Iran Zamin, Nov. 17 - Two Kashan university students were brutally murdered on campus. Majid Karimi and Nazar Baharlou were active in the student demonstrations last month, protesting the requirement to pay tuition. One had his throat cut and the othe r died of multiple stab wounds.

Iran Zamin, Nov. 17 - Amnesty International reported that Haji Mohammad Zia'i, 55, a leader of the Sunni Moslems in Bandar Abbas was found dead next to his car. He had been summoned for interrogation to the security headquarters in Lar, in Fars provi nce, on July 15. Five days later, his mutilated body was found 200 km from the city. His head, one arm and one leg had been chopped off. Security officials said a car accident was the cause of his death. As a critic of the regime, he had been arrested and tortured in 1981.

Repression

Tehran radio, Nov. 26 - The large-scale maneuvers by the 741 battalions, consisting of 280,000 Bassijis began in most Iranian cities. The bassij forces displayed their combat and defense capabilities by taking up positions in the streets and in differ ent districts.

Tehran radio, Nov. 20 - Brigadier Reza Seifollahi, commander of the State Security Forces, said: "53 groups equipped with vehicles and mobile computers will patrol thoroughfares in major cities. Using computers, they will stop and search suspicious ind ividuals, vehicles and motorcycles."

NCR Secretariat, Nov. 20 - A spokesman for the Iranian Resistance described the action as another suppressive measure to create an atmosphere of terror and intimidation and to control the society's extremely explosive state.

Kayhan, Nov. 7 - Four fingers on the right hand of two thieves in the city of Dezful were chopped off publicly. The charges against them were not announced, however.

Strikes

Resistance's network, Nov. 21 - Students at Isfahan's Petroleum Industry University staged a sit in to protest plans to eliminate health benefits and food subsidies for the students.

Israeli radio, Nov. 21 - Workers have begun strikes in several cities, protesting non-payment of their wages and lack of insurance. Factories in Isfahan, Chahar Mahal, and Shahreza have been affected with the strike.

Foreign debt

Tehran radio, Nov. 21 - Nateq Nouri, the Majlis speaker said: Iran has $33 bn. in foreign debt. The Majlis has instructed the government to reduce this amount to $25 bn. at the end of the second five-year-plan.

Social calamities

Abrar, Nov. 21 - In the northern city of Sari, a young man set her mother on fire because she refused to give her son money to marry a women older than him.

Jomhouri-Islami, Nov. 20 - In Bojnourd, northeast Iran, a father, 27, killed her daughter, 4.5 years old. He said that after having an argument with his wife, he took the child to the mountain and beat her head with an eight-kg rock until sh e died. He then buried her in abandoned limekiln and covered the body with dirt.

Bogus arrests

Reuters, Nov. 23 - Iranian security officials have seized a number of bombs smuggled from Iran to blow up sensitive targets, Iran's news agency reported on Wednesday. The top intelligence official in West Azerbaijan province said security officers had arrested a number of people and seized a large quantity of weapons and ammunition from them.

Mojahedin statement, Nov. 23 - The mullahs disseminate such reports to prepare the grounds for military attacks, similar to those on November 6 and 9, or terrorist assaults against the Resistance's activists in Europe, the U.S. or Iraq. The Mojahedin have repeatedly and unequivocally stressed that they categorically condemn any action, including bombings, that endanger the lives of innocent people. As the sole beneficiary of such atrocities, the Khomeini regime, is the very source of these anti-human crimes.

Writer dead

New York Times, Nov. 28 - The leading Iranian dissident writer in Iran died today in detention eight months after being charged with drug abuse and espionage. Iranian authorities said the cause was a heart attack.

The author, Ali Akbar Saidi Sirjani, 63, was arrested last March and was not allowed to have a defense attorney or a trial. Sayeh Sirjani, the author's 26-year-old daughter, said today that her father had no history of heart ailments.

Internal feuding

Israeli radio, Nov. 26 - After the Society of Militant Clergy in Qom announced the names of four theologians as the Marja Taqlid to replace the ailing Araki, Iran's head of the judiciary warned that under the Islamic regime no Faqih can issue a fatwa that would run contrary to the views and orders of Khamenei. None of the clergy who are chosen as Marja have the right to intervene in government affairs, he stressed.

Resistance

Mojahedin Statement, Nov. 26 - On November 15, the Iranian Resistance's leader, Mr. Rajavi said that the Resistance against the religious, terrorist dictatorship has matured into the phase of overthrow, calling on forces of the Iranian Resistance to "p repare and defend" against future attacks by the Khomeini regime's Guards Corps(Pasdaran). After a ten-day delay, today, IRNA reacted apprehensively, calling on those "deceived" by the Mojahedin to "live a normal life" and report to the regime's embassies abroad to enjoy the necessary privileges.

The panicky reaction reflects the height of the mullahs' fear from the NLA and clarifies the prospects for the clerics' inevitable overthrow. The clerics also retreated from their previous, ridiculous propaganda concerning the flight of thousands of Mo jahedin from Iraq to Europe and the U.S., this time emphasizing that "only a handful" of the Mojahedin had left Iraq.

FOREIGN

UN reports rights abuses

AFP, Nov. 18 - The Special Representative of the U.N. Human Rights Commission wrote in his interim report that "punishments consisting of various forms of torture such as amputations and flogging are still practiced in Iran." The report adds, "Using tortu re to get confessions, at least in cases considered politically sensitive, is routine." Mr. Galindo Pohl called on Tehran to "immediately resume its cooperation with the Red Cross and allow it to pay regular visits to the prisons."

NCR Secretariat, Nov. 19 - NCR President, Massoud Rajavi, welcomed the report, adding: As the highest international authority on human rights, now, through its Special Representative, the United Nations has unequivocally testified to the irreformabilit y and illegitimacy of the religious, terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran. He called on the Security Council to put on its agenda the issue of human rights abuses and export of terrorism by the Khomeini regime. By taking specific measures and adopting binding resolutions, the Council must expel this regime from the internationa l community, Rajavi stressed.

FEATURE

"The 41-page credential," Mojahed, weekly publication of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, November 21, 1994 Excerpts:

A year and a half after the State Department issued an anti-Mojahedin statement in Spring 1984, the Irangate scandal in Autumn 1986, revealed that the said statement had been a down-payment by the incumbent Administration to the ruling tyrants in Tehra n to secure the release of the American hostages in Lebanon.

History seems to be repeating itself in 1994. This time, however, it took only 18 days before the reasons behind the State Department's biased report against the Mojahedin came to light. Although, there were some earlier indications that the proponents of the Irangate policy were adamantly seeking to appease the criminal mullahs, Gary Sick's rather lengthy article in the Los Angeles Times of Nov. 17 pushed aside the curtains. In his piece, "Iran is Ripe for a Peaceful Overture," Sick wastes no time t o address the crux of the matter: "The present U.S. policy of 'containment' is not producing positive changes in Iran's behavior...

"Contrary to prevailing pop analysis and wishful thinking, our jawboning and obstruction of international development credits for Iran will neither transform nor bring down the Islamic revolutionary regime. The United States is the dominant power in th e Gulf. It need not-and should not-make any unilateral concessions to Iran. Present efforts to ban sales of nuclear weapons technology to Iran should be stringently maintained. At the same time, the Clinton Administration should name a senior representati ve, such as Assistant Secretary of State Robert Pelletreau, to undertake discussions with Iran without preconditions. Pelletreau is a seasoned diplomat whose experience with the PLO while he was ambassador to Tunisia showed that he can be tough and discr ete...

"Iran complains that its security concerns go unheeded by the West. The naming of a high-level interlocutor would challenge Iran to put those concerns on the table in an authoritative dialogue."

His words are clear enough. Mr. Sick is definitely the best choice for authoring such an article. For years he has been one of the most ardent advocates the regime's transmutation and Rafsanjani's "moderation," always pushing for more concessions to t he clerics. Having worked for the White House, Sick knows what he is talking about. Most certainly, without Mr. Pelletreau's knowledge he would not have recommended him as "ambassador " to the mullahs' regime. Mr. Sick does not stop there. In addition t o appointing a "seasoned" and "high-level" ambassador, he offers several guarantees to the mullahs to secure the trustworthiness of this would-be "emisary:"

The United States must abandon the "containment policy," he says. Neither should it deny the regime international development credits nor ban the export of any technology but nuclear technology. What is more, Sick adds, the U.S. should set no precond itions for direct talks and address Tehran's security concerns (about the Mojahedin).

The hero in this scenario is none other than Mr. Pelletreau who, in less than a year since being appointed as the Assistant Secretary of State for Near East, has lost no opportunity to underscore that the U.S. does not intend "to overthrow the Iranian government." From the outset, he has repeatedly emphasized that the U.S. welcomes direct dialogue with Iran's despots. Last April, he even went further, describing the faltering theocracy as a "permanent feature," adding in September that it has "deep ro ots." A bit later in October, in his remarks and written statement at a congressional hearing, he did not spare churning out slanders against the Mojahedin. And finally, on October 28, his bureau published the absurd 41-page anti-Mojahedin report.

Of course, when this veteran diplomat speaks about a "permanent feature" with "deep roots," or when he unleashes slanders against the Mojahedin, he has correctly chosen his interlocutors and is fully aware of the steps that need to be taken to become a goodwill envoy. Needless to say, the "permanent" rulers of Iran have welcomed and reciprocated everyone of his gestures in the State-run media.

But, the behind-the-scene vested interests and planners have not limited themselves to sending soothing messages to the turbaned tyrants. The dramatic rise in the volume of direct and indirect business between the two countries, some five billions dol lars, makes the U.S. a major trade partner of the "international outlaw."

The unusual U.S. silence about the firing of Scud-B missiles by the regime on a base of the National Liberation Army of Iran, just a week after the State Department report came out was nothing but a green light to the mullahs to continue their aggressi on. Also telling was the U.S. remaining mum about the air strike on a Kurdish base north of the 36th parallel in the no-fly zone.

Apparently, the message is clear. As far as the American side is concerned, the stage is being rapidly prepared to break in the special envoy.

Late 1986, exactly a year after the State Department issued a statement against the Mojahedin, Robert McFarlane and Oliver North went to visit the ruling terrorists in Tehran, taking with them loads of weapons, a colt and a cake. Before and after the trip, planes carrying missiles landed at Tehran's Mehrabad airport. But, not only the U.S. hostages remained incaecerated, a damning political scandal discredited those involved in the Irangate affair. Apparently now, the residues of the August 1953 coup d'Žtat against the nationalist government of Dr. Mossadeq and their spokesman, Mr. Sick, as well as the left overs from the Irangate era are in a rush to try their chances with mullahs again.

Mr. Sick and company are fully cognizant that the Tehran rulers are submerged in irremediable crises from all sides and are on their last legs. They also realize that the Iranian Resistance with its political arm, the 235-member National Council of Res istance and its military arm, the National Liberation Army, is ready to take charge to end the reign of terror in Iran and establsih a democratic system of government. Disdainful of a democratic Iran, they are doing their utmost the forestall the inevitab le. In the meantime, their special envoy is waiting impatiently to present his 41-page credential to Rafsanjani.

These is only a slight difference between now and 40 years ago, when the U.S. engineered coup toppled the legally elected government of Dr. Mossadeq and between now and the Irangate era: For the past 14 years, a nationwide Resistance movement offering 100,000 martyrs to the cause of freedom in Iran, and representing an independent and democratic alternative, has blocked all paths to colonialist conspiracies.

Indeed, the difference is that when the Resistance broke the back of Khomeini's war machine, the bloody patriarch drank the poisonous chalice of the cease-fire and Rafsanjani became a spent figure. Nowadays, in every corner of the country, people want the mullahs out. If anyone thinks otherwise, the field is wide open. We challege them to give it a try.

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