NCRI om relationen mellan Folkets mujahedin (PMOI) och Saddam Hussein

Onsdagen den 21 januari 2009 höll företrädare för Irans nationella motståndsråd (NCRI) en presskonferens i Stockholm. Två representanter för NCRI deltog: Mohammad Mohaddessin (till vänster i bilden), ordförande i NCRI:s utrikeskommitté, och Perviz Khazai (till höger i bilden), NCRI:s representant i de nordiska länderna.

Vid presskonferensen ställdes en fråga om relationen mellan den iranska motståndsgruppen Folkets mujahedin (PMOI) och Saddam Hussein.

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Question (Michael Winiarski, DN):

Talking about dictatorship. During many years you were working together with Saddam Hussein and you were financed by his money and even fighting in the war together with Saddam against Iran and against the Kurds and so on. What is your view on that today?

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Mohammad Mohaddessin:

It is a reality that a part of PMOI was established in Iraq in 1986. First of all, our headquarter was in Paris between 1981 and 1986. Jacques Chirac became Prime Minister in 1986. He had a dirty deal with the Iranian regime; PMOI's leaders and PMOI's members were to be expelled from France and French hostages held by Hezbollah in Lebanon were to be released. Because of this deal, our leader and a part of our movement were forced to leave France at that time.

I was involved in this case from first date and I am aware of all details. Before we went to Iraq, we obtained guarantees from the Iraqi government and other regional parties including the King of Jordan, late King Hussein bin Talal, that Iraq would respect our independence and our independent policies and independence in every area. This was our attitude when we went to and stayed in Iraq.

During our stay in Iraq between 1986 and 2003 we didn't intervene in Iraqi affairs and the Iraqi government didn't intervene in our affairs. The record of this issue is available for everybody who wants to look at it.

When the Americans came to Iraq in 2003, they gathered all of our people in Iraq in Camp Ashraf, our biggest camp in Iraq. US officials investigated all individuals in that camp for 16 months, from April 2003 until July 2004, and there was no charge against even one member of PMOI in Iraq. I refer to an article in the New York Times 27 July 2004 by the journalist Douglas Jehl who is quoting senior American officials. They interrogated all members, all people there, for all allegations you referred to about killing of the Kurds and Shiites, cooperating with Saddam Hussein and getting money from Saddam Hussein.

From the first day the PMOI went to Iraq until the day Saddam Hussein passed, this was a period of about 16-17 years, PMOI did not get even one dollar from Saddam Hussein. We have all the documents; we even paid for electricity; we paid for water; we paid for every single good which we used. We said from the beginning to the Iraqi government that we only need your land.

It is absolutely false that PMOI participated in the fight with Iraqi troops. There are no indications that PMOI did so. Regarding the Kurds and the Shiites: We have the best relation with Shiites in Iraq; 3 million Shiites signed a petition supporting PMOI. In 1999, Mr Hoshyar Zebari, then head of foreign affairs of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and presently Foreign Minister of Iraq, wrote a letter to a court in the Netherlands. He wrote to the court that we, the KDP, heard in 1991 those rumors that PMOI was involved in suppression of the Kurds and Shiites. We investigated this issue and we, the KDP, were convinced that all those allegations were false; all those allegations were rumors and PMOI had done nothing against the Kurdish people, not during the uprising of 1991, nor in its aftermath. This is an official document.

The Iranian regime is and was allocating a huge amount of money and a lot of energy to discredit the opposition.

During the last six years, many parliamentarians and many other western observers have gone to Iraq and investigated the allegations. We invited openly everyone, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and so on. Many of them came to Iraq, including two members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Norwegian Parliament; Mr Lars Rise and Mr Morten Høglund went to Ashraf three years ago. A very high ranking delegation from the European parliament went to Ashraf in October 2008 and they had a very clear report about this issue. During the last six years, five delegations from the European parliament have visited Ashraf.

There is no ambiguity about this case and on behalf of our movement, I invite you and your colleagues and other European journalists from other papers and other media in this country to go to Ashraf and discuss with the people there privately. More than 1500, one third of the people in Ashraf, are speaking English. You can talk with them personally.

The allegations are part of an Iranian regime campaign. This is what even the intelligence services in Germany and Netherlands issued in their annual reports; every year since 1998 they say in their annual reports that the Iranian intelligence ministry is allocating a lot of energy in European countries to discredit the PMOI and NCRI and to gather information about these two organisations.

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Perviz Khazai:

When the war broke in Iraq you must remember that at that time Khomeini was the bad guy and was the Hitler of the region. The war was going on up to 1982 or 1983, and then the whole world wanted a peace treaty between the Iraqis and the Iranians but Khomeini wanted to continue the war and go to Jerusalem. He said the way to Jerusalem in his Mein Kampf goes through Karbala; this is the slogan of Khomeini.

You know, let's be frank, the Americans, the western countries, I'm not speaking about Sweden, they have been helping to contain Khomeini in the region. They have been helping even the other side in order to not let Khomeini invade Iraq and make an Islamic republic sister or son and then go to Jordan.

We must look at history at that time. It was only after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 that suddenly Saddam Hussein changed place and became the devil for the world. Until then everybody was praising God, Khomeini will be stopped.

The Iranian resistance went to the border and wanted to stop the war and we had made an agreement; they call it the draft of the peace between the Iranian resistance and Saddam Hussein's deputy Tareq Aziz which has been supported by 6000 parliamentarians in Europe. I have a big book on it, including many parliamentarians in Riksdagen here. In Norway, the Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland has written a letter to me: Congratulations that we have made a peace treaty between Iraq and the resistance on behalf of the Iranians.

Then we wanted to stop the war; we wanted to say to Khomeini: "No more war" but Khomeini said: "This war has to go up to Jerusalem." I don't think it is good to look at the history in a non-dynamic and very static way. You have to think about those days when Khomeini was the main enemy, was the Hitler, and he wanted to invade Iraq and go and invade the rest of the Arabic countries. At that time we, the Iranian resistance, went there and signed first the treaty with the Iraqis and said that the war is stopped. After that we declared the war illegitimate. We said that from this day when the agreement between Mr Massoud Rajavi and Tareq Aziz was signed in March 1983 in Paris, this war is illegitimate and has to stop.

But Khomeini continued this war another five years with the losses of millions of people, many cities and villages were destroyed because Khomeini wanted to go to Jerusalem through Karbala.

To look at the history in a non-dynamic way, a static way, to go only through this sort of poisonous type of things they write about the Iranian resistance, I think this is unjust. I think we have to look at it in a very dynamic way: where were we those days and why we stopped the war.

The Milorg, the military wing of the Norwegian resistance during World War II was very lucky to have Sweden as a neighbor. Where could we go? Where can the people go from Iran when they are fleeing the Iranian regime coming to the Iranian resistance; where can they go? They cannot go to Jamaica or for example to Bolivia. They have to come across the frontier as the Norwegians crossed the frontier and came to Sweden, and the Danes they did the same.

You have to look at the history in a realistic way. Khomeini wanted to continue the war until the last soldier and the last house, that was his slogan. He wanted to go and make an Islamic republic in Iraq and make an Islamic republic also in Jordan and also go to Jerusalem. We stopped it and we made Khomeini accept the peace, I mean the cease fire, and Khomeini stated that I have to drink the poison of cease fire because he didn't want to.

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Detta sades vid presskonferensen som hölls den 21 januari 2009 klockan 11:00 i CityKonFerensen/Ingenjörshuset i Stockholm.

FOFI/Sverige den 23 januari 2009

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