It is well known to everyone that Azeri officials have made anti-Armenian propaganda as a cornerstone of their domestic and foreign policy. In a way it is also logical that as a part of foreign policy anti-Armenian propaganda has a “vital” meaning for the official Baku. After all it is imperative to somehow justify in the eyes of the international community their unrealizable strive to see Karabakh belonging to Azerbaijan again.  

     At the same time the fact that Azeri officials give such a great importance to anti-Armenian propaganda within their domestic politics, may seem strange at first sight. However, that which may seem illogical for a rational person, in reality is more than logical for any Azeri official, from the President to the ordinary office worker.   

     Why? Because the cruel perspective of responsibility before their own people is hanging over the heads of the same officials like a sword of Damocles. And in order to avoid this perspective they come up with a simple and outdated trick - anti-Armenian propaganda.  But anyway one sweet day the Alievs and the other clans will have to explain to their people why together with the increase of oil dollar flows, the country is facing extreme poverty, mounting corruption and the number of casualties is steadily growing in the army because of the inhuman conditions practiced there.

     It is also important to note that in recent times Azeri propaganda machine, seeing that the outdated tricks of anti-Armenian propaganda have stopped producing the desirable effects on the population, have started to spread news on “liberation’ of Artsakh with military means. And as a pledge for the seeming success of their “mission” Azeri propaganda machine is again turning to primitive tricks such as emphasizing the increase in the military budget, obtaining new weaponry as well as stressing the high-level of military readiness of the country’s armed forces.       

     But as they say, facts speak for themselves. For the reader to have a better idea about the above-mentioned “high-level military readiness” it is sufficient to mention the number of casualties within the first quarter of 2009 that happened as a result of emergencies in the Azerbaijani armed forces.

     Particularly, from January 1 up to March 10, 2009 there were 29 killed and 26 wounded military servants in the Azerbaijani army. In January, February and March there were respectively 8, 18 and 3 killed and 10, 7 and 4 wounded. Taking into account the customs widespread in the Azerbaijani army, one may surely predict that the number of casualties will notably increase. 

     It is interesting that the Azerbaijani mass media reports as if during the first quarter of 2009 the number of casualties in the army was 12. Of course all this is being done for concealing the real picture of the regular acts of harassment among the military servants, patronage, corruption, cases of robbing state property, abusing one’s position as well as other types of crime. 

     The recent tendency of Azerbaijani anti-Armenian propaganda is also noteworthy. Seeing that it is impossible to hide from the public the real number of killed and wounded military servants, the Azeri officials simply report to the parents of the victims that their son was killed or wounded as a result of fire from the Armenian side. Of course, outwardly it is a very “successful” trick – Armenians are to be blamed and that’s it. But the trick is successful only outwardly. In reality, in order to conceal their crimes Azeri officials are unwillingly spreading fear among their people, as in this case another question arises: “If Armenian army is capable of killing in average more than ten Azeri military servants within a month, then what will happen if the war resumes?”

     The above-mentioned facts bring us to the following pessimistic conclusion – the unresolved state of Karabakh issue is beneficiary to the Azerbaijani political elite. Otherwise, after the solution of the question whom are they going to blame for the extreme poverty, mounting corruption, for the inhuman conditions in the army and the resulting casualties among military servants?

Konstantin Azaryan