In her meeting with a group of Iraqi sheikhs, who were on a visit to Paris to attend MKO’s gathering on June 28, in Auvers-sur-Oise, Maryam Rajavi stressed that there was a close consanguinity between Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization and Iraqi people as reported by MKO’s run Iran-efshagari site. She paid homage to Iraqi martyrs like Sheikh Faez whose blood had mingled with that of Mojahedin’s in their struggle for peace and democracy! It seems that she has taken the turn to follow the same conduct once her husband had taken with Saddam but this time with Iraqi Sheikhs and through chanting slogans of democracy rather than brotherhood.
Following the settlement of MKO in Iraq, once in his meeting with Saber al-Duri, the man in charge of the Iraqi security system, Massoud Rajavi stressed that the group’s settlement in Iraq was not a temporary but a long-lasting stay:
I think that the relations between us and you and Iraq, being the government of Iraq or the Baath Party and at the top of it Mr President [Saddam], and on the other side, the Iranian Resistance and the Mojahedin and the National Liberation, is not a purely political relation and one cannot interpret our relations like that any more. I think that the brotherhood relation has been completed. Such brothers that would not come short of anything for each other…. And that was how our fates were tied together. Our fates have become one and our bloods have been mixed together. And you know that there is no exaggeration in this. 1
Regardless of their sharing of strategic interests, Rajavi and Saddam’s tie was rooted in a mutual historical and ideological understanding. How is that in a value system that well justifies ties to a tyrant against oppressed people it also rationalizes solidarity with the same people after the fall of the tyrant. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is possible only if the solidarity is looked upon from the angle that the new alliance follows the same previous line of the tyrant and the Sheikhs are not true representatives of Iraqi people but supporters of the ousted dictator.
That is exactly it! They need backers in Iraq since the legal and nationally elected government of Iraq is planning to expel the group from Iraq and it lacks the least public support since hardly the Iraqi people fail to remember its bloody collaboration with Saddam. Unlike what they propagate as an act of solidarity or anything else, it is only a tactic they are the masters to contrive:
Always, when faced with a troubling question, the Mojahedin fall back on one of their habitual tactics. Either they claim bias, declaring that putting them in question is playing the game of the Iranian regime, or they use a jargon which we will look at more closely later on. In spite of everything, today they no longer fool anyone. Since the fall of their protector, more information is being uncovered, all of it supporting this reaction. The movement is tied to Saddam Hussein’s regime -for whom he, Rajavi, has done the dirty work to get his ‘residency permit’. 2
In fact, none of the Iraqi Sheikhs in the company of MKO is familiar with the group’s Machiavellian mind-set manipulated to achieve certain ambitious ends and assuming power. mojahedin need bridges to cross troubled, deep waters, a fact that its backers learn when it is too late and are left to drown in the same waters they have helped them to cross safely. At least one of Saddam’s men is named to have known Mojahedin and Massoud Rajavi particularly well. As Gessler names him, he is a very visible personality, very influential in Saddam’s regime until his defection. Brigadier General in the Iraqi Army General Staff, in charge of the secret services until 1994, Vafigh al-Samraee, was in regular, personal contact with Saddam Hussein:
I especially remember a sum of 20 million Iraqi dinars received by Massoud Rajavi (1 dollar was then worth three dinars). This was before the occupation of Kuwait in 1991. At that time he had received at least 8 million dollars. He also received various sums in foreign currency to cover his propaganda expenses in Europe. Massoud Rajavi also had other sources of income, including money given by his supporters. All of this money complemented the deliveries of military equipment. After all, the Iraqi regime supported the People’s Mojahedin with arms, mobile cannon, tanks, heavy artillery and even combat helicopters. ; The group used the logistical support of the Iraqi intelligence services to cross the border and to send commando groups into Iran to carry out terrorist attacks. 3
Referring to Mojahedin’s role in the suppression of uprisings Iraqis in Southern Iraq and Kurdistan he has stated:
The People’s Mojahedin brutally assaulted the Kurdish towns of Jelola and Khaneghein and took an active role in the repression of the popular uprisings in Southern Iraq in 1991. They provided Iraqi intelligence with all kinds of information on what was happening inside Iran". 4
No doubt, Mojahedin would have continued their collaboration with Saddam even beyond what has been stated had Iraq not been invaded. And how they happen to be on the same front of solidarity with people after securing brotherhood with the enemy of people is a question its roots has to be sought in the existing challenges between Iraqi domestic factions and parties. It is even much more embarrassing to see that some of these Sheikhs have put complete faith in hypocrite Mojahedin expressing indescribable affinity with the people they shared no communal interests in the past.
References:
1. To be Judged in History”; English Transcript of Videotaped Meetings Between Massoud Rajavi and the Head of Saddam’s Intelligence Services, Iran-interlink.
2. Antoine Gessler; Autopsy of an Ideological Drift, 2004, p. 81.
3. Ibid, p. 110.
4. Ibid.
July 17, 2008
http://www.mojahedin.ws/article/show_en.php?id=2812