The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran
Kenneth Katzman | Washington, Nov 1992
US State Department Report | Source: Irandidban.com
Announcement of US about Mojahedin
...Mojahedin collaborated with Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the former Shah of Iran. As part of that struggle,
they assassinated at least six American citizens,
supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and
opposed the release of American hostages.
...
NCR became a mere shell as individuals and groups abandoned the organization because of Mojahedin domination.
Rajavi relocated to Baghdad, Iraq, adopting Saddam Hussein as his patron, in 1987.
...National Liberation Army (
NLA), the military wing of the Mojahedin, which conducted raids into Iran during the latter years of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. ...
NLA's last major offensive reportedly was conducted against Iraqi Kurds in 1991, when it joined Saddam Hussein's brutal repression of the Kurdish rebellion. In addition to occasional acts of sabotage, the
Mojahedin are responsible for violent attacks in Iran that victimize civilians.
The clerical regime in Tehran, aware of the Mojahedin's unpopularity, attempts to discredit many of its opponents by falsely linking them to the MKO.
Despite Mojahedin assertions that the group has abandoned its revolutionary ideology and now favors a liberal democracy,
there is no written or public record of discussion or debate about the dramatic reversals in the Mojahedin's stated positions. Internally, the Mojahedin run their organization autocratically, suppressing dissent and eschewing tolerance of differing viewpoints. Rajavi, who heads the Mojahedin's political and military wings, has fostered a cult of personality around himself. These characteristics have alienated most Iranian expatriates... Given these attributes, it is no coincidence that
the only government in the world that supports the Mojahedin politically and financially is the totalitarian regime of Saddam Hussein.
Shunned by most Iranians and fundamentally undemocratic, the Mojahedin-e Khalq are not a viable alternative to the current government of Iran.
The organization broke drown into Marxist and Muslim factions. The Muslim faction, under Rajavi's leadership, soon gained control of the organization. But the religious disagreement between the secular and Islamic factions of the MKO did not undermine their fundamental agreement on the issue of imperialism, nor their strategy of armed struggle against the Pahlavi regime and American interests in Iran.
The
Mojahedin are known to have assassinated the following Americans in Iran during the 1970s:
Lt. Colonel Lewis L. Hawkins Killed: June 2, 1973 Air Force
Colonel Paul Schaeffer Killed: May 21, 1975
Air Force Lt. Colonel Jack Turner Killed: May 21, 1975
Donald G. Smith, Rockwell International Killed: August 28, 1976
Robert R. Krongrad, Rockwell International Killed: August 28, 1976
William C. Cottrell, Rockwell International Killed: August 28, 1976
Air Force Brigadier General Harold price was wounded in a 1972 attack Planned by Mojahedin Central committee member, Kazem Zul Ai-Anvar.
Mojahedin newspapers and proclamations published at the time confirm the group's leadership in renouncing the United States. The very day that 400 university students overtook the U.S. embassy, the Mojahedin issued a proclamation headlined,
"After the Shah, it's America's turn."
Following the seizure of the embassy, the Mojahedin participated physically at the site, assisting in holding and defending the embassy against liberation. They also offered political support for the hostage-keeping. For example, the Mojahedin sent a telegram to Khomeini expressing allegiance to the Ayatollah's policy of "rooting out the aggressive, American imperialism of the traitorous Shah." The telegram closed with the following declaration: "(We are) awaiting the definitive command of the Imam (Khomeini) for uprooting all the imperialist and Zionist foundations.
It described the release of the hostages as a "retreat" and "surrender" and warned that
resumption of diplomatic relations with the United States would be "treason to the people and to the blood of our martyrs."
In particular,
Rajavi's unilateral decision to tie the Council to Iraq alienated the others, who viewed the alliance as a traitor's deed.
Bani Sadr asserts that the first formal pact between the Mojahedin and Iraq was negotiated during a January 1983 meeting between Rajavi and Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz in France. Mojahedin publications also confirm this meeting.
...June 1986... Rajavi's departure was the price France paid for the release of French hostages in Lebanon.
Rajavi's former attorneys, an Iranian jurist then resident in France, explained the move:
"When Rajavi came to France, he and his supporters quickly ran out of money. The Iraqi government offered him support and they accepted. In the long run, they became proxies of the Iraqi regime and lost much of their credibility within Iran."
Military scholar Anthony Cordesman offered another analysis:
"The end result of France's action, however, was to give Rajavi much better access to arms, training facilities near the border, and much larger financial resources."
Baghdad "Provided training facilities and staging grounds for the (NLA) unit's operations, as well as headquarters facilities in the Iraqi capital."
[
One Western reporter] noted the Mojahedin's "softened ideology and assertions of battlefield prowess," and described their two-part strategy for gaining power.
"The first (element), a military campaign, is supposed to establish the credibility of the Mojahedin, or Warriors of God. Another element ... is a political and propaganda drive designed to revise its anti-American history and to blur its near-total dependence on cooperation with Baghdad. Iran's enemy and the base of its military operations."
[Following Operation Desert Storm]
Iraqi Kurds also claimed the Mojahedin had assisted the Iraqi army in its suppression of the Kurds, "a claim-substantiated by refugees who fled near the Iranian border." ...
Jalal Talabani [
PUK], told reporters that
"5,000 Iranian Mojahedin joined Saddam's forces in the battle for Kirkuk."
...
Wall Street Journal report stated that the
NLA's
"only major offensive in the past six years came in 1991, just after the Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein ordered Mr. Rajavi to help quell a Kurdish revolt in northern Iraq, participants in that operation say."
Despite [soliciting Western Support], the Mojahedin in fact are supported by only one government in the world --Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
[MEK claims to support
"democracy," "peace," "love, friendship, and unity," "separation of church and state," and "recognition of private ownership and a market economy,"] present a revolutionary departure from the substantial written record of Mojahedin ideology. Examples of such reversals include the switch from revolutionary Islam to separation of church and state and from nationalization to private ownership. Yet the changes in
MKO ideology occurred without any public debate, and there is no public record of discussion or review of Mojahedin principles. It is also unclear when each change in policy occurred, and what internal factors motivated each shift. The absence of dialogue about this critical issue of ideology contrasts markedly with the group's earlier history of discourse.
Nor are these new claims substantiated by the record of the Mojahedin's activities throughout the last 29 years. Mojahedin organizations do not follow the principles outlined in their revised propaganda. In particular, the Mojahedin have never practiced democracy within their own organization, the Mojahedin-dominated
NCR, or the
NLA.
.
The Mojahedin's credibility is also undermined by the fact that they deny or distort sections of their history, such as the use of violence or opposition to Zionism. It is difficult to accept at face value promises of future conduct when an organization fails to acknowledge its past.
By mid-1987, the Mojahedin organization had all the main attributes of a cult. It had its own revered leader whom it referred to formally as the "Guide" and informally as the "present Imam."
[Former member of the
MKO, Hadi Shams-Haeri] said...members who tried to leave were jailed, held either in an
NLA camp of placed in an
Iraqi prison. ...condemned to execution for their dissent, but the orders are stayed until the
MKO "reaches victory" in Iran. ...members were considered members "for life." ...only allowed to read Mojahedin publications and that they were monitored by informers. ...Mojahedin forced couples and families to separate, arguing that the people, should devote their love only to Masud and Maryam Rajavi.
IV: EXTERNAL SUPPORT
Saddam Hussein has been one of the organization's primary financiers,
providing weapons and, cash totaling an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars.
