Rəsul Quliyevin Amerikanın Səsinə Dekabrın 17-si, 2012-ci ildə Verdiyi Müsahibə

S.A.:Welcome to the office of VOA Mr. Guliyev.
This year is coming to an end, in your opinion, which political events of 2012 will be remembered for Azerbaijan, and in general, was this a politically significant year for the country?
R.G.: Of course this question is a very hard one for me.
Because, if you would have asked which events happened throughout the world, it would have been easy to explain something.
However, since no significant event happened in Azerbaijan, some events, even though not significant in the real sense of the word, can be considered as somewhat important.
For example, Quba incident can be considered as a something that favorably affected the processes underway in Azerbaijan.
For instance, the fact that Eurovision was held in Azerbaijan and that world's countries' attention was focused on it, this can also be considered as an event too.
On the other hand, even though negative, the attempt by Azerbaijani government and officials to acquire medals in the Olympics by bribery can also be considered important.
In general, we can say that foreign media, TV channells, well known newspapers were constantly focused on corruption and bribing of Azerbaijan's ruling class - Aliyev family and their close circle -- throughout 2012, this was a bad thing for Azerbaijan,
and we can say that unfortunately our country was included into this black list.
In other words, events that happened in Azerbaijan were rather embarassing than important.
S.A.: As you noted, 2012 was not a very significant year for Azerbaijan, what can we expect from 2013?
R.G.: I have already expressed this several times, and will repeat it again. 2013 is the year of last chance for Azerbaijan to transform to democracy without any violence and bloodshed. Azerbaijani people will either elect their own president through fair and open elections, and therefore start the democratic process in 2013, or Ilham Aliyev will falsify elections as he did before, and declare himself an illegtimate president for the next 5 years, leading up to the process of changing the regime through chaotic and violent means sometime around 2015-2016. In this respect, 2013 is one of the most important years for the nation.
S.A.: 2013 might also turn out to be important due to presidential elections...
R.G.: That is the sole reason.
S.A.: Are you planning to run?
R.G.: Of course I am planning on running for the president. Some time ago, when I participated in your Q&A via internet, I was asked a question, "How is it going to happen?". I can repeat my answer. I said that either I will participate in these elections and win, or Ilham Aliyev is going to win, in other words I will not be able to participate. Some people say it is very bold that I consider either Ilham Aliyev or myself as possible winners, but that is not what I mean. I like speaking in sarcasm in general. In reality, what I mean is that, If I am not allowed to participate, this will mean that falsification will happen. But, every person who runs for office, runs for the sole purpose of winning, and I am not an exception. Everyone says that they run for winning. However, prevention of my candidacy would be an indication of further falsification.
S.A.: Mr. Guliyev you are a member and a representative of Azerbaijani nation. In your opinion, what kind of president does Azerbaijan deserve? What kind of traits and characteristics should he have?
R.G.: First of all let us admit that every nation deserves precisely the kind of government it elects. This is a widely accepted axiom. In this respect, Azerbaijan deserves whichever kind of president that it elects, and the president deserves the nation, because the nation has elected him/her itself. The main issue is that there has to be an environment in which the nation can elect themselves. After that they might not like the job performance of that president and change their mind second time around, and change more third time. This is the process, and the nation has to, let's say, experiment it. Unfortunately, Azerbaijan that has been independent for 20 years now has not been able to conduct this experiment and see what kind of person it elects, because it hasn't been allowed to elect.
S.A.: Mr. Guliyev, let us view things optimistically. Let's say fair and free elections have been guaranteed, the people have made their decision, and you have won. What will be your priorities for the first hundred days in office?
R.G.: Everything has to be started at the same time. The issue of changing the Constitution has to be brought up and resolved by a referendum within 4 or 5 months. It is not just the issue of president being elected for more than 2 terms, there have been too many autocratic amendments, this is not normal. There is no balance between the presidential office and the parliament. President has way more powers, firstly that balance has to be established. How is this balance supposed to be like? For example no cabinet member should be able to be appointed wihout the parliament's confirmation. This is balance, those cabinet members must be equally responsible before the executive and the legislature, that's called balance. The court has to be an arbitrator, in the real sense of the word, completely neutral. If it is necessary, judges from Turkey or other foreign countries might be invited in these 100 days to, let's say, participate in the judiciary processes. Because the court being an arbitrator plays a very important role in the nation's future development, there has to be an arbitrator, there can be no country without one. Moreover, we must absolutely replace local executives, regional prosecutors and police comissioners and etc. and choose them through elections in these hundred days. Appointment of university rectors, college rectors and their leutenants and etc. by executive orders is the biggest foolishness. It is self-evident that university presidents, or rectors and leutenants should be elected by their colleagues, and no outside force should interfere. Thousands of appointments are made exclusively by executive orders today in Azerbaijan. This number should not be more than 250. This is a very important issue and has to be adressed immediately. Today, the President has given himself absolute powers, which even kings had no right to do, and everybody bootlicks and toadies him. There needs to be an environment where people understand that they are in no way dependent on the president. Furthermore, there need to be immediate reforms in law enforcement, National Security Agency, prosecutorial agencies and etc. Reforms, what do I mean by that? I mean interference of these agencies with private lives of citizens has to be brought down to a minimum level. Right now, someone can stop a civilian on the street and demand something from him for no reason, this is unaccaptable. The connection of ministers that work in bureaucracy and people who work in the presidential administration with the business has to be brought down to the minimum also, everything has to be regulated strictly by law. In other words, the interference of bureaucrats with business cannot be allowed, it must be prohibited. Of course, all of this cannot be done in 100 days. But, the initiation has to be in a way that all of these problems start being solved simultaneously. For instance, it is very hard to change the staff of, for example, prosecutorial agencies, detectives or courts and etc., there needs to be personnel, and it is very problematic to do it with the existing one. We have to comprise this personnel of new generations. How can this be done? For example, I will create a 3 year law school, it will be 3 years, I will accept the 17-18 year old young adults that possess the brightest brains in Azerbaijan into this school by a test, in other words, and they will have to learn the 5 year curriculum in 3 years. I will go lecture there. I, personally, will go there and give a lecture once a week in front of them. In 3 years, when they graduate from these institutions at the age of 21, I will replace 5 thousand of existing staff with 5 thousand of them, all at once. Mistakes that they will make and I know they will make lots of mistakes because they will be inexperienced, but their mistakes will cost the nation hundred times less than what the mistakes of current staff that engages in bribery and corruption does.
S.A.: Mr. Guliyev, you mentioned corruption. How should corruption be dealt with?
R.G.: Corruption, first we have to know the meaning of corruption. Corruption is making people give you money, bribes, by abusing the powers of the office you hold. Corruption is about office, abuse of office. So, it is not corruption when one extracts money from the system if they don't hold any office. Corruption is called corruption precisely because it is about using the office. I mentioned earlier, I said that the connection between government bureacrats and executives with businesses must be brought down to the minimum. If we bring this down to the minimum, it will directly prevent about 90% of the existing corruption. Corruption exists because bureacrats abuse their power, we need to take away his ability to do this. For example, like Elshad Abdullayev said, people are willing to pay 2 millions to become members of parliament, they would probably pay 10-15 millions to become, let's say, a rector, correct? Now imagine that this rector is elected by his colleagues, who would they bribe? Therefore, if you add up, thousands of colleges, universities, rectors, their leautenats and thousands of other managerial positions are selected by elections, all of a sudden you take away massive oportunities for corruption, all at once. This is the way to deal with corruption, not, for example, putting everyone in jail or prison. That won't do any good, it will only make the second wave of corruption more complex and move it to a higher level, like it happened in the 70s. After too many people were imprisoned, the level of corruption went up, that's why you can't do it this way. Another thing to do in order to deal with corruption is to guarantee a 100% free press, even 99.9% doesn't work for this purpose. It has to be 100%, there need to be 100% independent TV stations. For example, government funded TV stations should not be allowed to praise the government all day long. Government might be funding it, but it is not their money, it's people's money.This money is collected from taxpayers in forms of taxes, therefore, these TV stations need to allocate time to all classes and divisions of the nation. For example, if the opposition has about 10% support among the population, they need to allocate about 10% of broadcast time to the opposition. These are factors that prevent corruption, and I need to start implementing all this the day after I become the president, I have no time.
S.A.: Mr. Guliyev, a new question naturally arises from every answer of yours. You noted about the taxpayers' money, do you think oil policy that Haydar Aliyev initiated provides for people today? What are the benefits that people get from it?
R.G.: Sometimes people say funny things, like for example, that Haydar Aliyev had some sort of extraordinary policies, or, that he guaranteed Azerbaijan's independence, I get truly baffled. OK then, 15 republics seceeded from the USSR, did they all have Haydar Aliyevs? But no one says this. Others talk about Haydar Aliyev's oil policy, they say his oil policy was unprecedented in the world. For me, all these claims are really ridiculous, too ridiculous. They simply make these claims because they don't know the history. First we have to start by making it clear that no matter in which country, in which century and year the oil existed, it has always been extracted, regardless of who was the head of government or who was in the power. In no place, in no country can someone claim that oil would have not been extracted if a particular person was not the president, and they don't claim anything like that. That is simply impossible, it will be extracted. So it is a plain lie, negotiations about Azerbaijan's oil contracts started back in Mutallibov's times. They were closer to signing in Abulfaz Elchibey's period, and they came to being signed in Haydar Aliyev's time. On the contrary, Haydar Aliyev signed these contracts on very redundant and useless terms compared to other countries. And you might ask me what I was thinking at the time? I did, in fact, have enough power to stop him back then. But the issue is that I tried to explain to Aliyev first time when he tried to sign a contract with foreigners that the contract could not be signed on those terms. Even, for example, according to contracts signed between Arabian countries and US and European oil companies since 1935, Arabs had never had less than 50% of the profit, or it started with only 25% but came up to 50% in a year or so. You are trying to sign a contract with 0%, you are trying leave Azerbaijan with 0% of the profit, this is impossible and unprecedented. He told me that, and I could not distrust him, since I am talking about 1994, he told me that he spoke to the foreigners, and they had told him they would free Nagorno Karabakh if we signed that contract. At this point I was ready to give up all of the oil to those foreigners, for the sake of freeing Karabakh. And for this reason, undoubdetly, It didn't cross my mind that a man of his age could lie about something like that. Therefore I did not express my opinion during those negotiations. After a while, I started asking questions. What about Karabakh? Where is it? He said if had to do one more thing, we had give one oil deposit to Russians, and it will be done. So we did give the deposit to them, and of course nothing happened. So, this is what Haydar Aliyev's oil policy consisted of. If I didn't believe him back then, I would have never allowed those contracts to be signed the way they did. Haydar Aliyev was the person who signed the most bizarre oil contracts in world history.
Anyway, that is not what we are talking about at the moment, we are talking about later development, and later development was horrific in the full sense of the word. I am telling you, I am giving you facts and you decide. Let us look at 4 countries and compare. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, then Russia, Arab Emirates and Norway, are oil rich countries. Let us compare and see what kind of oil policies these countries have pursued. Then we can clearly see the crime that Aliyev has committed towards Azerbaijan. So you need to listen carefully here. So, Kazakhstan's GDP per capita is about 11,500 USD, Russia's is about 13,000 USD per capita, Norway's is 68,000 USD, and UAE's is about 48,000 USD. For Azerbaijan this is 7,000, only 7,000 USD per capita. Now look, look at the dependece on oil, this is the most terryfying part. About 6,000 USD of total production of 7,000 USD falls onto oil sector, so practically, Azerbaijan produces only about 1,000 USD worth goods and services. For Kazakhstan, out of that approximitely 12,000 USD worth of production, only about 5,000 USD accounts for oil sector, so the rest, or 7,000 USD falls onto other industries. This number is 8,000 USD for Russia. For Arab Emirates, which produce about 48,000 USD worth of goods and services, only about 18,000-19,000 USD is from oil industry. I think we don't even need to emphasize Norway, only about 10,000 USD of total 68,000 USD comes from oil industry in Norway, in other words, the rest comes from other industries. Now, as a result of the policies pursued, the dependece of Azerbaijani people on extraction and the price of oil is very much like the dependence of drug addicts on narcotic substances. This is the result of policies that Aliyevs have been implementing. This is the kind of danger we face. That is why I stated my opinion in the beginning, I said that either Azerbaijan will use the opportunity in 2013, or there will be chaos and bloodshed in 2015-2016. Why 2015? Because when a counry is dependent on the amount and price of oil this much, real famine beings when the amount of oil goes down. And it is going to be impossible to keep these people in line, it is impossible to prevent a starving population from doing anything with repressive means that this regime is currently relying on. It is absolutely impossible. That is why Aliyev's oil policy has put Azerbaijan before these future tragedies.
S.A.: Mr. Guliyev, New Year is coming, what are your wishes for people of Azerbaijan?
R.G.: My only wish for people of Azerbaijan is that they use their last chance, that they establish a government according to their own judgment and discretion.