Ayatollah kept in dark before siege—students

Press, 27 October 1982, Page 9

Ayatollah kept in dark before siege—students

NZPA Teheran The Iranian students who seized the United States Embassy in Teheran on .November 4, 1979, did so without the prior knowledge of Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Rubollah Khomeiny, the students’ leader, Hojatoleslam Mussavi Khoeiniha, said yesterday.

“The students insisted that the imam be informed, but I did not agree,” Mr Khoeiniha said at a press conference organised just before the third anniversary of the seizure.

“I said, ‘We are going to do it and if the imam does not agree we will leave the embassy, otherwise we will continue.’ ”

Assessing what he considered the gains of the embassy take-over, Mr Khoeiniha said that it was a blow to American prestige, forced out the Government of the period, foiled belief that the imam could not fight the United States, and exposed the "true face” of groups

claiming to be anti-imperial-ist. He called, however, for a continued struggle against America “as long as it exists,” denouncing it as “the great satan” that never repents.

He also criticised the former President, Jimmy Carter, who was in the White House at the time of the hostage affair and is a strong advocate of human rights causes. “Carter wrote that he was ready to accept any proposal to free the hostages, even dropping an atomic bomb on Teheran,” he said. “How can a head of State who considers himself a supporter of human rights consider this?” As for the “students in the line of the imam” — those who stormed the embassy building and held guard over the hostages for 444 days — Mr Khoeiniha said yesterday that they were “working for revolutionary organisations or within the Government” while others had died on the war front.

Mr Carter has said that Ayatollah Ruhollah Kho-

meiny was “the epitome of a liar” and “a nut on occasion.” “If there’s one thing I despise in a human being, it’s the artifice or lies,” Mr Carter said in an interview about the hostage crisis. “I think tbe Ayatollah Khomeiny was the epitome of a lair who professed to be a deeply religious man, who professed to be a leader in the Islamic faith, but who violated tbe basic tenets of his religious faith by deliberately persecuting innocent people who were emissaries

from a foreign country.” Mr Carter said that there had been a year of good relations between America and Iran after the overthrow of the Shah and before the hostages were taken. "Khomeiny himself, who was a nut on occasion and whom I despised on occasion, sent messages to the Secretary of State, Cy Vance, and others that ‘we want to work in harmony with the United States ’ Mr Carter added: “There was no premonition that the hostages would be kept.”