Heydar Aliyev statue loses its spot in Mexico City

Adios, Heydar Aliyev, late strongman of distant Azerbaijan.

Now that your statue has been hauled away from the Paseo de La Reforma, the Mexican capital's grand boulevard, where will Mexicans go now when they want to meditate on your legacy of KGB membership, fraudulent elections and human rights violations?

Early on Saturday, in the darkness sometime after midnight, Mexico City officials wrapped up the bronze statue of Aliyev, the ruler of Azerbaijan from 1993 to 2003, and ferried it away on a truck. The move was an effort to placate the many Mexicans who wondered why the thing had been installed in the heart of their great city in the first place.

As the ' Tracy Wilkinson reported, the statue had been unveiled in August. The government of Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic, paid a hefty sum for the land to create the little park where the statue was located.

For many Mexico City residents, the response, understandably, was, "Heydar who?" For others, it was an affront. One community activist compared it to putting a statue of Idi Amin on the Washington Mall.

It is believed the statue is being sent to a warehouse until the city government and the Azerbaijani delegation in Mexico to find a different spot to display the work.