Exiles live in fear

Press, 14 August 1980, Page 16

Exiles live in fear

By

ROBYN SMITH

in Paris

The - fear of hundreds of Iranian exiles living on the French Riviera was intensified recently after the attempted ' assassination of Shapur Bakhtiar, the former Iranian Prime Minister. About 600 Iranians who fled when the Shah’s regime fell — among them leading officials and ambassadors — are now living on the C.ote d’Azur, which is also a centre for. militant students of the new republic. Many 'of the exiles are grouped in luxury apartment blocks in Nice, Cannes and Antibes, where French, police can more easily protect them. They lead a cautious existence, preserving their anonymity as far as possible and hardly venturing out of their apartments. When the exiles first arrived, the best guarantee of their safety was the asylum France had previously ex-tended-to-their arch enemy, Ayatollah Khomeiny. The French Government felt confident that the. Ayatollah would show his gratitude by

exempting France from his bitter hostility to Western society. At first the Iranians appeared to give France a special status. Although it was clear that Bakhtiar’s headquarters were in Paris, Teheran demanded his extradition from London. But now France has made the unhappy discovery that the gratitude of Iranian leaders for hospitality during their years of exile quickly evaporates when they find the same tolerance extended to their enemies. A further deterioration in French-Iranian relations will be hard to avoid now that France holds and intends to try the five-man Palestinian execution squad which attempted to murder Bakhtiar in his family’s Paris apartment and instead killed a woman neighbour and a French policeman. Within three days-the- Arab sentence of death had been carried out against Salah Bitah, the ; exiled Syrian opposition leader who was shot outside

his Paris office. This time the assassin escaped unseen.

But the fact that the same type of weapon — a Beretta 7.65 automatic pistol with silencer — was used in both attacks suggests that there may be a single organisation of Arab executioners working for different countries. The gunmen in the Bakhtiar operation assembled' in Nice. Because of the concentration of exiles in the area, security precautions are being reinforced. Arab countries have been settling scores with one another in France for eight years. The chief combatants have been rival Palestinian organisations supported by Iraq and Syria. ; In December the Shah’s nephew. Prince Chafik, was shot dead in a Paris street and it was clear that Khomeiny’s supporters had opened their offensive against royalist refugees organising the resistance to the regime. President Giscard pledged that France will continue its liberal policy of granting asylum to political exiles.

But the latest terrorist attacks have aroused two kinds of protest. The funeral of the. policeman killed defending Bakhtiar was the occasion for a police demonstration against the limited number of police bodyguards detailed to defend a fast-growing number of threatened political exiles. And sections of the French press have pointed to the disappointing results of President Discard's pragmatic foreign policy, which is designed to preserve France’s complete independence of action.

“We wanted to go it alone with the Iran of Khomeiny,” wrote the conservative Le Figaro. “Today the Iran of Khomeiny- looks on us almost as ‘enemy No. I’.”. "Le . . Figaro” suggested that, without sacrificing its independence, France should decide which side it was on and pursue a more consistent course. Copyright — London Observer Service.