In the new P.R. show of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization(the MKO), the self- appointed president of the National Council of Resistance ,Maryam Rajavi on Wednesday 5 December,
AFP quotes from Rajavi as saying that “The West’s biggest error has been to ignore the key movement for change in Iran,” referring to her so-called “resistance” which is the political arm of the cult-like Mujahedin khalq group.
The wife of the disappeared leader of the MKO, addressed a group of 10 French deputies at France’s National Assembly. France government has no official contact with the group, although the MKO’s propaganda base is located in the suburb of Paris.
Rajavi claim that “only solution in Iran is a change of regime by the Iranian people”. She asked France and the European countries to “remove obstacles on the path of the resistance" and to support ”a democratic change in Iran.” This way, she introduces her cult as the alternative of the Iranian government. During the meeting, former US congressman, Patrick Kennedy –definitely well funded by the MKO’s propaganda – told the conference that Maryam Rajavi “seeks to bring democracy and human rights to her country,” reported Reuters.[2]
Maryam Rajavi to bring democracy and human rights?!
Actually, the "cult of Rajavi" is described by the State Department as “fundamentally undemocratic “and “not a viable alternative to the current government of Iran”.[3]
“Internally the Mujahedin run their organization autocratically, suppressing dissent and eschewing tolerance of differing viewpoints,” the DOS report said.
Massoud Rajavi, the disappeared ideological leader of the MKO ” has fostered a cult of personality around himself,” according to the DOS report.[4]
As AFP reports, the MKO seeks Syrian style recognition. France as the Western power to recognize Syria’s opposition coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people. [5]
One thing is sure! The MKO does not represent the Iranian people. Rajavi suggests “a change of regime by the Iranian people “. What does she mean by the “Iranian people” who would support her “resistance”?
Jeremiah Goulka, is an American expert on the MKO. He is one of the authors of the famous RAND report on the group. Goulka explains how the MKO lost its support among Iranian public: "Once upon a time, the MEK did enjoy some measure of popular support in Iran. But after getting shoved aside by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s party after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the MEK spent the next two decades launching terrorist attacks against the new regime and its military, harming bystanders in several instances. The MEK joined sides with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), moving to camps in Iraq in 1986 and fighting against Iranian conscripts. Frustrated that Saddam failed to install it in power in Tehran by the end of the war, the MEK attempted its own invasion of Iran (using more of Saddam Hussein’s military munificence), resulting in the death of thousands of its members. These acts destroyed the MEK’s credibility among Iranians. Trapped in the Iraqi desert, the group’s leaders transformed the MEK into a cult after the failed invasion—engaging in such practices as mandated divorce and celibacy, sleep deprivation, public shaming, separation of families, and information control—and continued its terrorist attacks in Iran. “[6]
Jason Rezaian a Foreign Policy correspondent who has a ten- year experience of traveling to Iran and writing about it for a mostly American audience points out how the MKO leaders are detached from the reality of the Iranian society,” for many people in Iran, though, especially those who remember the early years after the 1979 revolution, the MEK has come to represent an evil much more toxic that the American view of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda”, he writes.[7]
The deep antipathy among the Iranian population against the MKO has even led many of previous sympathizers of the group to hide or deny their past links with it. Being extremely unpopular in Iran, the MKO’s dream for regime change in Iran can never be peaceful as its leaders claim. “The MEK may deny wanting violent regime change, but the only conceivable way it would become the next government in Tehran would be at the head of a US invasion force,” Jeremia Goulka suggests.[8]
The words of Maryam Rajavi addressing French deputies are helpful to testify how much the MKO leaders are mastered in their puffed-up propaganda campaign. The world community should know that they are never “representatives” of Iranian people but definitely enemies of them.
By Mazda Parsi
References:
[1] AFP, Iranian opposition seeks Syria-Style recognition, December 5, 2012
[2] Reuters, Iranian dissidents and French lawmakers urge new policy on Iran, December 5, 2012
[3] Engel, Richard Windrom, Robert, Israel trams with terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, US officials tell NBC News, NBC News, February 9, 2012
[4]ibid
[5] AFP, Iranian opposition seeks Syria-style recognition, December 5, 2012
[6]Goulka, Jeremiah, The cult of MEK, The American Prospect, July18, 2012
[7]Rezaian, Jason, Washington’s dangerous (and deluded) support for the MEK, Foreign Policy, March1, 2011
[8]Goulka, Jeremia, The cult of MEK, The American Prospect, July18, 2012