This is a vital and serious question whose answer will solve the ambiguities which still exist among some of the Iranians who are living in foreign countries and have been deceived by the lies which the PMOI’s leaders have told them about the organization, as well as the few foreign politicians who are acting as the PMOI’s backers.
I believe the best source which can answer this question is the separated members who have spent more than twenty years in that so-called organization and who can evaluate the organization (PMOI) easily as experts. These separated members are an excellent source of information about everything which goes on inside the PMOI and I had better say these separated people are like a blueprint so that everyone by referring to them can find their answers.
These separated people are the best assets available to disclose the hidden aspects of the PMOI which have deliberately been hidden from outsiders by the PMOI’s leaders. For that reason the PMOI’s operatives and leaders are very much afraid of these people because of their expert knowledge of the PMOI’s real entity and content, so they label them as Iran’s mercenaries and agents, etc.
Now with this prelude, I will share my point of view with you about this subject.
I believe the PMOI cannot describe itself as an opposition group. My reasoning is as follows:
1. The PMOI has a criminal record which began in the 70’s by killing American citizens and destroying foreign offices and properties in Iran: some of their terrorist missions are as follows:
#May 1972- U.S. air Force Brigadier General HAROLD PRICE, chief of the Air Force Section of U.S. Military Advisory Group in Iran.
#June 1973- U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Hawkins, U.S. military mission.
#May 1975- Colonel Paul Schaeffer and Lieutenant Colonel Jack Turner, U.S. Air Force officers in the mission.
#August 1976- 3 civilian employees of Rockwell International, Donald J Smith, Robert R Grangrad, William C Catrel advising the Iranian military.
Bombing and Kidnapping
#In December of 1970 carried out an abortive attempt to kidnap U.S. Ambassador Douglas MacArthur.
#President Richard M. Nixon’s trip was marred by a series of bombings, including one explosion at the Tomb of the Shah’s father shortly before the President and his hosts were scheduled to arrive.
#The offices of El Al Airlines, Shell Petroleum, British Petroleum, British Overseas Airways, a Jewish Emigration office in Tehran, and numerous other U.S. facilities and properties were bombed and victimized.
#In July 1975, two bombs were exploded in two places, first one in USA and Iran Committee building and the second one in the English Consul in the city of Mashad .
#On 4th July 1975, PMOI’s terrorists stopped the motorcade of the American Ambassador in Tehran and opened fired at his car.
#In 1979, they supported the American Embassy occupation in Tehran and their operatives who were student leaders participated in occupying the Embassy.
2. Their full cooperation with Iraq’s notorious dictator Saddam Hussein and his army and intelligence service for two decades. They participated in the suppression and oppression of Kurds and Shiites in 1990 -1991 to show their loyalty to Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein.
3. Illegitimacy among Iranian people because of their military and intelligence cooperation and collaboration with Saddam Hussein’s army and intelligence service. It is helpful to know that the PMOI were utilized as informants by Saddam Hussein’s government for providing top secret military and civilian target information to Saddam Hussein’s army to use for bombardment or missile attacks during the eight years war between Iran and Iraq and in return they were receiving money and military equipment, garrisons, armoured vehicles, free passes with permission to carry guns throughout Iraq, etc. The PMOI was utterly dependent on and attached to Saddam Hussein’s government, financially and militarily. (The video tapes revealing exchanges of money and top secret information between the Iraqi side and the PMOI’s agents are available as documents.)
4. Utilizing violence and armed struggle to forward its strategy which is rejected and cursed among the Iranian people as a method. They killed and assassinated many Iranian officials as well as innocent people and bombed many places and exploded many oil pipes between 1981 and 2003.
How can a criminal organization like the PMOI, with a bloody record and hands smeared with blood, claim to be a legitimate opposition group? They are criminals and they should be tried in courts of law for their bloody past. They do not have any popularity among Iranian people at all and Iranian people in their recent protests throughout Iran, especially after Iran’s presidential election, showed that not only do they not support the PMOI as an opposition group, but rather they blame the PMOI for provoking the Iranian government to use violence against their peaceful protests and demonstrations. How can Iranian people accept a violent religious cult (PMOI) which did not have mercy even upon its own members and their families, as an opposition group? The Iranian people deserve to have freedom and real democracy and they are struggling to gain them in the best way possible, so how can the Iranian people, who are intelligent, politically savvy, smart and experienced, relinquish and renounce freedom and democracy which they are struggling to achieve, and cave in to a violent and treacherous cult which through its cultic ideology and destructive politics would bring more captivity, misery and catastrophe for them?
The PMOI is a dangerous criminal cult and the only thing that they are thinking of is gaining power by all and any means and nothing else.
The Iranian people have chosen their way – peaceful protest – of retrieving their freedom and democracy.
In conclusion, the PMOI does not have the slightest chance in Iran’s future politics, so the PMOI leaders and operatives should wake up and stop dreaming and see the reality on the ground. Still, the question which comes to every right thinking person’s mind is “how can a bunch of criminals whose hands are smeared with the blood of Iraqi and Iranian people have such a claim?
Clearly we need to look beyond the Iranian people to answer this particular question.
Respectfully,
Hassan Piransar, Paris, a critic of Rajavi’s Cult