Haydar Aliev / Is / No More

[MosJan]

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haydar aliev passed a way

[MosJan]

Obituary

 

HEYDAR ALIYEV PASSED AWAY

 

Azeri nation mourned the death of its longtime leader December 13. Heydar Aliyev, a former KGB general and one of the last surviving top Soviet leaders from the depths of the Cold War, died Friday at age 80 in Cleveland, where he was hospitalized with heart disease.

 

Only in October, Aliyev handed the presidency to his son, Ilham – and his death appeared to suggest no immediate political changes in Azerbaijan or in the Caucasus region, where five civil wars have continued to burn or smolder over the dozen years since the Soviet Union collapsed. The transition here comes as President Eduard Shevardnadze was forced from power in neighboring Georgia last month.

 

The Caucasus' mix of lucrative new oil supplies, interlocking guerrilla wars and Islamic ferment led the United States to crave stability here following the Soviet collapse, and so U.S. governments embraced Aliyev despite his KGB past and his godfather's grip on this nation and its 8 million people.

 

Aliyev was born on May 10, 1923, in the Azerbaijani territory of Nakhichevan. In the 1940s, he joined Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's NKVD, a forerunner of the KGB. From his KGB career, he rose to become one of the few non-Russians in the Soviet Politburo, but was ousted in 1987 by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for alleged corruption.

 

Aliyev was scorned after the USSR's collapse in 1991, and sent to political exile in his hometown. But the Azerbaijani nationalists who formed the first post-Soviet governments here proved quarrelsome, corrupt and unable to stabilize the country, or to win its war with secessionist ethnic Armenians in the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Artsax.

 

When a leading officer led an army revolt in 1993, a beleaguered President Abulfez Elchibey had to summon the still wily and well-connected Aliyev back to the capital to help turn back the challenge. Within 10 days, Aliyev had taken power himself, largely on the strength of popular disgust with the endless instability and anger over the loss of Nagorno-Artsax.

 

Aliyev quickly engineered a presidential election in which he claimed victory with 98.8 percent of the vote. He ruled through a combination of repression and rigged ballots, but Washington welcomed him as an ally in its project to get oil from the Caspian Sea region safely to where Western nations could buy it.

 

U.S. administrations prodded Aliyev periodically to improve democracy and human rights, but he avoided serious pressure, in part by casting himself as a key ally of Washington in the fight against Islamic extremist terrorism. Aliyev sent 150 soldiers to Iraq in August.

 

This year, as Aliyev weakened from congestive heart failure and kidney disease, he quickly promoted his son to succeed him. He named Ilham Aliyev prime minister in August and then resigned as president, forcing another widely doubted election in which Ilham, 41, was declared president in October.

 

Ilham Aliyev is likely to face no immediate challenge to his rule, but observers question whether he has the wiles and the mettle to hold power in the manner of his father.

 

Aliyev's body arrived Sunday from Cleveland to Baku for a state funeral. A nationwide farewell ceremony for Heydar Aliyev was held at the Palace of the Republic in the capital of the Azerbaijani Republic, Baku, starting 9 AM local time (5 AM GMT) on December 15. The ceremony was followed by the funeral procedure, held at the Avenue of Honor at 4 PM (12:00 GMT) on the same day.

 

The ceremony drew leaders of most of the 15 ex-Soviet states, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, to Baku.

 

Azerbaijanis have been laying red carnations and lighted candles near the presidential building in Baku starting Friday, as soon as the news of Aliyev’s death came, and the authorities had declared seven days of mourning throughout the country.

 

Among other leaders of the world, Armenian president Robert Kocharian also sent a condolatory letter to the family of Ilham Aliyev.