ARVAK Center comment, 29.11.2024(1)
Several Middle Eastern Arab sources claim that the campaign launched by Azerbaijan to “expose French neo–colonial policies” was initiated by the United Kingdom and coordinated from London. The ARVAK Center has already written that London’s covert actions can be seen in the context of another round of British-French rivalry for resources and influence in Africa, the Caribbean, and Oceania. Baku’s involvement in this process is evidently linked to London’s attempt to neutralize Paris’s visible successes in strengthening its position in the South Caucasus through deepening military-political ties with Armenia, traditionally loyal to France.
As a result, the ruling family in Azerbaijan actively engaged in the British project, not only through a propaganda campaign against the “neo-colonialism” of the Fifth Republic but also, according to French officials, by contributing its hand and finances to the mass riots that took place in the French territory of New Caledonia in May-June 2024.
It should be noted that Azerbaijan does not reduce the intensity of anti-French attacks and has already used the COP29 platform to escalate anti-French rhetoric. The UN climate conference held in Baku was marked by a series of Franco-Azerbaijani scandals, as a result of which French Minister of Ecology Agnès Pannier-Runacher interrupted her visit to the Azerbaijani capital and returned to Paris. During one of his speeches on the sidelines of the conference, I. Aliyev directly accused France of brutally suppressing the “peaceful protests” of the “colonized” peoples in New Caledonia and the Caribbean, indirectly accused the European Parliament and PACE of covering up these “crimes”.
I. Aliyev’s “anti-colonial steps” have been noticed by the British side. It is no coincidence that among the British politicians who visited the COP29, Patricia Scotland, the Secretary-General of the intergovernmental organization “Commonwealth of Nations” (states dependent on England and former English colonies), expressed special admiration for I. Aliyev’s “constructiveness and humanism.”
It is noteworthy that the British-Azerbaijani struggle for the rights of the indigenous peoples of the French overseas territories unfolded against the backdrop of escalating “colonial affairs” in the United Kingdom. In mid-October, a group of 15 countries in the Caribbean basin, former British colonies, expressed their intention to demand reparations from London. The former dependent territories assessed centuries of British rule at £206 billion. Shortly thereafter, a scandal erupted in Australia over the visit of British monarch Charles III, who is nominally considered the head of this country. Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe, representing the interests of the country’s Indigenous peoples, accused the British Crown and called for the monarch to be “expelled” from the country because London had “plundered the continent” for centuries and “practically destroyed” its indigenous inhabitants.
In response to the events, the British government tried to demonstrate composure and steadfastness, and on 21.10.2024, a representative of the Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated to the media that “the United Kingdom does not intend to pay reparations or apologize for the slave trade”.
Azerbaijan, which claims the role of the standard-bearer of the anti-colonial struggle and the defender of the rights of the oppressed peoples, predictably does not respond to the demands of the former British colonies or London’s harsh response.
(1) The original (in Rus.) was posted on our website on 27.11.2024.
