By Ivan Gharibyan

Ilham Aliyev, son of the “Azerbaijani national leader” Heydar Aliyev, decided to offer “special congratulations” on the New Year to the population of the Nakhchevan autonomous republic. Special attention to the region is hardly surprising: the Nakhchivan clan is ruling over the country, and natives of Baku do not even know how to get rid of it.

Well, the great love for Nakhchivan took on the form of events in the village of Benanyar, which were more like a military operation. They proved to be an integral part of the celebrations of the formation of the Nakhchivan autonomous republic.

The main distinctive features of the events were acts of extreme cruelty by the police, which even surpassed the typical cruelty toward all the dissidents shown by the Azeri police. A spontaneous “riot in Benanyar,” which proved to be a surprise for the Azeri authorities, accounts for the zeal shown by the policemen and special squad soldiers, who actually occupied a village in their own country. Another reason for mass arrests and torture was the fact that the widespread discontent with the official policy was voiced in Nakhchivan, the homeland of the Aliyev clan, which ensures 90% turnout at all the elections and similar “support” for the ruling party Yeni Azerbaijan (New Azerbaijan).

However, a riot spontaneously broke out in the village, which “actively supported” the Azeri authorities at the December 23 municipal elections. What was the Azeri khan Ilham Aliyev to do? Troops were sent to Benanyar, which was completely encircled for over a week. Finally almost all the males were arrested. NGO representatives reported torture, including beating of older men.

The public indignation in Nakhchivan reached the point when, without being afraid of new repressions, the arrestees’ relatives held a press conference and threatened they would go to the embassies in Azerbaijan. Some newspapers, in defiance of official orders, reported information on the punitive operation.

On the other hand, all central TV and radio channels said not a single word of the events in Nakhchivan. Their tasks are quite different – praising “the national leader” and his son round the clock, telling about the authorities’ “great attention” to all the citizens’ problems and, of course, provoking anti-Armenian hysteria. Why should they report what is really going on in the country?

The events in Nakhchivan showed that even the Azerbaijani people can awake! They do not want to remain an unmurmuring victim of a consistent policy of befooling the public. Especially as the Aliyev clan received one more significant signal that evidenced growing public discontent: the municipal elections on December 23, 2009, were marked by an all-time low turnout, which was actually a strong protest against the elections with the participation of unopposed candidates. So Mr. Ilham Alyev will have to speak less about prospering Azerbaijan and “Armenian aggression” in the near future. He had better think of solving his own people’s problems. Otherwise, the Baku-based khan of Nakhchivan type will have his business go bad.

T.P.