Iranian Mujahideen at the crossroads
By Bill Samii
Demonstrations
against perceived US injustices are nothing new in Iran.
The demonstration that took place on September 9 in
front of the US interests section of the Swiss Embassy
in Tehran, however, was different. This time, relatives
of Iranian oppositionists who are based in Iraq were
demanding help from the US and the International
Committee of the Red Cross in getting information about
their family members, according to media reports. The
oppositionists - members of the Mujahideen Khalq
Organization (MKO or MEK) - are located at Camp Ashraf,
which is some 100 kilometers north of Baghdad.
The MKO was designated a "foreign terrorist
organization" by the US State Department in 1997, and it
retains that status. The MKO is known by a number of
other names, including the National Liberation Army of
Iran (the militant wing of MKO), the People's Mujahideen
of Iran, the National Council of Resistance, the
National Council of Resistance of Iran, and the Muslim
Iranian Student's Society (a front organization used to
garner financial support). The European Union (EU)
designated the MKO's military wing as a terrorist
organization in May 2002.
The MKO was created in
the 1960s and its ideology combines Islam and Marxism.
It was involved with anti-US terrorism in the 1970s, and
it initially supported the 1978-79 Islamic revolution in
Iran. In June 1981, it staged an unsuccessful uprising
against the Islamic regime; many members were imprisoned
while others fled the country.
The MKO
transitioned from being a "mass movement" in 1981 to
having "all the main attributes of a cult" by mid-1987,
Ervand Abrahamian wrote in his book Radical Islam:
The Iranian Mojahedin (1989). It referred to its
head, Masud Rajavi, as the rahbar (leader) and
imam-i hal (present imam), had a rigid hierarchy,
created its own vocabulary, and had its own calendar.
After being run out of Iran, the MKO launched a
number of attacks against the regime leadership: a 1981
bombing killed president Mohammad Ali Rajai and prime
minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar, in 1992 it attacked 13
Iranian embassies, and it is behind other mortar attacks
and assassination attempts in Iran.
Former Iraqi
president Saddam Hussein granted the MKO refuge in Iraq,
and from there the organization fought Iranian forces in
the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Hundreds of MKO members
reportedly died in the July 1988 Foruq-i Javidan
military operation against Iran. The MKO helped suppress
the 1991 Shi'ite uprisings in southern Iraq and Kurds in
the north.
But Operation Iraqi Freedom brought
the MKO's idyll to an end. US and British aircraft
bombed MKO bases in late March 2003 and again in early
April. On May 10, the MKO agreed to turn over its
weapons to US forces. As these events were taking place,
there was speculation that the Iranian military would
strike at MKO bases. It did not do so, and Tehran
offered an amnesty instead.
Ahmad Rahimi,
spokesman for Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and
Security, said in a March 28, 2003 telephone interview
with Dubai-based al-Arabiyah television that members of
MKO could come back to Iran if they voiced regret for
their "crimes" against the Islamic Republic, media
reported. "The Islamic Republic of Iran, out of pity,
gave them this new chance," Rahimi said. "We guarantee
their life and will not arrest them, although there are
some people who committed special crimes inside and
outside Iran. If they voice regret for what they did and
do not repeat these mistakes, then we will help them
solve the problem and lead a respectable life in their
country," he added.
Other Iranian officials
repeated the amnesty offer throughout the year.
Intelligence and Security Minister Hojatoleslam Ali
Yunesi said on April 5 that 100 MKO members had returned
to Iran already, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA)
reported, and he urged others to return and live a
normal life. Yunesi added during a May 10 press
conference that many MKO members had returned to Iran
and provided the government with information. Government
spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh said on June 23, 2003
that Iran would treat any returning MKO members with
"Islamic compassion" and he stressed that they would not
encounter any problems in Iran, IRNA reported. President
Mohammad Khatami expressed similar sentiments in Geneva
on December 11, 2003.
The offer did not apply to
MKO leaders, however. "Monafeqin [hypocrites; MKO]
ringleaders who have directly been involved in terrorist
operations and crimes against the Iranian people" are
not eligible for the amnesty, Ramezanzadeh added.
The Iraqi Governing Council, furthermore,
announced in December 2003 that all MKO members would
have to leave Iraq by the end of the month. The
expulsions never occurred, and the occupation forces in
Iraq were not clear on how to deal with the MKO. In July
2004, MKO members in Iraq were granted "protected
status" under the Geneva Conventions. It is not clear,
furthermore, how many MKO members took advantage of the
Iranian amnesty offer, nor is it clear how they are
being treated.
The case of two MKO members who
were forcibly returned to Iran from Syria could be
instructive. Damascus sent Ebrahim Khodabandeh and Jamil
Bassam to Iran on June 12, 2003. During a February 2004
trip to Iran, Baroness Emma Nicholson, deputy chairwoman
of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee,
saw the two men. She reported that they were in good
health and had no complaints about their treatment, but
were still awaiting trial. Nicholson met with
Khodabandeh again in Tehran in March. The MKO dismissed
her comments as lies and said the men were being
tortured and faced execution.
Ann Singleton,
author of a book on the MKO entitled Saddam's Private
Army, wrote in June that she and British members of
parliament Sir Teddy Taylor and Win Griffiths, an
independent British reporter, and two Iranian lawyers
met with Khodabandeh and Bassam in Tehran's Evin prison.
Khodabandeh told the visitors that he would not return
to the MKO. Bassam said he still regarded himself as an
MKO member.
An imprisoned former MKO member,
Arash Sametipur, was quoted in The Christian Science
Monitor on December 31, 2003 that the organization is "a
mixture of Mao and Marxism, and leader [Masud] Rajavi
acts like Stalin". Another former MKO member, Hora
Shalchi, told the newspaper that the organization's
leadership promised that the Iranian people would
welcome her actions, but a mob chased her down when her
mortar attack on a military base went awry. "We weren't
accepted by anybody," Shalchi added. "There was no
support." Both said that the Iranian government does not
consider the MKO a serious threat, and the executions
that MKO told them to expect never took place. According
to the many people interviewed by The Christian Science
Monitor, imprisoned MKO members are treated like people
who need help.
Yet this was not always the case,
and MKO warnings were based on fact. Many MKO members
who were imprisoned in the early 1980s were tortured
into recanting, Ervand Abrahamian wrote in his
Tortured Confessions (1999). Furthermore, in
early or mid-1988, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued an
order establishing special commissions tasked with
executing imprisoned mujahideen as muharib (at
war with God) and leftists as mortad (apostates
from Islam). In July 1988, the commissions began
isolating and questioning the imprisoned MKO members and
executing the unrepentant ones. The total number of
executed mujahideen is estimated to be in the thousands.
The mass executions stopped in less than a year and the
logic behind them is not known, but Abrahamian wrote
that this was Khomeini's way of testing the dedication
of regime supporters. Others linked the executions with
the MKO's unsuccessful July 1988 attack on Iran. And if
executions became less commonplace, the use of torture
did not.
In 1989 the regime gave amnesty to many
political prisoners. It produced one high-ranking MKO
member, Said Shahsavandi, who in television interviews,
lectures and open letters denounced the MKO and accused
its leadership of imprisoning, torturing and executing
dissidents. Shahsavandi traveled to Europe to deliver
the same message. The MKO has denounced Shahsavandi for
alleged involvement in the torture and execution of MKO
members.
This policy of granting amnesties
reflected a new regime tactic rather than a sense of
mercy. The regime sought to portray the MKO as "the
principal violators of human rights in Iran", Reza
Afshari wrote in Human Rights in Iran (2001).
Moreover, it tried to portray itself as a defender of
human rights. The regime subsequently trotted out
allegedly repentant MKO members, as well as relatives of
individuals who allegedly died at the MKO's hands, when
United Nations human rights investigators visited Iran.
As of late September, the future of the MKO is
unclear. Iraqis continue to have suspicions about the
organization. Baghdad's al-Mutamar reported on July 31
that people in Diyala governorate suspect the MKO is
"fomenting the ongoing struggle between the new Iraqi
government and the armed terrorist groups", and others
suspect that Ba'athist officials are hiding in Camp
Ashraf. The newspaper added that the MKO is not confined
to Camp Ashraf and also runs Camp Habib, 35 kilometers
north of Basra; Camp Homayun and Camp Muzarmi, near the
city of Amara; Camp Fayzah, near Kut; Camp Ulwi, near
Miqdadiya; Camp Anzali, near Jalul; and "scores" of
offices and safehouses in Baghdad, Basra and Diyala.
Some US commentators have recommended using the
MKO against Iran, citing concerns about Iranian
activities in Iraq. A recent example is the commentary
by Fox News military analysts Thomas McInerney and Paul
Vallely in The Wall Street Journal on September 8.
Citing former MKO spokesman Alireza Jafarzadeh as an
"Iranian expert", they wrote that it is time to create
an "armed resistance movement" by removing the MKO from
the terrorist list. "It's time to rearm [MKO's] 4,000
trained fighters."
Regardless of Iranians'
disgust for this organization, such calls have some
resonance in Iran. Jomhuri-yi Islami claimed in an
August 5 commentary that an arms shipment seized at the
Iranian border was somehow connected with MKO
activities, US hostility, and Iraqi claims about Iranian
interference.
The MKO, meanwhile, continues its
activities against the Iranian government. Approximately
5,000 of its supporters demonstrated in Brussels on
September 13 as EU foreign ministers discussed Iran,
Agence-France Presse reported. The so-called
International Committee for the Support of Victims of
MKO condemned the Belgian decision to permit this rally,
IRNA reported. The committee said in a letter to Belgian
Foreign Minister Louis Michel that the MKO recruited
Afghans and other refugees to participate in the rally
by paying for their food and accommodation.
Bill Samii is a regional analysis
coordinator with RFE/RL Online and editor of the RFE/RL
Iran Report. He earned his PhD at the University of
Cambridge. His research articles have appeared in the
Middle East Journal, Middle East Policy, and the Middle
East Review of International Affairs Journal. He has
contributed to several books about the Middle East.
Copyright (c) 2004, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted
with the permission of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty,
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