Pasadena Star-News: Aid to Azerbaijan

PASADENA STAR-NEWS
Pasadena, California

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/letters/ci_8642859

Aid to Azerbaijan
Article Launched: 03/20/2008 07:41:48 PM PDT

When Armenia established its independence in the aftermath of the Soviet
break-up, the U.S. undertook massive financial aid and assistance to
that nation. From day one, Armenia became the second largest per capita
recipient of U.S. aid in the world.

Since 1992, Armenia has received over $1.77 billion in aid. Armenia has
received $225 million in cumulative U.S. foreign assistance for
democratization (about 13 percent of all aid to that nation) from 1992
to 2006. These figures do not include millions in additional
democratization aid budgeted for 2008. Did the U.S. taxpayers and
American hopes and expectations bear fruit?

As all the elections in Armenia have shown, most vividly last month's
presidential elections and its violent aftermath, U.S. efforts have
failed and money was all but wasted: at least eight people killed, over
a hundred wounded, tanks and army patrolling the streets of the capital,
full-scale government censorship of all communications for at least 20
days, and main opposition contender under house arrest.

Armenia is also militarily occupying 16 percent of neighboring
Azerbaijan, displacing 800,000 ethnic Azeris in the process, placing an
even harder moral and financial burden on its population to sustain and
support its military machine.

Compare this with Azerbaijan, a victim of occupation and ethnic
cleansing by Armenia, yet has received only $746 million in cumulative
budgeted foreign assistance from the U.S. (from
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1992 to 2008), of which only about $75million were for democratization.

Thus, larger Azerbaijan, a strategic US ally, has received four times
less aid than a smaller but more aggressive Armenia.

Furthermore, when comparing to a similar presidential election that was
held 5 years ago in Azerbaijan, when two people unfortunately died,
dozens were wounded, yet tanks and army were not deployed, and no
censorship or emergency rule imposed, Armenia's record looks even more
deplorable. Thus, despite being born with a silver spoon in its mouth
and more than generously funded by U.S. taxpayers, Armenia, the second
largest aid recipient in the world, ended up having markedly worse
elections than Azerbaijan.

This is the wrong message to send; we should not be rewarding a corrupt
and militaristic regime, which is not only occupying its neighbors'
lands, conducts ethnic cleansing and engages in crimes against humanity
(e.g., Khojaly Massacre), but also violently kills its own citizens
during its elections and conducts markedly worse elections than its
neighbors.

It's grand time we ask Kocharyan and his regime the age-old question -
Where's the money?!

Arzu Aghayeva

Long Beach