Yesterday's criminals today's human rights activists: Abdol Karim Lahiji

A post by "Khorshid" (aka SarbazeKuchak) posted on a forum I frequented years back. I thought I had this posted already but I can't find it through the search mechanism so am posting it here just in case. It's important to know who some of these terrorists of yesterday posing as human rights activists today actually are.


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Murderers as human rights advocates

In this "exclusive" interview with RFE/RL

http://www2.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/5/A3D67132-98C7-4BF8-8D63-705FDF087DA7.html

, conducted on May 4, the “deputy director of the Paris-based international Federation of Human Rights” and head of what is called “League for Defense Of Human Rights in Iran”, Abdolkarim Lahidji (or Lahiji), who is apparently very hard to reach, condemns the recent arrest of Canadian scholar Ramin Jahanbegloo. Jahanbegloo, who like most supporters of the republic of terror (read his interview with Noam Chomsky http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2000/June/Chomsky) has been critical of Ahmadinejad’s betrayal of the true face of the Islamic Republic---and thus the undoing of years of work by the types of Mullah Khatami, Lahidji and (Ayatollah) Shirin Ebadi (http://sarbazekuchak.blogspot.com/2006/02/following-is-translation-of-this.html)
---was arrested earlier this week on charges of espionage. As one blogger correctly put it
(http://samiramohyeddin.blogspot.com/2006/05/why-dont-you-ask-why.html)
“those who defend the theocratic regime in Iran are one by one being bit by the hand that feeds them.” I have nothing to add to that.

The most interesting part of this interview however, for me at least, is towards the end:

RFE/RL: You have been fighting for the improvement of the human-rights situation of Iran for more than three decades. What has been your lowest point? What is your worst memory?

Lahidji: My worst memory is from the early 1980s, when every day dozens of people were being executed in Iran; and in the 1980s, when thousands of people were executed in Iran merely because of their political, social, and religious activities. In my opinion, this is one of the darkest pages in Iran's modern history.”

Iranians reading this excerpt are either laughing at Lahiji’s attempt to “rewrite yesterday’s weather” or shocked by his dishonesty
(http://sarbazekuchak.blogspot.com/2005/12/blog-post_21.html).
I’ll explain to non-Iranians why this is so, for most have no way of knowing:

The truth is that this charlatan was himself one of the strongest advocates of executing opponents of his, and his “Imam’s” revolution and republic. Below is something I wrote last year, in reaction to yet another interview by Radio Farda with Lahiji as a human rights expert. I hope that it will shed some light on his character, and prove, much to his handlers’ chagrin, that the victims of the 79 disaster will not allow “Radio Free Europe” to rewrite Iran’s history:

Yesterday, February 24, 2005, Radio Farda conducted yet another interview with Abdolkarim Lahiji about human rights issues. As Radio Farda is paid for by the US congress and operated by the Department of State’s International Broadcasting Bureau, I believe US citizens who are friends of Iran (not to mention President Bush’s supporters) should know how their hard earned money is being spent by a department supposedly in line with the President’s views on Iran. This, regardless that the radio may further the interests of others. Needless to say, the role of Radio Farda in promoting views against Iran's interests has been clear to Iranians themselves since this radio's inception. Guests such as Hooshang Amir-ahmadi of the AIC, the pro-Islamic Republic US lobby, and Sadegh Zibakalam , a Lebanese trained Islamist terrorist who is now a Tehran University "professor" and an adviser to the fascist regime do not exactly attract Iranian listeners. As to Lahiji, Ayatullah Shirin Ebadi's friend and contact in France!



Abdolkarim Lahiji’s role in the Islamo-communist reaction:

Jan 25, 1979---“Human rights” defined:

Addressing the employees of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Abdolkarim Lahiji, spokesman of the “Lawyers Committee of Iran” and secretary of the “Iranian Committee for the Defense of Human Rights”, stated: “All acts by agents of the Pahlavi regime carry the death penalty. These individuals have repeatedly revolted* against the national government and against the constitution, and against the spirit and thoughts and beliefs and freedoms of the people. When a revolutionary court is formed, we will set forth new views on laws from a correct revolutionary position so that all learn what it means to revolt against the people.” (*”repeated coup d’etats,” literally!)

April 1, 1979---On Hezbollah’s Referendum:

Abdolkarim Lahiji, spokesman of the “Committee for the Defense of Freedom and Human Rights”, who on behalf of the interim government had invited a group of international legal experts for their observations on the referendum, said: “This group visited a number of districts and their opinion on the referendum is generally positive.”

July 21, 1979---The same day two Iranian women, Turan Karimi and Alam Jahedi are executed, one for “corruption on earth”, another for carrying a concealed weapon:

Runs as a candidate for the Assembly of Experts; he is one of the candidates of a coalition of political groups including MKO, Revolutionary Movement of the Moslem People of Iran (JAMA), Jonbesh, Movement of Moslem Fighters, and the Islamist organization SASH.

July 25, 1979

One of the candidates of the Moslem People’s Republic Party as a representative in the Assembly of Experts.

Feb 4, 1980

Pars News. “Moslem Students Following the Line of Imam” had released documents showing Nasser Minachi to have been in contact with the US Embassy and the CIA [this was during Jimmy Carter’s administration]. In an interview with Pars News Agency on this date Minachi admitted that the contacts concerned only human rights issues, saying that the contacts were made on behalf of “Committee for the Defense of Freedom and Human Rights”, whose members included Mehdi Bazargan (Khomeini’s first Prime Minister), Karim Sanjabi (head of Jebhe Melli), Ali-Asghar Haj Seyd Javadi (Jonbesh), and Abdolkarim Lahiji, the committee’s spokesman. Minachi added that in addition to these members, religious leaders and Mullahs in the Office of the Islamic Revolution Affairs were well aware of these meetings and talks. In this interview Minachi also spoke of the services of the “Committee for the Defense of Freedom and Human Rights” in the realization of the Islamic Revolution: "During the Cinema Rex fire in Abadan, we along with Students' Islamic Association organized a meeting in front of Washington Post's Tehran office, where we succeeded in representing the Shah's government as the culprit, thus preventing the blame being put on the Mullahs and Moslems. We completely changed US public opinion regarding the Cinema Rex fire." (Later, on March 2, 1980, more documents would be released on Lahiji’s past contacts with the US embassy)

Feb 25, 1980

Reuters. Members of the United Nations commission ask Abdolkarim Lahiji (naturally) to write a report about the political situation during the reign of the Shah and of the human rights violations during the period.

March 8, 1980

Runs as a candidate for the Islamic Majless.

"A Century Of War : Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order"

"A Century Of War : Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order", written by William Engdahl, a German historian, covers how oil and politics have been intertwined for the past 100 years.

Below I have included a passage extract, concerning Iran, taken from this book. The author obviously has bought into the popularized version that the CIA re-instated the late Shah of Iran in 1953 when this is far from the truth as I have discussed earlier in my blog posts. What is interesting in this book though is how the author outlines the mechanisms that were put in place to undermine the Iranian Government, under the leadership of the Shah of Iran, and to support the radical opposition groups that worked against the Iranian state.

"In November 1978, President Carter named the Bilderberg group's George Ball, another member of the Trilateral Commission, to head a special White House Iran task force under the National Security Council's Brzezinski. Ball recommended that Washington drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the fundamentalistic Islamic opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. Robert Bowie from the CIA was one of the lead 'case officers' in the new CIA-led coup against the man their covert actions had placed into power 25 years earlier.

Their scheme was based on a detailed study of the phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism, as presented by British Islamic expert, Dr. Bernard Lewis, then on assignment at Princeton University in the United States. Lewis's scheme, which was unveiled at the May 1979 Bilderberg meeting in Austria, endorsed the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement behind Khomeini, in order to promote balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. Lewis argued that the West should encourage autonomous groups such as the Kurds, Armenians, Lebanese Maronites, Ethiopian Copts, Azerbaijani Turks, and so forth. The chaos would spread in what he termed an 'Arc of Crisis,' which would spill over into Muslim regions of the Soviet Union.

The coup against the Shah, like that against Mossadegh in 1953, was run by British and American intelligence, with the bombastic American, Brzezinski, taking public 'credit' for getting rid of the 'corrupt' Shah, while the British characteristically remained safely in the background.

During 1978, negotiations were under way between the Shah's government and British Petroleum for renewal of the 25-year old extraction agreement. By October 1978, the talks had collapsed over a British 'offer' which demanded exclusive rights to Iran's future oil output, while refusing to guarantee purchase of the oil. With their dependence on British-controlled export apparently at an end, Iran appeared on the verge of independence in its oil sales policy for the first time since 1953, with eager prospective buyers in Germany, France, Japan and elsewhere. In its lead editorial that September, Iran's Kayhan International stated:

In retrospect, the 25-year partnership with the [British Petroleum] consortium and the 50-year relationship with British Petroleum which preceded it, have not been satisfactory ones for Iran … Looking to the future, NIOC [National Iranian Oil Company] should plan to handle all operations by itself.

London was blackmailing and putting enormous economic pressure on the Shah's regime by refusing to buy Iranian oil production, taking only 3 million or so barrels daily of an agreed minimum of 5 million barrels per day. This imposed dramatic revenue pressures on Iran, which provided the context in which religious discontent against the Shah could be fanned by trained agitators deployed by British and U.S. intelligence. In addition, strikes among oil workers at this critical juncture crippled Iranian oil production.

As Iran's domestic economic troubles grew, American 'security' advisers to the Shah's Savak secret police implemented a policy of ever more brutal repression, in a manner calculated to maximize popular antipathy to the Shah. At the same time, the Carter administration cynically began protesting abuses of 'human rights' under the Shah.

British Petroleum reportedly began to organize capital flight out of Iran, through its strong influence in Iran's financial and banking community. The British Broadcasting Corporation's Persian-language broadcasts, with dozens of Persian-speaking BBC 'correspondents' sent into even the smallest village, drummed up hysteria against the Shah. The BBC gave Ayatollah Khomeini a full propaganda platform inside Iran during this time. The British government-owned broadcasting organization refused to give the Shah's government an equal chance to reply. Repeated personal appeals from the Shah to the BBC yielded no result. Anglo-American intelligence was committed to toppling the Shah. The Shah fled in January, and by February 1979, Khomeini had been flown into Tehran to proclaim the establishment of his repressive theocratic state to replace the Shah's government.

Reflecting on his downfall months later, shortly before his death, the Shah noted from exile,

I did not know it then – perhaps I did not want to know – but it is clear to me now that the Americans wanted me out. Clearly this is what the human rights advocates in the State Department wanted … What was I to make of the Administration's sudden decision to call former Under Secretary of State George Ball to the White House as an adviser on Iran? … Ball was among those Americans who wanted to abandon me and ultimately my country.[1][1]

With the fall of the Shah and the coming to power of the fanatical Khomeini adherents in Iran, chaos was unleashed. By May 1979, the new Khomeini regime had singled out the country's nuclear power development plans and announced cancellation of the entire program for French and German nuclear reactor construction.

Iran's oil exports to the world were suddenly cut off, some 3 million barrels per day. Curiously, Saudi Arabian production in the critical days of January 1979 was also cut by some 2 million barrels per day. To add to the pressures on world oil supply, British Petroleum declared force majeure and cancelled major contracts for oil supply. Prices on the Rotterdam spot market, heavily influenced by BP and Royal Dutch Shell as the largest oil traders, soared in early 1979 as a result. The second oil shock of the 1970s was fully under way.

Indications are that the actual planners of the Iranian Khomeini coup in London and within the senior ranks of the U.S. liberal establishment decided to keep President Carter largely ignorant of the policy and its ultimate objectives. The ensuing energy crisis in the United States was a major factor in bringing about Carter's defeat a year later.

There was never a real shortage in the world supply of petroleum. Existing Saudi and Kuwaiti production capacities could at any time have met the 5-6 million barrels per day temporary shortfall, as a U.S. congressional investigation by the General Accounting Office months later confirmed.

Unusually low reserve stocks of oil held by the Seven Sisters oil multinationals contributed to creating a devastating world oil price shock, with prices for crude oil soaring from a level of some $14 per barrel in 1978 towards the astronomical heights of $40 per barrel for some grades of crude on the spot market. Long gasoline lines across America contributed to a general sense of panic, and Carter energy secretary and former CIA director, James R. Schlesinger, did not help calm matters when he told Congress and the media in February 1979 that the Iranian oil shortfall was 'prospectively more serious' than the 1973 Arab oil embargo.[2][2]

The Carter administration's Trilateral Commission foreign policy further ensured that any European effort from Germany and France to develop more cooperative trade, economic and diplomatic relations with their Soviet neighbor, under the umbrella of détente and various Soviet-west European energy agreements, was also thrown into disarray.

Carter's security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, implemented their 'Arc of Crisis' policy, spreading the instability of the Iranian revolution throughout the perimeter around the Soviet Union. Throughout the Islamic perimeter from Pakistan to Iran, U.S. initiatives created instability or worse."

-- William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, © 1992, 2004. Pluto Press Ltd. Pages 171-174.


[1][1] In 1978, the Iranian Ettelaat published an article accusing Khomeini of being a British agent. The clerics organized violent demonstrations in response, which led to the flight of the Shah months later. See U.S. Library of Congress Country Studies, Iran. The Coming of the Revolution. December 1987. The role of BBC Persian broadcasts in the ousting of the Shah is detailed in Hossein Shahidi. 'BBC Persian Service 60 years on.' The Iranian. September 24, 2001. The BBC was so much identified with Khomeini that it won the name 'Ayatollah BBC.'

[2][2] Comptroller General of the United States. 'Iranian Oil Cutoff: Reduced Petroleum Supplies and Inadequate U.S. Government Response.' Report to Congress by General Accounting Office. 1979.

France' support of Islamic Fundamentalists in 1979

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing - President of the French Republic from 1974-1981

In addition to the entries i've had on U.S. involvement in the creation of the terrorist Islamic Republic occupying Iran - credit goes to the Carter Administration here - I recently came across this entry by a fellow blogger discussing the "French Connection" leading to the success of the Islamist Coup D'ètat of 1979: "France and the Iranian Revolution"

To see my previous entries on Carter's support of Islamists see:

President Carter's involvement in the betrayal of the late Shah of Iran
Pre-1979 Iran-US relations


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