While I was in Iraq my new masoul told me: “You are so lucky to start working in diplomatic section at this juncture, as we are progressing in all different directions.” Our arm resistance against regime was finding new shape. Iraqis had given us few military bases in different part of Iraq, where we could train our combatants in safety-umbrellas of Iraqi’s anti-aircraft. Our combatants had a uniform similar to Iranian army, green for winter and Khaki for summer, similar for all different ranks. Due to Maryam’s advice, women were going to have similar dress code as men, so they were not wearing those long dresses any more. The only difference was that, their shirt was longer and had to hang over their trousers; and instead of hat they were wearing scarf all the time. Impressing pictures of Sister Tahereh, in new military uniform, handing rifles to new trainees, made us very proud of our new army, promising many new things which were going to come. We didn’t need to wait for long to see fruits of new shape, and new tactics of our army. For the first time, on top of number of Guards killed and wounded by our army, we were having prisoners of war (POW). March 87, Maryvan in a battle twenty of Khomieni’s guards were killed and four were captured. The same month, Sardasht, tens of guards were killed and seven were captured. April 87, Sarpol-Zahab, 76 killed and in the same month, in Dehloran 35 Guards were killed and three were captured. . . . Fortunately in all those operations we didn’t have any casualty. Those who were captured could give us a lot of new information about the Iranian army. But their most important service for us was, their interview with our newly established television and other media we had, including weekly Iran-liberation. In their interviews they were saying that they had surrounded themselves voluntarily as they were tired of the war and suppression and other miseries of mullah’s rule in Iran. Also they were saying how kind Mojahedin have been with them. In this way we could show to the world, how right and wise our leader was in making peace with Iraqis. How popular Mojahedin are among army personnel. How tired Iranian are from this regime. And the last but not the least, how strong and effective is our new army. An army that few months later, as one can guess, on twentieth of June, was called by Rajavi as ‘National Liberation Army’, in short NLA. In an interview when Rajavi was numbering the characters of this new army. He mentioned that, this new army unlike other armies based on compulsion and force, is based on the understanding of its combatant and their own free will, except obeying the military discipline, nobody is forced to do anything. All Mojahedin are member of this new army, but it isn’t restricted to Mojahedin only, any body with any belief or religion can be member of it. Several months later in one of the ‘General meetings’, he repeated the something. One of our sisters a Bah’aie girl, who recently was recruited, asked him about scarf and compulsory wearing of it. Rajavi said: “this is part of military uniform,” then she asked: “how come, men can have their hat at any time they wish, while women have to have their scarf all the time, every where, especially in this hot weather, which I can tell you is not pleasant at all.” At this point Rajavi explained the belief of Mojahedin and the respect others should have for the majority of combatants who were from Mojahedin. This was the same argument against questions of those, who each morning without any exception, had to stand in front of Mojahedin’s flag and pictures of Rajavis and chant Mojahedin’s anthems. Well, as one can guess, this army couldn’t attract many non-Mojahedin people, so we never faced that sort of questions any more.

            In political scene, as a result of support for Heazbollahies in Lebanon and their hostage taking polices. Insistence in continuation of war with Iraq, and later attacking ships carrying Persian-gulf’s oil. Iranian regime was more than ever hated among western politician. Even Soviets and Eastern block, under new Secretary General, Mikhail Gorbachev, were more hesitant to support them in political scene, as vehemently as before.

            In Iraq, I was moved to a Mojahedin military base, near Baghdad which soon I found out, in addition of residence of Rajavi, that base is a base for all political sections of Mojahedin, including our Diplomacy section, Radio and Television section . . . Against my hope and expectation, Rajavi’s residence was completely isolated from other parts of the base, heavily guarded. So there was no chance for me to see him or Maryam as I wished to. Instead of that I was introduced by my new masoul, Sister Soror, to oldest brother of Rajavi, Dr. Kazam Rajavi, who in short was called by everybody as Dr. As I was going to work with him for next few years, contrary to Mojahedin’s traditions, Sister Soror praised me in front of him very much, calling me Dr., saying how effective and successful I have been in my previous positions. My relationship with Banisadr, which by now I was told, should be used in advantage of Mojahedin and against Banisadr himself.

            Dr., who was representative of NCR in International Organisations and Switzerland, was there for an NCR meeting. He was very modest, kind, polite, hard working and expert in political work. Though he was representative of the Council, as he knew and soon I found out as well, I, as representative of Mojahedin had to be in charge, and had to do every thing, and he was going to be mostly a figure head and shown in the propaganda machine of the organisation as head of delegations and representative of Rajavi in different meetings and conferences. By now I had to know that Mojahedin despite their superficial politeness and kindness, have no respect or trust, for anybody even their close families and friends. Even Rajavi himself was not exception from this rule. But still, though, I could see it as my ideological weakness, I was not able to ignore family and friendship’s love and ties. So from first meeting, I start liking Dr. not only because of his character, his charm, his modesty and his ability, but as Rajavi’s brother as well. Hence when I was warned several times by previous responsible of the same job, in front of my masoul about problems that I am going to face by working with Dr. I was astonished and surprised and somehow offended. Even one of them told me “if a Mojahed works with Dr. and find no problem, I doubt very much about him as a Mojahed.”

            After reading few thousand pages of information and reports of my predecessors in Switzerland, Belgium, and the International Organisations, within two or three weeks of my stay in Baghdad, I left the Mojahedin base for my new base in Geneva. Apart from people in Belgium, whom I was their masoul, there were two members in Geneva under my responsibility. Yaser, a very young, tall, clever boy, fluent in English and German. For sometimes he was responsible of our diplomacy in Switzerland, and knew many things about that country especially its media. So I could be confident about what we were going to do politically in that country, hence my worry was the International organisation, which was very important for the Mojahedin and, as matter of fact was the main base for all their diplomatic activities.

            Apart from Yaser, Nasser whose main responsibility was to be bodyguard of Dr. was under my responsibility and was living with us in our three bedrooms, modern, diplomatic apartment in the centre of Geneva. He was one of the old supporters of Mojahedin, Nick named as ‘Nasser Maximum’ as ‘Maximum’ was used in all his sentences, always asking for Maximum of everything. He was tall and strong, fit for doing his job. During June 1981 he was in Tehran and was telling us stories about that day, first hand stories, which one could not find them in Mojahedin’s papers. Nasser unlike Mojahedin’s supporters outside of the country was not from intelligentsia, and his character was totally different, more proletariat type, which one could be very proud of it within the organisation. He knew very little French, good for domestic use, and far from being beneficial in our diplomatic meetings. Hence apart from looking after security of Dr. I had rarely any job for him, a real worry for me. As in Mojahedin we believed: “if a Mojahed stays one minute jobless or useless, it will rotten immediately.” We had famous sentence from Rajavi, as usual benefiting from simple, unrelated, physical, or chemical, examples, to show us this law. In this case he was comparing human beings with organic chemicals and was saying: “as in chemistry, more complex materials would rotten faster. Leave a piece of butter in sunshine it will rot in few minutes, while leaving an stone for hundred years, nothing is going to happen to it.’ The same, In human beings, more complex one, certainly the most complex one, Mojahedin, are getting spoiled and corrupted faster than others if they were left unsupervised, out of their surviving atmospheres.” Our surviving atmosphere, was our bases in Iraq, were we could have collective, supervised, twenty four hour work, with full Mojahedin’s relationship in force. While now living in Geneva, one of the richest cities of the world, in a luxury apartment, good for our political activities. Three people living alone, separated from other Mojahedin, under my responsibility with my own liberal weaknesses, which I was perfectly aware of them. I had all the reason to be worried about our Ideological health, especially for Nasser whom I knew very little about what he was doing and what he should be doing.

Iranian regime, an important ‘helping hand’ in our diplomacy

As my real first diplomatic experience, by the beginning of June we had to attend International Labour conference, which was taking place every year in Geneva. In this conference few thousands people from different countries under different titles, representatives of governments, workers, employees, and NGO’s (i.e. Non Governmental Organisations) are gathering together to decide about different labour’s related issues. In our first few minutes of our presence in the United Nation’s building, while all three of us plus Dr. were waiting in the queue to get our badges for attending meetings, we heard few people talking in Farsi. In one look back, I saw ten to twenty Iranian all with look of Iranian Heazbollahies. Dark, un-ironed suit, dirty shoes. All bottomed, colourful shirts without tie. Short hair, thick dark beard. With serious, angry faces all talking loudly. Neither of us was famous, so they could not recognise us, but unfortunately Dr. was, and immediately they start saying loudly: “Monafaghin, (hypocrite, the name given to Mojahedin by the regime) he is Rajavi’s brother.” We ignored them pretending, we have not seen or heard them. But few of them left their place in the queue and came close, insulting us loudly. Dr. who was experienced in meeting them in different conferences, told us: “ignore them, for few minutes to show off in front of their fellow criminals, when their ‘flock’ moves on, they will leave us alone.” He continued: “it is not good for us to answer them back, as if we do that, we might face physical attack and as a result we lose our face here as a diplomat, and many will be frightened to talk or to meet us.” After getting our badges we start moving to meeting places. Dr.’s prediction was wrong and they start following us. Dr. said: “It seems I was wrong, these people are different, they are not among their diplomats, I think they are from those animals who attack our people in Iran and now have been ‘exported’ here as representatives of the workers.” I felt that place is not safe for Dr. and if he stays there all our energy is going to look after him, so I asked Nasser to take him to his home and explained to him the problem he might face if he stays there. Dr. agreed and left us with Nasser.

            How horrible and difficult was attending the meetings of that one month conference, and talking with different delegates, one thing was certain, I saw the worse and had enough practice which, nothing could make me worry afterwards. Thanks to presence of Dr. in first day, soon I was as recognisable as he himself. They found my name from the list of delegates, and were showing me to each other and all thirty of them attending the conference could remember my face to make work as difficult as possible. Once I had to attend a committee meeting to meet the president of the Confederation of Belgian worker’s unions. Late Mr. Hothuys, a very nice, kind old man, who was very influential among international labour unions. While I was sitting in the conference room, in visitor’s seats waiting for him, I found few behind me, talking in Farsi; in no time I found myself surrounded by the regime’s people. One of them while was showing a sham smile to everybody, sat beside me and start swearing at me, as quietly as nobody else could hear him. Immediately after I left my seat to talk to Mr. Hothuys, he followed me and when we reached Mr. Hothuys, with a mixture of English and Farsi, he told him: “Hello Mr. I am a worker. You must not see Monafaghin, You see they are enemy of people and workers.” Mr. Hothuys astonished and wondered what he is talking about, told him: “Sir, this is free country and we are free people, you cannot tell me whom can I meet and whom I can’t!” Then he asked him about the name, which he called me with? The Iranian start explaining with many difficulties to him what does ‘Monafaghin’ mean and why they are calling us with that name. In response Mr. Hothuys told him: “well I am quite prepared to hear you after my meeting with him, to see if you have anything against him and his organisation.” Iranian angry and frustrated from talking in English, while was moving his point finger up and down told him: “OK, first you meet me now, then meet Monafaghin” Hothuys while taking his calendar out of his pocket to see when he is free to meet him, told him: “well sir as you can see at the moment I am in the middle of a meeting which I am trying very hard to listen what speaker wants to say; and after that I have meeting with that gentleman, (pointing toward me). I presume, I can meet you next Tuesday, if it is all-right for you?” Iranian angry of this answer, while again was moving his finger and was leaving him, told him: “well you should know the consequence of meeting with Monafaghin, friend of a Monafegh is a Monafegh too.” He came toward me and sat beside me and again joined his friends in swearing at me. By the end of that meeting, I went toward Mr. Hothuys and together walked toward hallway. But in no time we found out those Iranian, ten by then are following us like a shadow. Mr. Hothuys a bite frightened from them told me: “look sir, what more do you want to tell me about Iranian regime, which I didn’t see it with my own eyes today. When they act like this, here in this free country, I am quite able to see what they might do in their own country. Please can we see each other another time, in a more appropriate situation; to see what can I do for you?” I left him while I was thinking how could I get rid of those people. Fortunately by then I knew how much they are terrified of losing their way in long and complicated corridors of the UN. Building and losing their Iranian bus which everyday was bringing and taking them back to embassy. So I start walking fast in different corridors where there were more people around, and in few minutes I found out that they are not following me any more.

            During that conference, Iranian regime delegates assisted me more than any body else. With their actions they were live proof of whatever I wanted to say to different delegates. The same evening which I had meeting with Mr. Hothuys, I meet him in the party of World confederation of Labour. In that meeting Mr. Hothuys with explanation of his experience to different delegates, changed me into a hero, the one who “with patience, courage, and gentleness” could stand against those “barbaric behaviour” of Iranian delegates.

            Although seeing those people around and sometimes very close to ourselves, was ideologically and mentally horrible, soon I learned how much in the past, we have benefited, in different conferences, from their presence. Their appearance, their behaviour, their arguments and reasoning were symbol of Khomieni’s ideology and way of thinking. Whenever and wherever we had a meeting we could see them close to us, insulting us with their murmuring. An act that was quite recognisable for our meeting partners. The only meeting place safe for us was the bar or restaurant during dinnertime where, they didn’t dare to come to those places as in bar they were serving alcohol, and in restaurant they couldn’t find Islamic meat. During that conference with help of Irish delegates the name of Iranian regime was moved into the ‘black list’ of International labour conference, among countries with the most violation of Labour rights. The day which representatives of ‘labours’ were going to decide about Iranian case, the representative of Iranian workers who had to respond to the ‘allegations’, didn’t show up in the committee till midnight with the hope that meeting could end without any result, or perhaps with the hope that, most delegates, especially western ones leave the committee and they will be left with those who were more sympathetic toward them. While in the meeting it was announced that they are going to have their meeting till they receive an answer from all different delegations. Eventually Iranian representative came to respond to the ‘allegations’. Immediately after start of his speech, one could hear murmuring of different delegations and following that their laugh as Iranian instead of sending one of their so called workers representative to the committees of ‘workers’ had sent their ‘employee representative’, which clearly was implying how artificial are those titles for Iranian regime and how dishonest they are toward Iranian labour unions. More interesting was the way he argued against those ‘allegations’. Pointing toward western delegates and calling them representatives of Imperialism and Zionism, insulting America and giving slogan against Imperialism. One could guess easily, the result of voting in a meeting like that with that kind of response.

            During that conference, we could meet many labour ministers from different countries, including the Jordanian one who was the chairman of the conference as well. Also I had meetings with President of International labour organisation and General secretaries of all major Labour unions. I was quick to learn that the main purpose of attending conferences like that was ‘propaganda’ and more ‘propaganda’; hence the most important fruit of our work was the number of photographs taken with the most important people present in the conference or meetings. I have to admit it did create personal incentive as well as organisation one. To see our photographs in the Mojahedin’s papers and magazines with different titles, which normally were accompanying those kinds of pictures, was quite impressive and encouraging.

            Ideologically, I knew how wrong it is to get encouraged and find incentives by seeing our own achievements or our own pictures and titles in the paper. Hence after seeing my report of this meeting and its pictures in the next issue of Mojahedin’s paper, I had to write a very long report for my masoul criticising myself for my feelings. From then on this was my main dilemma. From one hand for propaganda purpose we had to produce this kind of photographs and reports, but on the other hand we had to stop enjoying it personally. Gradually I found out this is not only my personal problem, but also all members of the organisation who somehow had to appear in our propaganda machine for different reason. The only people, who were free to have self-esteem, were leadership and members of the NCR. Perhaps saving ourselves from this suffering of conscious was the main reason that whenever we were with members of the NCR, in any meeting, happily we were asking them to be the ‘star’ of photographs or meeting.

            Whatever our personal problem was, it was not going to stop our propaganda machine benefiting from those photographs and reports. On top of everything else, our section dealing with Iraqis could benefit immensely from those photographs as well, implying how much support we have in international scene and how isolated is the regime. In our own section, we could benefit from them too. Our method was to show our ‘achievements’ among, for example American to European and encourage them to support us, and vice versa.

            I learned from our lectures that, “because of our ideological differences, we never will be able to gain the real support of western countries. Hence the main objective of our foreign policy is to neutralise their support for the regime, or at least to postpone it for as long as we can.”

Propaganda and more propaganda

With announcement of establishment of the National Liberation Army, ‘NLA’, on June twentieth, by Rajavi. To make it as a bomb-fire against the regime and a new phase in our struggle implying the overthrow of the regime in very near future. We were asked to get as much as possible coverage from the media. When they were asking us for increase in coverage, it meant that we had to have almost twice coverage as before. But how? Thanks to Yaser’s tricks we had highest amount of coverage in Switzerland. Swiss is one of the countries with highest number of papers per population, on top of that as many papers are published under different names in three different official languages of the country. Any coverage easily could be multiplied by at least three times, and even more as many local papers were copying news of main papers. Many of those papers were published in small cities and villages with circulation of few thousands. What could we accomplish by gaining coverage from those local papers, was not the issue. The number of coverage was important. Even not many people in our section were bothered about importance of the paper, its circulation, or its political weight. Yaser knew his work very well and gradually had become mastermind of gaining coverage from all local papers. He had list of all papers with their Phone and fax number, name of their foreign editors and other necessary information about them. After receiving any news he was faxing it to all of them on behalf of our office in Swiss. Following that he was calling them as an individual who reads their paper, to see if they have any news about Iranian resistance, complaining why they don’t say or have not any thing about Iran. Some times he was asking other supporters to call as well and some times he was sending them fax on behave of different individuals. His other ability was to search for more coverage, in local library. I think in this way at any time he could gain as munch as coverage he needed. But, he had learned by time, if he gains more than enough, next time he would be asked to double it. As a result he was co-ordinating his effort for gaining coverage with the amount of pressure from our centre in Baghdad.

            Wrongly I gave him a long lecture about how useless are those coverage and how and why we should go for qualitative coverage instead of quantitative ones. Hence I asked him to make some appointment for visiting foreign editors of main media. The result was disaster! Soon I found those editors are very well informed, clearly more than Yaser and me. When we were showing them our achievements in the battlefront, their main question was, “Where do you get your arms? Where are your bases for training those combatants? Who is training them? What is your relation with Iraq? What your people think about your relation with their enemy? . . . ” In no way, they were prepared to accept our word for collapse of the regime in near future. They were giving us many examples about popularity of the regime and Khomieni himself, which we could not deny them easily. German language editors mainly were interested to gain information about different factions within the regime, which by then we were denying existence of different factions as a whole and were saying all those factions are different faces of Khomieni himself and nobody in this regime is any body except Khomieni. Hence we could deduce by his death, his regime will collapse immediately. I feel at this point, when they could see, how immature is our analysis of the regime and events, hence our predication for the future. By their silence or light smile and word of thank you, were asking us to leave and perhaps in many cases not return again.

            When I asked for meeting with chief editor of Journal de Geneve, most important French language papers of Swiss, I was impressed by their welcoming procedure. First they asked if we need any body to come after us. Then when we entered into their main office, it seemed many knew, we were going there, we were accompanied to a large room, which clearly was prepared for a special guest. And then the main editor with few assistants came to visit us. At this point, we both, guest and host were embarrassed greatly, as both side learned about their mistake. They were preparing themselves to meet my cousin, previous president of Iran, while they faced me, a member of Mojahedin. Well from politeness they had to carry on with the meeting. Night before when I told my masoul about this meeting and the way they are handling it. She told me: “Now you have to believe with new operation of NLA, all politician are looking to us as next government of Iran and are behaving accordingly. Hence you have to be in offensive position and ask them why they have not given us enough coverage in the past, and had shown some favour toward the regime.” In the meeting while, I could see how wrong we are with our interpretation of our position between politician and media, but had no alternative except following the line I was given. As a result the shape of meeting changed very fast, head editor left me with the editor of the Middle Eastern countries. He starts bombarding me with the same questions about our army. On top of that he, who was very informative about NCR, and us start asking questions about ‘cult of personality’ of Rajavi, then he asked me about Banisadr and other members of the council who have left it and claimed the Council is nothing but a political cover for Mojahedin . . .

            As a result of those meetings, not only we couldn’t have any qualitative coverage. But as Yaser wanted to teach me a lesson, he didn’t do his usual job, so we didn’t have as much quantitative coverage as before.

            Fortunately, however bad was my performance in Swiss, In Belgium, thanks to Simin, a supporter who was responsible for dealing with media and politician, I was quite successful. I learned from her that for several years she was the sole responsible for all our political activities in that country. She was working full time and for two days per week was doing SW work to earn money for her political activities there. She knew all different parties and members of the parliament and the government. Though I was masoul of our members and supporters in that country, I knew very well that I have to learn many things from her. So for day or two, she was giving me lecture about political system of Belgium, what are tendencies of different parties, how different are French parties from Flemish ones. Which one is more supportive and why others are not . . . I was wondering why Simin with this amount of commitment and with her background, still is considered as supporter and not a member?! Later I was told that her problem is that she is to tied and attached to her husband and her daughter. She showed these attachments when she refused to go to Paris work there.

            In media as well, she was perfectly aware of our position among them, she knew what are their questions and past history of their relation with us. So when I had my first Television and Radio interview, and then my interviews with few papers, I didn’t face any surprise questions and they went pretty well. The only problem was that most of them instead of printing photograph of Rajavi or Maryam, as we used to ask and insist for, shamefully printed big pictures of mine, which used to be taken in the meeting. I was so embarrassed, which didn’t dare to send any of them to our centre.

Loss of a friend for nothing

By August we, all members and masouls of our diplomatic section were asked to go back to Baghdad. Over there we had a long lecture from our masoul about ‘ideological threat’ of our job. To overcome this threat, she suggested whenever we are free and have less work in our duty-country, we have to go to Iraq and stay in one of our military bases and have military training. As a result many of us except few were sent to a military base called ‘Ashraf’.

            As in few days time I had to return to Geneva for attending another conference. I was not sent there and stayed in our base for having several meetings with our masoul and other people remained there. In one of our meetings, Sister Soror our masoul received a telephone call from Ashraf base. While she was talking, we could feel something badly has gone wrong. After the end of her conversation, she told us: “It was about Hasan, It was from hospital, he is dead, he died because of ‘heat-stroke’.” She was sad and with this news all of us in the room felt cold as dead, none of us were prepared to break the silence and say or ask anything. It was neither the first time nor the last time we were hearing news of death of a friend or somebody close to us. By then we were used to this kind of news and every day we were expecting our own death here or there. Any time we were travelling we had to have cyanide capsule with ourselves, ready to be used for killing ourselves in case of plane hijacking or facing any terrorist activity or kidnapping from Regime’s terrorists. While we were attending any conferences or demonstrations we were expecting to be shot death as well. There in Iraq too we were expecting to be killed by air attack from daily attacks of Iranian fighters over Baghdad. Being killed by enemy was an honour and expected. But killed in training session and not in an accident. Because of ‘heat-stroke’! Was unexpected and not accepted. Hasan was one of the members from Britain, he start supporting Mojahedin almost the same time as I. He was famous for his modesty, patience and calm, always he was talking as quietly as hardly one could hear him. His hard working and steadfastness not only was evident to us but even for foreign diplomats and members of parliaments contacted by him. Once when he wanted to get support from one Member of Parliament for NCR’s peace plan, with the endurance that was one of his characters, he could find the member, while skiing in Alp Mountains. He got support of that surprised man without any explanation, just because of his stamina. It seems that member of parliament told him: “if all of you have this stamina, in your work, I can have no doubt that you are going to win, so I have no problem in supporting you!”

            Among army personnel we were known as ‘BACHEHAIE KHARAJ KASHVARI’ (foreign boys), not because who ever was in army came from Iran, but what they meant was that we had kept our ‘Liberal’ character and were not used to rough conditions of living in army bases. So I can imagine when Hasan was feeling heat as badly as he did, why he didn’t say so and didn’t show it till it was to late to do any thing about it. I feel if I was instead of him was doing exactly the same thing. Suffering from heat was more bearable than embarrassment of running from heat toward shadow of a tree. Especially after several lectures we had about Ideological threat we were facing and its only solution ‘to surrender ourselves to our army’s conditions, its rules and its hardships’.

            Two days later we were asked to have our military cloths for military burial of Hasan. It was my first time to attend this kind of ceremonies. We went to Karbela, first according to Moslem’s traditions, we took him to mortuary to have his ceremonial washing, we as close friend of his had to be present during washing. It was the first time I was able to see the dead body of somebody, especially somebody close to me. In no way, I think I be able to describe my feelings at that moment. It seemed all my mind, thought, feelings were frozen as frozen as body of Hasan. As I could see him close to ourselves, I was not able to accept him as dead. So in a way I was badly offended by the way the mortician was moving him to wash all his body. After that we carried him on our shoulders to the shrine of Imam Hussein, and as custom few times walked around the shrine. When we took him to near cemetery for burial, for the first time I saw the graves of many other Mojahedin killed in different battles. Now after full military ceremony for few minutes I was able to be alone with one by one of them and cry as hard as I wanted and as loud as I felt. I was not alone, many other members of our section, I presume had the same feelings as mine and were crying by the grave of one of our fellow members.

            It was very depressing and sad experience. Hasan in his will had written: “My hope and desire is to give what ever I have, and spend everything in the path of Mojahedin for establishment of the monotheism society, a society without any class, race, gender, discrimination, or any kind of exploitation, united with the whole beings. I hope one day I be able to fulfil drop of my debt to our depraved people.”

Human Rights

Attending one month conference of ‘UN. Human rights sub-committee . ‘. Did give me new experience and new understanding about issue of ‘Human rights’. As a Mojahed I had two completely different views about condemnations of violations of human rights in different countries. When the same institutions condemned executions of Shah’s ministers by the revolutionary courts of the new regime. I learned from Mojahedin that UN committees of human rights are tolls of Imperialism condemning countries that are not behaving according wish of Imperialism. At the time they were congratulating the ‘leader of the revolution’ Khomieni for being condemned by Imperialism and UN bodies, for of those executions. On the contrary, later, during past previous years when the same committees and the same American congress and president condemned executions in Iran, Mojahedin praised it and announced it as another ‘victory for the Iranian resistance’. Hence although these condemnations in our view were sham and superficial, they were essential for all our political activities.

            In those committee there were about twenty people called ‘judge’ from different countries around the world, apparently independent of their own country’s politic, to judge violations of human rights in its general form in different fields. We drafted a resolution, mentioning names of Mojahedin and Rajavi within its contents. I remember Dr. was very against it, telling us: “I like very much to see my family name in an international resolution, more than all of you, I like to see even my aunts and uncles names there too, but it is not right and it is not possible. So we are making fool of ourselves by asking something being approved.” As he had to go to Paris, he didn’t accompany us in that conference, so we could follow the line given to us from Baghdad, without arguing with him. We start seeing different judges to find a sponsor and Co-sponsor for our resolution. We knew by experience of previous years that sponsor has to be from one of the western countries, so we start meeting them one by one. Eventually the judge from Britain did accept to forward a resolution similar to one drafted by us. As it was predicated be Dr. he was not prepared to put any sentence in the resolution referring to Mojahedin or our leader’s name. For us it was essential to have those references in the resolution. This was our first step in the path of recognition by the international bodies. Eventual wish of Rajavi was to force the United Nation to hand over the seat of representative of Iranian people, to Mojahedin. Within the organisation we were always compared with the PLO and we wanted to achieve in Political scene, whatever they gained during their past struggle. Ignoring the immense fundamental differences existed between two resistances. While the sponsor of our resolution was not prepared to mention any of our references. But again thanks to Iranian regime, at the end we could have some of them. The story was that in the sub-committee when the representative of Iranian regime wanted to answer to the allegations of violations of human rights. Instead of answering them, as usual he attacked the Imperialism, American and British. But as in this committee he was not facing any country, but individuals, he had no choice except attacking and insulting the person, sponsor of the resolution. He called the sponsor of our resolution as ‘political liar’ a ‘puppet of Imperialism’, with ‘allegations without any proof’. In response, the sponsor who wanted to make his allegations documented as asked by the representative of the regime included names of our documents in the resolution (i.e. some kind of recognition for our documents and our resistance.) Voting about this resolution was interesting and educational for me as well. It was funny to see representative of Soviets, when was asked about his vote, instead of giving positive or negative or at least abstain. While sitting there, with loud voice announced ‘Absent’!! Immediately the whole meeting burst into laughing. We knew from past experience that their vote and all Eastern block’s vote always for our resolutions is abstain, but we were not expecting absent! There were some judges who were sympathising with us and genuinely we could feel they want to do something to help us, but they were bound by their governments to act in favour of Iranian regime. Among them representative of Cuba. A country with a ‘revolutionary leader’! Or Ethiopia with a communist government. The judge from Ethiopia told us he has an order from his government to give negative vote but he is prepared not to be in the meeting when they are voting. And he kindly did it. The representative of Zambia told us he couldn’t vote positive, as he will find problem with his government. Strangely during voting not only he gave positive vote but start talking about the resolution and announced that he wants to add his name among sponsors of the resolution. He said: “I have received this documents mentioned in the resolution, but they were so horrific that I was not able to believe them or accept them. So my decision was at most abstain to this resolution. But when I showed them to the representative of Iran, He didn’t deny them, but said something, which I am ashamed to repeat it here. Their word persuade me that all these documents are correct, so I decided to name myself among co-sponsors of the resolution.”

            As one can expect our resolution past in that committee, so how did I judged those judges? Was their main concern ‘Human rights’ or as it was claimed by the regime and before them by Mojahedin. They were ‘politicised’ and were condemning the countries according to the wish of ‘politics of their own country’. Again I found out, the answer is not as straight and generalised as one might say or think so. It was Politicised as there was no resolution against neither West or Eastern block, as one could be sure that a resolution like that apart from reality, will never have a chance of approval. Countries with strong ties with western block were save from any kind of condemnation, as it was the case of Arabic countries including Iraq till start of ‘the gulf war’. On the other hand one could see many different resolutions past in this committee concerning Human Rights in general, which at the end could force all different countries around the globe to observe those rights in their own countries. Also when there was immense violation of human rights in a special country, even votes and influence of American or Soviets could not save them from condemnation.

            Following this conference, I was told that I have to leave every thing and go to the United States for attending the yearly United Nations General Assembly.

            It was my first visit to the United States. Every thing including our organisation over there was strange and different. Perhaps it was due to my pre-judgement of that country and its people. I had seen and read as much about crimes of American against others as I didn’t want to find them attractive or interesting. I even had my own opinion about our members from there. Meeting different members from different countries gradually had forced me to conclude that our host country’s main characters some how have influenced all of us. Easily I could differentiate our members and supporters from Germany or France. As Germans were very accurate, precise, respectful of laws, rules and time. French ones were easy going; more joyful, less accurate in what they were saying and doing, . . . We from Britain were sharing characters of British; politeness, patience and calm. Hence whenever I was meeting a member from America, the main character that I could recognise was their ‘aggressive mod’, ‘feel of superiority’ and in some cases arrogance. Though I have to emphasis, all these characters compare to our common ‘Mojahedin’s characters’ were inferior. I think over there I left myself wrongly to be as judgmental as I wanted. But still I feel in co-ordinating themselves with Mojahedin; our members there were far from us in Europe. I felt many of them perhaps the same as us few years back, from fear of being labelled as ‘right’ were taking most aggressive pseudo left positions in different situation. Eshagh, who was nominated to work with me during our work in General Assembly, was one of the symbols of my judgement. We lost many appointments, because of his rejection of taking car or Taxi when it was needed. Always carrying two heavy briefcases full of different documents, we were in run from one embassy to another one for our meetings. Whenever I was asking how far we are from our next meeting? The answer was the same: “nothing just few blocks north or south” And when we were run out of breath, sweating, reaching there late, he had simple explanation for the opposite meeting person: “sorry we were hold in rush hour.” We were carrying our lunch taken from base with ourselves to have it in between meetings. Once when we had a meeting with Belgium ambassador, in the middle of our ‘diplomatic meeting’ while we wanted to show him some documents, our apples and oranges start ruling on the floor, ambassador and us running after them. Well I have to admit as usual I was so weak in standing against pseudo-left actions and instead of him following me as his masoul, I was following him, and by the end of assembly both had found back pain from carrying those heavy bags in our marathon run from one embassy to another one.

            While I was in New York, I could see both contradictory side of living in this famous, big city. Poor side of it, those who were sleeping, in cold and windy winter of New York in the street and were prepared to kill each other for finding some big cardboard boxes, used as a roofed bed for night sleep. On the other hand very close to them one could see the most luxurious apartments, expensive shops and hotels, big limousines . . . Every day we were taking ‘New York metro’ from our base which I guess was situated in Spanish section of the city to Manhattan where our meetings were taking place. During our journey I could see people from all walk of life, and different race, with most strange behaviour. Tallest, shortest, fattest, thinnest people, all hanged from bars of the train, or waiting in dirty, dark, smelly metro stations for arrival of their train, reading different hand written slogans and swearing on station’s walls. Rushing from here to there in narrow staircase or corridors of stations, knocking few people in their way from left and right. Yelling, swearing, and sometimes fighting in their way. People were alienated from each other and one could see no human sympathy, or attachment among them. Even once, when we were shopping, instead of cashier sitting there, cashier machine told us how much we have to pay and after that said: “thank you for shopping and Good bye”

            Our goals and aims of our works in General Assembly was clear. We had to have a resolution. With as many as possible number of sponsors, and positive votes. We had to find a way to obtain the report of the reporter of the United Nations for Iran and the draft of the concerned resolution before their official distribution, to be able to have our position for media. At the same time as we wanted to have as much publicity as possible, we had to be very active among press and have a press conference in right time, preferably with few or our tortured brothers and sisters, escaped from Iran. On top of those it was desirable to have as much as possible, favourite speeches from different countries.

            The main sponsors of our resolution were known from start; as usual they were western European countries plus America, Canada, and few more countries from different continent to make it as broad as possible. Our relation with sponsor’s countries was clearly based on mutual interest. They needed us to feed them with the most recent violations of human rights in Iran and political events of our country, so when they were arguing with the regime or in their speech they knew what are they talking about, and could have strong arguments. We needed them too, to force them to make the resolution as strong as possible and perhaps with mentioning our documents. Usually among them one sponsor was playing as good guy and one as bad one, in another word one was very sympathetic toward us and another one toward the regime. In this way whenever we were asking for more strong resolution, we were told to go and persuade the bad guy, and when regime was asking them to forget about the resolution or have something weaker, they were told to talk with the good guy. Opposite to our friendly meetings with the good guy, our meeting with the bad one was very rough and more or less like arguing with the regime itself. I presume it was the same for Iranian’s regime’s delegates. In this way the outcome of the resolution before being in our advantage, was serving the interest of sponsor countries. That year Austria was the ‘bad guy’ and Luxembourg was the ‘good one’. Other country’s representatives apart from general courtesy behaviour of all diplomats used to act according to their countries special interest. Germans were very blunt and aggressive as they had close economic ties with the Iranian regime, more or less the same for Italian, while they were more diplomatic to show their feelings straightforward. Opposite to them all Nordic countries were very concern about the issue of Human rights itself and were very friendly and helpful.

            During our three months work we met almost two hundred people from different countries and Non governmental organisations. We were not meeting any body from communist countries as we didn’t want to offend our western friend and on top of that we knew perfectly well, nothing could change their vote or decision. Nor we were going to have meeting with countries, very close to the regime, like Libyan, Syrian, Pakistan. Also we could not meet people from Israel and South Africa.

            On the other hand some countries, like most Arabic countries were not prepared to meet us, from fear of terrorist activities of the regime, and some African countries, used to receive Iranian financial help.

            Among those whom we had meeting with, some were very Humane and were acting more like our friends rather than a politician. They were prepared to read statements written by us in different meetings or publish them as their own statement and distribute them among representatives. Also through them, we could receive documents available for representatives of governments.

            Ambassador of one of those small countries, who was a very friendly young educated man was telling us, how their country’s decision are easily influenced by bigger countries. He told us few years back they with three other small countries sponsored a resolution against French actions in New Caledonia. But soon after contact of French government with their governments, they were ordered to withdraw their resolution, but as in mean time, the resolution had found few other sponsors, they could not do so. As a result it went for voting, shamefully, while they were original sponsors of the resolution, had to vote against it, which was a laughing matter for other representatives.

            Votes of those small countries could be bought easily. As we could feel vote of some of them without any political reason and against general tendency of their countries is changing in favour of the regime. On the other hand I heard from Eshagh that years back when still we were not member of an NGO to attend the meetings as their representatives, they used to buy their entrance badges from those small countries. Some of them as a friend were ready to change their vote from negative to ‘absent’, or even one of them prepared to give positive vote against order of his government and later change it as mistaken one, in this way his change of vote had no effect in counting which already had taken place and he had an answer for his government. Some times we had to solve their domestic problems for gaining their vote, for example. Representative of one of those countries was working in the municipality of New York, at the time of voting as it was agreed between us, we sent a car after him to take him for voting.

            Representative of some countries bluntly were telling us they couldn’t vote in favour of our resolution as if they do, Iranian and some other countries follower of them, in response would vote against them. Indonesian ambassador was classmate of Dr. When we had meeting with him, he was very friendly and he talked with Dr. for long about their old memories. But In voting not only his vote was negative, but also he was one of the co-sponsors of a counter-resolution forwarded by Pakistan to neutralise our resolution. Dr. was so angry that couldn’t keep his usual gentleness and in front of different diplomats, told him: “You all, are member of bunch of criminals!!” Opposite to him was the ambassador of Bangladesh, an old, educated man. In first few minute of our meeting, he attacked us sharply by labelling us as, mercenaries of American, and Iraqis. Beggars of CIA, traitors to our people and Moslems, hypocrites, . . . If he was continuing one minute more, I am sure I was not able to control Eshagh any more, I could see his face has changed into red from anger, and at any moment is going to explode. I was astonished more than offended, If he was so against us why did he agreed to meet us?! At this point he stopped insulting us and with a mild smile said: “These are part of allegation of Iranian regime against you, when I told them, I am going to meet you. So what do you think about that?” He continued: “From their reaction toward you, I felt you should be real danger and threat toward them, and very interesting people to meet. So I thought, in no way I should lose this opportunity.” Our meeting took almost two hours, he was not only concern about politic, but wanted to know about our ideology too. At the end of our meeting when he was changed completely into a kind friend, told us, he has been ordered by his government to vote negative to the resolution as Indian and Pakistanis and many other Moslem countries, but he is prepared to accept all criticism of his government and vote ‘abstention’. He asked us from then on any time in the middle of our meetings we want to have our lounge or have our noon pray, we can go to their embassy and have them over there.

            Some times in our meetings when we were going further than usual diplomatic conversions we could find real friends among those diplomats which according to the definition of one of them, they were “like soldiers in the battle front, absolute obedient of the order of their governments without any personal feelings.” In our meeting with Spanish ambassador, he told us: “Perhaps you, young western educated people have wrong expectation from your government and want them to behave and act according to western democracy. While it might not be right for your people and your country. Perhaps your culture and your religion dictate different type of government?!” At this point I felt I have all the rights as an Iranian to become angry and show my anger, so while I raised my voice slightly, on the edge of politeness, I told him: “I am sorry to hear a question or comment like this, from you as an educated person with experience of having dictatorship yourselves. I never am prepared to tell you that dictatorship of Franco was better for Spanish people than democracy that you are enjoying now. Please let me remind you in one of the hall of the same United Nations where you work, there is a copy of an ancient inscription hanged on the wall, as first bill of human rights. It was issued by our first king, who gave many rights including rights of believe, language, . . . To people. As you can appreciate many of those rights still are not recognised in many countries around the world. Again let me remind you, when we had our constitutional revolution and our first parliaments, many countries in Europe were under total dictatorship. And when Franco had his absolute rule in Spain, Nationalist, democratic government of Mossadeq was elected to rule in Iran.” Not only he was not offended by my remarks, but also I think he liked our nationalistic anger, as he became good friend of us and even years after that always we could have good friends among Spanish embassy personal.

            Against all our effort and support of all western countries, though we could increase number of positive votes by three compare to previous year to 64 votes, still it was much short of number of countries absent or abstained that was 73. Fortunately in the organisation nobody was bothered about this details and always 64 positive votes was compared to 22 negative votes with conclusion of approval of our resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Hence flood of jubilation and congratulation in our papers. In next issue of our paper our photograph in General Assembly was published, Photograph of Dr. Eshagh another member of our team and I.

            During our meetings there, I found my family name very useful, especially in dealing with journalists, as could be known and remembered by them very easily, though again in two cases, meetings with ambassadors of Nepal and Philippines, I had those embarrassing time as they were prepared to meet my cousin instead of me.

            Gradually I learned to work with our boys there and was accepted by them too, I could see to work there, they had to employ more aggressive tactics and behaviours. Eshagh, among those working with me, I think was the cleverest one; he was tall, handsome, educated, with his own view about the organisation’s policies, which were completely new for me. Five years later, I learned, Eshagh who was transferred to Baghdad. As a result of pressures of another phase of ‘Ideological Revolution’, hanged himself and was buried there. There was no burial ceremony or mention of his name anywhere. Even he was not buried among our combatants as by suicide he ‘betrayed’ the leadership. He was buried in an unknown place as an unknown person.

Stamina, the secret of our success

Still there were few days till the end of General Assembly session, but I was asked to return to Europe immediately. French government in a shameful deal with Iranian regime to free French hostages in Lebanon, agreed to expel 14 members and supporters of Mojahedin from France, to Gabon. To make it more procedural rather than political they expelled three Kurdish Turks at the same time. Among those arrested was Saeid, the head of our diplomacy in France whom I had to replace. Before doing that, I had to go to Zurich to welcome one of our members from Britain who by mistake was send to Gabon as well, while he was considered as a tourist in France. I had to take him back to Britain, where a heroic welcome was waiting for him. In the plane I had to prepare him for facing reporters in the Heathrow airport.

            In Auvers-sur-oise station, Siros was waiting in the car for me, I felt his face is familiar for me, he reminded me, the meeting, few years back we had in Essen of Germany, he was among those who was expelled from the society of supporters by the founders. During my stay in France Siros was going to work with me as my translator in different meetings I was going to have.

            Paris was totally different city from the one, I knew before. It was more like a city, seen in second world movies, under siege. Every where we were looking, there were some gendarmes or police, guarding and searching, in the roads more often one could see gendarme’s cars hiding or were stopping a poor guy or were searching another car. People with darker skin and darker hair and more casual dresses were more under suspicion and could be sure of inspection or arrest some where in one of the metro stations. Fortunately Siros was a handsome man in his early thirties with blue eyes and fair hair and as always we were in our formal dress, never during my stay in Paris we were stopped or searched. I guess they had every right to be afraid of terrorist’s activities or hostage taking, but I could not see how they want to get rid of terrorism while they were lenient and comprising toward countries advocating Terrorism and hostage taking.

            Siros himself was among those arrested, by the French government, but later as he was a French citizen, was freed. He told me how in early morning gendarmes attacked our different bases in Paris. It seems they picked few people by random as they had no case against any of them, and they committed some obvious mistakes including arrest of Siros or deportation of two refuges from Britain and Sweden, to Gabon. Among those arrested few were simple supporters, refugee, in France, which one could not see the significance of their arrest. On the other hand many masouls of the organisation there, were not arrested and were free to do their daily job. In the beginning they claimed, they have evidence that those people are terrorist or have a terrorist connection. Later they changed it into an allegation that their presence in France is attracting Terrorist’s activities and is putting life of ordinary citizens in danger.

            Though I was supposed to head our diplomatic activities there, soon I learned, the real head of our diplomacy in this case is Rajavi himself and as matter of fact the whole organisation for month or two is going to be under service of events, which were taking place in Paris. My real job apart from meeting different politician and people, was to head our political office there, Issue and distribute statements, which were coming hour by hour. Monitor all different media for the latest news, and pick the most important and significant ones and fax them as soon as possible to Baghdad for receiving proper reaction. Establish relation with different members of Parliament and inform them daily about what is going on. Not only we were in the centre of Mojahedin’s politic, the most sensitive one since departure of organisation from Iran. But at the same time we were in the centre of French politics and one of the most important struggles between French parties for power. At the time Mitterand the French president was from the Socialist party and Jacques Chirac the prime minister from RPR (Rally for the Republic - known as de Gaulle’s party). By freeing French hostages in Lebanon with any price, Chirac wanted to make sure the victory of his party in next general election, which was very close. On the other hand Socialists who could see how nationally and internationally illegal and hateful this action would be judged and seen, wanted to benefit from it as much as possible to guarantee their own victory. Other countries such as American and British who had some hostages in Lebanon were very concern too, as this leniency and comprising attitude toward ‘hostage takers’ could encourage them for taking more hostages, and demand different things for freeing them. At the same time it was the best opportunity for Mojahedin to have immense amount of publicity around the world.

            Immediately after the expulsion of our people to Gabon, Rajavi asked all our members and supporters to go to a hunger strike in different countries, so few hundred of our members and supporters, in different countries such as US. Or Britain or West Germany went into unlimited hunger strike in front of the French embassies in those countries. Most important of all was the hunger strike of those expelled to Gabon and those in Paris in front of the office of UN for refugees.

            This political fight with French government in the shape of hunger strike was carried on for almost forty days with the biggest political victory for Mojahedin ever. Of course along with us, French socialist were the victorious, as they won the next general election. During those forty days almost everyday the main news of all French media and sometimes-other western and Arabic media was about this issue. When at the end of the affair we collected all the coverage in a Book, it came to few thousand pages, each page with few coverage from different papers. Almost all news was in favour of us, condemning French government for its action. Some of the coverage were like this: Le Monde, December 9: “EXPULSIONS ET CONTRE; VÈRITÈS” (Expulsions and lies). The Times, Britain, December 10, “The British Refugee Council accused the French Government yesterday of having violated the international convention on refugees. . . . ” The New York Times, USA, December 9, “The Government of Prime Minister Jacques Chirac has dishonoured itself, . . .” In another issue the same paper wrote: “The Government (of France) has come under severe criticism in the United States, Britain and much of the Arab world over the accord with Iran that emerged after the release of two French hostages by pro-Iranian forces in Lebanon last month.” Frankfurter Rundschau, Germany, December 9, “Profitable Dealing in Men” Al Ahram, Egypt, December 8, “France’s New Ransom to Khomieni Regime.” Every day we were gathering these coverage from around the world in Paris and were preparing them in a presentation form for sending to different politician. At the same time all our personal in diplomatic sections in different countries were mobilised to get as much support as possible from politicians and members of parliaments of different countries. As a result almost 1400 parliamentarian from 16 countries of the world mostly from western countries poured their telegraphs and letters toward French President and Government, condemning their action. In France itself many personalities, pervious ministers were encouraged to visit ‘hunger strikers’ and show their sympathy toward them.

            Gradually hunger strike start showing its effect and more and more people reached to crucial stages, in some cases unsuccessfully French government tried to stop their strike by deceiving or even by forcing them to eat. As some strikers were reaching to the stage of no return, we were witnessing more and more coverage and visit from more and more personalities, in pick of that, the visit of Danielle Mitterand, wife of the French President.

            During those forty days never we could sleep, more than five hours per day , rarely more than two to three hours continuously in the proper bed. In the beginning we wanted to join hunger strikers while we were not in the street and were working in our bases. But we were told without sleep and food we will not be able to cope with the amount of work we were facing. So we were not in strike, but rarely we could have proper food, because of lack of time and feel of guilt as always we were thinking of those sitting or lying in the streets, in cold winter without any food for days. Every day, Helen, our French sympathiser, working along few other members and sympathisers under my responsibility were bringing few French buggeths with herself, which were best remedy for hunger and sleep both, we were having them while we were working day and night when we were feeling sleepy or hungry. The best time for sleep was when we were in trains going from one meeting to another one, when there was no way we could do anything else. One day we, Siros and I, found ourselves in last station of our train, it was past midnight and that train was the last one. We found we have no change or Telephone card for calling somebody to come after us, while we were half sleep we walked few miles back to reach our base. Another time when we had an important meeting with one of the ministers of French government, I was not able to keep myself awake each time Siros was translating my words to our French hosts. We could empress them greatly by giving them the few hundred pages booklet of coverage from different papers, some from the same day papers. He who was from one of the coalition parties of French government, next day announced his split in that issue from other members of the government. In our meeting he said: “I have seen weak bodies of your supporters in their strike in different countries and I can see your red eyes from sleepless days and nights. But at the same time I can see your well documented materials and your will power for defeating your enemies, so I have no doubt, you are going to win and soon will see your friends back in this country.”

            He was right in few days time after French courts gave their verdicts in favour of us and announced that there was no legal base for the expulsions, we had a call from French government asking for a meeting with our representatives to solve the problem. Next day their charted plane took Abrishamchii and Mohadessin, two high-ranking members of the Mojahedin from Baghdad to Paris for discussion with the government. The result was an accord signed by Robert Pandraud, French minister and Abrishamchii on behalf of Mojahedin. It was unbelievable victory for us, as Abrishamchii said, it was “our first official governmental recognition, as sole representative and leader of Iranian Resistance.” The same day accord was announced by the French government and us simultaneously. And following that arrival of our friends from Gabon by special charted French plane. While in Gabon the president of Gabon saw them off, and in Paris they received honorary welcome. After that there was jubilation and ceremonies, in our bases, around the world. There was live Telephone call with Masoud and Maryam Rajavi in all bases, where Maryam announced that day, the day of ‘Refugees’. She said: “Our struggle, was not aimed only for our cause, but for the right of all refuges from different countries of the world.”

            Next day the biggest titles of all French papers and many important international media were about this victory of us with photos of jubilation of hunger strikers. : Le Monde: “VOLTE- FACE” (withdraw). Liberation: “FIN DE LA FAIM, AIR PASQUA PAIE LE RETOUR” (The end of hunger strike - Air Pasqua (i.e. Pasqua, the interior minister of France, responsible for the expulsion) pays for return ticket). Le point: “LE COUT D’UN ALLER ET RETOUR - PARIS A CÈDÈ .” (Price of a depart and return - Paris surrounded . . . ). Some of the world’s titles were like this: The Times: “Chirac concedes victory to Iran exiles.” The New York Times: “Khomieni foes enter France hurting Chirac’s Iranian ties.” News Week: “An Iranian hunger strike pays off.” La Stampa (Italy): “UNA CLAMOROSA MARCIA INDIETRO DEL GOVERNO FRANCES.” (Clamours withdraw of French government).

            During those forty days I saw many fantastic people, Iranian and French both. People who were on the hunger strike, ready to die from hunger and not surrender to unjust behaviours. One day I was asked to talk to Ali a professor of history, to persuade him to eat something as he was going to lose his sight forever. It was order of Maryam that we don’t want to lose anybody in this way. Also she said: “if it was not because of Masoud, not only many could lose their life as they wanted to go to dry hunger strike, but many could burn themselves alive in different countries.” It took us few hours to persuade Ali to eat some thing. Our sacrifices always was interpreted by our enemies as madness, many were calling us, “young people who have been brain washed” Whatever they were calling us, the result was the same. We believed in our just actions and we were following our leader wholeheartedly, and we could see the result of our sacrifices and our stamina, by winning in different battles.

            French were showing their sympathy in different way too, many used to bring coffee, blanket, . . . for strikers, some were bringing flowers, some used to join strikers, sitting with them for few hours. There was a letter in Le Monde by about this incident, showing attitude of ordinary French about this action of their government: It was like this: “Levy, I am ashamed, I am ashamed of denied paid levies, but obvious. I am ashamed of Iranian oppositions, those living here, for long accepted, and now suddenly expelled. . . . My eight years grandson thinks if they free our hostages, any time they want they can take new hostages. Stupidity and faint-hearted. We are ashamed.”

            Despite the fact that sometimes work’s pressure was immense and we didn’t know what should we do with our sleepy eyes, we were happy, all the times joking and laughing, especially Siros, I never saw him without his usual smile, and his word of ‘CHASHAM’ (what ever you say with all my might). One minute he was monitoring different radios, another minute reading newspapers and translating them, and then off to go with me for meeting this personality or that representative of a trade union. Apart from him all other people in our section were working day and night, The amount of work done by them during those days was unbelievable, sometimes they were doing things that one could not imagine, they are capable of doing them. Annie another French sympathiser, wife of one of our supporters, expelled to Gabon, was very quite, nice and kind person working with us. When we asked her to go to Gabon and smuggle some equipment including Fax machine to the Hotel where our boys as guest of the president of Gabon were kept. We never could think, she is capable of doing an action like that, more like police movies of ‘007’. But she did it and did it perfectly. As a result we could communicate with them hourly and could co-ordinate their actions with ours. It took sometimes for French and Gabonies to figure out how to stop us passing information to each other, and when they found out, it was too late to do any thing about it.

            After this event many among us who were going to lose their hope for victory, found new incentives. They saw with persistence and determination, empty handed we “forced the ‘fifth strongest’ government of the world to surrender itself to us.” Hence we could see no reason why shouldn’t we win over a ‘backward’, ‘unpopular’ . . . regime of Khomieni.

            About the same time our army had impressing victories too, In Ilam 110 guards killed, 11 captured. In Khozastan, 113 killed, 16 captured. And in Soreen, 140 killed and 114 captured. … We were victorious in Political and military fields both, while the regime was losing in all different fields, even their representative in France was expelled. They were not able to solve their internal differences. They were forced to abolish the only party existed in the country, the governing party, the ‘Islamic Republic Party’, the same party with the largest and strongest organisation in fight against Mojahedin few years back. In a statement In Iran liberation Mojahedin stated: “Khomieni’s dissolution of the party which he himself founded, signals the regime’s extreme weakness. This will boost public morale and escalate resistance, and conversely alienate the regime’s forces.” In the same statement they said:” The pack of wolves comprising the Khomieni regime can only subsist under his medieval dictatorship, and cannot survive independent of him.” Following the dissolution of ‘Islamic republic party’, there were letters of Khamenai The President and Khomieni the leader of the regime to each other with obvious signs of difference of opinions among them about fundamental believe of the regime, ‘VLAYAT FAGHIEH’ (supreme religious guides).

            As a result many who were in hunger strikes in different countries of the world after summon of Rajavi for joining the army, obeyed him wholeheartedly and joined the army to witness final days of the regime.

            Year later Siros was killed in a battle. Annie, who was as a nurse in our final battle with the regime, was captured by them and later was died or killed in captivity.

After this ‘victory’ for few weeks we were in Baghdad, to attend several ideological meetings, to understand more deeply the greatness of our leader and his wise and courage full decisions, seen in their outcomes: ‘our victory over French government’ and ‘rise of our army as new effective player in future destiny of our people’. Those ‘ideological meetings’ were called ‘old to new’. And meant that we have to change ourselves to fit into this new era of our organisation, to be able to face our future responsibilities as members of an organisation well known every where and on the pick of the ‘evolution’.

            In one of the meetings for high-ranking members, for the first time, I heard about Ali Zarkash, the previous second in command of our organisation. One of the sisters referred to him as one who has betrayed our leader! In the same meeting it was explained that while he was commander of our forces in the country, he didn’t give full picture of what is going on to Rajavi, as a result we lost so many lives. I never again heard any thing about this subject. I knew he has lost all his ranks and is serving as a simple supporter or member, but I never found out what was his real mistake or being correct, his question or disobedient, as mistakes however big never could end us in that situation. I knew few years back we used to direct our supporters in Iran through telephone calls from abroad, first not knowing that, all calls are monitored by the regime. But even later when we found out about it, people responsible of that section, continued to make contact with our people in Iran in the same manner, as a result many supporters and members were arrested and executed. I feel later as somebody had to be blamed for this obvious mistake. Though always all victories of the organisation was going to be named after our great leader, but this one I presume was named after poor Zarkash. Zarkash was killed in our final battle with the regime, and for sometimes, regime tried to portray his death as victim of an internal conflict.

            After staying for few weeks in Baghdad, I went back to Geneva for attending yearly session of commission of Human Rights, when at the end of it we had another resolution condemning violation of human rights in Iran, I received a new order; I had to move my base from Geneva to Rome, and as masoul of our organisation in Italy follow my responsibilities in International organisations, Swiss and Belgium.

Alone in the desert

It was only a week since my arrival in Rome, still I was not fully acquainted with people under my responsibility, when I was asked to move quickly back to Baghdad. We were going to have our first major military battle with the regime’s army and by the order of Rajavi maximum number of members had to take part in that battle.

            The name of the operation was ‘Aftab’ (sun), it was going to occur in southern region of Iran, Khozastan. Three days earlier we were moved to one of the bases shared with Iraqis called by us quarter of ‘Saeid Mohsan’, one of the founders of Mojahedin. After a year intense political activities, it was so good to be back to where we believed to be belong. It is not an exaggeration if I say, I almost saw all my friends from different stages of past seven years in a single day. Where ever I was turning my head I could see, a friendly face, a smile, walking toward each other, few kind friendly words, exchange of friendly kiss, good-bye, and then exchange of word of “see you in our jubilation meeting after the operation.” Or “send my regard to other boys.” Then turning toward another friend for another remainder of a good times and nice memories. Some of them had some sign of new or rather old wounds on their face and few had very ugly ones, rather large purulent wound right on their nose or cheek. They told me they are from mosquito’s bite, and are wound of ‘SALAK’, (Oriental sore). I knew those mosquito’s bites from my childhood, they used to create a very bad wound which could stays there on the face or arm, for sometimes and then after curing used to leave a very bad mark, sometimes as bad as marks of leprosy. Well I felt it was horrible to have those marks and wished whatever is happening to me, I be safe from those mosquito’s bites.

            I heard whenever and wherever we attack in a region, a week or few days, prior to our attack, Iranian army or ‘Revolutionary Guards’ in that region, had been defeated by Iraqis. So when we go forward, their defensive line is open and we will be able to go right into the heart of the Division or Brigade. So next day when we were moved to operation-commanding fortification all trenches and entrenchments were already built for us by Iranian or Iraqis? And our job was to prepare them for our commanding officers to arrive. Of course commander of the whole operation was Rajavi himself situated with Maryam in the base we left already.

            Our commander in this ‘operation’ was my masoul sister Soror. After her arrival next day, she explained our job to me, I was going to command few other people. From start I felt things she is asking us are strange and useless, but as we were in the army, I knew I have to say nothing and ask nothing. Only obey whatever I am asked to do. We had to move few pre-build toilets there one for men and another for women. To cover all trenches and fortifications with plastic covering, to carpet them, divide them between men and women, . . . to dig trenches for burying wires of transmitters. . . . We worked very hard, perhaps twenty hours in a day to do all those jobs, mostly decorative than essential. Then the rest of commanders in action came to our fortifications, which by now was more like one of our bases rather than war entrenchment. They were going to be our commending officers taking order from Rajavi and transfer it to our commanding officers in action and vice versa. It was around twelve midnight that we were asked to get together for receiving the message of Maryam for the start of the operation. Her speech was going to be transmitted to all our forces in different situation. After giving some slogans she said: “Fire Fire Fire” And then I presume operation started. By now each one of us were given a Russian made Klashincov sub-machine gun as our rifle. Despite the fact which for several years we were heard and told how holly is the first organisation’s gun we receive and we were dreaming to have one of them one day. I have to admit, when I received that, I didn’t feel anything, as matter of fact, I felt rather silly to have it, as most of us including me, didn’t know how to carry it, not to say how to load it or use it. Any way thanks to one of the combatant, who was with us, at least we were told how to handle it. Then sister Soror asked us to have our gun all the time and showed us several points that we had to guard. To guard against who or what was not clear for us! After few hours, few Iraqi commanders came to our Base. Sister Soror welcomed them, then while all of them were surprised to see a woman as commending officer, they went straight to our commanding entrenchment. That night and the day after, all the time, except for lunch and dinnertime and few hours in turn for rest, we were guarding different area, with that useless rifles hanging from us. I could feel so useless and our job so boring, as perhaps the most exciting part of it, was when our shift was to guard commending entrenchment. At least then we could hear some noises and some actions, we could become excited by hearing voices of Masoud or Maryam, though always there were perhaps ten different people talking at the same time, some in Arabic. As I could see every body was very excited to ‘be in the operation’, they were showing it with different reactions from exchanging words against the regime or showing some smile, and sometimes by being more serious than usual. I was blaming myself for not being as excited as others, and feeling of being useless. With different tactics I was pretending to be as excited as others, while I was wondering if at least some of them were doing the same thing, as me!? After a night and a day walking, it was my turn to sleep for two hours, right in the middle of sleep I was called by one of our boy saying: “come on Masoud, be quick, sister Soror has asked me to call you to go and see the sky, it is so beautiful, full of fire.” I hold myself badly not to say anything, and not to show improper reaction. But I didn’t follow him. After the end of my turn for sleep, when I went out of trench, I saw the sky and yes it was full of fire, perhaps like fire works, we could see in Geneva, with one difference; while we were enjoying watching it, some were suffering badly from it. By now every body was out of trenches, all were looking at sky with different reactions, laughing and showing some excitement. Some were saying: “are they ours?” And other one was responding: “of course, you fool, if not, who else!” I feel lack of show of interest from my side, not as much as others, implied for my masoul, as my fear from war or something like that as she was thinking of a plan to break ‘that fear of mine!’ Next day about noon Operation was ended and our boys were returning. I was told by sister Soror to ask everybody to collect things including carpets; plastics and toilets to take them back to our base. Few lorries start moving those things and personal that were with us in that area. At this point we found out one of our boys has taken the keys of one of the ‘Land rovers’; hence we couldn’t move it. This was the opportunity sister Soror was waiting for. She said: “OK, Masoud can stay here guarding the car, till we go and send somebody with the key to take him back.” In no time they left me alone with my ‘Klashincov’.

            For few hours I was walking for myself around the abandoned car, with the hope that soon somebody is coming to take me. Some times I was watching Iraqi soldiers few hundred meters far from me talking, joking and perhaps playing. After few hours one of them came toward me and with mixture of English-Arabic and Persian words asked me why didn’t I go with the others, with the same sort of language, I explained to him the reason of my stay there. He was not very surprised as perhaps they were used to this kind of military orders. He left me and after an hour came back again, this time inviting me to have dinner with them. As we were told not to mix with them, because of ‘protocol problem’ with Iraqi officials, I thanked him and apologised for refusing his invitation. Then I saw an armoured personnel carrier with flag of our organisation on top of it, moving slowly toward us. I went toward them and stopped them. They thought like some other combatant I have been left behind. They asked me to go with them, as they were pretty sure; Iranian army was going to follow them and was probable they reach to that area too. I refused and told them somebody is going to come in any minute to take me, and I cannot leave that car alone. They left me and after one hour the same Iraqi soldier came toward me again. This time he had a message. He said they are leaving that area as Iranian are going to bomb the area and perhaps to move there. His commander had asked him to ask me to go with them. Again I emphasised that I am waiting and somebody is going to come after me. They too, start moving and in few minutes time they left me alone in that nowhere land. It was getting late, sun was gone and darkness was covering everywhere, defeating the light in full force. It was last days of March, though weather in daytime was very warm and pleasant, in nighttime it was cold and chilly. Thanks to insistence of one of the boys who lend his over-coat to me, I could cover myself from cold. Still because of wind and cold, I was not able to stay in open and moved to one of the trenches, it was empty, empty of those plastics or carpets. Now I could see myself ‘alone’ real lonely, in the middle of desert, sure that there was nobody around me for tens of miles. For the first time I could see my old fear of loneliness in its full depth. Perhaps the only beings around me were unseen snakes, those creatures that I was more fearful of them, than any thing else. I was sure without those Plastics they could cruel toward me as close as they wished. Though till night before, I was still fearful of mosquitoes and the consequence of their bites. By now I was not thinking about them any more. Not even I was trying to hide my face from their bites under my overcoat. I could hear noise of bombardment not far from where I was. By then I knew this is sign of forwarding of an army. First they used to bombard an area with full force, clean it from enemy forces and then move forward to that place. I was not worried about being killed in those bombarding if they reach there. As matter of fact for one second, I thought, it would be a very good lesson for my masoul. My worry was if they forward to where I am, what should I do? I even didn’t know how to kill myself, not to say how to fight with them. I knew in no way, I should let them to capture me, so before that I had to kill myself, but how? I start inspecting my rifle for the first time to figure out how does it work? With doing that I thought perhaps I kill myself even before they reach me! While I was in squatting posture from cold, and still was thinking how to use that gun, I heard somebody calling me; He was Faried who had taken the keys by mistake. He said we thought you are back and are somewhere in the base, but we saw the guys who had seen you by chance. They told us you are waiting for us. Faried said Soror was very criticised by Behnam (Mohadessin - her masoul and her husband) for leaving me behind.

            Next day to make up for this incident, Soror gave me the ‘honour’ of preparing the leadership’s table and decorating photographs of martyrs of that operation close to that table. Among photos of ‘martyrs’ there was photo of Mehrdad, One of the boys under my responsibility few years back. He was a young (in his mid twenties), from a rich family of Tehran, very quiet, with happy face. Always ready for work and action. Once when I was inspecting work of our boys in the streets, I saw him from far me is saying something to himself. I went close to him and asked him what is he saying? He told me: “CARA BASH BASH”, few words without any meaning. I asked him what do they mean and why is he repeating them? While he was showing me his usual smile, told me: “They mean nothing. Whenever somebody is not listening to me and passes me without showing any concern for this very nice tortured or killed young people. To swallow my anger and sorrow, and as you have told us, to keep my kind, smiling, polite face. I start repeating those meaningless words to make fun of myself. And a reason to smile again.” I heard for few years his mother was searching for him and after finding him, had very unsuccessful hard time to persuade him to leave the organisation. I was wondering if any body would or could tell her about her son, and what is she going to think about death of his son? Does she consider him as a martyred, waiting for congratulation? Or does she blame the organisation for deceiving her son and responsible for his death.

            The result of this operation was 3500 deaths of enemy’s forces, capture of 508 of them by us, also seizure of many armaments including four British made Chieftain Tanks. In this operation, 32 of our fellow combatants were killed and 91 were injured.

Today Mehran, tomorrow Tehran

In my return to Rome, many supporters were welcoming us as some hero, by then they knew about the result of the operation and they were very happy and proud of it. I don’t think I was more courage full than before, but perhaps less fearful of anything new, waiting for me.

            After sometimes being far from people under my responsibility, at last I was with them, I wanted to teach them whatever I knew and had learned by then. There were almost twenty people as full time Sympathisers and four Mojahedin members under my responsibility in Italy. Among them three ladies, two Italian and one from Peru. It was very interesting to talk to them and hear what they had to say about our Ideology and our organisation. I guess we could feel very proud of ourselves for having our organisation, when we were hearing their wish for having the same thing in their own country. Proudly we were telling them Mojahedin do not only belong to Iranian, but to all good people of the world.

            Rome was very beautiful, with almost the same weather as Tehran, as matter of fact many things in that country was remainder of our country and our own people. Whenever rarely for inspecting work of our boys, or meeting some reporters our politician, I had to leave our base, by seeing ancient buildings of Rome, I was remembering our old history, which I was fascinated by that since my childhood. Our political work there was interesting as well. We always used to have this impression that we have a lot of support in Italy, as always the number of members of parliaments supporting our petitions in Italy was much higher than any other countries around the world, sometimes including some members of their government too. Now I could see almost all those signatures are collected by our supporters and members while they were doing their SW work. As matter of fact I heard from them that many members are more than happy to give them simple signature instead of money!

            End of June, start of July we heard about the most impressing operation of NLA ever, The big titles of our paper, ‘Iran Liberation’, about this victory were like these: “Capture of Mehran promises Liberation of Iran. NLA’s Operation, Forty Star was commanded by Masoud Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance and Commander in Chief of the NLA: Strategic town of Mehran captured for three days. NLA inflicts 8000 casualties on Khomieni’s forces, takes 1500 prisoners, . . . $2 billion in war materiel seized. Including 54 tanks, 38 were British made Chieftain. In this battle we lost 59 of our combatants.

            The same paper had an interview with few Iranian commanders captured in this operation: One of them, Major Shamseddin Yari, logistics commander of combat intelligence, 16th armoured division, who was asked if “did he expect an offensive in that region, and were they prepared to counter it?” He answered: “Yes, we did, but we didn’t expect an offensive at such speed or on such a scale, especially by the NLA. The extent of the operation proved that the Khomeini regime had misinformed us about the NLA. Contrary to what they told us, the NLA possesses armoured equipment and logistical fire.” In another question he was asked about his opinion of the NLA’s large-scale assault in the Mehran region? He answered:” I have reached the conclusion that wherever the NLA decides to launch any operation of any size, it will win. It is unbeatable.” … This interviews were very interesting for us especially as we could see how soon those captured start talking like us, for example calling the regime as “Khomieni regime”

            With this victory not only we impressed our supporters, Iranian and foreigners, but many from media and political personalities were impressed too. David Hirst in a long article in the Guardian (July 28 1988) with a big photograph of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi above head of a sympathisers carrying his child on his back in one of the Mojahedin’s marches, wrote: “ . . . The Mojahedin of Masoud Rajavi is the largest, richest, most active, visible and vociferous of the multifarious opposition forces. Fired by an ideology that purposes to marry Islamic with modern western (mainly Marxist) thought, they played an important part in the overthrow of the Shah. But they soon fell out with Khomieni and his narrow obscurantism conception of “Islamic government” Ever since 1981, they have been engaged in “armed struggle against him. . . . The few outsiders to have visited the NLA tend to come away impressed by its dedication, discipline and general level of education. . . . “

            In a public meeting celebrating this victory, in Rome, as our slogan after this victory was: “Today Mehran, Tomorrow Tehran” My last sentence in my speech was: “In ‘Sun’ operation we captured four tanks and with them we captured fifty and now do you have any doubt with fifty we can capture five hundred? Defeat of the revolutionary guards in Tehran?” I received long time clapping from my audience, I turned toward pictures of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi and start clapping myself, to imply all clapping are for them and their wise leadership, as I learned this gesture from Abrishamchii.

            In few weeks time, after another trip to Geneva for attending few conferences and collecting some support from different parties there, I was called back to Baghdad.

‘Impossible’, ‘unimaginable’, ‘unrealistic’, changed into reality and fact

It was mid-day, the July 18th, when I saw some crowd around our building’s notice board. From curiosity, I went toward notice board too, to see what is the interesting news attracting every body. The News was short but immensely shocking. After almost a year, Iranian regime had been forced to accept, 598 resolution of the Security Council of the United Nations, and its consequence result, a cease-fire in all borders between Iran and Iraq. Impossible and unimaginable, till few hours earlier, suddenly had changed into a reality and fact. I was not able to believe it, so I went to news room where ten to twenty people were working simultaneously, monitoring different radio and television, editing, arranging and typing them to prepare exceptional news bulletin of this news. Yes it was right and there was no doubt about it. Among people there or in our department, nobody dared to give any interpretation or analysis on this news. My masoul along all high-ranking masouls was vanished, they were in Rajavi’s office to hear what is going on, and what should they do?

            Resolution 598 was passed by the Security Council was the strongest resolution of UN to stop war between Iran and Iraq. Iraq immediately after its approval accepted it; but Khomieni refused it for a year. During that year international pressure on Iranian increased daily. We Mojahedin and Iraqis every where in any International conferences and meetings or in any political talking or interviews, were arguing: “the whole world want peace, including Iraqi’s government and Iranian people, only Iranian regime is prolonging it with price of killing and injuring of tens of thousands of people daily.” More and more countries especially western ones were putting political and even economical pressure on regime to accept this resolution. After destruction of Iranian main oil terminal in Kharg island by Iraq, destruction of many of Iranian Oil fields and refineries. Iran as one of the major producer and exporter of oil, for the first time had to import some refined product of oil itself and with difficulty could sell fraction of its oil compare to few years back. There was ban on sale of arms to Iran and after revelation of Iran-contra affair; they were not able to buy spare parts for their American arms. In response Iranian start threatening Oil shipments in the Persian Gulf. Then American start showing some real reactions, by bombing Iranian bombers and ships. On third of July 1988 the US warship Vincennes in the Persian Gulf mistaken Iran Air A300 Airbus for an attacking bomber and shoots it down, killing 290 civilian passengers. At the same time Iraqis were forwarding in different front, putting more than ever pressure on Iranian. On March the same year they used poison gas against Iranian civilian in one of the villages, called Halabcha killing 4000 civilians, perspective of the same attack, this time against larger cities including Tehran, could not be rejected. On April after two days battle Iraqis troops recovered the town of Fav, over 5300 Iraqis and may be as many as 120,000 Iranian had been killed in the struggle for that town.

            On second of June Khomieni named Rafsanjani as the head of all Iranian arm forces. For those who could see Iranian politic more seriously, this was clear sign of his surrender to the situation they were in. Many in west interpreted it correctly, and predicted Iranian tendency toward peace and pragmatism. On the same day Rajavi, our leader in an statement announced: “ . . . This nomination implies, Khomieni will never accept the peace unless in extreme desperation, with immediate outcome of the overthrow of the regime. Also this nomination will cross off all naive interpretation of acceptance of 598 resolution and moderation of the regime. From now on manifestation of Rafsanjani as a moderate is a void idea, a role chosen for him by Khomieni. Now with appointing him as top responsible for continuation of war and suppression, Khomeini has been forced to put an end to this illusion.”

            Two days later, after acceptance of the 598 resolution, in an speech Khomieni said: “ . . . God knows if, we all, our dignity, our honour and credibility had not been for the path of Islam and Moslems and their prudence, I never was prepared to act like this, (accepting the resolution). Death and martyrdom were more acceptable, (than this acceptance). . . . With this announcement we neutralised weapon of propaganda of the world’s eater (Imperialism and American) against ourselves … I have to emphasise again accepting this, was more deathly than any poison for me. But I am pleased when God is pleased, and for his satisfaction I drunk this poison . . . “ To define this acceptance as ‘drinking poison’, by Khomieni, gave the best propaganda arguments to us. Rajavi interpreted this as: “NLA and Mojahedin with their operations and victories forced Khomieni to drink the poison and at any minute his regime is going to collapse. …” Hence again while our prediction and analysis were wrong, but we were ‘right’!! And ‘victorious’!!

From a ‘politician’ into a ‘combatant’

Next time when I saw my masoul, she told me, I, along many other members and masouls from our section have been transferred to army. We had only few hours to introduce ourselves to our masouls in the army. In our way, all of us were thinking about new adventures waiting for us. Without being told, it was easy to guess, we were going to have our final battle soon. Rather than thinking about the outcome of the operation, our concern mostly was how? And when? Sometimes before, I heard from one of my Colleague, that army has its own rule and procedures, and ranks, whoever from other sections is transferred there, first inadequate of his rank, had to serve as a simple combatant to learn about bases of fighting, then he or she is going to be placed in its right position. This idea was giving me a sense of relive, as not only I didn’t know anything about the army, my physical experience and exercises was near zero too. As a result of the accident I had few years back, I even was not able to co-ordinate myself with the morning’s ceremonies. With every day work, most of the times up to sixteen hours per day in sitting position, we had no time for any other activities or any exercise. I had gained weight and simple running could make me exhausted.

            While I was thinking about my weaknesses, we passed Iraqis control, their anti-air attack missiles for protecting our base. Then a welcome from two Mojahedin combatants a sister and a brother, guarding outside of Ashraf military base. Ashraf was the largest Mojahedin base in Iraq. When Iraqis gave it to us, it had few buildings that we used to call them ‘the Castle’. The rest of it was more like a desert, than any thing else. Within past few years Mojahedin had worked there very hard and by then there were layout of asphalt streets every where, young trees, street lamps, traffic signs in Persian both side of streets. . . . As matter of fact the only thing reminding us that we are in Iraq and not back home, was a large portrait of Sadam at the end of the main road. I think we didn’t dare to remove it, but we knew how to direct reporters, whenever they were visiting our base to other parts of the base, not to see that portrait. At the time NLA was divided into few ‘brigade’, not because of the number of combatants, but its ‘efficiency’ according to the judgements of our commanders. Thanks to their judgement a year later, without any increase in number, name of all of them were changed into: ‘Division’ and perhaps by now, ‘corps’!

            In ‘Ashraf’ base each brigade was named after its commander, and had its separate and isolated base. With its ammunition depot, warehouse, and storage, kitchen, military dormitory, gathering and dining hall. . . .