In Commemoration of the 23rd Anniversary of the Assassination of Dr. Abdul Rahman

It is July 13 — the day we come together to honor the life and vision of a much-loved and respected Kurdish leader. We gather  to remember Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and commemorate the passing of this great man  whose  legacy  does live  on in the emerging Kurdistan nation — a Kurdistan that  is moving into the modern world and growing ever stronger, more determined and more prosperous.

In fact, this October, I will be attending the Second World Kurdish Congress in   Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.  This symposium is a think-tank of Kurds from around the globe whose goal is to move forward the culture and nation Ghassemlou gave his life for.

During this 4-day event, Kurdish scientists and professionals from many nations will gather to paint a new picture for Kurdistan. Both the concept and the manifestation of this
Congress would have brought great delight to Ghassemlou.  For he held a clear and firm vision for his people —though his own life came to an untimely end 23 years ago.

Today I am here to speak about Ghassemlou, and in speaking about him  — to rekindle the hope and promise he held for the Kurdish nation.

How did a bright light like Ghassemlou fall prey to the actions of political miscreants in Vienna, Austria?

His assassination in Vienna left a clear trail that led to the Iranian embassy in
that country.

Let us recap: When did it all begin? In 1980, one year after Khomeini rose to power, he created a list of 500 of Iran’s political and intellectual elite considered “enemies of
Islam.”  Enemies of Islam simply meant overt opposition against the regime. Many had fled abroad and the regime would hunt them down, one by one.

Thanks to the trial for the murder of Sadegh Sharafkandi and his 3 colleagues in Berlin known as the Mykonos Trial, we learned that assassinations of political dissidents within Iran and abroad were ordered directly by Khomeini. After his death, a small group of elite members, the Committee for Special Operations took over including the Supreme Leader, the president, the foreign and intelligence ministers and the head of the Revolutionary Guards. This sinister group met regularly in one of the former Shah’s residences called the Turquoise Palace.

Their plan to eliminate dissidents through terror expanded over the years, becoming part of the regime’s internal and foreign policy.  A telling sign of the value that the regime gave to these operations was that once the killers returned to Iran, they were rewarded with high government positions as ministers and legislators.

These secret operations were perpetrated by the Quds Force, but they also recruited henchmen from around the world to do their dirty work. Exiles were murdered throughout Europe.  Dissidents were executed or killed in staged accidents in Paris, Vienna, Geneva, Bonn, London, Istanbul, Sulemania, Karachi, Larnaca, Manila, Bombay, Tokyo, New Jersey and Maryland.

As the assassins escaped and returned safely to Iran, Europeans were rewarded by
Tehran with the release of European hostages held captive somewhere in Lebanon
or any other unruly country.

No culprits were punished for the assassinations in Europe. Iranian dissidents had
become dispensable to the many European governments and politicians with business
interests in Iran.

Why was Ghassemlou considered such an enormous threat to the regime?

First of all, Khomeini had demanded that the Kurds choose between being Muslims following the orders of Allah (which meant the Ayatollah’s will) and their Kurdish nationalism.

Ghassemlou represented Kurdish nationalism. He was the quintessential symbol of this political persuasion. Because of the power of his vision and his personal charisma,
Ghassemlou was immensely popular among millions of Kurds and non-Kurds.

In addition, persecuted Iranians found a safe haven in Kurdistan where Ghassemlou and his party protected and helped them flee. His people loved him and were ready to give their lives for the cause he championed. He was also popular abroad where he endlessly lobbied in favor of democracy for Iran and autonomy for the Kurds. Ghassemlou represented resistance and was the embodiment of hope for millions.

Throughout his ten years as the leader of the Iranian Kurds, following the 1979 Revolution, Ghassemlou sought dialogue with the authorities. War, he said, had been imposed on the Kurds who had no option but to resist and defend themselves. He firmly believed the only real solution was at the negotiation table. This resolute belief was to be his undoing.

In 1988, the war between Iran-Iraq was over and Ghassemlou believed that if the regime in Iran was willing to sit down with the arch enemy Saddam, why not with Kurds? At the same time Ghassemlou feared that both governments in Tehran and Bagdad would agree to crush the Kurdish rebellion in their respective countries, as had happened in 1975 after the Algiers Accord.

In 1988 Rafsanjani reached out to Ghassemlou through Jalal Talabani and proposed a d ialogue with the PDKI. The party accepted it and Ghassemlou traveled to Vienna to meet
the Iranian representatives in December 1988 and January 1989.

Little did Ghassemlou know that he was on the list of “500 enemies of Islam” and that Rafsanajni was a member of the Committee for Special Operations. According to former Iranian president Abolhassan Bani Sadr, in 1988, it was Rafsanajni who ordered the Qud’s Force to prepare teams to eliminate Ghassemlou.

Jalal Talabani organized the first set of meetings in Vienna under extreme security measures. These negotiations were supposed to continue in 1989, but the Iranians interrupted them and Talabani was deftly sidelined.

At the time, Talabani thought that the Iranians were abandoning the negotiations due to changes in the internal political situation in Iran: Khomeini’s health was declining and
the fight for succession had intensified.

The Iranians sought a dispensable intermediary, who contacted Ghassemlou and invited him to meet with the Iranian delegation once more in Vienna in July, 1989. Ghassemlou accepted but did not inform the PDKI.  The party had come to believe that peace  negotiations with Tehran were futile.

The first meetings were meant to assuage Ghassemlou’s suspicions, making him feel confident about the negotiations. They were the bait leading to the fatal second round of meetings –without Talabani and no security.

Why did Ghassemlou agree to this meeting? He mistakenly believed that Iran, weakened by eight years of war with Iraq, sought to resolve the Kurdish problem after Khomeini’s death. He also felt that Rafsanjani, who had presented himself as a pragmatic candidate for the Iranian presidency, would be the man to take on the Kurdish issue.

Unbelievably, Ghassemlou took the bait 100%.

He was actually confident and happy following the first meeting on July 12^th,. It was during
the second meeting, July 13, 1989 that Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was killed along with his assistant, Abdullah Ghaderi and the intermediary.

During the shooting a stray bullet wounded one of the emissaries. Because of this stray bullet, the Iranian plot was not the perfect murder. Two of the three Iranian emissaries
negotiating with Ghassemlou were taken into custody. The wounded man, Sahraroudi was taken to the hospital. The alleged bodyguard, Bouzorguian, was interrogated by the police and once released, he took refuge in the Iranian Embassy.

At the crime scene, the head of the Austrian anti-terrorism unit was overheard saying: “We’ve got dead Kurds and surviving Iranians. The matter is clear. The rest will be politics.”

During those days, a political scandal, the Noricum Prozess, which implicated high-level Austrian officials in the sale of weapons to Iran and Iraq violating Austria’s neutrality, had hit the fan.

It was because of this commercial exchange of weapons with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Austria’s fear of retaliation from the Iranian regime that this democratic European state released the witnesses and suspects of the crime. Not only did they cover up a state murder —but they blocked any investigation— thus becoming, by omission, the accomplices to a terrorist act.

On July 22, nine days later, regardless of the evidence the police had, Sahraroudi, the wounded Iranian, took an Iran Air flight back to Tehran.

Five days after, on July 27, the Austrian minister of internal affairs, pronounced himself in favor of an order of extradition of Sahraroudi. In Iran he had been received like a hero and immediately promoted. He would later become head of the Quds Forces Intelligence Directory.

Though the autopsy had been done quickly, the forensic and ballistic reports were not finished until November – five months after the crime. On the 28^th, the Austrian judiciary finally issued three international warrants of arrest for the 3 Iranian emissaries who had fled the country.

In 1991 Helene Krulich, Ghassemlou’s widow, initiated a legal proceeding against the state of Austria for the murder of her husband.  She said, “For us and for all the Kurdish people, the question of why Austrian justice is silent in the face of this crime is still pending.”

A year and a half later, the Austrian high court ruled that “there had been no deficiencies in the proceedings, because the respective and relevant facts had not been clear to
the authorities in time.”  The case was dismissed.

In 2005, the Austrian parliamentary Peter Pilz brought forth new evidence regarding the participation of the Iranian regime in the murder and allegedly implicating the then
president Hashemi Rafsanjani and the newly elected president of Iran, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad were involved in the assassination planning.

According to this new evidence there were two Iranian teams involved in the murder – a negotiations team and an execution team. Pilz demanded the case be reopened and there be a parliamentary inquiry. The request was denied.

In 2009, Peter Pilz once again accused Ahmadinejad, according to a confession of a German arms dealer to the Italian police. This man affirmed having delivered the weapons
that killed the Kurds to the Iranian Embassy in Vienna. He also said: “A certain Mahmoud who later became president had been present.”

Yet the lengths to which the Austrian government has gone to keeping a lid on the murder since 1989 have been astounding – included withdrawing the chief investigator Oswald
Kessler from the front and sending him to another department where he was hidden from public perception. Kessler was convinced the Iranians had murdered the Kurds and that it was the politicians who set the guilty free. The government’s position on the murder and not supporting any future investigation was cynically displayed last year on July 12th when Austrian foreign minister Michael Spindelegger received his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi, the eve of the 22nd anniversary of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou’s assassination in Vienna.

Has anything changed within the Islamic regime of Iran since Ghassemlou’s murder in 1989?

The Iranian regime stopped killing dissidents in Western cities due to the exposure and diplomatic pressure brought forth by the Mykonos Trial. Yet the elimination of dissidents continued in Iraq, Turkey and of course in Iran.

As long as the Iranian regime only eliminated Iranian dissidents in European cities, European governments specifically France, Germany, Austria would overlook these operations that were organized within the Iranian embassies.

The effect of this decision has had terrible repercussions not only for the “dispensable” Iranians but also for the West, as an emboldened regime spread its malignant seeds across Europe.

As Roya Hakakian writes, “Allowing these groups to grow and murder hundreds of
expatriates under the oblivious Europeans, created a blueprint for the next, more ambitious generation of terror networks that would later on strike Western targets.”

The recent plans to attack Israeli and Saudi embassies within America, India, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Thailand and Kenya carry the Iranian footprint.  A number of the operatives detained in these attacks “were trained in Iranian military camps and armed by its intelligence agency.”

These recent plots represent an important increase in Iran’s state sponsored terrorism carried out primarily by the Revolutionary Guards; namely the Quds Force which continues to be at the forefront of Iranian state terrorism and is a threat to international peace, security and Middle East stability.  Not only are they supporting the brutal repression in Syria but continue to spread their tentacles across the continents.

In 2009, according to Wikileaks, there was a plot to assassinate Iranian dissidents in California and London. The goal of intimidating its critics abroad, especially in the West, is a chilling reminder of the regimes modus operandi from 1979-1992.

So today, we speak out in hope that Ghassemlou’s murder and that of hundreds of dissidents remind the world that, should the U.S. and Europe continue to tolerate these actions, we may once again see an emboldened regime opening up the gates for future assassinations and proxy wars.

Action still needs to be taken by the international community to open up the investigation of all the murders committed by the Iranian regime. As the Mykonos Trial in Berlin showed us, holding the regime accountable for its state sanctioned terrorism does have an effect.  In the same way the international community has been imposing punishing sanctions upon the Islamic Republic of Iran for its nuclear programs, the same thing must happen with regards to Iran’s state-sponsored terrorism and the gross violation of its peoples’ rights.

Above all else, as we remember Ghassemlou and the violence that day in 1989 when he was negotiating for his people, let us keep in the forefront of our awareness, that
Ghassemlou was a peacemaker.  His goal was to achieve a non-violent resolution for his people – who numbered in the millions – making the violence perpetrated upon him all the more dreadful.

One day, may justice be served upon this crime. One day, too, may Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou’s vision of self-determination and peace for his people come to pass.

Today were he alive, resolving the uncertainty and conflict his people have endured, would
be his most fervent wish.

North York Civic Center, Toronto

July 13, is a very heartfelt and meaningful day for the Kurdish nation, a day in which the life of a much-loved and respected Kurdish leader was extinguished. We gather each year
to remember Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and his colleagues. This day commemorates the passing of a great light from this world. Why do we take the time to recall a past, fallen hero?

First and foremost, Ghassemlou was a man of very high principles and uncommonly in the world of politics, he actually lived those principles.  His ideas were so far ahead of his time that even within his party, he was greatly misunderstood.  Ghassemlou came to his people with the vastness of the ocean and was often met with the limitations of a closed-in world.

It is twenty-two years since that tragic day when Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was struck down in Vienna. Twenty-two years of sorrow and slow movement forward in Iranian Kurdistan.  Twenty-two years of impunity and complicity have also passed – during which justice has not been served.   Ghassemlou was killed, but his assassins failed to destroy what he represented. His ideas of freedom and democracy continue to inspire the hearts of all those who believed in him.

We must also speak about the twenty-two years of shame – shame upon those who have allowed the murderers to flee and have kept silence to protect these wrongdoers. Our presence here today speaks to the silent and complicit Austrian authorities as well as the Islamic regime of Iran, saying, “We do not forget.”

Our voices join those of thousands in Iranian Kurdistan and around the world who on July 13^th honor Ghassemlou regardless of the threats of that criminal regime. We will continue to remind the world until justice is finally served.

The steps that led up to this heinous crime are the historical events of the Kurdish nation and Ghassemlou’s life.  In looking more closely at Ghassemlou’s political program, it’s no surprise that he ended up being a target.  His perspective was in direct opposition to the agenda of the Islamic Republic of Iran. From the moment he emerged as a political force, the plan he held for his country drew the ire of the regime.

The murder of Ghassemlou was not only a tragedy for the Kurds of Iran but also for the entire Kurdish nation. Ghassemlou was a farsighted leader whose political program
forged a democratic and humanistic vision for his people. Especially in those days, but true also today, his national ideal went beyond local tribal agendas.

Ghassemlou was a harbinger of real unity among the Kurds. He understood that the Kurds could only gain strength as a national movement if they were united. Such unification would put an end to the cycle of short-sighted victories and manipulation of the different regional governments.

He took a higher road. Freedom and democracy, minority rights and justice were the
cornerstones of Ghassemlou’s vision. He said that it was of utmost importance to protect democratic freedoms and strengthen a proper democratic government in Iran. Without a democratic regime in Iran, the Kurds could not achieve their rights, and without securing the Kurd’s rights and other nationalities in Iran, the regime could not be truly democratic.

For Ghassemlou, democracy entailed three aspects that could not be divided.  These included social, economic and political democracy. Pluralism was another aspect that Ghassemlou supported. About this he said if one is a Democrat and believes in pluralism, then one must allow others to give their opinions.

Ghassemlou firmly believed that the Kurds alone could not bring forth a democratic regime in Iran. Iran is a country with many nations.  Therefore it was and continues to be necessary to work with and fight with the other national groups for self-determination. We
know this very well from the present-day realities. He thought that cooperation among the different national groups was paramount to bring about democracy in Iran. All nations have the right to choose their destiny; all men have the right to practice their religion.

Even though Ghassemlou’s wish was for unity, the tendency within the Kurdish parties is
towards divisiveness.  This is an aspect that does not seem to have changed. Personal differences and intolerance within the party ranks have been the cause for ongoing division among the Kurdish parties for generations. Even today, Kurds are still struggling to achieve an ongoing, working dialogue with one another.

Ghassemlou taught the Kurds to be proud of their identity and heritage. He realized that
one of the keys to genuine social and political progress for Kurdistan was the quality of self respect. “You will learn to speak and write in Kurdish,” he would tell his peshmergas.

Thirty years ago, he embraced social democracy for his nation. To do this, he left behind the dogma of the radical left. Even though Ghassemlou’s party led an imposed armed struggle against the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the PDKI was perhaps the only Third World revolutionary movement that opposed popular terrorist methods – especially at that time.

About this Ghassemlou said:  “As a democratic organization we have always opposed all acts of terrorism, be it hijacking of planes, taking hostages, putting bombs or any action that threatens the lives and security of civilians. To renounce our principles and thus lose our image as a responsible, democratic and humanitarian party, in return for fleeting publicity is both vain and useless.”

Throughout his ten years as the leader of the Iranian Kurds, following the 1979 Revolution,
Ghassemlou had always sought dialogue with the authorities. War, he said, had been imposed on the Kurds who had no option but to resist and defend themselves. He believed the solution lay on the negotiation table.

In 1988, the war between Iran-Iraq was over and Ghassemlou and his Party believed that if the regime in Iran was willing to sit down with the arch enemy Saddam, why not with Kurds. At the same time Ghassemlou feared that both governments in Tehran and Bagdad would agree to crush the Kurdish rebellion in their respective countries, as it had happened in 1975 after the Algiers Accord.

Tehran reached out to Ghassemlou through Jalal Talabani (current president of Iraq) proposing a dialogue with the PDKI. The party accepted it and Ghassemlou traveled to Vienna to meet the Iranian representatives in December 1988 and January 1989.

Talabani organized the first set of meetings under extreme security measures which were supposed to continue in 1989. But the Iranians interrupted them. At the time, Talabani
thought that the Iranians were abandoning the negotiations due to changes in the internal political situation in Iran: Khomeini’s health was declining and the fight for succession had intensified. In this way they deftly put Talabani aside, for their plan was in fact
to murder Ghassemlou.

The Iranians then sought a dispensable intermediary, an Iraqi Kurd who had ties with influential officials in Iran. This intermediary contacted Ghassemlou and invited him to meet in Vienna once more with the Iranian delegation in July, 1989. Ghassemlou accepted but did not inform the PDKI.  The party had come to believe that peace negotiations with Tehran were futile.

This second set of meetings was part of the Iranian plot to eliminate Ghassemlou.  In fact, the first meetings were meant as bait that would lead to a second round of meetings without Talabani and without security measures. Absolute secrecy was probably asked of them.

Why did Ghassemlou accept this? He mistakenly believed that Iran, weakened by eight years of war with Iraq, needed to resolve the Kurdish problem after Khomeini’s death. He also felt that Rafsanjani, who had presented himself as a pragmatic candidate for the Iranian presidency, would be the man to take on the Kurdish issue.

Ghassemlou took the bait. He went to Vienna to meet with the Iranian emissaries without taking security precautions and did not inform the party. After the first meeting
on July 12^th, he was confident and happy. On the second meeting, July 13 1989 Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was killed together with his assistant, Abdullah Ghaderi and the intermediary, Fadil Rasoul.

During the shooting a stray bullet wounded one of the emissaries. Because of this stray bullet, the Iranian plot was not the perfect murder. Two of the three Iranian emissaries
negotiating with Ghassemlou were taken into custody. The head of the Austrian anti-terrorism unit was overheard saying: “We’ve got dead Kurds and surviving Iranians. The matter is clear. The rest will be politics.”

And politics it was. Tehran threatened reprisals, but there was also a political scandal, Noricum Prozess, which implicated high-level Austrian officials in the sale of weapons
to Iran and Iraq violating Austria’s neutrality.  So the Austrian authorities released the
Iranian witnesses who left the country.

It was because of this commercial exchange of weapons with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and its fear of retaliation from the Iranian regime that Austria, a democratic European
state, released the witnesses and suspects of the crime. Not only did they cover up a state murder but they blocked any investigation thus becoming by omission the accomplices to a terrorist act.

In 1991 Helene Krulich, Ghassemlou’s widow, initiated a legal proceeding against the state of Austria for the crime against Ghassemlou. She said, “For us and for all the Kurdish
people, the question of why Austrian justice is silent in the face of this crime is still pending.”

A year and a half later the Austrian high court ruled that “there had been no deficiencies in the proceedings, because the respective and relevant facts had not been clear to the authorities in time,” the judge said. The case was dismissed.

In 2005, the Austrian parliamentary Peter Pilz brought forth new evidence regarding the participation of the Iranian regime in the murder and allegedly implicating the then president Hashemi Rafsanjani and the newly elected president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the planning of the assassination.

According to this new evidence there had been two Iranian teams involved in the murder – a negotiations team and an execution team. Pilz demanded the case be reopened and
that there be a parliamentary inquiry. The request was denied.

In 2009, Peter Pilz once again accused Ahmadinejad according to a confession of a German arms dealer to the Italian police. This man affirmed having delivered the weapons
that killed the Kurds to the Iranian Embassy in Vienna. He also said: “A certain Mahmoud who later became president had been present.”

Twenty-two years later, the case has never been resolved and the Austrian authorities have not even released the evidence.

Has anything changed within the Islamic regime of Iran since Ghassemlou’s murder in 1989?

Today the Iranian regime is not killing dissidents in Western cities due to the exposure brought forth by the Mykonos Trial, on the murder of Ghassemlou’s successor, Sadeq Sharafkandi and three colleagues in Berlin in 1992. But the elimination of dissidents has continued in Iraq, Turkey and of course in Iran.

Thanks to the Mykonos Trial, we learned that assassinations of political dissidents within Iran and abroad were ordered directly by Khomeini. After his death in 1989, a Special Affairs Committee (Komitey-e Omour-e Vizheh) was established to make decisions on
matters of state. One of the issues was the suppression and elimination of political opposition to the Islamic Republic. This Committee appointed Iran’s Minister of Intelligence to oversee the systematic elimination of PDKI’s leadership.  Eliminating dissidents through terror expanded as part of the regime’s internal and foreign policy.

The Mykonos trial revealed that the Islamic Republic of Iran led a ferocious, state-sponsored campaign of political assassinations abroad. From 1979 to 1992 high level Iranian officials were linked to 162 extrajudicial killings of key political opponents around the globe, especially in European cities. With the discreet tolerance of the respective governments, no justice was served. Many had commercial interests with Iran.  This is yet another example of the rights of Iranian citizens being cast aside.

The crucial point here is this: had Europe and the world spoken against the earlier crimes of political dissidents, Iran’s terror machine may not have developed as it has in
the years following the revolution.

We are going to be hearing much more about this topic in the talks that follow. Keep in mind as you hear the ensuing speakers, the courageous and valiant hearts of the Kurdish
people. It is this spirit that beats ceaselessly within this nation, despite years of senseless crimes and persecution.  When I say this will to survive endures, I mean strength and hope lives on within each and every Kurd – no matter in which nation he/she lives, the
particulars of their daily lives.

Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou had his finger on the pulse of the Kurdish will to live and more than live, to live in freedom. He believed in the resolute dream he held most dear.  That one day, his people would have the right to their culture and to live in peace. Not such a far-fetched notion, yet one that remains elusive.

The life of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou ended before he could see the actualization of this wish for his people come to fruition. While reaching for its manifestation, Ghassemlou
met the untimely end that cut short his vision for a brighter and united future.

May his dream continue to guide his countrymen and women to fulfill the destiny that is rightly theirs. Though his flame was extinguished much too early, the fire and passion of his vision endures in the hearts of millions of Kurds. Ghassemlou wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Panelists:

-Carol Prunhuber, author of the book “The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd: Dreaming Kurdistan”
-John Thompson, head of Mackenzie Institute for the Study of Terrorism, Revolution and Propaganda
-Tarek Fatah, Canadian political activist and writer, the author of “Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State”
-Dr. Farokh Zandi, Schulich School of Business, York University
-Sharif Behruz, the representative of Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, US/Canada
–Ezatollah Mosallanejad, Researcher, Canadian Center for Victims of Torture
-Soraya Fallah, human rights and political activist
-Along with a special message from Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada

KURDS

The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd: Dreaming Kurdistan, by Carol Prunhuber
New York and Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, Inc., 2009.
$24.95 paper.

Reviewed by Michael M. Gunter

On July 13, 1989, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou —the urbane, preeminent Iranian Kurdish
leader since the execution of Qazi Mohammed, the president of the Mahabad Republic of Kurdistan in Iran in 1947 — was assassinated by Iranian agents in Vienna, Austria while negotiating with them. More than 20 years later, we still do not know for sure who these Iranian agents were, why the Austrian authorities failed to follow up on the case, and how it was possible for such an intelligent and experienced person as Ghassemlou to be so naively led to his death.

Carol Prunhuber —a Venezuelan journalist who knew Ghassemlou well and spent some time with his Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) guerrillas in the Kurdish  mountains —has written a fast-paced, stirring account of what we do know and suspect. Her investigative journalism is largely based on interviews with numerous knowledgeable figures, including the famous Iraqi Kurdish leader and current Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, and the former Iranian president Abolhassan Bani Sadr, among numerous others. She also uses as sources police reports, reputed tapes of Ghassemlou’s fatal meeting with the Iranians, and various books and articles.

“Kak Doctor” (p. 14) —as he was affectionately known to his close associates— was born in Urmia, Iran in 1930, the same year that Ismail Agha Simko, a famous earlier Iranian Kurdish leader, was also assassinated by the Iranian authorities under false pretensions of negotiation, an event Ghassemlou frequently mentioned. Ghassemlou earned a PhD in economics and political science from the university in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1962, taught at two different universities, and later published his doctoral dissertation as Kurdistan and the Kurds (1965). He “spoke eight languages with ease” (p. xxv), lived for many years in France and Czechoslovakia, but also spent several years fighting against Iranian forces in the mountains during the early 1980s. Revealingly, Ghassemlou once vouched that “there is nothing harder than organizing the Kurds” (p. 45).

Ghassemlou knew Saddam Husayn and once even acted as a mediator between him and
Jalal Talabani. Ghassemlou was allowed to come and go through Baghdad, which “revealed his secret relations with the Iraqi regime” (p. 90). No wonder the Iranians
“believed that Ghassemlou was a foreign agent” (p. 80). On the other hand, Ghassemlou
also met twice with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the first time in March 1979 when Ghassemlou was not even searched and “it would have been very easy to kill him [Ghassemlou]” (p. 62).

“Ghassemlou’s murder [on July 13, 1989] was the culmination of a long hunt for the  Kurdish leader by the Islamic Republic” (p. 217). Indeed, “Khomeini had condemned
… Ghassemlou to death ten years before” (p. 33). Ironically, Jalal Talabani, a longtime friend of Ghassemlou, had participated in some of the first round of negotiations several months earlier. For this earlier round the Kurds had taken better precautions, making sure that things were “under our control and mediation” (p. 219), as Talabani later explained. “I had a gun and so did Ghassemlou … We did not tell the Iranians where the meetings would be held” (p. 219). However, the Iranians were able to omit Talabani from the final fatal meeting by falsely blaming his party for leaks which they themselves purposely had committed in order to isolate Ghassemlou.

Years later, Peter Pilz, an Austrian MP, learned indirectly from exiled former Iranian president Bani Sadr that the current Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad supposedly
had been involved in Ghassemlou’s assassination by being “responsible for picking up the weapons from the Iranian embassy [in Vienna] and passing them to [the two actual assassins] Taghepour and Asgari” (p. 286). Ahmadinejad also reportedly headed the second assassination team which “would have moved into action … if the first team had not succeeded” (p. 286). Hadji Mostafawi, one of the Iranians negotiating with Ghassemlou, “opened the [apartment] door [for the two assassins]. Ghassemlou had no time to react” (p. 286). Mostafawi disappeared after the crime, leaving no trace. Mohamed Jafari Sahrarudi, another Iranian supposedly negotiating with Ghassemlou, was  accidentally wounded during the shooting, detained by the police, but then released by the “pusillanimous Austrian government” (p. xxiii).

Three years later, the Iranians also assassinated Sadegh Sharafkandi, Ghassemlou’s successor, at the Mykonos Restaurant in Berlin. This time, however, a German court convicted the four assassins and “also implicated Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani” (p. 278) as well as “Ali Fallahian, the head of the Iranian intelligence agency, for ordering the [Sharafkandi] assassination” (p. xxiii).

Why had Ghassemlou been so naïve as to enter the death trap set for him by the Iranians? According to Helene Krulich, his former wife with whom he was still close, Ghassemlou “was convinced that … the Iranian government would not dare to harm him. He was certain that the government needed an agreement with him and the Kurds” (p. 207). “He was convinced that the death of Khomeini [a month earlier] had weakened the regime” (p.
7). Jalal Talabani stated that Ghassemlou fell into the trap because “he was still anxious to
seal an agreement with Tehran before Iran and Iraq made a final deal … and there … [would] be no concession from either side” (p. 221). Carol Prunhuber speculates that “he badly needed a triumph after so many years of fighting and adversity” (p. 11).

Although there are several million more Kurds living in Iran than in Iraq, the former are
much less known to scholars and others. This alone would make Prunhuber’s study useful. In addition, despite her narrative being light on its broader analysis of the Iranian
Kurds, it is important for its details about Ghassemlou and how they illustrate the
methods used by Iran in its handling of the Kurds. While the book lacks a needed index,
it does contain detailed notes, a bibliography, photographs, and four appendices, including
a useful chronology of events in Ghassemlou’s life, another chronology of historical events, a list of dramatis personae, and further testimony from Bani Sadr. To this English-reading reviewer, a less sentimental sounding title for the book might have been simply “The Life and Death of the Iranian Kurdish Leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou: Iran’s Role Exposed.”

Michael M. Gunter, Professor of Political Science at Tennessee Technological University and The International University in Vienna, Austria, is the author of Historical Dictionary of the Kurds, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011).

Winner in the “Biography/Autobiography” category of the 2011 London Book Festival

http://londonbookfestival.com/portal/content.asp?contentid=601

Finalist in the “Biography: General” category of the 2011
International Book Awards

http://www.internationalbookawards.com/2011awardannouncement.html

In 1985, I visited Kurdistan to film a documentary on their struggle against the Iranian regime.  I saw their plight firsthand.  Many were living in tents at the Iranian-Iraqi border without basic needs such as clean water or food.  Some showed me photo albums depicting a happier life in their now destroyed homes.  Despite the suffering they have endured, the Kurds continue to sacrifice their lives for one single cause:  to secure their freedom.

For decades, the Kurds have paid a heavy price. The essence of Kurdish identity has been under constant attack, not only in Iran, but also in other countries where they live.  It’s true that the entire Iranian population has been subjected to brutal treatment, but the Kurds have been specifically targeted.

When I visited their camps in the mountains of Kurdistan, I heard
stories of how the Pasdaran, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, had pursued the Kurdish fighters deep into the rugged terrain.  At the beginning of the revolution, the Kurds controlled and administered the Kurdish areas, but Khomeini ordered the Iranian Pasdaran to
invade Kurdistan and crush the resistance movement. The relative peace and freedom the Kurds had gained during those first months of the Iranian revolution were destroyed.

Today many of the Kurdish bases have been moved to the heart of Iraqi Kurdistan.  I visited these bases in recent years, and the fear of reprisal and attack by the Pasdaran still resonate in the activists there.

The Kurds in Iran experienced a relatively organized resistance against the Shah and the current regime.  This led successive Tehran regimes to violently crush any freedom movements seeking greater rights for the Kurds. The prudent leadership and ongoing resistance by these people continue to threaten the Iranian central government.

One outstanding leader that I met during my journalistic career was Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, the Secretary General of the PDKI: His message was direct and simple: Democracy for Iran, Autonomy for Kurdistan.

Ghassemlou was an inspired leader who gave his national movement a clear direction. He successfully mobilized the resistance against a powerful regime.  Early on, he understood that the mullahs would hijack the revolution and turn it into a clerical dictatorship. Under the iron grip of the ayatollahs, there could be no democratic progress in the country.

Even though Ghassemlou’s party was forced to lead an armed struggle against Iran, the PDKI was perhaps the only third world revolutionary movement that was opposed to any terrorist actions that could threaten the lives and security of civilians.

About this Ghassemlou said:  “As a democratic organization we
have always opposed all acts of terrorism, be it hijacking of planes, taking hostages, putting bombs or any action that threatens the lives and security of civilians. To renounce our principles and thus lose our image as a responsible, democratic and humanitarian party, in return for fleeting publicity is both vain and useless.”

Ghassemlou believed that the resolution of the Kurdish issue in Iran could not be achieved through violence.  His determination to peacefully solve this political miasma became his undoing. He himself fell into the trap of the Iranian regime, when Tehran sent terrorists to Vienna in 1989 and he was murdered while sitting at the negotiation table.

Tellingly, in August of 1979, Khomeini condemned Ghassemlou on nationwide TV.  He banned the PDKI as “the party of Satan,
corrupt and the agent of foreigners.” His fatwa had been issued.  It took ten years for the regime to execute it.

The Iranian culprits of Ghassemlou’s murder were identified.  Two
of them were detained.  The Austrian authorities feared reprisal from the Iranian regime. Also there was commercial involvement between the two countries. In the end, the Austrian officials freed
the emissaries.

Twenty-two years later, no one has been brought to justice for the murder.  Neither have the Austrian authorities released the evidence.

A second Kurdish leader, Ghassemlou’s successor Sadegh Saharafkandi, was also murdered with three associates at the Mykonos Restaurant in Berlin three years later. This time the German Federal Prosecutor went ahead with an investigation and German intelligence agencies were forced to open up their classified files.

The Mykonos trial revealed that the Islamic Republic of Iran had led a ferocious, state-sponsored campaign of political assassinations abroad. From 1979 to 1992 high level Iranian officials were linked to 162 extrajudicial killings of key political opponents around the globe, especially in European cities. With the discreet tolerance of the respective governments, no justice was served. Many had commercial interests with Iran.  This is another prime example of the rights of Iranian citizens being sidelined.

The German judiciary did not bow down to the Iranian threat. On the contrary, its resolute decision to fight terrorism and punish the culprits is an example to the world. It is also true that those detained who received life sentences, were released fifteen years later, suggesting a secret deal between Berlin and Tehran.

This is the crucial point here: had Europe and the world spoken against the earlier crimes of political dissidents, Iran’s terror machine may not have developed as it has in the years following the revolution.

This trial became the first sign that oppressed Iranians were not dispensable and that justice would be rendered.

Back to Ghassemlou for a moment. He had developed close ties and relations with politicians, journalists and academics in Europe. Ghassemlou’s outstanding diplomatic capacity was viewed as a direct threat by the Iranian regime.

The lobbying he extended to the United States was about to bear fruit. Ghassemlou received an invitation from members of Senate and the House of Representatives to meet with them in August 1989. One month prior to this trip, he was killed.

Ghassemlou had been enthusiastically preparing his trip, knowing that this visit would possibly open up the Kurd’s cause in Iran. Had that visit taken place, who knows what could have come of those meetings between the United States and the Iranian Kurds?

His influence in the politics of Iran could have been profound, for he was a well-respected, knowledgeable and sophisticated leader. His people loved him and his agenda for the Kurds was forward thinking. Notably his ideas for human rights reform for all Iranians comprised the forefront of his political agenda.

Today the USA and the world have been focusing primarily on the nuclear threat Iran poses.  Human rights of the Iranians have fallen to the wayside. In our gathering here today, Kurds and other minorities are advocating their cause, as Ghassemlou did giving his life more than two decades before.

The Kurds are an essential part of the Iranian mosaic due to their tenacity and courage.  For decades and against great odds, they have resisted the tyranny of the Iranian regime.  Even today, they continue to be a primary moving force.

The Kurds have relentlessly borne the torch for a democratic Iran. I have seen firsthand the bravery of the Kurds in Iran against this regime.  They continue to decry its brutal repression.  Their presence today alongside other minorities is a testimony of their dogged spirit.

Surely the people of Iran deserve international support to topple this regime, bringing peace to the Iranian people and this resource rich and politically viable region.  If nothing else captures the attention of the international community, the vast reserves of oil, water and natural gas in the area should do just that.  Meanwhile, the lives of millions of Kurds hang in the balance.