Mujahedin Khalq Organization’s Propaganda System

MKO leaders are making more mistakes by holding onto cult practices inside

There is always another chance for those who make mistakes, even serious ones, but the fatal one to make is to avoid admitting them. Of the recent expressions which best describes the terrorist MKO is the one stated by Alan Berger, a Boston Globe editorial writer expert on foreign policy and security issues. In his article entitled Iranian exiles and international blunders, he points to his last year’s interview with MKO’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, and the group’s members he talked to and concluded that “People caught up in a blood feud are not inclined to dwell on their past errors”. As a matter of fact, MKO has been pursuing a never-ending and long lasted vendetta against the Islamic Republic regime for many bloods the group’s own past errors themselves have been the main cause to shed. And MKO laid the cornerstone of all errors when it concluded the inevitability and necessity of initiating armed struggle and violent acts in 1981, a rebellion which was supposed to speed up the collapse of the regime just for a change of power rather than for the accomplishment of democratic and civil causes.

But did MKO ever admit the fatal error the leaders made? Never. Just after a year of engaging in a massive terrorist bloodshed and killing hundreds of personalities and innocent civilians, in an analysis of the year-long armed struggle, Rajavi made another mistake by openly admitting that armed struggle was the spirit of the organization without which it failed to survive: “In essence, we owe our existence and survival before anything to the widespread armed combat of the Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization”.

Despite MKO is removed from the US terror list, today most of parliamentarians and politicians, with whom Maryam Rajavi attempts to show is in alliance with, are aware of the terrorist nature and record of her group. And of course, the group’s leaders never stop emphasizing the strategy of terror and violence whenever grabbing at a chance. The number of casualties and those killed in the course of a pseudo-democratic struggle have never been important for MKO and its leaders since their natures are not familiar with humane passion and mercy. What is important for them is achieving cultic goals with the Rajavis at the lead, human beings are just tools.

Being a devotee of Masoud Rajavi as well as being his wife, Maryam Qajar Azdanlou, was sent from Iraq to France in 1993 as an elected future transitional President to undertake her tactical and organizational mission of filling the gap of a political campaign out of the cult. But in none of her messages delivered to the military branch based in Iraq she ceased to emphasize that “everything at the end is bomb, bullet and gun”. However, her first task there has been to advertise a different side of the mother terrorist group, to demonstrate a pro-democratic alias on struggle that outwardly outweighs disadvantages of engaging in terrorist acts in order to take advantage of the European support. But in fact, she is still the very devoted member faithful to the principles of the mother group.

It is deceit that makes hypocrisy what it is and Maryam Rajavi has proved to be a real prototype. The West and the group’s advocates there are deceived by her democratic manners and maneuvers and, of course, her extravagance. The errors of MKO are beyond any calculation atop of which stand its rampant terrorist deeds and crimes following committing the fatal error of advocating an armed struggle policy to regain a lost struggle. Thus, greatly hailing a philosophy of “ends justify the means”, violence became the opt means to achieve no democratic and human cause but the power. Expelled from Iran as a rebellious group, it vowed as an archenemy of Iranian people and has so far swum against the current. In fact, the serious errors have been its ideological drift and political misconduct that led it afield of a conventional political group and the world came to develop an idea of recognizing it not only a terrorist group but also a highly destructive cult evolving its own mind control techniques and sharing common properties with other dangerous cults. Still MKO leaders dismiss to admit the grave errors that could halt deflection of a group that could continue on a democratic, non-violent path. And still they are making more mistakes by holding onto cultic practices inside but portraying a democratic organization outside.

Rosa Kaviani,

MKO’s terrorist deeds approves a fact that it could never distinguish justification from legitimacy

Truth can never be propagated by doing violence. Those who believe in the justice of their cause have need to possess boundless patience, and those alone are fit to offer civil disobedience who are above committing criminal disobedience or doing violence. (Mahatma Gandhi)

On 30 August 1981, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI) set off a bomb in Iranian Prime Minister’s Office at 3 pm where the National Security Council was holding a meeting. The blast killed the new Iranian President, Muhammad-Ali Rajai, and his recently named Prime Minister, Mohammed Javad Bahonar. Now nearly three decades after the terrorist perpetration, it can be studied from different aspects.

The terrorist act, one of the most outrageous and blamable form of terrorism in the world history, was somehow endorsed by the West when they deliberately preferred to remain silent on the act that would trigger a global tension if it happened in a Western country. At the same time, none of the Western countries approved use of terrorism as a means of implacable determination to achieve undemocratic and ambitious ends. Oddly enough, it was committed at a time when MKO was plotting its terrorist plans in its Paris safe-haven under French protection.

Bombings perpetrated by MKO not only arouse outrage and anger among the nation, but also were condemned by a global consensus on the issue. That is true that some countries for certain political motives and interests, including that of seeking a degree of political autonomy or invading other countries, hardly respect the principles of combating the truculent phenomena of terrorism, the global consensus to combat terrorism in no way justifies use of terrorism in any form.

An analysis of any terrorist deed with the cost and impact imposed on the society among whom it has been committed illuminates dark aspects of the reason behind the deed. In fact, any terrorist act carries indirect messages from its perpetrators to the target societies. In other words, it can be said that any terrorist act is an abrupt undemocratic reaction against democratic and legal practices within a society. MKO’s terrorist deeds that plagued Iran following its defeat in both political and social fronts after its nationwide uprising of 20 June 1981 each carry coded messages which MKO’s terrorist campaign aims to convey. The prime target of the August 30th blast, Muhammad-Ali Rajai, won a landslide presidentialt election to replace the ousted Bani-Sadr. His prime minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar, won a unanimous vote of the parliament as the head of the cabinet. In fact, MKO’s terrorist act did not aimed two leading figures of the regime but directly targeted the vote of people and their representatives.

MKO issued no immediate announcement to accept the responsibility of the operation and took no clear position. However, in a telephone interview reflected in some Western newspapers at the time, Massoud Rajavi said that the fatal bombing at the prime minister’s office was carried out “by the legitimate resistance movement”. But his further explanation made it explicit who he meant by the ‘resistance movement’: “I am not informed at this time exactly who planted the bomb, but it was the resistance movement and I do not deny that the Mujahedeen make up the majority of that movement”.

MKO claimed to have committed the crime as a legitimate resistance on behalf of the nation, but there is no record of when and where people voted to recognize the legitimacy of a self-proclaimed resistance that possessed no patience to fit social disobedience. Moreover, MKO’s candidates, especially its leader Massoud Rajavi, had failed in the two earlier elections of the parliament and the Assembly of Experts which indicates they won no considerable publicity in spite of their hot campaigns claiming to be revolutionary avant-gardes. It is common in most democratic countries that struggle for power is conducted through free, democratic elections and no loser engages in aggressive, violent activities to revenge his defeat. Being great losers in political scene, MKO’s terrorist, violent deeds imply that the group in no way respected the democratic principles exercised by people.

The message Agust 30th blast conveys is that MKO never stands for any legitimacy; if MKO were to receive no political recognition to assume power, then, neither could the legitimacy of any election be recognized nor the votes of the very same people whose legitimate right decides for the legitimacy of any power structure. Actually playing no decisive role in Iranian revolution, MKO later came to arrogate the right of the leadership. The flight of Rajavi and Bani-Sadr to France, from where they conducted the terrorist operation of blasting the prime minister’s office in Tehran, approves a fact that they could never distinguish justification from legitimacy, that “truth can never be propagated by doing violence.”