On the anniversary of 11 September terrorist incident, all MKO-run media have purposefully remained silent; that makes it essential to focus on its position on the incident. It is an issue of concern that while the world unanimously condemned the terrorist acts at the time and voted on a universal move to stop any further terrorist plots and still commemorates the victims, MKO has preferred to keep silent. The testimonies of the ex-members who were still in Camp Ashraf when the incident happened well reveal the strategic and ideological positions of the organization. A number of these ex-members have stated that after the incident, Massoud Rajavi’s manner of behavior had arisen in them a suspicion that the organization might have masterminded the incident. So passionate had Rajavi talked about the inhuman incident that the members had come to believe that Al-Qaeda operation team might have received their training at Camp Ashraf. In a part of his speech Rajavi was quoted to have stated:
What happened reveals only a percentage of the potentialities of an Islamic organization which has adopted the most reactionary concepts of Islam. Imagine how potential and capable our revolutionary Islam might be!
These ex-members have further stated that Rajavi had ordered to show the videotaped explosion of the Twine Towers again and again. They say that Maryam Rajavi once referred to Muhammad Ata’s will, one of the agents of the 9/11 incident, wherein he had banned women’s attendance at his tomb and stated his aversion to family and children, and said that Al-Qaeda and the perpetrators of the 9/11 incident have a far better understanding of MKO’s ideological revolution than those inside the Camp Ashraf.
The Mojahedin leadership is also quoted to have said; “We did the ideological revolution but Al-Qaeda is actually practicing it”.
Regardless of all these stated remarks, MKO’s silence and indifferent position is an indirect approbation of the terrorist act of Al-Qaeda. The fact is that an act the same as the 9/11 incident was long a deep yearning for Mojahedin. It is natural for an organization that dreamed to create another Vietnam in Iran not to hide its feeling over a Vietnamized America in spite of appealing to imperialism to muster protection. The incident was an actual test of the organization to determine its degree of sincerity towards the US it attempted to utilize to achieve its political objectives. While in a world wide propaganda MKO maneuvers on beguiling mottos of “peace”, “democracy”, and “human rights”, inside the organization it refers to these mottos as tactics to assume political power. This innate hypocrisy has even made some supporting powers to be skeptical of the group.
Years before the 9/11 incident, in a US State Department report submitted to the Congress in 1994 on "people’s Mojahedin of Iran", Mojahedin’s duality, untruth, and reversal was not a fact for the US to be unaware:
Current Mojahedin publications assert the group’s advocacy of specific guidelines for a future provisional government, including: "democracy," "peace," "love, friendship, and unity," "separation of church and state," and "recognition of private ownership and a market economy," A recent addition has been the Mojahedin claim to support the Middle East peace process. The group also stresses its commitment to the rights of women and has drafted a "NCR plan on Women’s Rights."
These claims present a revolutionary departure from the substantial written record of Mojahedin ideology. Examples of such reversals include the switch from revolutionary Islam to separation of church and state and from nationalization to private ownership. Yet the changes in MKO ideology occurred without any public debate, and there is no public record of discussion or review of Mojahedin principles. It is also unclear when each change in policy occurred, and what internal factors motivated each shift. The absence of dialogue about this critical issue of ideology contrasts markedly with the group’s earlier history of discourse.
Nor are these new claims substantiated by the record of the Mojahedin’s activities throughout the last 29 years.
The report then continues:
The Mojahedin’s credibility is also undermined by the fact that they deny or distort sections of their history, such as the use of violence or opposition to Zionism. It is difficult to accept at face value promises of future conduct when an organization fails to acknowledge its past.
In contrast to its claims of having accepted democratic parameters of the West, MKO’s indifferent position on 9/11 incident indicates its innate duality. So grave was the effect of this terrorist act on global community that it was turned into a criterion to identify other instances of terrorist acts and apparent as well as unapparent instances of advocating terrorism. For the Mojahedin who in the past shed the blood of American citizens and blasted its offices in Iran, the destruction of the Twine Towers was a relief for a long bearing grudge against the imperialism. At the same time when many innocent American citizens were being crushed under the debris of the towers collapse, Mojahedin Khalq, safe in their Camp Ashraf haven, were celebrating the incident as a fulfilled dream of seeing the doomsday of the capitalism camp. Possibly, looking at the towers’ collapse, Rajaviv was thinking of the late Mao when he said “the US is paper tiger”.
No doubt, notwithstanding its attempts to distort its past and to justify its present struggle manner, MKO is a terrorist group which believes Marxist and Machiavelli ethics are the best lead out of any problem. Al-Qaeda, unlike MKO, refuses to camouflage its strategy and ideology to meet its terrorist objectives. MKO, in contrast, because of its eclectic ideology and easily consenting to adopt destructive tenets, has the capacity of theoretical and political reconciliation under any condition. Mojahedin’s dual nature has notoriously labelled them as “the terrorists in shadow”.
Mojahedin.ws – Bahar Irani – September 26, 2006