Indulis Berzins
Minister of Foreign Affairs
36 Brivibas Blvd.
Riga LV-1395
Via FAX: 011-371-782-8121

Cc: Walter Schwimmer
Secretary General
Council of Europe
Via FAX: 011-333-88-412-799

Your Excellency:

The International League for Human Rights, a non-governmental organization with special consultative status at the UN and active participation in the activities of OSCE and the Council of Europe, is writing to express our grave concern about the parliamentary election run-offs in Azerbaijan. Our appeal to you now is particularly urgent in view of the meeting of the Ministers' Deputies scheduled for January 17, 2001, the planned date of Azerbaijan's accession to the Council of Europe, at which Azerbaijan's compliance with the Council's demands is to be discussed.

There remains little doubt that the parliamentary elections recently held in Azerbaijan were, to quote Gerard Stoudmann, head of OSCE ODIHR, a display of "primitive falsification." Despite evidence documented by domestic and international observers that the opposition received more votes than the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party, the official assessment did not show the opposition receiving enough votes even to pass the threshold necessary for representation in the Parliament. In our view and the view of many organizations promoting democracy in the region, the leading opposition parties were absolutely right in their decision to boycott the runoffs in the eleven electoral districts. Boycotts are certainly in order when violations are so egregious and when the playing field is so uneven in advance. After all, these run-offs were announced by the Azerbaijani President as a concession to the international community -- which became outraged and dismayed by the sheer scale of the fraud. That such blatant violations and lack of access continued even under these circumstances is justification for a boycott, and the international community should not be second-guessing or undermining the opposition, which is, after all, their more natural, democratic partners than the current tyrannical leader of Azerbaijan.

Therefore, the League was concerned to learn that during your recent trip to Azerbaijan, you publicly disapproved of the opposition's decision to boycott the runoffs, which the Council has called the litmus test for the final decision on Azerbaijan's membership. According to local press reports (this information may have been distorted), you expressed the opinion that "voting irregularities are natural and inevitable in the context of the CIS countries." Yet, this test was abysmally failed by the Azeri government, and no partial runoffs can lend an iota of legitimacy to the parliament created as a result when so many opposition parties are barred from entering it.

To be sure, voting irregularities are unfortunately indeed "natural" in the post-Soviet states, as elections even judged more fair by ODIHR, such as those in Russia and Kazakhstan, have indicated. But that is no reason to tolerate them; it harms the long-term effort to establish democratic institutions in the region, which are the best guarantee of peace, security, and prosperity. And when the fraud reaches such a scale as it has in Azerbaijan, it simply cannot be countenanced.

The League believes that Azerbaijan's membership in the Council has a great potential to further the cause of democracy and human rights in the country -- if the participating states and the Council itself muster the necessary political will and level of intervention to ensure compliance with the Council's own standards and values. The potential of new members can only be realized when the Council does not compromise the principles it is built upon. Accordingly, the Council must demand from the Azerbaijani government full accountability and transparency in the process of meeting the Council's criteria for membership. One of the most important such criteria is whether the government is ready or not to respect the people's will expressed at elections. While "voting irregularities" can be quite common in many of the CIS countries, many of which are still burdened with the traditions of the totalitarian Soviet era, there is a difference in scale between "irregularities" and a shamelessly deliberate, blatant fraud as we have seen in Azerbaijan.

If Azerbaijan is actually to join the community of democratic European nations, it can do so only by adhering to the principles of the Council and not "conducting a policy of imitation-imitation of democratic processes that the West would like to see", as a prominent Azeri politician has said. The Council of Europe can help Azerbaijan do so by demanding that the Azeri government either recognize the true results of the elections, or call for new ones, allowing for registration of all candidates, granting the opposition full access to the media, and assuring transparency during the counting of ballots.

Many NGOs and political parties in Azerbaijan advocate accession to the Council of Europe in the belief that the Council will then extract compliance with basic human rights standards, through the European Court of Human Rights, the Committee on the Prevention of Torture, and other mechanisms. It does a grave disservice to these democratic actors to betray their faith in international institutions and the will for human rights enforcement if membership in the Council is so easily extended to tyrants.

Throughout this accession period, laws have been changed, political prisoners have been freed, and NGOs, long arbitrarily denied registration, have been legalized -- although many problems remain. This has been an ameliorative process, but one that in many cases has been cosmetic -- or so blatantly discretionary that permission could be withdrawn after Council membership is gained. In order to consolidate the gains the Council has achieved in this period and prevent a worsening of the human rights situation after accession, a firm stand must be taken now on these very obviously flawed elections.

Thank you for your attention. We await your response.

Sincerely,

Catherine Fitzpatrick
Executive Director