President Holland will never invest on a bankrupt terrorist cult like MKO
An opportunist organization as Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK mostly considers an expressed condolence or congratulation a productive investment it expects a return and usually expects better than what it has initially invested. Keeping silent in the course of the French presidential campaign, as the winner was unclear, Maryam Rajavi hastened to congratulate the victory of Francois Hollande, the Socialist Party’s candidate, as the elected President. Of course, some question may raise that why she never congratulated Nicolas Sarkozy when he was elected at his time while his rival, Segolene Royal, received Rajavi’s congratulation on her victory as the Socialist Party’s candidate for the 2007 French presidential elections.
In June 2003, French police raided the MKO’s properties, including its base in Auvers-sur-Oise, under the orders of anti-terrorist magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, after suspicions that it was trying to shift its base of operations there, and 160 suspected MKO members, including Maryam Rajavi, were then arrested. In response, 40 supporters began hunger strikes to protest the arrests, and some committed self-immolation in various European capitals that left two burned to death. The French Interior Minister at the time was Nicolas Sarkozy who declared that, according to a BBC report, MKO “recently wanted to make France its support base, notably after the intervention in Iraq”, while Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, head of France’s domestic intelligence service, claimed that the group was “transforming its Val d’Oise center [near Paris]… into an international terrorist base”. To purge itself of the stigma of the terrorist and cultist charges for which is still under the scrutiny and investigation of French police, MKO has attempted to represent a different presence of its stay in Auvers-sur-Oise by arranging a variety of banquets, parties and ceremonies to congratulate some or pay respect to some passed away.
Although it was not so hard a time for MKO during Sarkozy’s presidency, as he was moving on an antagonistic path and bellicose foreign policy against Iran, MKO expected no favor from him as he had already expressed his position concerning the group and was completely au fait with the terrorist and cultic threat MKO carried. But the group’s opinion about the elected President Hollande is different. MKO celebrated and congratulated President Hollande’s victory as if a gained victory of its own. Maybe that is because he is from the Socialist Party, a social democratic political party in France and the largest French center-left party. It is totally different from Marxist-left with which MKO has a close affinity but for the group, the left is left notwithstanding its innate ideology that disrespects pro-democratic standards, a long proven fact within the organization.
The challenging crises MKO are faced at the present push it to grab at any promising outlet out of them. Its deadline to vacate Camp Ashraf is nearing its end and still uncertain destiny looms before the settled residents at Temporary Transit Location TTL. No third country has yet agreed to receive them, even the very same European countries of the EU members that have already delisted the group from the terrorist list. Stationing its second headquarters in France, MKO naturally prefers to have most of its expelled members resettled in France but the restrictive nature of French immigration policy is making it one of the toughest countries amongst the countries of Europe to receive more refugees from the terrorist cult. But the greater impediment, as MKO concludes, is its inclusion in the US terrorist list that the organization believes to be removed sooner if a country like France exerts its influence.
Then, the priorities of solving the predicament of refugees and a France interceding to be removed from the terrorist list are what MKO expects the newly elected president above all. The hope is built on the facts that at least the restrictive immigration regulations and policies are close to the heart of the new President who is himself born of an immigrant family and because he is from a left party which in term is somehow similar to the one the group is innately inclined to.
But, has the new President demonstrated any naivety to hearten the terrorist cult? Although the European countries have shown more flexibility in dealing with MKO, but at times have made it very tough for the group. France, proven to be a leading proponent for tougher, more unified immigration policies across Europe, considers the county’s interests, political or apolitical, and security a priority for the accomplishment of which it even easily sacrifices trifles like MKO that sometimes forgets on the serious scene of politics it plays no real, weighty role but a half-served chip. For certain internal and external reasons, President Holland will never invest on a bankrupt terrorist cult like MKO.
