KHAMENEH’I OPTED FOR CONFRONTATION WITH THE PEOPLE
PARIS 12 June (IPS) A visibly shaken and bewildered Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i
on Thursday addressed his most blunt and clear warning to students and other
protesters by stating that if they continue their protest movement, the
"faithful people forces would deal with them mercilessly".
"There could not be mercy for mercenaries", the leader of the Islamic Republic told students and thousands of demonstrators who protested and demonstrated against the Islamic regime for two straight nights, chanting slogans that analysts said were never heard in the last 24 years.
According to eyewitnesses and confirmed by some local news agencies, the demonstrators not only chanted "death to Khameneh’i" or "Khatami, resign", but also hostile to Grand Ayatollah Roohollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution of 1979, something never heard in any demonstrations before.
"Some slogans were openly, and for the first time, threatening the clergy with public execution", said the independent Students News Agency ISNA, reporting from the Wednesday night demonstrations, others were plain injurious to senior clerical officials.
Other slogans said: "O People, Why are you waiting, Iran has become Palestine", or "death to dictator and dictatorship’, or "Canon, Tanks and Missiles, Akhoond (cleric) must be killed.
Mr. Khameneh’i blamed the latest round of protests to the Americans and their "few intellectual mercenaries". "The Americans can not see the Islamic Republic prospering. For that, they do their best to pit the people against the rulers. They say they want to topple our regime. A handful people make noise somewhere and they inflate it, blare in their horn that Iran is in turmoil", he sad, speaking at the suburb of Varamin.
Turning to the students, he said the nation’s faithful hezbollah people would enter the scene whenever needed and "if necessary, they would finish off with demonstrations".
But at the same time, he called on his troops, the basiji (volunteer militia, made of mostly young, illiterate and poor peasants) and the Ansar Hezbollah to avoid the demonstrations, since one of the many aims of the protesters and their American backers is to foment trouble and blame it on the basij and the and the Party of God.
Analysts said though the leader’s warning to the students and demonstrators is one of the harshest he has ever pronounced, but it is doubtful if he would be heard or even taken seriously.
"In fact, Mr. Khameneh’i was reacting to the repeated warnings he received in the past weeks from lawmakers and students, urging him directly and openly to either bow to people’s demands fro true democracy and justice or face the same fate as Saddam Hoseyn, the Iraqi dictator who had been toppled by the Americans", commented Mr Jamshid Barzegar, a Vienna-based journalist filing for the Persian service of the BBC.
Instead of choosing the line of reconciliation and appeasement, Khameneh’i has opted for confrontation with the people, other observers noted.
Observers said although Mr. Khameneh’i wanted to project the image of an implacable leader, but in fact, he was reacting from the position of weakness.
"Nevertheless, the Thursday statement of Ayatollah Khameneh’i would trigger a direct confrontation between the ruling conservatives with the students in particular and the people in general, paving the way of underground operations", Mr. Barzegar said, noting that for their part, the "official reformists" have shown little support for the students. ENDS KHAMENEHI STUDENTS 12603