CONSERVATIVES AND REFORMISTS AT LOGGERHEAD OVER HAJJARIAN
By Safa Haeri
PARIS 13TH March. (IPS) As Mr. Sa'id Hajjarian, the Editor of the outspoken reformist daily "Sobhe Emrouz" (This Morning) was Monday struggling between life and death and security forces had launched a nation wide search for the two young men who attempted on his life, reformists and conservatives traded bitter accusations, blaming each other for the assassination attempt.
Mr. Hajjarian, 47, one of Mr. Khatami's closest advisers and influent member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) that scored a landslide victory in the last Majles (parliament) elections was shot Sunday morning at very close range as he was entering the Capital's City Council.
Guards from the Law enforcement Forces stationed near by did not react to stop the killer or to shoot at him even though they were armed with automatic riffle, eyewitnesses reported.
Dr. Mohammad Qodsi, a member of the medical team treating Mr. Hajjarian said Monday that as long as his vital life symptoms have not returned to normal there is no possibility of a surgery to be performed on him.
"Mr. Hajjarian is still breathing with the help of a respirator and still is in a state of coma", Dr. Qodsi, a neurosurgeon stated as he was joined by two Iranian specialists coming from New York.
On Monday, more moderate personalities and organisations, including dissident Grand Ayatollah Hosseinali Montazeri, the spiritual leader of the reformists, Ayatollah Hasan Sane'i, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, the Head of the Judiciary, the Association of Militant Clergymen and the Organisation of Islamic Revolution's Mujahedeen strongly condemned the terrorist operation.
But so far there was no words of condemnation from neither Ayatollah Khameneh'i or Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani.
"The ball is definitively in President Khatami's court. People are waiting to see how he handles this case now that his position got a strong shot from the parliamentary elections results", said one Tehran journalist who asked for anonymity.
According to this newsman, Mr. Khatami must, first of all, summon all security services, Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) and the Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran), meaning all the forces which are under the direct control of the leader to clarify their stand", he added, pointing out to the threats that are routinely proffered against reformists by LEF and Pasdaran senior commanders.
But by doing so, in case he does it, Mr. Khatami would immediately face directly Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i the conservative leader who is controlling all key institutions of the Islamic Republic, a dangerous showdown the two men have carefully avoided so far.
Is this not what the "Red Eminence" who reigns over the "Dungeon of Phantoms" is after?
The "Red Eminence" is the nickname given by investigative journalist Akbar Ganji to Hojatoleslam Ali Fallahian, the Intelligence Minister under former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani accused of the murder of more than eighty Iranian dissidents both inside and outside Iran.
"Dungeon of Phantoms" is the title of Mr. Ganji's recent book on these assassinations and other atrocities committed by Iranian Intelligence services under the eight years of Rafsanjani's presidency.
Contrary to reformists publications that see the source of the attempt in Iran itself, conservative dailies like the "Islamic Republic" that speaks for Ayatollah Khameneh'i and "Keyhan", the mouthpiece of hard liners attributed the operation to imaginary "enemies" of Islam and Islamic revolution.
In an editorial entitled "Shooting Against The Mountain", Mr. Hajjarian's newspaper "Sobhe Emrouz" assured the conservatives that "projects against reform and reformists would never succeed".
"What one is after is that reformists should not think they have won. Khatami must not think that, leaning on the people's vote and will, he could sail the ship to democracy and reforms. Those who organised the assassination of Hajjarian wants to tell people that abiding laws and democratic process would lead nowhere. They are wrong, for, whether Hajjarian lives or not, his struggle would prevail. They are shooting against a mountain", the paper said.
"Profiting from the atmosphere that prevails in the country, agents of CIA, Mosad and Intelligence Service, working under cover of cultural activities and reformist media and backed by some foreign embassies are in full activity in Iran" the "Islamic Republic" answered, in a clear reference to the more free climate installed in Iran since the elections of Mr. Khatami and the emergence of liberal and independent newspapers.
Considering the fact that the killers, their portraits being posted on the State-run Television and in all places and thoroughfares in Tehran and other major cities, were riding on a kind of powerful motorcycle that are used only by the Intelligence Ministry personnel, LEF, Police and the revolutionary guards, it should be easy to identify them in relatively short time, one security expert told Iran Press Service.
A former student that participated at the occupation of the American Embassy in Tehran in November 1979, Mr. Hajjaarian became deputy Intelligence Minister under Hojatoleslam Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri but left the Ministry when Hojatoleslam Ali Fallahian took over with Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as president.
"Like other revolutionary students, Hajjarian took diplomats as hostages, created violence and turmoil, but was soon to became a hostage at the hands of the ruling conservative mollahs. Like most other students, he too, was driven out from the public life, found time to think, to find out that only reform was the road to salvation and democracy. They created the odyssey of second Khordad (23 May, the election of Mohammad Khatami as president) and the 29 Bahman (12 February, the victory of the reformists in Legislative race)", observed Mr. Baqer Mo'in, Head of the BBC's Persian and Central Asian services who is also a noted expert of Iranian affairs. ENDS HAJJARIAN REACTION 13300