Heath Haussamen / NMPolitics.net
The Roundhouse in Santa Fe.
Human Rights Watch says the government of the nation of Azerbaijan is engaged in a “vicious crackdown on critics and dissenting voices.” The Committee to Protect Journalists calls the central Asian nation one of the most censored countries in the world. Local activists say police launched a series of violent raids on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people last year.
But no one mentioned any of that Friday when the state House of Representatives passed a memorial recognizing Azerbaijan, which is located where Eastern Europe and Western Asia meet.
What does Azerbaijan have to do with New Mexico? There was not much talk about that, either.
But the country, as it turns out, has been on something of a charm offensive.
Azerbaijan has been an ally of the United States in counterterrorism efforts. But amid mounting criticism of its government’s record on human rights, the country has emerged as one of the top foreign spenders on lobbying in the United States, according to a 2014 report by BuzzFeed.
The country’s state-owned oil company took 10 members of Congress — including U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham — on an all-expenses-paid trip to Azerbaijan, according to The Washington Post in 2015. And state Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen has traveled to the country, too, the Albuquerque Journal has reported.
Reps. Debbie Rodella and Rudy Martinez sponsored Friday’s legislation with Papen and Sen. Steven Neville to “congratulate the Republic of Azerbaijan on the one-hundredth anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.”
The measure also expressed “a firm support for the Republic of Azerbaijan’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders in line with the national foreign policy of the United States.”
The legislation passed in just a couple of minutes without opposition.
This article comes from The Santa Fe New Mexican. NMPolitics.net is paying for the rights to publish articles about the 2018 legislative session from the newspaper. Help us cover the cost by making a donation to NMPolitics.net.