UK Foreign Office reiterated proscription of the MKO as a terrorist organization.
In a conference on the activities of the terrorist MKO, foreign office once again said that this group is a foreign terrorist organization.
Mehr News reported, according to AP, that Foreign Office said the MKO was responsible for several terrorist operations inside Iran and that it had relations with former regime of Saddam Hussein.
According to AP, MKO has protested to its terrorist label.
The Iranian Mojahedin: What Kind of Alternative? The People’s Mojahedin of Iran has of late been receiving increasing coverage by the Western and especially the US mainstream press, who quote them copiously, ala Ahmed Chalabi, as “opposition sources.” Since any aggressive move to be made against Iran by the US will likely include this opposition grouping in some form or shape, some of us leftist opposition members feel obliged to present a dissuasive picture of this organization to our good friends in the US left, so as to prevent the good folks from taking the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, in their current incarnation, as any friend of the Peoples of Iran.
The Mojahedin Khalq of Iran was originally created as a revolutionary urban guerrilla organization during the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s corrupt and incompetent dictatorship, initially as a study group in 1965, and later as a guerrilla organization in 1968. From their inception they formed an alternative to Fada’iyan Khalq, a contemporary Marxist revolutionary organization, as well as to the older Jebhe-ye Melli (National Front; a nationalist liberal party), the Ayatollahs, and the Tudeh Party (the oldest communist party in Iran; a Stalinist bunch at their cleverest). In subsequent years, Mojahedin’s supporters came mainly from the educated urban lower classes whose politico-cultural inclinations were more religious than secular, and their class aspirations petty bourgeois; forward-looking and progressive in some areas, not so certain in others, and reactionary and backward looking in yet others.
Fast forward now to the interval immediately after the overthrow of the Shah. The period between the installation of Khomeini’s regime in 1979 and the first wave of crackdowns of 1981 was a historical period filled with excitement as well as with opportunities. Organizations that had previously worked underground could now emerge and breathe relatively freely, and start to grow in the open, make mistakes, learn, and do so with and among the people. The revolutionary organizations, in their historical fight to be heard and be allowed to advocate freely, found the new open atmosphere to their advantage.
The openness, created by the revolutionary surge of the people and not “given” by some magnanimous state, was filled with the creative energies of millions of activists of all political stripes. The openness was also a two-edged sword since the security forces and fanatic goons were just as actively taking down names and addresses, following leftists, feminists, communists, minority activists, as well as the supporters and members of the Mojahedin. This, so that when they had organized themselves enough, they could sweep out the opposition as effectively as possible.
So, when the Mojahedin, in true Blanquist fashion, in June 1981 assumed that they could carry the revolution further all by themselves by calling for a general uprising for which they had done zero preparation, while making a pact with President Bani-sadr’s supposed “social democratic” faction already in power, all they accomplished was to take their first decisive step away from the people by jumping the gun, by not preparing enough, by hastening the crackdown, when they should have instead stayed with the people, educated and been educated better by others, organized more, worked more patiently, created better underground infrastructure and a better counter-intelligence gathering system before making a move that could not have been corrected midcourse.
In short, by refusing to do the hard, long and complicated work, the Mojahedin leadership exhibited extremely poor political judgment, fatal immaturity, and an instinctive distrust for the people. On top of that, they left their cadres and supporters wide open for brutal repression that they should have expected and should have been prepared for. The “uprising” in tatters, the Mojahedin leadership joined President Bani-sadr on his airplane and flew to Paris to conduct together the upcoming soon (just around the corner, see it?) revolution, for which everybody is still waiting.
The great leader, Rajavi, also inaugurated a new protocol of literally marrying his new allies; in this case, since Bani-sadr was physiologically a male, his daughter (at the time a minor) would have to do.
It should of course be pointed out that the Mojahedin have been commendable and tireless in their diplomatic overtures, mostly toward European Parliamentarians and US Congressional staffers, Representatives or Senators who would hold audience with them (before the Mojahedin joined the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations).
On other fronts, we can be sure they have underground cells in Iran, something very handy when, for example, it has come to providing Uncle Sam with information that the CIA was missing, thereby filling the intelligence gaps regarding the “nuclear issue” in Iran, so that if/when the time comes that intelligence can be used to bomb Iranian cities, much like the “intelligence” Chalabi provided led to the bombings of Iraqi cities and civilians; with no lives left un-bombed.
And, of course, there is that part of the organization’s fighting capability that renders them the “biggest and best-organized” opposition grouping (which can then be presented to the American people as the badge of their righteousness): Mojahedin’s armed forces, currently and for the past twenty years, stationed in Iraqi Kurdistan. These armed capabilities, including tank squadrons, are mostly rusted; much like their fighters who are by now mostly graying men and women. Hardly a guerrilla organization anymore, their fighting capabilities isolated, demoralized, paranoid, trapped and at the mercy of various dictators: Saddam Hussein, then Paul Bremer, and then Allawi/Pentagon. Take your pick which one’s worse.
As for their political maneuverings, the Mojahedin, starting with their collusion with Bani-sadr, have made one political blunder after another. Let us not pass too quickly over Bani-sadr. In polite society he has come to be remembered as a liberal in casual as well as academic conversations; a man with social democratic visions. Due to his lack of political foresight, he did not serve long enough for history to be left with any evidence of his “social democratic” policies.
His government was a strong believer in the “territorial integrity doctrine,” according to which national minorities should keep quiet about such basic human rights as speaking their own languages in their schools, since this would naturally lead to cessations and the eventual disintegration of the country. Why the latter would “naturally” follow from the former is a mystery to democratic-minded people, minority or not.
This was the political figure that the Mojahedin, supposedly respectful of national minority rights, decided to go to bed with, with disastrous results.
Mojahedin’s move to ally themselves with Bani-sadr was a very decisive one. Political organizations, revolutionary or not, make choices based on their vision of the kind of power they would like to exercise. You either trust in the transformative powers of your ideas and go to the people, or else you are in too much of a hurry to get to power and join hands with people up above. Ever since their marriage with, and later divorce from, Bani-sadr (and his daughter), Mojahedin’s political strategizing has consisted in collusion with the people up above.
It is in fact very revealing that a certain Mr. Mohaddessin, in a self-promoting book about the history of The National Council of Resistance of Iran (the book is titled Enemies of the Ayatollahs), as pointed out by Ron Jacobs (Counterpunch, April 9-10, 2004), would make overtures to that sniveling joke of an ideologue Daniel Pipes. Now, do you think our Mr. Mohaddessin is unaware of the intricacies of rank and etiquette observed among the US organic intellectuals at the service of the US’s national security apparatus?
The Mojahedin have been in the halls of the US Congress lobbying this way or that, since the late 1970s. So, we are not dealing with naïve neophytes who do not know their lobbyists and ideologues from assorted other shysters. Should we not wonder then why the Mojahedin are so intent on having connections to the Imperial halls of government? What kind of organization would so consistently try to secure a leg in the doors of the houses of power in the foremost Imperial powerhouses, and still call itself progressive and revolutionary, and insist that it is looking out for the good of the Iranian people? Are they unaware of the US’s historical interventions in Iran? Have they so easily forgotten that the Shah, whom they fought against courageously in the 1970s, was installed by the very people frequenting those same halls?
But the most important aspect of the Mojahedin that should keep our attention focused has to do with their ideological make-up. They are in fact a variation on a theme demonstrated by the regime that currently suffocates Iran. Those familiar with Mojahedin’s old newspapers remember well that in Payam-e Mojahed (their political organ) in the period of 1977-1979, they repeatedly quoted ayatollah Khomeini in approving tones and gave him glowing editorials. In fact, the organization’s original philosophical mentor, Ali Shari’ati, whose outlook was a mixture of Franz Fanon’s and political Islam, was the “progressive” flip side of Khomeini’s reactionary coin.
An Alternative for Whom?
By 1984, it became obvious to Mojahedin’s leadership that the Islamic Republic regime would not pack its bags, run and crumble on Mojahedin’s signal. So, they had to do some real calculating since the “thinking” behind their previous maneuverings had not borne any fruits, being based exclusively on the inevitable downfall of Iran’s regime through a spontaneous uprising of the people, on Mojahedin’s prompting, just like that.
In view of the repeated failures of the revolution to materialize, the Mojahedin realized an “ideological revolution” was necessary to solidify the internal resolve of the organization. Subsequently, cooperation with other organizations and groups became increasingly unnecessary except for some showcases. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), initially comprising organizations and individuals exhibiting the same haste and blindness of political foresight and mesmerized by the prospects that the “inevitable” downfall held for them, eventually emptied out and was left with Mojahedin as the main warm bodies, along with a few small organizations, mostly civic organizations created by the Mojahedin themselves (for an excellent account of this, see Ervand Abrahamian’s The Iranian Mojahedin).
The “ideological revolution” for most of us secular leftists, as well as for the general population, was a source of astonishment mixed with great amusement. In a series of moves, topped by an odd divorce/marriage episode among the dear leaders, the leadership managed to transform the organization into an almost cult-like, militarized social organism.
The divorce/marriage episode was of the most bizarre, to put it generously, since it brought out a strange-looking medieval aspect manifest in Mojahedin’s new face. To most of us staring in disbelief, it looked like the leadership had decided to commit something so outrageous that only the truly dedicated would remain in their ranks, and all others would duly ship out (which is exactly what happened).
For the marriage that would bring in a new era, the dear leader Rajavi had his eyes on his best friend’s wife. Maryam Azadanlu, the younger sister of a veteran member, and the wife of Mehdi Abrishamchi (an old veteran and one of the more charismatic leaders of the organization), was a political asset of huge value due to her political militancy and credentials, and her nostalgic associations were deemed important enough to give cohesion to the newly transformed ideological atmosphere, so she was promoted to the role of “co-leader”. This promotion of a woman to the rank of “co-leader” was to prove to the world the organization’s great respect for women. However, because “To have remained co-leaders, without being married would have been mere bourgeois formalism,” [1] there had to be a divorce so that there could be a marriage between the co-leaders. Some may ask, as we did: What-on-earth kind of logic dictates that a woman has to divorce her husband and marry a leader in order to have a leadership role?!
And Iranian women are supposed to be impressed by that!
I tremble at the thought of such organizations in power . As should any secular progressive, any socialist, any leftist, feminist, anarchist, human rights activist, or democrat, as do most ordinary Iranian citizens. The stuff of liberation the Iranian Mojahedin does not make.
The Mojahedin, should they fail to prefigure themselves into some calculation of Uncle Sam’s, are for the most part politically obsolete as an alternative. And should they find in America a suitable patron, they will then be the very opposite of progressive. Lacking the US patronage, at best they have to compete on very stiff terms with most other oppositional groupings, no matter how small and no matter how disorganized, when it comes to vying for legitimacy among the Iranian public. They have very little public support inside Iran, and are in fact reviled by most ordinary people because of the patronage bestowed on them by Saddam, the invader of Iran. Being political creatures with a thick skin, however, the Mojahedin leadership has to ignore their own impotence and instead resign to repeating habitually to all that they are the “biggest and best-organized” opposition, and can provide a “safe” alternative to the regime in Iran. Safe for whom, we wonder!
Which way not out?
Others may, but we cannot afford to forget that Khomeini and his “liberal” cohorts too (including Bani-sadr, who did them wondrous service), while still in Paris, and before Khomeini’s flight home, knew of the necessity for international public consumption to talk approvingly of democracy. Some of us remember the headlines very vividly to this day: Even Communists Will Be Free!
The most elementary tasks and fundamental duties of any Middle Eastern leftist, at this point in our history, revolve around creating a more effective secular language and practice with which to engage the ongoing political struggles, in an effort to rebuild a secular and progressive alternative. The way forward can only be in that direction. Any form of a religious regime or a puppet government imposed by imperialists is only a step back, a dead end.
Since the Mojahedin depend increasingly on imperial backing, it is only natural for the people to mistrust them instinctively. Deals can be made, coups can be arranged for sure, but a true social transformation requires enlightened inspiration, and the Mojahedin’s doctrines and their active role as Uncle Sam’s snitch simply do not inspire confidence among Iranians of all political persuasions.
REFERENCES
[1] Abrahamian, quoting Mojahedin’s Proclamation of Introduction of New Leadership (1985), in The Iranian Mojahedin (Yale University Press, 1989), p. 251.
Rosa Faiz
There have been significant changes on the issue of Iran in the international scene, the example of which was about Iran’s nuclear activities.
IAEA’s meeting in November, along with signs of change in US’s policies toward Iran, was indeed a defeat for all warmongers who thought of stoking the fire of war on Iran.
Earlier, US security theorists had advised the Washington to avoid any kind of military action against Tehran and instead try to preserve the ways of communication. They had warned of the dangerous consequences of wrong measures. *
“Since the WMD Commission report indicates that the US has not enough intelligence on Iran, it is better for the US and its international allies to take the opportunity for getting closer interaction with Iran in order to get assurance that its nuclear activities are only for peaceful purposes. That’s because Iran has the right to have peaceful nuclear activities. This close cooperation can also yield useful intelligence on Iranian nuclear programs and can serve the needs of US intelligence community,” security advisors suggested.
Iranian president’s proposal in the UN, for inviting foreign sides to take part in nuclear projects, was also based on the idea that the only way to guarantee the peacefulness of the Iranian nuke activities is to have interaction and cooperation.
Along with this, European countries asked for the resumption of talks with Iran and the US government authorized its ambassador to Iraq to engage Iranians in Iraq.
Of course, these events are all painful for those who wanted a war on Iran by false accusations.
"On the one hand, I think it’s a good idea to maintain back-channel contacts with adversaries," said Raymond Tanter, a former National Security Council staffer, whose Iran Policy Committee has called for Washington to deploy against Tehran the Iraq-based Mujahideen-e Khalq, which is listed as a terrorist group by the State Department. "On the other hand, when you go public after Ahmadinejad says he wants to wipe Israel off the map, it seems to reward Iranian belligerence. I don’t know why it’s being done." **
During past two years, these people have played with the option of “either Iran or Israel” and have tried to impose the ideas of Israeli warmongers in the US. They want to convince the US to attack Iran by using Americans’ sensitivity on Israel.
The group they (Zionist lobby and arms dealers) support is the terrorist group of Mujahideen-e Khalq. The activities of this group in the past two years were focused on spreading rumors, demonizing Iran and convincing the US to attack Iran.
The analysis of the groups’ leader, for saving the group from the crisis after the fall of Saddam in Iraq, was to stoke the fire of war against Iran by taking advantage of tension in the Iranian nuclear case. “Only in that case, we would be lifted from terror list and the US would rearm us again,” he had said.
On the one hand, the leaders of the group asked the members to have influential political and propagandistic activities regarding Iranian nuclear activities. They even said to the members- who have no contact with the outer world- that the leaders of the group were leading an international battlefield against Iran and that the MKO has convinced Europe and the US that the time for war on Iran has come.
However, on the other hand, they came to the scene as an anarchist pressure group to promote the goals of warmongers.
They have even promised to recognize the Israeli government, guarantee the interests of oil and arms companies and … if they are supported in a joint victorious war against Iran in which they would play the role of Afghanistan’s North Alliance!
With such requests, that would receive no international response due to the situation of this dying organization, the Zionist lobby has accepted to support them.
Preserving the Camp Ashraf, as the cult’s main purpose in recent months, only serves MKO’s propagandistic goals; calling “an organization” the 3000 restricted disarmed forces in this camp comes from charlatanism of the MKO to show that they are being supported.
Now, with the failure of betrayal policies, MKO continues to resort to dirty diplomatic deals. Meanwhile, it evades giving comprehensive analysis on the failure to keep closed the eyes of their members.
Members in Camp Ashraf may not understand the stances of the organization, but those who relied on the promises of Rajavi’s remnants, in front of the IAEA and European Parliament, should be said that: “This is the consequence of dealing with dirtiest representatives of imperialists and the dirty diplomacy of MKO leader. You were used as the tools of this dirty diplomacy and you should ask Maryam Rajavi about the fate of “global battlefield’s leadership”.
———————————————————
* Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
** Jim Lobe/ Antiwar.com
1. Guns and bombs are not speech
2. Straw rejects call to support Iranian opposition groups
3. DUTCH AUTHOR CALLS IRANIAN OPPOSITION ‘DANGEROUS’
4. Iraqi Kurds want Iranian opposition leader tried
5. Chalabi says Iraq must tackle foreign militants
6. This Is A Terrorist Organization: Hamilton
7. Geldof leaves Iran demo over terror list
8. Tension in Conference on MKO-Saddam Ties
9. Iran-Iraq Sign Security Agreement
10. MEK Lobby in UK Fails Again
11. Let’s talk about regime change
Download Pars Brief – Issue No.20
Download Pars Brief – Issue No.20
Nejat Society Correspondent
Sanandaj – Center of Kurdistan Province
On Friday, December 2nd, Nejat Society held a meeting in which a number of defectors of Rajavi’s Cult were present. The principal issue of the meeting was declared as the investigation on the massacre of Iraqi Kurds by MKO.
During the gathering, the former members of Rajavi’s cult explained the operation which ended to killing of many innocent civilians including children and women, under the order of Rajavi. They also informed the public thoughts by presenting documents and evidences.
It is notable that; many of medias including local, internal or foreign news agencies reflected the news relating to the meeting extensively.
The compelling news will be reported in a few days.
The anti-intelligence section’s website of terrorist cult of Rajavi, Iran Efshagar, states the substantial nature of the cult and is a symbol of its interior. Through a silly childish and nervous action in the website, one of the contradictory and seriously problematic members of MKO declared some nonsense against our dear friend Ms. Marjan Malek,[one of the founders of Nejat Society].
The terrorist – Writers of these nonesenses mixed their hysteric reaction with their accustomed lessons in the cult and imagined that they have terrorized the character of Ms. Malek.
Sirs, you fizzled out so awfully that any thing you have learned in Rajavi’s school has been denounced.
While the political struggle (in order to reveal and introduce the dimensions of this terror cult) you helped the defectors in the best way. Let’s denounce the nature and the ruling thought the best way. Let’s denounce the nature and the ruling thought of your cult with your own help.
Every body knows that your forgery section is able to issue the ownership document of the hell for Masud Rajavi right away! (Although the probability of his entrance to the hell is increasing everyday!) thus, you are not able to deceive anyone with this ridiculous method any more.
Did you forget that the same funny system of Rajavi introduced, Marjan Malek as the symbol of the martyrs in 1990?
It seems that you have tried to destroy Marjan so much that you are barking hopelessly now. (Mujahed Journal no.542)
Once more this such an article shows your insolvency, since you have nothing to say in political language and were obliged to use the nonsense Maryam and Masud taught you to silence our colleague Marjan Malek.
To chew the cud of terrorist literature and lompanism of the missing leader doesn’t bring you anything except scandal and the impartial reader of your nonsense (according to the investigations) made fun of your cult.
What a revolutionary and fighting group!? Who waists the struggle time to fabricate the dirtiest and most awful thoughts!? Maybe Masud has had some practical chasses for his special assisters to teach them how to invent evil thoughts. As a matter of fact, if Maryam and Masud were supposed to write their own report of "contradiction period" (sexual report called so, in the cult) what would happen? We did not let ourselves to reveal your dirty relations ruling the cult since we don’t know ourselves of the same kind as you. Otherwise, the proper members of the cult would probably stone Masud Rajavi. If you think that you can threat and limit the defectors and families, correspondence program to contact the captured members, we declare that the program will be continued more seriously and intensively.
Yes this dirty nonsense not only shows the real nature and characteristic of Masud and Maryam, and their trainings to the members of their cult but also denounces the current principal situation of these terrorists.
And if you think and you could assassinate her character in any case, you are completely mistaken.
Such people, in such situations, would get firmer and more severe on their promise: The promise of a free human to his captive brothers and sisters. Not those colorful engagements signed by blood and breath and by soliciting the members, under pressure.
Now the signatories are separating from you group by group and trying to free the others. It’s really an enormous holly war.
We assure you that all the captured individuals in the cult will be freed and the criminal leaders of the cult should be tried in a just court as large as Iran population.
Arash Sametipour
WASHINGTON, May 19 (IPS) – An Iranian rebel group that is aggressively campaigning for Washington’s support as part of a ”regime change” strategy in its homeland has committed serious abuses including torture and prolonged isolation, against dissident members, according to a leading human rights watchdog.
The group, the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO), also known as MEK after its Iranian initials, insists that it should lead a U.S.-backed effort to bring what it has termed democratic rule to Iran. Last month, it organised a rally, attended by several powerful Republican lawmakers and billed as the ”2005 National Convention for a Democratic, Secular Republic in Iran,” at Washington’s historic Constitution Hall.
But MKO’s own human-rights record during its almost 20 years as an armed group sheltered and supported by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein belies its professed commitment to democratic rule, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a 28-page report, ”No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps”, released Thursday.
” it would be a huge mistake to promote an opposition group that is responsible for serious human rights abuses.” ‘ said Joe Stork, Washington director of HRW’s Middle East division.
The report comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Teheran focused primarily on U.S. charges that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, a development that President George W. Bush has described as ”unacceptable”.
The U.S. administration has not yet explicitly endorsed ”regime change” in Iran but hardliners based primarily in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and at the Defence Department have made little secret of their belief that such a policy should be adopted. Their only question is how best to achieve that goal.
Since the March, 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, where the MKO had been based since 1986, the group has tried to persuade Washington that it holds the key to overthrowing the Islamic Republic next door.
It has been backed in this quest by right-wing lawmakers, a group of hard-line neo-conservatives and retired military officers called the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), and some U.S. officials — particularly in the Pentagon, as the Defence Department also is known — who believe that the MKO could be used to help destabilize the Iranian regime, if not eventually overthrow it in conjunction with U.S. military strikes against selected targets.
While the group’s supporters in the Pentagon so far have succeeded in protecting the several thousand MKO militants based at Camp Ashraf near the Iranian border from being dispersed or deported, they have failed to persuade the U.S. State Department to take the group off its terrorist list, to which it was added in 1997 based on its attacks during the 1970s against U.S. military contractors and its participation in the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran. The European Union (EU) also cites the MKO as a terrorist organization.
After a year-long tug-of-war between the two U.S. agencies, a truce between State and the Pentagon was apparently worked out. MKO members at Camp Ashraf were designated ”protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions.
Since then, the Pentagon has recruited individual members of the MKO to infiltrate Iran as part of an effort to locate secret nuclear installations, according to recent articles published in The New Yorker and Newsweek magazines. At the same time, nearly 300 members have taken advantage of an amnesty in Iran to return home, leaving a total of 3,534 MKO members inside Camp Ashraf as of mid-March, according to the HRW report.
In this context, the MKO and its supporters have been campaigning hard for the group to be ”de-listed” by the State Department as a terrorist group. That appeared to be the principal demand of last month’s rally, which was addressed via video-conference by MKO’s co-president, Maryam Rajavi.
The group, one of whose Washington representative, Ali Safavi, described it as ”Teheran’s greatest and most feared nemesis” in a recent Washington Times column, also claims a commitment to democracy.
In another column published by the International Herald Tribune in January, Rajavi, who also heads the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a MKO front group, stressed that she was ”committed to holding free and fair elections within six months of regime change, to electing a constituent assembly and handing over affairs to the people’s elected representatives.”
Those claims are likely to invite greater scepticism in light of the new HRW report, which is based on a series interviews between February and May 2005 with 12 former MKO members currently living in Europe.
They testified to a pattern of torture, beatings, and prolonged detention in solitary confinement at military camps in Iraq after they criticised the group’s policies and what they called its undemocratic practices, or indicated that they planned to leave the organisation. Two of the interviewees said they had personally witnessed the deaths of two prisoners under interrogation.
Those who wished to leave the organisation were held incommunicado in special units in the camps, they said. If they held a high rank in the MKO, they were held for years; one of the interviewees reportedly was held for a total of eight and a half years; another for five years.
The most brutal treatment was meted out to suspected dissidents in secret prisons located within the MKO camps, according to the report. Four of the witnesses, who were suspected of dissident views, testified that they had all been severely tortured and forced to sign false confessions asserting that they had links to Iranian intelligence agents.
Three of them witnessed the death of Parviz Ahmadi, a former unit commander, in February 1995, shortly after a particularly severe beating. His death was reported three years later in the MKO’s publication, ‘Mojahed’, which described him as a ”martyr” killed by Iranian intelligence agents.
Five of the witnesses were eventually transferred to Abu Ghraib prison during the 1990s and released by Saddam Hussein’s government in 2001 or 2002.
The testimonies included in the report also lend weight to the view that the MKO is more of a cult than a political movement. They suggest that the group’s exile in the early 1980s, followed by the marriage of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi in 1985, set off a series of phases in what the husband-and-wife team declared was a permanent ”ideological revolution” which the couple embodied.
These included compulsory divorce of married couples, regular self-criticism sessions, renunciation of sexuality, and absolute mental and physical dedication to the leadership. ”The level of devotion expected of members was on stark display in 2003 when the French police arrested Maryam Rajavi in Paris,” HRW said. ”In protest, ten MKO members and sympathizers set themselves on fire in various European cities; two of them subsequently died.”
MKO Assassins Activated, MKO Critics Warn
After the fall of Saddam more than two years ago, those members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation who were considered ‘useful’ to the organisation were clandestinely shipped to Europe, Canada and America. Some of these members have undergone extensive intelligence and guerrilla warfare training by the Intelligence services of Saddam Hussein, and many have over 20 years experience in their fields. These people have no regard for their own or other people’s lives and are ready to kill and die to order – they demonstrated this capacity when they staged self-immolations to protest the arrest of the cult leader Maryam Rajavi in 2003 in which two persons died and several others became permanently disabled.
The training which these people received from Saddam’s intelligence agents are as follows:
1- Surveillance – general and specific, using sophisticated methods and equipment which is purchased and adapted according to their needs, including laser and other techniques of eavesdropping. They have been trained how to follow every movement of their unsuspecting victims over long periods of time.
2- Making false ID and other documents. These are used to facilitate undetected movement of the agents, as well as using the false ID of their victim to undertake all kinds of activities (illegal, etc) which will get them tangled up with the authorities.
3- Training in voice change in order to pretend to be someone else so they can debrief people over the telephone. They use this method to gather information about their victims and their surroundings.
4- To arrange accidents (fatal or otherwise) to befall their victims.
5- Creation of databases which can be cross linked. The data base is the most important source of information when they enter the "operational phase".
6- Adaptation in the society in which they operate, and the use of available resources like making friends, forming connections with the police, connection with the authorities, connection with criminals so as to misuse them in the "operational phase".
7- The ability to become a new person with a new identity and to lose all traces of their past after performing specific operations.
8- Smuggling people, arms and other materials directly or with the use of local and international smugglers.
9- Psychological methods of putting pressure on their victims in order to either unbalance them (to make them react and force illegal reactions) or to send a message of power so as to stop them from doing something or to make them do something.
10- Suicide bombing, self immolation, terror acts using psychological methods as well as using specific drugs.
11- Money laundry, illegal transactions, illegal transfer of money between countries, using bogus companies and establishments to misuse real banks and financial establishments for their aims.
12- Infiltration of political parties, humanitarian organizations, etc, as well as recruiting people as agents in governmental and non governmental establishments.
13- Interrogation and counter interrogation training.
We should remember that some of the people who have been shipped in to European countries have been trainers in their own field for many years.
Faced with the dismantling of the MKO’s military apparatus (Saddam’s Private Army) in Iraq, the organization restructured all its resources into its intelligence section and moved its HQ from Iraq to Europe. The MKO’s intelligence section’s HQ at this moment of time is in the city of Cologne (Germany), which now after two years, has a network of well established clandestine branches all over Europe, the USA and Canada. The covert connection and communications between these branches, the Cologne HQ and the overt base of the MKO in Auvers sur Oise (suburbs of Paris), are maintained only by persons traveling between these places (they do not use any emails or telephones – they even switch of their mobiles and take the batteries out when approaching their safe houses). Over the past two years the operational department of the intelligence section has evolved to its full potential and is now active in European countries carrying out the specific assignments given to them.
The assignments given to the MKO’s intelligence section HQ in Cologne to be carried out by its branches in every European country as well as the USA and Canada are as follows:
1- to plan and execute operations against the disaffected members of the organization in order to stop them from exposing the organization’s past and present activities. The HQ has given an open hand to use all means necessary for this mission. The operation includes character assassination (sending leaflets to neighbors, place of work, children’s school, etc. annoying by telephone and mail, threatening families, performing illegal activities under their names, giving false evidence to the authorities, attracting the attention of the intelligence services of the host countries towards these victims, etc.), tying their hands in bogus court cases (through suing, arranging accidents and bringing other cases against them), and ultimately in special cases to arrange accidents and physical elimination of targets.
In the last few months we have seen cases of attempted kidnapping, (one such case is currently going through court procedures in Germany), beating and causing injury (in Netherlands) and many cases of leaflet dropping in the middle of the night against the targets (four cases in Germany and Sweden), character assassination by telephone and mail as well as personal approaches to the place of work, place of residence and the environment of the families of the victims, including children’s schools. We have also witnessed cases in which they have used telephone conversations using false names and identities, recording conversation and then adding and dropping things from them before sending them to the police to start some sort of investigation against the active disaffected members.
2- Intelligence work on the Iranian community outside Iran, compiling and updating comprehensive databases. Surveillance and intelligence gathering against Iranian political opposition groups and personalities, especially outspoken critics of the organization, to create a file against them so that they could be blackmailed. These files are tailored according to their situation (adding false or dropping critical information in the middle of huge amounts of correct but unimportant information which has been gathered). This information is used first to inject into the security and intelligence agencies of the EU, the USA and Canada. Then they convince their backers in some western parliaments to support these claims by sending letters of concern to the authorities of the host country.
3- To gather and/or fabricate stories about Iran, Iraq and other countries for the diplomacy section of the organization so that they can use them in press conferences, articles etc. The base of this work is trying to get information over the telephone by pretending to be someone else when they call officials or civil servants.
4- To gather information from ‘foreign subjects’ including embassies, foreign ministries, interior ministries and immigration departments of the European, American and Canadian countries, private secretaries of some specific members of parliament and some middle eastern countries’ embassies in Europe, the USA and Canada.
These are also mainly carried out by telephone, email, letters and in special cases following people, taking pictures and even stealing documents.
5- To establish covert contact with fundamentalist groups in every country. To keep contact and data and have these relations ready for a rainy day.
What is of utmost concern to us is the MKO intelligence section’s primary assignment – to eliminate the activities of the disaffected members of the organization. In 2003 when the French police arrested the cult leader Maryam Rajavi in her hide out in the suburbs of Paris, the French security services announced that they had found documents during these arrests which clearly showed plans to physically eliminate the ex members. It is no secret that according to the teachings of the cult, any disaffection from the organization is considered as treason punishable by death. Up to now these executions have only taken place in Iraq under the protection of Saddam Hussein and not in western societies. But the cult has always refused to overrule these teaching after the fall of Saddam.
The HQ of the MKO’s intelligence section, after over two years of having a fairly open hand in western countries has now evolved to its full potential, and now the cult’s trained ‘Fedayeen’ from Iraq are carrying out their operations with the systematic backing of a well established network of intelligence agents throughout Europe, the USA and Canada.
We are deeply concerned about the security of these disaffected members, many of whom have spent years in Iraqi prisons and, unlike most of their colleagues, managed to stay alive and since the fall of Saddam, to reach a free country. Their and their families’ lives and livelihood are in direct and imminent danger. The MKO’s intelligence section has received direct and clear order to increase its operations in the form of physical and psychological pressure on these victims by the above mentioned methods and has clearly stated that in special cases "making accidents happen" directly or through paid third parties should be considered as an option.
The headquarters of this internationally recognized terrorist network is now working freely from Cologne which is coordinating its bases in Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Canada (at least two bases) and the United States (at least two bases). These bases have already started their operations using various means including bogus ‘societies’ and ‘associations’ and other outlets (at least ten such associations have been created recently in London, four in Germany, three in Sweden, fifteen in the USA and many others in other countries which are no more than a cover name. The MKO’s intelligence section in Cologne has also created many unidentified websites which are mainly using servers in the USA, are registered in France and are loaded daily from their London base. The network now has more than five so-called consultancy firms registered in the USA and many others in other countries under various names. The number of cover companies for money laundry activities are unknown.
We are deeply concerned about the advancement of the threat posed by an imported terrorist network from Iraq not only against the ex members and critics of this cult but also the real threat it poses to the way of life in the free world and the danger it poses to the citizens of these countries.
We would urge the authorities of the USA, Britain, Canada and all the major European countries to take this threat seriously and to act to dismantle this network of known terrorists and criminals in their countries. We believe that it is only through the serious intervention of the law enforcement agencies that the self immolations of the kind that we witnessed two years ago in the capitals of some western countries will not escalate to direct suicide bombing and open assassinations. This has happened over and over again in Iraq and Iran and you have witnessed a small scale of it before your eyes in 2003. We believe it is on its way to happening again on a much bigger scale.
For more information you can contact us and we can put you in touch with the Iranians as well as ex members who are under threat in your country.
We would like to again emphasize the scale and the timing of these operations, some of which have already started, and ask you to take the threat seriously for the sake of all the citizens of your country.
We also invite every member of the public who may have any information about this network to either contact us or to give their information directly to the authorities of their country of residence.
Dear Mr. Tunne Kelam, MEP from Estonia According to Mojahed Journal No. 775 (Nov. 18, 2005), in “Iran’s Nuclear Case Referral to UN Security Council seminar in European Parliament, you had said that National Council of Resistance is the best alternative and that their demonstration, in which you had participated, was very illuminative for you!!
We inform you that Demonstrations under the name of NCRI are in fact organized by the terrorist group of the MKO (Mojahedin-e Khalq organization), which has no popular support for its cooperation with Saddam Hussein and enjoying his financial, logistical and intelligence assistance. You can verify the accuracy of this by referring to diplomatic and independent sources.
Isn’t it better for you to support the whole opposition instead of concentrating your support on the MKO, which believes in violent activities? We believe that supporting the MKO would cause irreparable damage to your political fame.
In and out of Iran, the MKO is known as a religious sect that has ordered its members not to marry in their lives. Isn’t this clearly depriving human beings from their basic rights? So, how this organization claims to be struggling to establish democracy in Iran while it ignores democratic rights of its own members? This sectarian factor sheds doubt on the claims of this group.
In June 2003, Maryam Rajavi, who was hiding in Paris, was arrested by the order of French Interior Minister. She ordered her members to set themselves on fire [to force the government to free her]. More than 10 people set themselves on fire. Aren’t these brutal acts, which remind of Middle Ages, signs of a religious sect that resorts to political pressure in the soil of Europe?
We believe that your support for the NCRI and participating in its demonstration show that you have not enough information on the Iranian opposition. Awaa Club, formed by former member of the MKO, based in Germany, can give you more information about the past of this organization and its future plans.
November 27, 2005
In a letter to British Interior Minister Mr. Charles Clarke, Massoud Khodabandeh who runs Iran-Interlink group in Britain asked for investigation into the activities of the National Council of Resistance in the UK and preventing what he called “the MKO’s assault on reporters”. Iran-Interlink was formed three years ago with the purpose of helping those who separate from the MKO. Last week in a press conference in London, this group displayed films and documents showing the MKO’s cooperation with the former regime of Saddam Hussein. However, a number of MKO supporters protested the event. In an interview with Mr. Khodabandeh, I asked him why he had sent a letter to the British Interior Minister:
Khodabandeh: On November 10, we held a press conference in London titled “Saddam’s Relations with International Terrorism” and a number of media took part in the event. Unfortunately, some MKO members came to attack the participants, but they failed as the police came to the scene. A reporter, however, leaving the place was assaulted by MKO members. I expected the NCRI to release a statement, apologizing for what they had done, but instead they started threatening their opponents, particularly reporters and journalists. Therefore, as a British citizen, I wrote to Mr. Clarke; the previous letter, signed by 70 to 80 people asking for investigation, was sent to him on September 26. In this letter, I asked for a full investigation on the status of the MKO and NCRI’s office and their activities in London. In addition, I requested for a guarantee against possible similar acts by this group in future. As the organizer of this conference, and on behalf of Iran-Interlink and others, I apologize for the behavior of Rajavi’s agents towards the participants, particularly the correspondents of the BBC and VOA.
– Those who, according to you, disrupted the order of conference claim that the meeting was held by the cooperation of Islamic Republic’s intelligence forces. What’s your response to these accusations?
Khodabandeh: I wrote this letter as a British citizen, but we are now speaking in Farsi as Iranians. Calling 700-800 people abroad the “agents of regime” and claiming that a VOA correspondent, a BBC reporter, Human Rights organizations and opposition figures are all agents of the Iranian regime is not helpful at all. This is only exaggerating a system inside Iran. I don’t think that even CIA has such power. Even if you are right, and I’m not the agent, but the head of the regime’s Intelligence Ministry, why do you attack VOA’s correspondent? You have assaulted a woman. This is not the way Iranians behave. They never attack a lonely woman in a corner of a building. She had only come to listen. She said nothing; she had only come to watch the films and no one knew if she was going to write a report or not!
BBC Radio
