Self-Sacrifice (26 page)

With 8,000 Iraqis killed in 2013 in almost constant terrorist outrages, Maliki’s answer was a system of secret prisons, mass executions, torture and repression. His sectarian dictatorship was driving Iraq relentlessly towards civil war. And yet Maliki had been the preferred choice of the US State Department. The PMOI and NCRI began a big campaign in the US to condemn Maliki’s policies and to convince Washington to distance itself from him. In September and October 2013, before Maliki’s trip to Washington, the Congress, Senate and many distinguished Americans condemned this visit and urged Obama to put pressure on Maliki to release the seven hostages.

The Iranian community turned up in their thousands outside the White House during Maliki’s meeting with Obama, capturing many headlines in the media. These protests soured Maliki’s visit to Washington, and as a result he cancelled several meetings and returned to Baghdad a day earlier than scheduled.

Now others were beginning to realise that the favouring of Maliki had been a grave mistake. Maliki’s frosty welcome in Washington in November 2013 was a clear manifestation of this changing view. His reception can be compared to the warm welcome given to Massoud Barzani, President of Iraqi Kurdistan, in Turkey in November that year. Barzani was now increasingly viewed as the most important political figure in Iraq, and one who could play a key future role in ending the deadly spiral towards civil war.

The upshot of the final atrocity at Ashraf was predictable. The 42 survivors and witnesses of the 1 September massacre were quickly moved to Camp Liberty and the Iraqi authorities finally achieved their objective of seizing the property of the camp’s residents, worth millions of dollars. Buildings, vehicles, electrical goods and generators were looted. The final act of a criminal conspiracy was laid bare for all to see. Homicide, slaughter, abuse, kidnapping and robbery of
defenceless men and women, listed as asylum seekers and refugees, had all been tolerated and condoned by the UN, US and EU; this was a shameful chapter in human history and the situation was far from being resolved.

32

Interviews with PMOI Refugees in Camp Liberty, September 2014

Reza Haft Baradaran

‘My name is Reza Haft Baradaran and I was born on 24 May 1952. I graduated studying cinema from the School of Television and Cinema. I was studying French literature in 1981 when Khomeini carried out a “cultural revolution” and closed all the universities in Iran. On 22 February 1982, when I was in my office, the Revolutionary Guards and Ministry of Intelligence forces suddenly arrested me; this is despite the fact that I had ten years of experience in Iran’s state-run television. But I was also making a film with a couple of my friends that during Khomeini’s rule would never have been approved or allowed to be broadcast. We had made three long movies and a number of long documentaries, showing them in private gatherings. These films revealed how freedom lovers were tortured and murdered, and how the country’s wealth was plundered. The films also invited and encouraged people to join in protests and uprisings.

Following the 1979 revolution I came to know the PMOI very closely indeed. At the same time I also came to know Khomeini’s men who had gained control over state-run TV. The opposing behaviour of these two groups quickly made me realise that Iran’s society was heading towards a huge battle and I had to choose sides. On the one hand I saw Khomeini and his forces that had just gained power and were busy “recruiting” to consolidate their rule. They suggested I take the post of production manager of programmes aired by Channel Two (which was a very profitable post); just on one “simple” condition that involved my cooperation in identifying and annihilating dissident forces, especially PMOI supporters.

On the other hand I also had relations with the PMOI and their leader, Massoud Rajavi, who described freedom as the crown jewel and the main objective of the revolution; he sought freedom for everyone, all groups, short of taking up arms. I chose the PMOI, despite
the bloody path laid out before me. One day I witnessed the execution of pregnant women and the rape of schoolgirls on the night of their execution. The justification for this barbarity from the jailers was that these girls should not go to heaven without first having experienced the pleasures of marriage.

My choice was the PMOI because I was witnessing the Mullahs’ theocracy and intolerance and I knew it wouldn’t take long for the Iranian people to be plunged into fundamentalism. Another issue helped me make this decision even faster. From the very first days of the 1979 revolution I was approached to go as a filmmaker to Afghanistan along with a delegation of individuals hand-picked by the president and Khomeini’s office. Our secret mission was to recruit Afghan forces that would then spread Iranian influence inside Afghanistan. The Mullahs’ regime said that they would prepare non-Iranian independent reporter’s documents for me and if I was arrested I should deny everything. They proposed to give me a huge amount of money for this mission. I didn’t accept their offer, but I quickly realised that this fundamentalist entity had not only targeted the freedoms of the Iranian people, but they were also seeking to spread their malign influence to other countries. Very soon an organisation was formally established by Khomeini’s regime and given the name of “Supporting Liberation Movements”. Witnessing such things convinced me that the only solution was the PMOI.

As I have said, in February 1982 I was working at the Network 2 TV station when IRGC and plainclothes agents of the Ministry of Intelligence suddenly raided my office, arresting me in front of my colleagues, yelling that my crime was buying and selling narcotics. I was immediately blindfolded and taken to the torture chambers of Ward 209 in Evin Prison, where I was placed on a torture bed, which I had read and heard a lot about but I had no experience of. Therefore I could see with every single cell of my body how inhumane this fundamentalist ideology was.

At first they began hitting my bare feet and other parts of my body with hoses so my skin would become swollen, and then they used electric cables which had open wires so that my swollen skin would rupture and my muscles would literally spill out and my bones would be exposed. When they brought my pregnant wife and one
and a half-year-old daughter to the torture room to put more pressure on me, I came fully to understand the line of separation that had been traced between the PMOI and Khomeini’s evil ideology. With my swollen feet so badly bruised that it was almost impossible to walk, nevertheless they made me carry my baby daughter and forced me to walk around the torture room, hoping that I would stumble in pain and fall. Under such torture it wasn’t important for them what I had done or had not done. However, their hysterical hatred against the PMOI and Massoud Rajavi himself was astonishing for me to see.

I was transferred from solitary confinement to the general ward (each room was 6 x 6 metres with 130 inmates in Ward 2 of Evin Prison, 2nd floor, room 5). Seeing the diverse social background of those arrested made me realise why the IRGC was so hysterical in their hatred. From university professors, freedom-loving military personnel, administrative employees, engineers, workers, small business traders and a widespread spectrum of college and high school students, they all represented the broader social hatred toward Khomeini’s regime. Khomeini came to realise that the only way to remain in power was to fill this social void with brutality and repression.

I was sentenced to five years in jail. However, I was released three years later as a result of a huge bail paid by my family through an intermediary. Following my release from prison, having two small daughters, housing and financial problems kept me busy for some time. They had denied me the right to work and no private firm would dare to hire me. Finally, with the help of my friends, I was able to afford the cost of leaving the country through the mountains, going first to Turkey and then to the bases of the National Liberation Army of Iran inside Iraq. In the course of this escape I was ambushed no fewer than nine times by the Mullahs’ regime forces, but each time I miraculously survived.

I later sent my two little girls, 11 and 9 years old, abroad so that their lives would not be compromised because of me and so they would find their own paths. This was probably one of the hardest decisions of my life. Two children whom I had so many big dreams for, I was now leaving in the hands of fate. On 22 October 1992, I saw that my little girl, Saba, had followed her older sister’s path just
a few months later and joined the PMOI and come to Ashraf. It was like someone had given me the world.

I truly loved Saba. She had been brought to prison 40 days after she was born and remained in prison until she was about two years old. The day I saw her in Ashraf was amazingly refreshing, but little did I know that a very hard test was on the horizon. On 8 April 2011, I had plans to see my older daughter and say happy birthday to her. However, from the very early hours of that day Maliki’s forces began to attack Ashraf under orders from the Iranian regime and made my wishes vanish into thin air. I was informed that my little girl, Saba, had been shot in the leg and that I must accompany her to a hospital in Baghdad. When I saw her I realised how dangerously injured she was. She was losing a lot of blood. They could have taken her to a hospital much sooner and with simple surgery they could have saved her life. But they didn’t, and they made me and her choose between Saba’s death and succumbing to the Iranian regime’s demands of leaving the PMOI.

There was a surprising level of coordination between the Iraqi doctor at the Ashraf hospital and the Iraqi security forces. The Iraqi officer, by the name of Major Yaser, turned a simple 90-minute trip to Baghdad into a 14-hour wait. He and another intermediary came to me to say that if I chose to separate myself and my daughter from supporting “Rajavi” they would let my daughter undergo surgery at the best hospital in Baghdad and then we would be sent to any country we wanted, the US, France or any other European country. Just separate yourself from “Rajavi”, they said. Their message was very clear and so was the decision made by Saba and I; I told the Iraqi officer that we are guests in your country and we don’t want anything special, just take us to the hospital soon, please. Saba summoned all of her remaining energy before she died and said, “Dad, why didn’t you punch him in the face so that he wouldn’t dare to repeat what he said?”’

33

Paris

The first big PMOI Rally I attended was in June 2007. It was held in a huge aircraft hangar near Paris. The PMOI stage a mass annual rally every June, and the momentum gradually built up over the years so that now they attract over 100,000 ex-pat Iranians from around the world. The list of speakers is formidable, with former Prime Ministers, ex-Presidents, parliamentarians, senators, congressmen and women, former US State Governors, former FBI and CIA Chiefs, military generals and renowned international celebrities. Addressing an audience of this size can be a daunting and exhilarating experience.

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Vice President of the European Parliament, accompanied me to my first PMOI Rally in 2007. At this time there were around 50,000 supporters in attendance, and as we approached the venue in Villepinte, north of Paris, we could see row after row of buses filling all of the surrounding car parks and even spilling out onto the hard shoulder of the nearby Autoroute. Inside, the vast hall had been decked out with banners, flags, balloons and streamers and giant screens and loudspeakers conveyed the speeches to the excited audience. Alejo and I watched bemused as film footage was screened of heavily armed and uniformed PMOI soldiers marching and riding on tanks dating back to the 1990s when they had a conventional army in Iraq. There were resounding cheers from the audience at the warlike messages that accompanied these films.

Alejo and I were surprised. We were fighting on several continents to have the PMOI removed from terrorist lists, arguing that this was a legitimate, peaceful opposition movement, and here they were publicly celebrating their military past, which could have been misused to keep the PMOI on the blacklists. We raised this with the NCRI and argued that it was counterproductive. The 2008 rally and all subsequent rallies to date have been entirely free of all military overtones. Our advice was being taken on board.

Alejo and I have been regular attendees at these gigantic rallies ever since. It is deeply frustrating when we encounter politicians and civil servants who tell us that the PMOI is irrelevant as an opposition movement and has no support within Iran. We point to the 100,000 Iranians who come to Paris every year and remind them that all of these people have extended families back in Iran that could number over one million. We also have to challenge such ignorance by reminding them that support for the PMOI carries the mandatory death penalty in Iran, and it is therefore hardly surprising that there are no mass opposition rallies in Tehran and other Iranian cities. A look at the demography of Iran and the composition of the exiled Iranians who take part in the PMOI rallies, shows that this movement has a good base of support amongst the middle classes and the people living in cities and urban areas of Iran.

These annual rallies in Paris are incredibly well-organised. The countless speeches by renowned political leaders are beamed into Iranian homes from the PMOI’s own satellite TV network, itself strictly illegal under the Mullahs’ repressive regime. Many people have been executed simply for donating money to keep this TV station going. Unquestionably, Mrs Rajavi leads a most formidable, well-organised and well-funded opposition movement, with a manifesto that I would be happy to stand for election under. Over the years, Mrs Rajavi and foreign affairs spokesman Mohammad Mohaddessin have both become fluent English-speakers. Recalling their limited ability to speak English when we first met, this has been a truly remarkable achievement and a sign of their relentless quest for excellence.

On Saturday 23 June, 2012, the PMOI held its largest ever gathering outside Iran in the enormous Parc des Expositions halls at Villepinte, north of Paris. Around 100,000 participated in the rally. I took part in similar events in the same place in 2013 and 2014. Typically, at these annual events, more than 500 prominent political personalities, parliamentarians and jurists from 40 countries and five continents are present. More than 1,300 coaches are chartered to bring participants from throughout Europe to the venue. Speakers from the US usually include people like former Democratic Party Chairmen, Governor Howard Dean and Governor Ed Rendell, former US Ambassador to the UN, Governor Bill Richardson, Congressman (1995-2011) Patrick
Kennedy, former New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hugh Shelton, Senator Joe Lieberman, Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and President Obama’s first Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, Philip J. Crowley. Also the rally is usually attended by a large group of American officers who were based in Ashraf after the US invasion of Iraq, including Colonel Wes Martin.