What the Heck Is a Statue of Azerbaijan's Former Dictator Doing in Mexico City? Rafael Fernandez de Castro - Fusion
go to original January 13, 2015

You know when a distant relative gives you some particularly awful piece of art that you can’t exactly throw away but you don’t want to display too prominently where someone might actually notice it and quietly question your mental health?

Mexico has that problem, thanks to an imperious-looking statue of Azerbaijan’s former Soviet-era leader Heydar Aliyev, which gazes wistfully towards the horizon, pondering the contributions of the lumpenproletariat, or something like that.

The statue of the old communist leader, first given to the Mexican government in 2012, has become somewhat of a headache for Mexican officials, who have quietly tried to shuffle it around the capital in hopes of finding a place to put it where no one will notice.

The statue was originally placed in a park overseeing the city’s busy Reforma Avenue, but quickly removed after some residents complained the monument glorified the legacy of a dictator.

Mexico City residents and members of the Armenian expat community blame the former Azerbaijani leader, who died in 2003, of committing human-rights abuses, censoring the media and promoting his cult of personality with an iron fist during his tenure.

Bowing to pressure, Mexico City then-Mayor Marcelo Ebrad removed the statue and stuck it in a warehouse until he could think of a Plan B. He couldn’t. Now, the new mayor of Mexico City thinks he’s come up with a solution.

Read the rest at Fusion

Photo: Manuel Rueda

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