1. The full text of amendments was published in the government daily Azerbaycan (Baku), 24 August 2002.Google Scholar

2. J. C. Peuch, “Azerbaijan: Postelection Detainees on Protest Fast as Arrests Continue,” RFERL Magazine, 12 December 2003. <www.rferl.org/nca/features>..>Google Scholar

3. In an interview with Turkish journalists on the eve of his return to power, Aliev promised to create a “second Kuwait around Baku.” Cumhuriyet (Istanbul), 1 July 1993.Google Scholar

4. N. I. Ryzhkov, Perestroika: Istoria predatelstv (Moscow: APN, 1992), pp. 204–208; E. K. Ligachev, Kak eto bylo (Novosibirsk: Sibirskaya kniga, 1995), pp. 183–184.Google Scholar

5. Compare the official program of the governing New Azerbaijan Party with the programs of major opposition parties—the Popular Front, Musavat and National Independence Party—published, respectively, in their press organs: Yeni Azerbaycan (Baku), 28 February 2002; Azadliq (Baku), 14 January 2003; Yeni Musavat (Baku), 11 December 2002; Milletin Sesi (Baku), 10 September 2002.Google Scholar

6. Author interview with Nasib Nasibov, Baku, January 2002.Google Scholar

7. For striking similarities between the contemporary Azerbaijan and the pre-revolutionary Iran, showing how exactly Azerbaijan is following in the path of its greater neighbor, read my opinion piece “The Next Iran,” Washington Post, 28 September 1998.Google Scholar

8. Interviews were conducted in January 2002, during my visit to Baku, with war veteran Muhibbi Ahmedov and Dr. Farda Asadov of the National Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar

9. Aleksandr Arseniev, “Skolko ludey ostalos v Azerbaijane?” Nezavisimaya gazeta (Moscow), 1 December 1999.Google Scholar

10. Zardüºt Alizade, “Milletimizin sayi,” Müxalifet (Baku), 4 February 2000.Google Scholar

11. “Foreign Labor Flows in Europe,” The Economist (London), 2 November 2002, table on p. 11.Google Scholar

12. Author interview, Baku, January 2002.Google Scholar

13. For exhaustive validation of such a verdict, see the two latest additions to the vast library of Caspian energy research in the West: Hrair Dekmejian and Hovann Simonian, Troubled Waters: The Geopolitics of the Caspian Region (Los Angeles: Tauris, 2003); A. M. Jaffe, E. Kalyuzhnova, D. Lynch and R. C. Sickles, Energy in the Caspian Region: Present and Future (London: Macmillan, 2002).Google Scholar

14. Ridvan Sadirxanov, “Korzina dorojaet,” Monitor (Baku), May 2002, pp. 12–18.Google Scholar

15. Arzu Abdullaeva, “Genceden iki mektub,” Tezadlar (Baku), 11 January 2002.Google Scholar

16. Heydar Aliev, “Milli istiglaliyyet yolunda,” Azerbaycan (Baku), 18 October 2002.Google Scholar

17. Transition Report 2003 (London: EBRD, 2003), table on p. 38.Google Scholar

18. Sadirxanov, “Korzina dorojaet.”Google Scholar

19. Social Assessments for Better Development: Case Studies from Albania, Azerbaijan and Moldova (Washington: World Bank, 2002), p. 36.Google Scholar

20. Human Development under Transition: Annual National Reports (New York: UNDP, 2003), pp. 24, 87.Google Scholar

21. Trend (Baku), September 2003.Google Scholar

22. Interview with Zulfi Farzaliev, deputy minister of education, Baku, January 2002.Google Scholar

23. Firangiz Fatalizade, “Ingiltereded xeber var,” Ulus (Baku), 21 May 1999; Raºdgid Gül-mamedov, “Xaricde petrodollar hesablarimiz,” Yeni Zaman (Baku), 26 December 2001.Google Scholar

24. Azerbaijan's “first son” Ilham Aliev alone lost U.S.$6 million in his 1996–1998 gambling season: Oktay Erdem, “Paving the Way for Dynastic Succession in Azerbaijan,” Turkish Daily News (Ankara), 25 August 1999.Google Scholar

25. Interview with Altay Efendiev, head of the economic relations department of Azerbaijan's foreign ministry, January 2002.Google Scholar

26. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees, for instance, suspended its activities in Azerbaijan in the wake of accusations by Chechen refugees that its local office staff in Baku demand bribes in return for the allocation of humanitarian aid and allowances: RFE/RL Newsline, 28 March 2002. <www.rferl.org/newsline>..>Google Scholar

27. There is, naturally, no documentary proof, but these were the practices verbally described to me by many a dismissed customs officer in Baku on my visit in January 2002. One of my own relatives, a high-ranking border guard officer, was killed in a highway “traffic accident,” while his driver survived unharmed, after refusing to pay his “tribute.”Google Scholar

28. Jeffrey Goldberg, “Getting Crude in Baku,” New York Times Magazine, 4 October 1998, p. 69.Google Scholar

29. The foreign graft in Baku was described in these stories: Aslan Zahidov, “Xarici rüºvetxorlug,” Adalet (Baku), 15 January 2002; Azad Sharifov, “Kak ustroitsa na inofirmu,” Exo (Baku), 18 September 2002.Google Scholar

30. Eldar Zeynalov, “Vezifenin qiymeti,” Yeni Zaman (Baku), 4 December 2002.Google Scholar

31. Documentary evidence compiled by the national security ministry investigations of the instances of government corruption adduced here was presented by the ministry's renegade officer R. Nagiev, who now lives in exile in Paris, in his confessions to the online publication Virtualniy Monitor (<www.virtualmonitor.org>): Ramin Nagiev, “Ne imeyu prava molchat'.”):+Ramin+Nagiev,+“Ne+imeyu+prava+molchat'.”>Google Scholar

32. RFE/RL Newsline, 10 April 2003; 6 June 2003; 12 June 2003 (<www.rferl.org/newsline>).).>Google Scholar

33. Gubad Ibadov, Azerbaijan i Rossia: obschestva i gosudarstva (Moscow: Letniy sad, 2001), pp. 81–82.Google Scholar

34. Zardüºt Alizade, “Inhisar sistemi devam edir,” Hürriyet (Baku), 19 November 2002.Google Scholar

35. The government investigation report, published in the newspaper Bakinskiy Rabochiy on 26 August 2000, claimed that Guliev is not a political opponent of President Aliev, but a convicted criminal who robbed his own country and thereby has managed to fund his opposition activities, and reproved the governments of “those countries that criticize corruption in Azerbaijan, but refuse to comply with repeated requests for his extradition.”Google Scholar

36. RFE/RL Newsline Endnote, 21 May 2003. <www.rferl.org/newsline/5-not.asp>..>Google Scholar

37. For academic objectivity, the author would like to acknowledge that Artur Rasizade is his relative.Google Scholar

38. Narmina Bagirova, “Rezultat izvesten,” Vyshka (Baku), 4 February 1998.Google Scholar

39. 2003 Corruption Perceptions Index (<www.transparency.de>); Control Risks Group's Global Corruption Survey 2003 (<www.crg.com>).);+Control+Risks+Group's+Global+Corruption+Survey+2003+().>Google Scholar

40. “The Ethics of Oil Industry Are Coming under Scrutiny,” Business Week (New York), 23 November 2001, p. 27.Google Scholar

41. Seymour Hersh, “The Price of Oil: What Was Mobil up in Kazakhstan and Russia?” New Yorker, 9 July 2001, pp. 48–65.Google Scholar

42. Aldan Kusainov, “Kazakhstan Prime Minister Admits to Existence of Secret Government Fund,” Eurasia Insight, 5 April 2002. <www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight>..>Google Scholar

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44. “Azerbaijan Country Report,” The Economist (London), 26 October 2002, p. 47.Google Scholar

45. Oktay Erdem, “Azeri Capital Flight,” Turkish Daily News (Ankara), 7 November 2003.Google Scholar

46. Testimony and prepared statements of State Department officials Marc Grossman and Stephen Sestanovich, Implementation of US Policy on Caspian Sea Oil Exports, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 8 July 1998 (Washington: GPO, 1998), pp 9–24.Google Scholar

47. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Caspian Sea Region. <www.eia.doe/gov>..>Google Scholar

48. “The World's Largest Crude Oil Producers,” The Economist (London), 14 September 2002, table on p. 26.Google Scholar

49. Owen Matthews, “The Next Move Is Check,” Newsweek, 8 April 2002, pp. 44–45.Google Scholar

50. Turan Information Agency (Baku), 5 June 2002. <www.turaninfo.com>..>Google Scholar

51. Agence France-Presse, 22 October 2002. <www.turaninfo.com>..>Google Scholar

52. Turan Information Agency (Baku), 18 March 2003. <www.turaninfo.com>..>Google Scholar

53. “The Caspian Update,” Oil and Gas Journal (Houston), 24 October 2003, p. 33.Google Scholar

54. Rasim Agaev, “Neobxodim li noviy nefteprovod?” Exo (Baku), 14 December 2002.Google Scholar

55. Stanley Kober, The Great Game, Round 2: Washington's Misguided Support for the Baku-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline (Washington: Cato Institute, 2000), p. 14; Russian and Eurasian Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, An Agenda for Renewal: US-Russian Relations (Washington, 2000), p. 28.Google Scholar

56. Evan Gillespie, “Eurasian Economic Summit in Almaty,” Financial Times (London), 9 April 2002.Google Scholar

57. Latif Agaev and Islam Veliev, Kontrakt veka i problemy neftedobychi na Kaspii (Baku: Azerneºr, 1997), pp. 83–114.Google Scholar

58. Robert Ebel, “Projecting the Invasion Impact,” Washington Times, 22 April 2003.Google Scholar

59. Section 2 of the Act begins with this passage: “Congress makes the following findings: (1) The ancient Silk Road, once the economic lifeline of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, traversed much of the territory now within the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; (2) Economic interdependence spurred mutual cooperation among the peoples along the Silk Road and restoration of the historic relationships and economic ties between those peoples is an important element of ensuring their sovereignty as well as the success of democratic and market reforms.” Silk Road Strategy Act of 1999 (Washington: GPO, 1999), p. 3.Google Scholar

60. Given the limited space for historic validation of this disheartening truth, I would refer the reader to Anatole Lieven, “The (Not So) Great Game,” National Interest (Washington), Winter 1999/2000, pp. 69–80.Google Scholar

61. S. L. Myers, “Putin Tells Russians of Clouds with Reform-Plan Lining,” New York Times, 17 May 2003.Google Scholar

62. Ralph Nader, “The Wall Street Settlement for False and Misleading Research,” Forbes (New York), 1 May 2003, pp. 82–87.Google Scholar

63. “The Incredible Half-Billion-Dollar Azerbaijani Oil Swindle,” Fortune (New York), 6 March 2000, pp. 78–85.Google Scholar

64. Rauf Arifoglu, “Aliyevlere yeni bir zerbe,” Yeni Musavat (Baku), 29 October 2002.Google Scholar

65. Mireille Aznavour, “Forum économique de Davos,” Le Monde (Paris), 6 February 2001.Google Scholar

66. Quoted from comments by my anonymous referees.Google Scholar

67. For a line-up of former top U.S. government officials in the pay of oil corporations, including Lloyd Bentsen, James Baker, John Sununu, Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Armitage (who is now undersecretary of state) and other prominent personalities who chair several U.S.-Azerbaijan lobby groups, see: Dan Morgan and David Ottaway, “Former Top US Aides Seek Caspian Gusher,” Washington Post, 6 July 1997.Google Scholar

68. “Minsk grupunun teklifleri,” Xalq (Baku), 21 February 2001.Google Scholar

69. Theresa Pais, “Gukasian: No Return to the Past,” Los Angeles Times, 4 April 2001.Google Scholar

70. Caucasus Report, 5 December 2003. <www.rferl.org/caucasus-report>..>Google Scholar

71. The clause reads, “United States assistance under this or any other act… may not be provided to the government of Azerbaijan until the President determines and so reports to Congress, that the government of Azerbaijan is taking demonstrable steps to cease all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.” Freedom for Russia and Emerging Eurasian Democracies and Open Markets (FREEDOM) Support Act, 24 October 1992 (Washington: GPO, 1992), p. 82.Google Scholar

72. Accusations of the NKR harboring Armenian and Kurdish terrorists were presented, for example, in a story run by a government newspaper: Novruz Vekilov, “ASALA Qarabagda mesken salir,” Xalq (Baku), 2 December 2001.Google Scholar

73. See Thomas de Waal, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War (New York: New York University Press, 2003).Google Scholar

74. In the “New Age of Democracy” speech on 10 April 2003, as U.S. troops were entering Baghdad, G. W. Bush articulated his ambitious doctrine, which calls for introducing or imposing democracy in this region that has never experienced it before: Washington Post, 11 April 2003.Google Scholar

75. Read, for example, Thomas Goltz, Azerbaijan Diary (New York: Sharpe, 1998); his “Letter from Baku,” National Interest (Washington), Summer 1997, pp. 37–45; and similar “success stories” in almost every issue of Azerbaijan International magazine, published in California.Google Scholar

76. Newt Gingrich, “The Next Challenge for Bush: Transforming the State Department,” Washington Times, 24 April 2003.Google Scholar

77. President Clinton described Heydar Aliev as “our indispensable man in Baku” in his 22 April 1999 speech at NATO's 50th anniversary celebration in Washington (Washington Post, 23 April 1999), which reminds one of the title of Graham Greene's 1958 novel Our Man in Havana. Google Scholar

78. Claudia Rosett, “Potentate Jr.: An interview with Azerbaijan's Dictator-in-Training,” Wall Street Journal, 6 November 2002.Google Scholar

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