Opinion

Why Is Ottawa Demonizing Iran's Opposition?

At a boisterous Paris protest, the weirdness of Canada's stance is on full display.

By Terry Glavin, 5 Jul 2010, TheTyee.ca

Iranian-Canadians at a Paris rally

Iranian-Canadians at Paris rally against Iran's regime.

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Iran's ruling mullahs say it's a cult of assassins. The U.S. State Department says it's a front for a shadowy Iranian terrorist group. But the National Council of the Resistance in Iran can count hawks from the George W. Bush era and European socialists among its strongest supporters, and the star attractions a boisterous NCRI rally here in Paris on June 28 included several Canadian MPs.

The NCRI gathering, which drew about 30,000 Iranian exiles from around the world, was more like an outdoor rock concert than a political rally. Jean Bouin Stadium in Taverny, a Paris suburb, was transformed into a sea of mauve hats and mauve sun umbrellas. Against a big-screen backdrop, the warm-up acts included speeches from former Algerian prime minister Ahmed Ghozali and former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar.

It was as surreal as it was spectacular. MP Rob Oliphant (Don Valley West), a soft-spoken United Church minister, chatted amiably offstage with John Bolton, the famously combative Iraq war enthusiast and former U.S. representative to the United Nations. NCRI president Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI's enigmatic president (some say her husband Masoud, the NCRI's official leader, may be dead), hovered overheard in a helicopter while European politicians delivered their speeches. When she finally ascended the stage, the crowd roared with euphoria.

The Iranian theocracy, terrified of the NCRI, reacted quickly to the Paris rally. At a regime-approved demonstration on Monday at the French embassy in Tehran, hundreds of Khomeinist demonstrators demanded French President Nicholas Sarkozy arrest the NCRI leaders and send them back to Iran for trial.

The NCRI is the best organized and most tightly disciplined Iranian opposition network in the world, and Canadians have been at the forefront in supporting the NCRI. But the largest component of the NCRI coalition, the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI), is listed as a terrorist group in both the U.S. and Canada.

Canada joins a growing club

Any day now, U.S. troops and U.N. guards are expected to pull out of Camp Ashraf in Iraq, where about 3,000 PMOI members have been stranded for several years. Last year, 11 Ashraf inmates died when Iraqi troops stormed the camp on orders from Iran's friends in the Iraqi government, so the PMOI's prospects at the moment look exceedingly grim.

Still, the mood in NCRI circles is guardedly optimistic these days. The U.N. has now approved sanctions against Tehran, and parliamentary majorities in 23 democracies have lately come out in support of the NCRI and the Mojahedin. Canada has just joined that club.

In Paris, Raymonde Folco (Laval -- Les Isles) and Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East) brought news that 155 Canadian MPs -- a parliamentary majority -- had just signed a petition demanding that the U.N. and the U.S. maintain protection of Camp Ashraf.

The British government and the European Parliament have granted the NCRI and the Mojahedin a clean bill of health, and the U.S. State Department's designation is being challenged in the U.S. courts. Canada's listing of the Mojahedin as a terrorist entity is expected to be reviewed later this summer.

"Now that we have a groundswell of support, I think we'll be able to work with like-minded people to get them de-listed," Ratansi said.

If the PMOI is struck from Ottawa's terrorist blacklist, Canada will be in a position to openly support the NCRI and formally intervene at the U.N. on behalf of the Camp Ashraf inmates.

For MP Pablo Rodriguez (Honoré-Mercier) the Mojahedin's terrorist designation is both bogus and irrelevant: "My family were political refugees from Argentina a long time ago. The people at Camp Ashraf are refugees, and we have to demonstrate our solidarity. We have to make clear that we will not tolerate human rights abuses in Iran, so it's right to be here."

Said Oliphant: "Canada needs an independent foreign policy, and we need to think very carefully about what we mean when we define something as a terrorist group. This isn't a terrorist group. This is a group that is struggling for freedom. They're on the front lines of the struggle for democracy in Iran. They're anti-violence."

'The situation looks very perilous'

Former Alberta MP David Kilgour, a long-time friend of the NCRI and an honoured guest at the weekend gathering, said Canada's de-listing of the PMOI would allow Ottawa to at least get out of the way of the NCRI's pro-democracy mobilization. "It's complicated, but as far as I'm concerned the criticism you hear about the NCRI and the People's Mojahedin -- it's all nonsense." Kilgour served as the master of ceremonies at an NCRI event in Paris last year that drew close to 90,000 people.

It was a long and winding road that ended up with the Mojahedin stranded at Ashraf in Iraq. Its twists and turns included a secret French pact with Tehran that freed French hostages kidnapped by Hezbollah, the Bill Clinton administration's efforts to appease Tehran by demonizing and isolating the PMOI, and the Mojahedin's own mistake in siding with Saddam Hussein during the bloody Iran-Iraq war of the early 1980s.

Where that road leads now, however, is anyone's guess.

"The situation looks very perilous," said David Matas, a Winnipeg refugee-rights lawyer who has been helping the NCRI find international-law protections for the Camp Ashraf Mojahedin.

Although the PMOI emerged as an Islamic-Marxist insurgency during the revolutionary fervour in Iran in the 1960s, the group renounced violence in 2001. Paradoxically, despite the U.S. designation of the PMOI as a terrorist group, the U.S. State Department later declared the Camp Ashraf Mojahedin to be protected refugees under the Geneva Conventions.

"None of this makes any sense," Matas said. "If a Canadian court ever looked at the PMOI terrorist designation, my best guess is that it just wouldn't stand up. Canada has no excuse for this."

'Canada could be very helpful'

The very least the world's democracies should do is make things less difficult for the NCRI, the main Iranian opposition group, and harder for the regime's agents around the world, the NCRI's friends and supports say.

"Canada could be very helpful," Alireza Jafarzadeh, the Iranian-American engineer who was instrumental in exposing Iran's ambition to build a nuclear bomb, told me.

Canada has been among the Iranian regime's most vocal critics at the U.N., but Ottawa is shooting itself in the foot in the way it handles its relations with the Iranian opposition. Jafarzedeh reiterated the routine complaint from Iranian-Canadians that Khomeinist agents have been using the Immigrant Investor Program to come and go freely from Canada while pro-democracy Iranian exiles are commonly denied refugee status owing to their associations with the PMOI.

Author of The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis, Jafarzadeh said Iran's democratic opposition isn't asking Canada or anyone else for guns or money. "But Canada can help make the regime pay for its non-compliance. Let the Iranian people decide how to overthrow the regime, but remove all the roadblocks." [Tyee]

Victoria-based Terry Glavin is an occasional columnist for The Tyee.

12 Comments:

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  • zalm

    1 year ago

    Whaaaa?

    A strange article with some inconsistencies.

    Why is it strange that the US still has this group listed as a terrorist organization, but have extended it Geneva protections while in camp in Iraq? Because they've not designated them enemy combatants, nor are they held on US-leased soil. The US is also being very careful about what they do in Iraq so they don't run afoul of any more bad press than they have to.

    As an Islamic-Marxist insurgency, isn't that reason enough for Harper to ban it? It's what he's done with every other similar organization.

    And last but not least, State says it's not a group to be trusted, but GW Bush does? How far down the rabbit hole is that?

    Honestly, what's going on here? Is this a bizarre form of whitewash? The Iranian rebellion needs all the help it can get, but this group merely looks like another bunch of privileged Zahedi zealots.

    The only voice to be trusted in this whole article is David Matas' and even he's not sticking his neck out for any more than human rights for those held as virtual POWs in Iraq.

    More information, please. Accurate preferred.

  • zalm

    1 year ago

    Someone's not listening

    "Let the Iranian people decide how to overthrow the regime, but remove all the roadblocks"

    But here, debka notes that the US and Israel are preparing to invade Iran, probably to destroy the nuclear program, and Iran's taking the threat seriously and moving troops and equipment.

    http://www.debka.com/ . Three articles right there on the home page. See for yourself.

    I guess nobody's going to wait for the NCRI to do the job - Israel wants it done NOW.

  • RickW

    1 year ago

    In a nutshell........

    .........Canada and the West in general do not back (in any concrete way) organizations bent on overthrowing extant governments. The reason? Because they all live in fear that they themselves will face that possibility one day.

  • Fiat lux

    1 year ago

    They also fear that any such

    They also fear that any such government change may not be "investor friendly"

    Just watch how they would back uprisings by the investor friendly, demanding more "wealth creating foreign investment" to buy up their countries.

    Ed Deak.

  • alisadeq

    1 year ago

    NCRI - PMOI

    PMOI (Iranian Mujahedin) is an Iranian organization with 45 years of history of resistance. I recommend you read their principles and history before passing any judgement. They advocate democratic principles.

    You can read about NCRI here: www.ncr-iran.org

  • Jerry Munro

    1 year ago

    The Lions and the lambs...

    "The reason? Because they all live in fear that they themselves will face that possibility one day." RickW.

    Much truth here from virtually all commenters to the lead-in article. But especially Zalm's warning that The Evil Empire and Israel are already well advanced in plans to invade Iran... The US before it is ignominiously driven from the region ahead of its own economic collapse, seeking to do what the British Empire did as its Empire collapsed; leave behind the seeds of future instability and conflicts, and a state of ongoing dependency in the region... and, not least, an all powerful regional and dependent surrogate... Israel, serving the western imperialist interest.

    Whether it will actually work again this time or not, we shall just have to see.

    I can recall back at the time of the beginning of the US Empire invasion of Iraq, regional scholars in the US and abroad predicting that before this current imperialist phase was over, the entire Middle East region was of greatest likelihood to be in flames. Which, with events in Pakistan and elsewhere, plus here around the planned invasion of Iran, is looking more and more the greater likelihood indeed.

    As I wish for this country, I wish for the Middle East: that it be allowed to sort out its own present and determine its own future, free of foreign interferences. In the interests of which agenda, for them and ourselves, the best resolution of the current period would be the defeat of both the US Empire and its surrogate, Israel, frankly. Both humbled in such a manner would go a long way to serving our long term interests as well. (Even though we would still have a wounded and dangerous lion on our doorstep, it will be one much objectively and strategically weakened.

  • fanshaw

    1 year ago

    If

    If this is a left-wing organization the West will only support and use them until they can be replaced.

  • wanderingraven

    1 year ago

    The whole idea of banning

    The whole idea of banning organisations because they are 'terrorist' sounds high minded at first, but it paints governments into a corner.

    Having demonised organisations as terrorist, governments can't pursue practical political solutions with these same organisations when circumstances warrant.

    Curiously among the countries throwing around the word terrorist most freely are countries founded by 'terrorism', the US and Israel, though they described their founding insurgencies using different terms.

  • zalm

    1 year ago

    Oh, how I wish that were true

    ".........Canada and the West in general do not back (in any concrete way) organizations bent on overthrowing extant governments."

    Surely you don't mean that, RickW! HAve you alrday forgotten Canada's own regime change in Haiti in 2003 with the Ottawa Initiative to encourage regime change in Haiti, and lo-and-behold, within a year, Aristide was out, and Canada was the very first to support the interim government.

    That's just the latest of Canadian-led involvement in regime change around the world. There are other examples, of countries more experienced at regime change encouraging it in nearly every country that's not a member of the G-20.

  • zalm

    1 year ago

    alisadeq

    Nobody is condemning NCRI-PMOI. But they've attracted some very strange company which is quite out of character for an agency founded on M-L principles and claiming care for the common weal. This is suspicion enough that they are being used as a tool by imperialist powers such as former US governments and other fascist states in the world bent on domination of other states.

    I'm sure they're trying to navigate the labyrinth as best they can, but this article is absolutely no help in helping us commoners understand the problems they have. It oversimplifies the grounds of their struggle, the quotes are definitely cherry-picked, and the conclusion of the article is one-sided. I'd rather watch Rick Steeves explain the Iranian people to me.

    I'm no fan of Ahm-a-dinner-jacket, but I understand the principles behind the original revolution, and abandoning them wholesale for a return to supposed "Western Values" is another Afghani quagmire this world can ill afford. There is a third way. I'm just not quite sure which way to go to find it.

    Interestingly, after I submitted my original comment, I saw who wrote the article (pretty unobservant, huh?), and immediately regretted not saying everything I wanted to say, coming down with both boots on the writer, who is educated enough to know better, but has a blind spot in the Middle East as large as his hind end, and an oculus with which to view the world in the same spot.

    But don't believe me. See for yourself, straight from the horse's...er... mouth.

    http://afghanistan-canada-solidarity.org/

  • samuidave (not verified)

    1 year ago

    talk from the Empire and its lacky's...

    ...about democracy, sovereignty, terrorism and such is rarely matched by their actions. The Leviathan will do what it wants until something brings it down.

    Some of the most horrific regimes in the world have been supported by US hegemonic ambitions provided they remained compliant with American ambitions. Here, like dozens and dozens of other cases -- whether it be an organization, regime or government -- one's support for freedom or democracy or human rights is 100% immaterial but for propaganda purposes.

    America is physically gearing up to bomb Iran as we speak:

    ""They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran," according to Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London. "US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours," he said. "The firepower of US forces has quadrupled since 2003," accelerating under Obama....

    The increasing threats of military action against Iran are of course in violation of the UN Charter, and in specific violation of Security Council resolution 1887 of September 2009 which reaffirmed the call to all states to resolve disputes related to nuclear issues peacefully, in accordance with the Charter, which bans the use or threat of force."

    http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20100702.htm

    Canada can say many things, but when NATO or the UN say we are going in -- regardless of how absolutely illegal, unwarranted, immoral or destructive the invasion may be -- Canadians are there to offer help, and the nation insists we all be proud of our noble killers costumed as soldiers.

  • RickW

    1 year ago

    zalm

    Dumping Aristide was not regime change -- it was regime restoration. Just like the killing of Chile's Salvador Allende. I suppose though, that I should amend my blanket statement, and emphasize that Canada, like the rest of the west, always favours right-wing dictatorships. I suyspect it might be called penis envy.......

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