PRINCE REZA PAHLAVI TELLS EUROPE TO STOP SUPPORTING AYATOLLAHS
By Safa Haeri, IPS Editor
PARIS 3 Dec. (IPS) Prince Reza Pahlavi of Iran warned sternly Tuesday the European Union to end its support for the Islamic Republic or accept "all the consequence it might face once this regime is gone.
Observers said this is the first time that the 41 years-old Iranian prince is
delivering such a stern and blunt warning to the 15-members European
organisation, considered as the Islamic Republic’s main political ad economic
supporter.
"After the 11 September tragedy, President Bush told the world you are with us or with the terrorists. It is our turn to put the same question to Europe and the West in general, but reminding them that whatever the decision, they should bear responsibility for the consequences", he pointed out.
Addressing a press conference in Paris, Mr. Pahlavi said Europe in particular and the Western press in general tend to portray the Iranian President Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami as "moderate", but they forgot that it is under his governance that tens of political and intellectuals dissidents had been jailed, several murdered and more than 80 publications shut, without Mr. Khatami moving his little finger".
"Mr. Khatami is finished. His time is over, as seen by the latest students demonstrations in Iran, where the protesters reserved him the same treatment as for Ayatollah Khameneh'i, Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani or Mr. Shahroodi", Mr. Pahlavi said about the leader of the Islamic Republic, the former president and the Head of the Judiciary, who are considered as the most hated men by the Iranian people.
Speaking to international reporters at the invitation of the American French Press Association at the prestigious "Circle Inter-Allies", Mr. Pahlavi said the struggle in Iran is not between the conservatives and the so-called reformers, "but between a people that want democracy, freedom, prosperity and secularism and a theocracy that want to rule by the sword, blood and gun".
Mr. Pahlavi reminded that many other dictators, like Augusto Pinochet of Chili, Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania or Milosevic of Yugoslavia, to name a few, have been brought down. "Sooner than later, present Iranian leaders would also join other dictators, then remain the Iranian people and those nations and governments that supported the dictators", he pointed out.
He agreed with President George W. Bush of the United States who characterised the Islamic Republic as an "evil State", observing that without the Islamic revolution that gave birth to the Islamic Republic in 1979, the world would "certainly" not see the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US, international terrorist organisations such as al-Qa’eda or the "flood" of refugees which is "submerging" Europe.
The young Prince, who lives in the United States, described the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hoseyn as a "dangerous cancer" for the region, but added that if the world wants to see the Middle East living in peace and stability, it should start removing the Iranian ayatollahs first".
Prince Pahlavi said though the presence of a democratic regime in Baghdad would affect the situation in Iran and accelerate the ongoing reform process, but any democratic change in Iran would affect the whole Middle East and Persian Gulf.
He said his call for civil disobedience as a "peaceful mean" to bring down the present Iranian Mollahrchy and organise a referendum has received a large echo in Iran, where students and new forces are also calling for the same slogans.
Mr. Pahlavi, whose father was overthrown by the Islamic revolution of 1979, said he is not fighting for the return of monarchy to Iran, but a parliamentarian democracy. "The form of the future regime of Iran depends on the choice of the Iranian people, not me", he told a journalist.
Sources in Iran say both Reza Pahlavi and the new constitutionalist monarchist movement, led by Mr. Dariush Homayoon, are getting more popular in Iran, mostly thanks to the numerous independent Iranian radio and televisions, most of them based in California, USA, offering Mr. Pahlavi airtime to explain to the Iranian audience back home his ideas and plans for the future of Iran. ENDS REZA PAHLAVI 31202