Mousavi secrets 'put his life in danger' By Omid Memarian
SAN FRANCISCO - Responding to pro-government critics, Iran's defiant opposition
leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has said several times in recent months that he
would reveal "untold secrets" from his tenure.
Mousavi served as prime minister of Iran from 1981 to 1989, until
constitutional changes abolished the post. He was a leading opposition
candidate in Iran's contested presidential elections last year.
Abolhassan Banisadr, Iran's first president after the Islamic Revolution of
1979, who now lives in France, told Inter Press Service (IPS) that he believes
Mousavi's life is danger. "Many
people who have had access to the regime's secrets or who have tried to reveal
them have been murdered," he said.
Last month, Banisadr published what he says is Mousavi's 1988 letter of
resignation on his website, Enghelab-e Eslami. The letter was addressed to
then-president Seyed Ali Khamenei, now Iran's Supreme Leader. Neither Mousavi
nor any of the Iranian government authorities, including the Office of the
Supreme Leader, has reacted to the letter's contents.
In the letter, Mousavi explicitly speaks of terrorist activities carried out
abroad and about which, he claims, his cabinet was not aware. In a part of the
letter, Mousavi explains his reason for his resignation as his inability to
carry out his responsibilities, saying:
The operations abroad ... take
place without the cabinet's knowledge or orders. You know better [than me] of
their catastrophic and undesirable consequences for the country. We are
informed only after an airplane is hijacked. We learn only after a machine gun
opens fire on a Lebanon street and its sound can be heard all over.
I am informed only after explosives are found on our pilgrims in Jeddah.
Unfortunately, and against all the losses these actions have brought to the
country, the likes of these operations could take place at any moment or any
hour in the name of the cabinet.
Many Iranian intellectuals and
politicians have asked Mousavi to express his opinion about the 1988 mass
executions of thousands of political prisoners and to explain his role in them.
Recently, on the occasion of Reporters' Day in Iran, he addressed a group of
newspaper editors, journalists, and families of arrested journalists. "We must
view the 1988 events through their own historical vantage point and then ask
whether the cabinet had any knowledge about these events or not? Did it play a
role? Was it possible at all for it to interfere? Is there any mention of the
cabinet in the documents and rulings?" said Mousavi.
Banisadr, who was elected Iran's first president in 1980, fled to Paris after
he was impeached by the Iranian parliament in 1981. In an interview with IPS,
he addressed the authenticity of the letter, the dangers facing Mousavi after
he threatened to reveal secrets, and the importance of revelations of the 1988
mass political executions in Iran.
Excerpts from the interview follow.
Inter Press Service: How did you gain access to this letter?
Abolhassan Banisadr: This letter was published in 1988. We asked
our friends to research its authenticity. They told us that it was authentic.
Mousavi has not refuted its authenticity during all these years, either.
IPS: What was the aim of those who leaked the letter to you?
AB: We speculated at the time that the letter was leaked from Mr
[Ruhollah] Khomeini's office [a leader of the 1979 Revolution]. Of course
Mousavi himself could have leaked it. Or it could have been through Mr
Khamenei, in order to make Mousavi look bad to Khomeini for revealing the
regime's secrets.
IPS: Several government officials have said amid political
struggles that there are secrets they do not wish to reveal. How do you think
the revelation of these secrets would impact Iran's internal politics?
AB: Several people have been murdered in order to prevent the
publication of certain secrets. For example, several people were murdered
around the "October Surprise", or the story of the secret dealings about the
release of American hostages. Inside Iran, Mr Mehdi Hashemi, Mr Omid
Najafabadi, and their colleagues were murdered because of the information they
had and published about the "Irangate Affair" [also known as Iran-Contra].
IPS: Why would Iranian authorities be concerned about what
Mousavi might have to say?
AB: It would destroy their legitimacy on the national level as
well as the regional level among Islamic nations.
IPS: There is mounting pressure on Mousavi for speaking about the
1988 political executions. How might revelations regarding one of Iran's
darkest periods be costly for him?
AB: It is definitely dangerous. Mr Mousavi's importance to this
regime is not more than Ahmad Khomeini's importance [the late son of Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini]. Ahmad Khomeini had a lot of information - his own son
called him a treasure chest of the regime's secrets. When he started to make
noises, he was eliminated. I believe, just as I did myself, that instead of
threatening to say or do things, he must spit out the information
spontaneously. This might guarantee him his life, because if they want to touch
him then, the people of Iran and the world would say that he was taken out
because he revealed the secrets.
IPS: Why has the authenticity of Mousavi's letter not been denied
by Iranian authorities?
AB: Because it is real and authentic. If they say they did them
[the incidents described], it would prove that the world was right in calling
them a terrorist government. If they want to say they didn't do them, it would
make the world laugh, because these actions did take place. The only thing they
have said in the past is that renegade agents have done some things and the
regime itself was not in the know. Now an individual who used to be the prime
minister at that time is saying that the regime did know and the agents were
carrying out orders.
IPS: Why hasn't anything happened to Mousavi yet, even though his
nephew was shot dead during the post-election period last year?
AB: The most important reason is that Mr Mousavi and Mr [Mehdi]
Karroubi were presidential candidates when that huge electoral fraud took place
and the protest movement was formed to object to the election results. This
movement was not only in Iran. It engaged the public opinion of the world.
IPS: But a lot of people were killed and it was said that
organizations such as the MEK [Mujahideen-e-Khalq - People's Mujahideen] or the
rioters killed them.
AB: Those people did not have the same clout as these two
presidential candidates who persisted even after the elections. Arrests would
not bring a lack of credibility - instead, they would bring credibility.
A text was recently published on behalf of Mr Khamenei, saying that these two
can be arrested anytime he wants, but that he is looking for a chance to
convince people that these two [Mousavi and Karroubi] are not what they seem.
IPS: What if a subject like the mass executions of 1988 could be
comprehensively discussed in Iran, considering the fact that Ayatollah Khomeini
is not alive now?
AB: It would have an important impact. Mr Khomeini's handwritten
note exists in which he says to execute the prisoners with a "yes" and "no"
answer on a question. Three people are known to have been assigned to do the
task. There were also people who encouraged Mr Khomeini to do this, even though
he did not need much encouragement, because he had the motivation. Who were
they? Mr Khamenei was the president, and Mr Hashemi Rafsanjani was the speaker
of the parliament [Majlis].
So, it is obvious that these two did not make the slightest objection to that
crime. Were they among the ones that encouraged this, and convinced Mr Khomeini
to commit such a crime? Clarifying this issue is very important. Why? Since now
one of those people is the Leader, and another is the Head of Assembly of
Experts and the head of the Expediency Council. Mr Mousavi was the prime
minister. Did he know or not? Was he in agreement or not?
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