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Rasul Guliyev: â€œI do not know whether the Open Society Party has stopped functioning or notâ€ â€“ INTERVIEW

Rasul Guliyev: â€œI do not know whether the Open Society Party has stopped functioning or notâ€ â€“ <font color=red> INTERVIEW </font>

05 June 2009 12:01 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Elnur Mammadli â€“ APA. Ex-speaker of Azerbaijan, leader of Open Society Party Rasul Guliyev interviewed by APA

-Reports have recently spread that Open Society Party stopped functioning. Are you aware of these reports? If it is true, what caused this?

-I do not know whether Open Society Party has stopped functioning. But the question is that I can not say which party functions. It does not mean that I do not follow the ongoing processes in the country, to the contrary I came to this conclusion as I am well aware of the process. If the word functioning has not changed its meaning, it has nothing to do with the parties in Azerbaijan.

-Chairman of the party Akif Shahbazov left for Bilasuvar region a month ago. He does not comment on the recent processes and the other officials of the party say they are unaware of the issues. How do you assess the activity of the party chairman?

-Discussions will be held on the partyâ€™s inactivity soon.

-Can we say that you have stopped your political activity?

-Once I attempted to answer this question. If I am asked again, I either did not give a clear answer, or the political situation changed in the country. If to express opinion about the future of the people and ground it is politics, it means that I have not stopped and will never stop my activity. If you mean to influence on political and social life of the country, I have been deprived of this opportunity. If you can publish the list of the persons engaged in politics and the results of their activity, I will put aside classic theory of politics and give an objective answer basing on Azerbaijani variant of being engaged in politics.

-There is such a version in the media: The government has given agreement to your returning to Azerbaijan and you will come to the country by the end of this year. In exchange for it you have to stop the partyâ€™s activity and return to Baku without the team. Is its true?

-I would like to understand the logic of the Rasul Guliyev, who is holding these talks. Why does he do it? The problem of classic motherland â€“ foreign country has been eliminated. You can even write a book about the nature of the country you have never been to. Azerbaijan has serious enough problems in any sphere. Of course, current problems differ from those of 1991-1997 and can be solved more easily. At that time it was the biggest problem to prevent the chaos and establish stability in the country. Now when there is no such a fundamental problem, it is much easier to restore western democracy, achieve elimination of corruption and ensure the improvement of competitive economy in the country. The elimination of these two factors would bring to the automatic solution to Nagorno Karabakh problem. I have never striven for leading the country. But I will never promise to ignore the peopleâ€™s problems. The factors you have mentioned do not exist, the party does not function, there is no team, maybe these conditions are set before somebody else.

You know, as you grow older, you bear responsibility more for your next steps. An 18-year-old young man considers that a 30-year-old man is old and thinks that by the time he reaches 30 he will do much. With this opinion you lose time. There is a man whose one act is more valuable than the acts of hundreds committed during their life. A wrong step may cross out the years you lived. Compared with an 18-year-old man a 30-year-old man bear responsibility more, because he is older, he can not ignore the weight of the past. A 60-year-old man has not moral right to make a mistake. The paradox is that as one grows older the responsibility for the future of the country reduces. As you grow older, the responsibility for your mistakes, the things you have not done for the people becomes more conspicuous. As the youth has no past, all their responsibility is the future of the people. It is natural, a 60-year-old man can live 10-15 years, while a 20-year-old man will live in the country for 55 years.

-They say you are holding serious talks with the government for returning to Azerbaijan. Is it true? Will you possibly come to Azerbaijan soon?

-I am not holding serious or non-serious talks with the government and do not think I will ever put forward such an initiative. Such an initiative can be made only by the government, because in terms of power I do not have an opportunity to hold talks. Taking into account that there are forces in the government who will never allow this, then there is very little hope that they will make such a step.

-Open Society Party was established over a year ago. What can you say about the activity of the party? Is there a need to make changes in the leadership?

-The members of the party should discuss it and pass a decision. I think there is a need for it.

- What is the OSP present political course: pro-government or opposition? After the last presidential election the opposition parties donâ€™t accept OSP as an opposition party. Do you think to continue the present course?

-We need to return back to history. There never was strong opposition in Azerbaijan. The new history of Azerbaijan has three phases: 1988-1992, 1992-1997, 1997-present. The first period started with the protest actions arose from the dissatisfaction of the people with settling of first Azerbaijani refugees expelled from their homelands in Armenia in Sumgayit. In that period, the Baltic countries, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia and Armenia were forming their intellectual opposition on the basis of independence movements. Moscow well knew that there were no forces able to form the peopleâ€™s ideas, and replaced the countryâ€™s leader of that time Kamran Bagirov with Abdurrahman Vazirov, who was an ambitious man far from the real life. The meetings organized by Nemat Panahov, Sirus Tabrizli and Sabir Rustamkhanli later in 1988 gave two things to the people: first, Krabakh is ours and we will punish all Armenia for even two trees cut in Topkhana forest. Second, if Azerbaijan owns its oil, it has 10-sm golden cover over its soil. Future Popular Front leaders were also known from the tribunes of the protest actions. They had no concrete plan and program and nothing except their emotional speeches during the meetings. The opposition couldnâ€™t be elected to USSR parliament in 1989 and couldnâ€™t prevent pogroms in Baku and justified the massacres in Baku committed by Gorbachov regime in 1990. This is Lithuanian massacres, despite that there were less victims than in Baku, known abroad as a â€œstruggle for freedomâ€, but not Baku events. The opposition leaders looked like actors taken the stage. They were busy only with scheduling of their speeches at the meetings and therefore there was no Azerbaijani in the democratic bloc of USSR parliament in that time. The opposition leaders couldnâ€™t draw real plans about the future of Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani opposition leaders were not known during the collapse of USSR and establishing of the independent republics, like Lithuanian Landsberg, Belarus Shushkevich, Ukrainian Kravchuk and Russian Yeltsin, and there had no real policy and therefore their failure was unavoidable.

The current and that time opposition couldnâ€™t offer to the people anything except the slogans and it achieved 25 seats in the parliament not via the elections, but through the negotiations with the government. The government leaders tried to prevent their main rival to return to Baku and to be elected president dispossessing his apartment or setting the age restrictions in the elections.

The opposition couldnâ€™t prevent the presidential elections, farce over democracy, after August events in 1991. If there was no strange return to power by former president Ayaz Mutallibovâ€™s in May 1992, Yagub Mammadov would win the presidential elections. The oppositionâ€™s rating lowered to 10 percent during their power as a result of their policy or impolitic atmosphere they created. Foreign countries, including Russia, Iran and US didnâ€™t believe in long-term power of this government. Even the governmentâ€™s â€œelder brotherâ€ Turkey looked incredulously at the Azerbaijanâ€™s inadmissible proposals and ideas to establish one state and sought for other options. One-year power created such chaos in the country in June 1993 that it demanded hard work to find way out from the situation. Due to the wrong actions of these irresponsible people, large deal of arms, grenade-launchers, equipments were seized by separate groups and individuals. Hundreds of Azerbaijanis were killed in three years. Vazirov and Mutallibov, the weakest leaders in Azerbaijani history, couldnâ€™t achieve even elementary changes at the apogee of their power and what we could expect from them after 1998. Azerbaijan was the last among 15 republics declared its independence (even after the Central Asian republics) due to â€œsuperpowerâ€ of opposition. It is next unserious step by the persons, having multiple losses in 20 years, to declare themselves opposition, and to call others pro-government and it doesnâ€™t need in response.

-Do you intend to work with any opposition party?

-I donâ€™t intend to work with any party, which doesnâ€™t analyze and acknowledge its mistakes and doesnâ€™t draw real working plan and program, not depending on that opposition or other they are.

-Azerbaijan will hold municipal elections later this year. What do you expect form these elections? Will your party participate in the elections?

-I donâ€™t expect anything. I donâ€™t know whether the party will participate or not.

-Six opposition parties united in the Movement for Karabakh and the Republic. How do you see the activity of this union?

- I expressed my opinion on this movement six months ago and they responded that they could do that and if anyone could do more let him to establish something different. They are right. Indeed I am only criticizing, but canâ€™t establish something. If I know that there will be no results, how can I do this work. Founders of this union can not speak about its activity. It will be a collection empty words.