In her speech made on 30 June in Paris, Maryam Rajavi, Mojahedin’s cult she-guru, announced her group’s readiness to look after of 1,000 Iraqi orphans. The unexpected demand might be considered a humanitarian move unless you are familiar with MKO’s terrorist and cult nature. But those familiar with the group’s internal relation presuppose differently. Before going any further, it seems essential to reconsider the following issues:
*. Surveying the issue of family in Mojahedin’s organizational relations from the beginning until the ideological revolution.
*. Surveying condition of children in Mojahedin’s organizational relations from the beginning until the ideological revolution
It is not wrong to say that the family has been an issue of dispute in MKO that has challenged it from its very beginning. For Mojahedin, the legitimacy of any phenomenon is appraised according to its degree of accordance with the ideological and political ends of the organization. Since the family in itself necessitates certain responsibilities, then, any enforced responsibility out of the organizational command is deemed to be an impending element. In the history of the organization, we encounter countless instances of forced organizational marriage and divorce and in many cases, the group plotted tricks to debilitate the emotional attachments between the couples that resulted in divorce.
Unlike what is sought in conventional marriages, Mojahedin’s organizational marriages were prudent policies for the accomplishment of political objectives. In fact, none of these marriages rested on love and emotional infrastructure and the leaders weighed it as an appropriate means to gratify sexual needs of the members to expedite the fulfilment of the organization’s policies. Consequently, unbidden fruits of these marriages, namely the children, will have no better destiny than their parents.
Thus, looking at family and children as instruments to achieve power and political goals, MKO leader’s shedding crocodile tears for Iraqi children is supposed to be a bid to attain certain interests. Here are suppositions that prove Maryam Rajavi’s demand is a suspicious political tactic rather than a humanitarian move.
At the present, MKO has an unstable and unbearable position in Iraq. The Iraqi government is determined to expel the group as a terrorist group that is conspiring with insurgent dissidents against the Iraqi legal government. To frustrate terrorists’ plots, the Iraqi police are debarring Iraqis from visiting Camp Ashraf known as the den of conspiracy. Maryam Rajavi’s suggestion at such a critical juncture is a countermeasure tactic. In case the international humanitarian organizations welcome the offer for the wellbeing of the innocent children, and if we are cautiously optimistic of a good-will-prone offer, MKO’s expulsion from Iraq will be postponed.
MKO continue to maintain on the State Department and the EU terror list that has greatly undermined MKO’s political manoeuvre and has jammed it in a political cul-de-sac. In fact, it is big strategic failure for MKO that advertise to pose as an alternative for Iranian regime. Maryam Rajavi’s offer, supported by the group’s advocates that lobby Western parliaments, contributes to augment propagandistic pressures in an attempt to remove the terrorist label.
The Human Rights Watch report concerning human rights abuse within MKO and the group’s cult-like practices against the insiders is pressing the group to provide justifiable reasons for the insider and outsider critics. Maryam Rajavi’s offer is a futile struggle that implicitly challenges the HRW’s report and rebuts the critics.
The US State Department’s released list of designated terrorist organizations on April 30 highlighted unprecedented facts about MKO and announced that “In addition to its terrorist credentials, the MEK has also displayed cult-like characteristics”. It also asserted that MKO’s members are required to undertake a vow of "eternal divorce" and that children are reportedly separated from parents at a young age. MKO has so far dodged explaining away such allegations and Maryam Rajavi’s publicized proposal, if gains public acclaim, might partly challenge the accusations.
Maryam Rajavi’s offer that justifiably depicts the painful plight of Iraqi children draws support of many human rights activists to welcome the seemingly humanitarian move. It would be relatively a success for the group both in political stage and fundraising activities. Exploiting children for fundraising has its own long history in MKO. After separating children from their parents, these innocent children were sent to Western countries to take part in the street fund-raising activities under false pretences of being homeless Iranian children whose parents were executed by Iranian regime. For years Mojahedin were active in illegal fundraising activities through charities like Iran Aid in England; the funds were then spent in purchase of the arms. Possibly, the group seeks to establish a similar Iraq Aid charity in Iraq to cover the expenses of its terrorist and cult activities.
The ex-members’ increased counter-MKO activities to bring further secrets of manipulating cult-like techniques of the group into light has much frustrated the organization. The group’s manner of confronting the dissidents is typically violent. In his recent message issued from his hideout, Massoud Rajavi plainly threatened the dissidents and critics of the group. The harsh reaction provides cult-proven and undemocratic attitudes of MKO. Any positive reaction to Maryam Rajavi’s offer questions the accuracy of the ex-members’ disclosures and decreases the consequent psychological pressures exerted on MKO.
Inactivity and passiveness are dominating Camp Ashraf as a result of great disappointment of an uncertain destiny in Iraq. It has debilitated the morale of the forces in Camp Asharf to a great extent especially following the redesignation of the group as a terrorist group that works an inevitable impediment to seek asylum in any country. If Maryam Rajavi’s suggestion catches a global attention, it will give the forces encouragement of reconsidering their detachment and leave of Camp Ashraf.
The ex-member activists in European countries and especially in Iran centralized under Nejat Assossiation, established by the ex-members and the families of the members still held in MKO, is a big challenge for the group. The emotional impact of the families on the members who have been deprived of all emotional relations are inevitable. The families visit and contact with members in Camp Ashraf has jeopardised the group’s security and contribute to unveil what the organization prefers to remain concealed.
Thus, the real intention of MKO terrorist cult weighs on a globally acclaimed humanitarian move and proposal. That is enough to see children being victimized in a cult that respects not the least for their rights. Ideologically controlled context of MKO hardly leaves a suitable room for children to grow up and, frankly speaking, MKO lacks any standard concerning children, their rights, and even how to take care of them in the same way as the world outside. The process of mutation in Mojahedin cult is extraordinary; a lamb entering the cult comes out as a tiger.
Bahar Irani – Mojahedin.ws – August 5, 2007