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The comments
of
Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr
Find out
more about
Mr. Bani-Sadr.
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(These comments
are extracts from The Story of the Revolution produced by the BBC Persian
Service.)
Chapter One: 1st
comment
"My proposal said that if he were to resign
from his post as prime minister of the Shah, I would discuss with Mr Khomeini
about him carrying on as the prime minister of the revolution. Abbasqoli
Bakhtiar said that it was a very good proposal. I asked him to go and
talk to the other side and added that I could not make any promises, because
Mr Khomeini had to make the decision. We then went to see Mr Khomeini
and I told him: `Do you think it is in anyone's interest if the army collapses
in Iran now and the whole thing leads to anarchy?` He said: `No`. I said:
`In that case, if we could persuade Bakhtiar to resign as the Shah's prime
minister, would you be prepared to appoint him as the prime minister of
the revolution?` Mr Khomeini paused for a while and then said: `Yes.`
I said: `Think carefully before you decide and if you really agree, I
shall work on it.` He said that he was definitely in agreement. I said:
`No, you must take an oath.` He said: `There is no need to take an oath.`
I said; `No, it is a political decision of paramount importance, for if
something were to go wrong tomorrow, everyone would blame me for bringing
Bakhtiar and imposing it on you. Furthermore, it would not be good if
I go and talk to Bakhtiar and then you go back on your promise. At this
point he took an oath, he swore on the Koran that if Bakhtiar were to
resign as prime minister of the Shah, he would endorse him as the new
prime minister of the revolutionary government. I saw Abbasqoli the next
day and passed on Mr Khomeini's message. Abbasqoli said: `Yes, the prime
minister would not mind doing so. However he well knows that the army
would not submit and would stage a coup d'etat.` I told him: `Up until
yesterday you were saying that the prime minister was not at a tool in
the hands of the army, but today you are warning us that the army would
stage a coup d'-etat. No, my friend, I know the army better than you.
It will not stage a coup d'etat. Tell Prime Minister Bakhtiar not to be
a fool and miss the last chance he is given.` But he refused. I went home
in the evening and I was watching television at half past eleven at night,
when I saw Mr Qotbzadeh was being interviewed by a lady presenter on France's
Channel 3. During that interview he said that Dr Bakhtiar was coming to
Paris as prime minister. I telephoned Neuf-Le-Ch‚teau to speak to [Khomeini's
son] Ahmad. This Ahmad is the master of disappearance when he is needed,
but I eventually managed to reach him by phone after ten minutes. I told
him: `Go and tell your dad that the people have accepted him as a source
of emulation, but not as a politician. If he were to agree to receive
Bakhtiar as a prime minister, he could not go back on his word.` In my
message to Khomeini, through his son Ahmad, I added: ` If you tell the
whole world that you have received Bakhtiar as prime minister of Iran,
you cannot turn around the next day and say that he is no longer the prime
minister of Iran. He will remain as prime minister and then you would
have to go. In this game you cannot both survive.'"
Chapter
One: 2nd comment
"When the plane landed and came to a halt, its door opened and
two people, Khomeini's brother, Mr Pasandideh, and Mr Motahhari, came
into the plane to welcome him. He was flanked by the two of them and was
led towards the plane's exit, as if the intellectuals had fulfilled their
duty of bringing back His Eminence and handing him over to the clerics.
You saw that from that day he changed his tune. Up until that point he
had kept talking about liberation and freedom of speech, but from that
moment he was purely in pursuit of power."
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