families now regularly
pay for textbooks and other items, and those who can afford
to do so also pay for private tutoring to supplement increasingly
poor quality state schooling.27
Sources often refer to "hidden" privatisation in education in
the same way they do to public health services. For example,
informants claim that school administrators now charge levies
for school maintenance and repair. People commonly expressed
their belief that the state had abandoned its responsibility
to educate the population. Poor refugee and IDP households in
rural areas often have access to humanitarian assistance, so
they spend much less on education per child than ordinary families.
This has contributed to dissatisfaction among the non-displaced
population, and has increased social conflict.
An indication of
how seriously the quality of education in the country has deteriorated
is the fact that graduation rates from state secondary schools
fell to fifty percent of their 1985 level by 1994, and as much
as thirty percent between 1993 and 1994.28 According to the Poverty Assessment, there are no significant
gender differences in this otherwise alarming picture.
Corruption further
erodes confidence in the state educational system. According
to one visiting university professor, "bribes abound in state
institutions, where salaries are low and young men on military
deferments...are intent on staying enrolled."29 He goes on to say that tuition for higher education has become
so costly for the average family that "a failing grade is a
crisis,"30 and there are
enormous pressures on faculty, by parents and students alike,
to view good grades as commodities for which they have already
paid dearly.
The 1992 Education
Law
The 1992 Education
Law made some progressive changes in the basic model of education,
introducing the four-year baccalaureate in order to postpone
specialisation until the graduate level.31 However, according to the World Bank Poverty Assessment,
the management of general education has been decentralised to
such an extent that it is questionable whether the Ministry
of Education has retained any control at all over quality and
learning outcomes.32
Endnotes:
1
Ronald Grigor Suny, ed. Transcaucasia, Nationalism, and Social
Change: Essays in the History of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia,
University of Michigan Press, 1996. back 2
Stephen Kinzer, "A Perilous New Contest for the Next Oil
Prize," The New York Times, 21 September, 1997. back
3
Jim Anderson, "The new 'Great Game,' a 'squalid geo-political
tale,'" Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 26 September, 1997, on-line.
back
4
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia: Country Studies, p.115
back
5
Professor Vagif Arzumanli, Director of the Institute of
International Relations of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan
Republic, "Conditions of Present Migration Process in Azerbaijan
Republic," Baku, 1997, an unpublished draft. back
6
John P. Willerton, Patronage and Politics in the USSR,
Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 216. back
7
Willerton, p. 218 back
8
"Azeri, US Companies to Develop Disputed Gold Field," ASSA-Irada
news Agency, Baku, in Russian, 22 August, 1997, on -line.
back
9
E/1990/5/Add.30, dated 17 June, 1996. back
10
Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland
in Transition, Columbia University Press, New York, 1995, p.179.
back
11
Swietochowski. back
12
Swietochowski, p.226-7. back
13
Azerbaijan Poverty Assessment (In Two Volumes), The World
Bank, Human Resources Division, Country Department III, Europe
and Central Asia Region, 24 February, 1997; Report No. 15601-AZ.
back
14
Poverty Assessment, pps. 16-17. back
15
Poverty Assessment, p. 16. back
16
Poverty Assessment, p.18. back
17
"Economic and Political Factors Force Azeri Investors Abroad,"
Azadlyg, Baku, in Azeri, 28 May, 1997, on-line. back
18
E/1990/5/Add.30 back
19
Situation Report, UNHCR, June 1997 back
20
Poverty Assessment, p.47. back
21
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia: Country Studies back
22
Poverty Assessment, p. 18. back
23
Poverty Assessment, p.39. back
24
Poverty Assessment back
25
p. 78 back
26
p. 38 back
27
p. 82 back
28
p. 39 back
29
Nicholas Daniloff, "Teaching Democracy in an Authoritarian
Country," Chronicle of Higher Education, USA, Vol. 43, No.19,
15 August, 1997. back
30
Daniloff back
31
Daniloff back
32
Poverty Assessment, p.40. back
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