|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
JOINING THE CONSERVATIVES WAS KHATAMI'S BIG MISTAKE: EXPERTS
PARIS 16TH July (IPS)
With the Iranian Government declaring a ban on all demonstrations throughout the country, Iranians analysts are still puzzled at what may had prompted the President ayatollah Mohammad Khatami to "desert" the students, harshly condemn their legitimate protest movement and side with the conservatives who, for the last two years, have systematically stopped his reforms programmes.
"This is the only mistake Mr. Khatami should have not committed", Mr. Parviz Dastmalchi, a prominent expert on the Islamic Republic's methods of terrorism and its structures told the IPS from Berlin, commenting the President's Wednesday blunt condemnation of the student's unrest.
"Mr. Khatami should realise that his political power base is in the streets, with the youth. Not having much power, he either could use this force or bow to his conservative adversaries who have the armed forces, the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij, the security forces, the Ansar. It seems that he has opted for the second solution", he pointed out.
Reminding that the students had come to the streets holding Mr. Khatami's pictures, Mr. Dastmalchi observed that instead of condemning the movement, the President should have condemned the violence while, at the same time, accept the student's demands, that, among other points, was calling for the full transfer of responsibility of the Law Enforcement Forces form the leader to the Government".
To a Germany-based Iranian expert with close links to Mr. Khatami's advisers, the President has lost without having risked. "His time is over. Until now, the conservatives needed him as a security valve. Anymore. By having surrendered to the hard liners, he is of no use to anyone", he commented, asking IPS not to print his name.
Writing in the "Washington Post", Mrs Azar Naficy, a visiting senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy noted that the events of the past few days reflect the paradoxes and contradictions in Khatemi himself. He is on the one hand part of the ruling elite and believes in the basic tenets of the Islamic Republic. On the other hand, he is genuinely committed to certain changes and reforms.
"But it seems impossible in the case of Iran to have "virtual theocracy." To the vast majority of Iranian citizens, "reform" means something different from what it means to Iran's rulers. This is clearly understood by the hard-liners, who justifiably see true reform as their own doom and the end for all practical purposes of the Islamic Republic. The hard-liners have been harassing, arresting, torturing and murdering for the past two years not just to oppose Khatemi. They have committed these crimes mainly because they fear the growing forces within Iranian civil society. The women, progressive clerics, journalists and youths at the forefront of the struggles have demands that are not identical with Khatemi's ideas of reform", she wrote.
"President Khatemi is not a cause but rather a symptom of change. He represents the paradox of both belonging and remaining faithful to the regime, and at the same time presenting an agenda that shakes its very foundations. He is caught between two forces", Mrs Naficy added.
International human rights like the London-based Amnesty International, the US Human Rights Watch, the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Border) and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists have all expressed concern over the situation in Iran after the Islamic authorities made "hundreds" of arrests among protesting students and some prominent politicians who supported the students by siding with them.
They called on the Iranian authorities to "start as a first step" investigating fully and impartially the killings and serious attacks and bring to justice all those found to be responsible", said Amnesty International.
Meanwhile, Iranians outside the country staged large scale demonstrations in various US and European cities, denouncing the arrests and the crackdown.
According to the CNN, A week after pro-democracy protests erupted against their homeland's Islamic fundamentalist-led government, thousands of Iranians rallied in Washington on Friday, one day after another large group mobilised outside the federal building in Los Angeles.
"The U.S. demonstrators say they hope to draw world wide attention to what they allege is oppression by the government, which they accuse of killing its own citizens.
Other demonstrations were organised or are under way in New York, Dallas, San Jose, San Francisco, London, Bonn, Berlin and Paris.