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Shapour Bakhtiar (
Shapour Bakhtiar
(help·info)) (also
Shapur Bakhtiar) (Persian: شاپور بختیار
Shāpūr Bakhtīār) (1915 -
August 6, 1991) was an Iranian
political scientist, writer and the last Prime
Minister of Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. After the
Iranian
Revolution, he migrated to Paris, France where he was assassinated in 1991 by
suspected Hezbollah sympathizers with links to
the Islamic Republic.
Early
life
Bakhtiar was born in 1914 in southwestern Iran into a member
family of the Iranian tribal nobility: the family of the paramount
chieftains of the then powerful Bakthiari tribe. His father was
Mohammad Reza Khan (Sardar-e-Fateh), his mother
Naz-Baygom, both Lor and from Bakhtiaris. Bakhtiar's maternal grandfather,
Najaf-Gholi Khan Samsam ol-Saltaneh, was appointed prime minister
twice, in 1912 and 1918. Bakhtiar's mother died when he was seven
years old. He attended elementary school in Shahr-e Kord and then
secondary school, first in Isfahan and later in
Beirut, Lebanon, where he received his high school
diploma from a French school.
Time in
France
In 1936 he left for France.
He received his PhD, in political science (in 1939), as well
as degrees in law and philosophy, from Sorbonne. As a firm opponent of all
totalitarian rule, he fought at the Spanish Civil War as an International Brigadist to fight
against the sublevation of General Franco and fascism. Later, he
volunteered for the French army and fought in the Orleans
battalion and in the French Résistance
against the occupation by Germany.[1]
[2]
Political career in Iran
Bakhtiar returned to Iran in 1946. In 1951 he was appointed by
the Ministry of Labor, first as director of the Labor Department in
the Province of Isfahan, then he even headed up
the Labor Department in Khuzestan, center of the oil industry. In
1953 Mohammad Mosaddeq was in power in Iran,
before being deposed. Under his premiership Bakhtiar was deputy
minister of labor. After the Shah was reinstated by a British-American sponsored
coup d'etat, Bakhtiar remained a critic of
his rule. In the mid-1950s, he was involved in underground activity
against the Shah's despotic regime, calling for the 1954 Majlis elections to be free and
fair and attempting to revive the nationalist movement. In 1960,
the Second National Front was formed and Bakhtiar played a very
crucial role in the new organization's activities as the head of
the student activist body of the Front. He and his colleagues
differed from most other oppositionists in that they were very
moderate, restricting their activity to peaceful protest and
calling only for the restoration of democratic rights within the
framework of constitutional monarchy. Despite these moderate
demands, the Shah refused to cooperate and opted to outlaw the
Front and imprison the most prominent liberals. From 1964 to 1977,
the imperial regime refused to permit any form of anti-state
activity, even from the moderate liberals like Bakhtiar. In the
following years Bakhtiar was imprisoned repeatedly, a total of six
years, for his opposition to the Shah. He even rose to the position
of deputy chief of the illegal National Front in late 1977 when
the group was reconstituted as the Union of National Front Forces
with Bakhtiar as head of the Iran Party (the largest group in the
Front).
At the end of 1978, as the Shah's power was crumbling; because
Bakhtiar had been a leader in the resistance, he was chosen to help
in the creation of a civilian government in place of the military
one, which had existed up to this point. He was appointed to the
position of Prime Minister by the Shah, as a concession to his
opponents, especially the followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Although this
caused him to be expelled from the National Front, he accepted the
appointment, as he feared a revolution, in which communists and mullahs would take over the
country, because he thought this would ruin Iran. In his 36 days as
premier of Iran, Bakhtiar ordered all political inmates to be
freed, lifted censorship of newspapers (whose staff had until then
been on strike), relaxed martial law, ordered the dissolving of SAVAK (the former regime's secret
police) and requested that the opposition give him three months to
hold elections for a constituent assembly that would decide the
fate of the monarchy and determine the future form of government
for Iran. Despite these conciliatory gestures, Ayatollah Khomeini
refused to collaborate with Bakhtiar, denouncing the premier as a
traitor for siding with the Shah, labeling his government
"illegitimate" and "illegal" and calling for the overthrow of the
Monarchy. Bakhtiar made some key mistakes during his premiership
including allowing Khomeini to re-enter Iran. In the end, he failed
to rally even his own former colleagues in the National Front
behind him and his government was overwhelmingly rejected by the
masses, except for a very small number of pro-Shah loyalists and
some moderate pro-democratic elements. The opposition was not
willing to compromise and the Shah was forced to leave the country
in January 1979; Bakhtiar left Iran again for France in April of
the same year.
French exile
and series of assassination attempts
Out of Paris, Bakhtiar led
the National Movement of Iranian Resistance,
which fought the Islamic republic in his homeland. In
July 1980 he escaped an assassination attempt in his home in the
Parisian suburb, Suresnes,
which killed a policeman and a neighbor. But on August 7, 1991,
Bakhtiar was murdered along with his secretary, Soroush Katibeh, by
three assassins in his home. The inquest found that he was stabbed
by a knife matching a nearby blood stained bread knife. Bakhtiar's
dead body was not found until at least 36 hours after his death,
despite the fact that he had heavy police protection and that his
killers had left ID (presumably faked) with a guard at his
house.[3]
Two of the assassins escaped to Iran, but the third, Ali Vakili
Rad, was apprehended in Switzerland,[4]
as well as an alleged accomplice, Zeyal Sarhadi, a great-nephew of
former president of Iran Hasemi Rafsanjani ,[5] and
both were extradited to France for trial.[6] Vakili
Rad was sentenced to life in prison in December 1994, although
Sarhadi was acquitted.[7]
Bakhtiar is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery, in Paris.
Hours after the assassination of Bakhtiar, a British hostage was
released from Lebanon, presumably held by Hezbollah, but a French hostage was
taken.[8]
Although many in the Iranian exile community speculated of official
French complicity in Bakhtiar's death,[9] the
second kidnapping is said to cast a shadow over such theories,
allegedly as the French would seem unlikely to support an operation
that included the kidnapping of another French hostage in Lebanon,
although there is no apparent connection between the two
events.[3]
Writings
In addition to many articles, Bakhtiar´s books "Ma Fidélité" in
French (Edition Albin Michel, Paris, Dec 1 1985, ISBN 2226015612,
ISBN 978-2226015617) and "37 Days after 37 Years" in Persian
("Radio Iran" Publications, Paris, 1982) including his biography
and political career until the Iranian Revolution as well as his
beliefs are of special interest regarding society and politics in
the Pahlavi Era and the period of riots and
turbulence before the fall of Mohammad
Reza Shah Pahlavi.
Quotes
- If everyone is free to say whatever they want, that's called
democracy. But if everyone acts whatever way they want, that's not
even anarchy. No government on earth could accept such a thing.
(Talking about the riots during the revolution.)[10]
Notes
- ^ Wolfgang
Saxon: Shahpur Bakhtiar: Foe of Shah Hunted by Khomeini's
Followers. New York Times; August 9, 1991
- ^ Chapour
Bachtiar: Ma Fidélité", Edition Albin Michel, Paris
1985
- ^ a
b
Riding, Alan. "France Vows to Press for
Release of Newly Taken Hostage", New York Times, 10
Aug. 1991. Retrieved 5 November 2007.
- ^ Rempel, William C. "Tale of Deadly Iranian
Network Woven in Paris", Los Angeles Times, 3 Nov. 1994.
Retrieved 5 November 2007.
- ^
Greenhouse, Stephen. "French Ask Swiss on Jailed
Iranian", New York Times, 28 Dec. 1991. Retrieved 5
November 2007.
- ^
Riding, Alan. "3 Iranians Go on Trial in
France in Slaying of Exiled Ex-Premier", New York Times, 3 Nov. 1994. Retrieved 5
November 2007.
- ^
U.S. State Department, 1994 Human Rights Report:
Iran. Retrieved 5 November 2007
- ^
Schmidt, William E. "Pressure Mounts on Israel to
Free Its Arab Hostages", New York Times, 10
Aug. 1991. Retrieved 5 November 2007.
- ^
Kadivar, Cyrus. "Dialogue of Murder", The
Iranian, 23 Jan. 2003, noting that "Many Iranians, including the
families of the victims, blamed France's diplomatic rapprochement
with Tehran for the deaths. Two years earlier, in February 1989,
Roland Dumas had visited Iran to discuss trade opportunities and on
July 27, 1990 President Mitterrand had ordered the release of the
Lebanese terrorist, Anis Naccache, who had led the first attempt on
Bakhtiar's life in 1980. Relations between Tehran and Paris led to
lucrative contracts and greater restrictions on the activities of
the Iranian opposition." Retrieved 5 November 2007.
- ^
Interview with Dr. Shapour
Bakhtiar
See also
External
links
- Website dedicated to Bakhtiar: (English), (Persian).
- Interview with Bakhtiar on Tuesday 6 March 1984 in Paris (in
Persian):
Shapour Bakhtiar, Iranian Oral History, Harvard University Center for
Middle Eastern Studies:
— Audio 1a (29 min 30 sec),
Audio 2a (30 min 35 sec),
Audio 1b (29 min 18 sec),
Audio 2b (30 min 44
sec)
- A Leaf from the History of Iran - Dr Shapour Bakhtiar,
a video documentary in two parts (in Persian):
— Part 1 (9 min 30 sec), Part 2 (8 min 47
sec).
- Iran Chamber
Society--Historic Personalities: Shapour Bakhtiar
- Persian Iran page about
Bakhtiar
- A list of human rights violations committed by Iran
including the assassination and assassination attempt on
Bakhtiar
- Article about Bakhtiar's role
in the Islamic Revolution
- Detail audio report about Dr.
Bakhtiar's Murder by the Qods Force
- Payman Arabshahi, Memory lane - Chronology of events
leading to the fall of the monarchy, February 11, 2001, The Iranian.
- Fariba Amini, The first moderate, January 8, 2003, The
Iranian.
- Darius Kadivar, Shapour Bakhtiar the Last Democrat,
December 26, 2007, The
Iranian.
Note: The literary quality of this essay is
wanting; at places the text is almost incomprehensible.
Published
works
- Habib Lajevardi, editor, Memoirs of Shapour Bakhtiar,
in Persian
(Harvard University Press, 1996). ISBN 0-932885-14-4
| Persondata |
| NAME |
Bakhtiar, Shapour |
| ALTERNATIVE
NAMES |
Bakthiar, Shapur |
| SHORT
DESCRIPTION |
Iranian politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
1914 or 1915 |
| PLACE OF
BIRTH |
|
| DATE OF DEATH |
August 6, 1991 |
| PLACE OF
DEATH |
Suresnes, France |
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