Amir Abbas Hoveyda

Amir Abbas Hoveyda

Amir Abbas Hoveyda ( Persian امیرعباس هویدا; * February 18, 1919 in Tehran ; † April 7, 1979 ibid) was an Iranian politician and Prime Minister of Iran from January 27, 1965 to August 7, 1977 . Hoveyda was a member and temporary general secretary of the reform-oriented Iran Novin Party ( Party of New Iran ).

Early years

Amir Abbas Hoveyda was born on February 18, 1919, the son of an Iranian diplomat. His father Habibollah was entitled Eyn al-Molk ("Eye of the Land"). When surnames became compulsory for Iranians during the reign of Reza Shah , his father chose the name Hoveyda, "the recognizable". His mother, Afsar al-Moluk, came from the royal family of the Qajar . Fereydoun Hoveyda , later known as a diplomat, was his younger brother.

Amir Abbas attended the French school in Beirut . One of his school friends was Shapur Bakhtiar , who later became Prime Minister like Hoveyda. Amir Abbas went from Beirut to Paris to begin his studies. After a political crisis between France and Iran, he went to Brussels . He graduated from the Université Libre de Bruxelles with a degree in political science .

In 1942 he returned to Tehran, which had been occupied by British and Soviet troops as part of the Anglo-Soviet invasion . He started working in the Foreign Ministry and volunteered for officer training in the Iranian army. After the end of the Second World War , Amir Abbas Hoveyda became a press attaché at the Iranian embassy in Paris. It was there that he met the future Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour . In 1946, Hoveyda and Mansour were transferred to the Iranian embassy in Germany , which at that time was in the American zone of occupation in Stuttgart .

In 1950 Hoveyda returned to Iran. Mohammad Mossadegh had become prime minister, Hossein Fatemi had taken over the post of foreign minister. Fatemi fired all employees he disliked, including Abbas Hoveyda. Hoveyda took up a post with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and went to Geneva . After the fall of Mossadegh, Hoveyda returned to the diplomatic service of Iran in 1956 and was transferred to the Iranian embassy in Ankara .

Hoveyda (fourth from right) as a member of the NIOC board

In 1958 he returned to Iran and was appointed head of the Iranian National Oil Company (NIOC) . In addition to his work at NIOC, Hoveyda edited the magazine Talash and published articles on the political future of Iran. In one of these articles he wrote that Iran could only succeed in leaving the status of a developing country if a new class of Iranian experts were trained who would work closely with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and gradually replace the Western managers. The goal, Hoveyda wrote, should be to modernize the country under the banner of the Shah in order to develop a democracy in Iran in the near future.

At the beginning of the sixties, Hassan Ali Mansur and Amir Abbas Hoveyda founded a political discussion group, the Circle of Progressives, in which primarily politically interested Iranians who had studied in the USA met. In 1963, Mansour received approval from the discussion group to make a political party, the New Iran party ( Iran Novin ).

In March 1964, Hassan Ali Mansur became Prime Minister and Amir Abbas Hoveyda took over the post of Finance Minister . After the assassination of Mansur in January 1965 by members of the Fedajin-e Islam , Hoveyda was proposed to parliament as the new prime minister by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . Hoveyda was supposed to implement the White Revolution of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and to develop and modernize Iran, as he wrote in one of his articles in Talash . The goal of this development should be a democratic state.

Hoveyda had married Laila Emami in a small ceremony on July 19, 1966, and the Shah and Farah Diba were among the wedding guests. The marriage ended in divorce in 1971 and the couple had no children.

prime minister

Prime Minister Hoveyda with his cabinet, 1975

Hoveyda loved to be behind the wheel of his Paykan herself , while his driver and security guard sat in the back seat

Hoveyda's cabinet with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1975)

Amir Abbas Hoveyda was to remain prime minister for twelve years. This made him the longest-serving prime minister in Iran's recent history. During his tenure, the country should develop at a breathtaking pace. Hoveyda described the success of his policy in 1976 as follows:

“National income per capita in 1963 was $ 100. By 1972 it had risen to $ 2,069. ... In 1963 only 10% of the students had access to high school education and studies. In 1963, a total of 20,000 students were enrolled at the universities of Iran. Today we have 184 colleges and universities with 149,000 students ... Today seven million Iranians attend a school or college. ... Over 40,000 Iranians are enrolled at a university in Europe, the USA or in another industrial country. "

At the beginning of his term as Prime Minister, the 2500th anniversary of the Iranian monarchy took place in October 1971 . In the same year, his Iran Novin party won the general election . As Prime Minister, Hoveyda repeatedly tried to make personal contacts with authoritative, regime-critical intellectuals and to enter into dialogue with them, as well as with writers and socially critical academics, and to win them over to work with the Shah. He had been friends with many since his youth.

Not only did the country take an unexpected boom under Prime Minister Hoveyda, the party he co-founded, Iran Novin, also became a symbol of the country's rise. More than 5,000 delegates from all over the country attended the 1975 congress. To the applause of hundreds of invited foreign guests, the delegates celebrated the success of their development work and confirmed Hoveyda as Secretary General of Iran Novin. Hoveyda was at the height of his political career.

On March 2, 1975, Mohammad Reza Shah declared that he wanted to reorganize Iran's party system. The previous two-party system consisting of the People's Party ( Mardom Party ) and Iran Novin should be converted into a one-party system. The name of the new party was Rastachiz (departure) . Hoveyda was charged with drafting the party statutes and serving as the first general secretary.

In August 1977 there was a reshuffle of the cabinet with far-reaching consequences. On August 5, 1977, the Shah asked Hoveyda to resign from his post as Prime Minister and to take over the post of Court Minister. Asadollah Alam , who held this office for 10 years, was seriously ill. Hoveyda complied with the monarch's wish. Jamshid Amusegar became the new prime minister .

Islamic Revolution

With the replacement of long-time Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda by Jamschid Amusegar , the "opening of political space" was declared policy of Mohammad Reza Shah. Hushang Ansari, one of the leading politicians of the Rastachiz party, had already declared in July 1977 that it was the right of every citizen of Iran to be fully and comprehensively informed and that the press should express public opinion.

In the summer of 1977 opposition groups organized small protest meetings that the security forces did not, as before, disband immediately. In September 1977, a gathering for a protest prayer was held without incident. And in mid-October 1977 the German-Iranian Society, in cooperation with the Goethe Institute, organized a poetry reading lasting two weeks, at which writers critical of the government could read prose and poems in front of an audience of thousands.

The death of Khomeini's son gave his supporters the opportunity to organize mourning ceremonies in all major cities in Iran in November 1977, which could also be understood as a political demonstration against the Shah. First, the rumor was spread that Mostafa did not die of natural causes, but that the SAVAK had maliciously killed him on behalf of the Shah. That was not true, because Mostafa Khomeini had died of a heart attack, but it was not communicated publicly. With Mostafa's alleged violent death, the tone was set for the political message of the funeral ceremony. In most cities, the funeral ceremonies were peaceful, but in Shiraz and Tabriz there were small demonstrations in front of the mosques shouting "Death to the Shah", the first time the call was heard in public.

On January 7, 1978 (17 December 1356) an article appeared in the daily Ettelā'āt under the name Ahmad Raschidi Motlagh, which was entitled Iran and Black and Red Colonialism . Allegedly, employees of Hoveydas were involved in the writing of the article. In this article, Khomeini is massively attacked, exposed as the initiator of the 1963 demonstrations against the White Revolution and described as a political representative of the large landowners who is making common cause with the communists. The publication of the article sparked violent protests by students in religious schools in Qom, which led to clashes with security forces. Protesters were shot at and five protesters were killed. Rumors spread among followers of Khomeini that well over 100 demonstrators had been shot. Soon there was talk of 300 dead demonstrators. The Islamic Revolution had begun.

Hoveyda's strategy against the crisis consisted of three measures. The first thing he wanted to do was to replace the cabinet of Jamshid Amusegar with a coalition government led by the National Front or Ali Amini . He also wanted to end the financial machinations of the members of the royal family. And thirdly, he tried to convince Mohammad Reza Shah that one could only negotiate with the opposition movement from a position of strength and therefore had to restore law and order first.

On September 8, 1978, protesters were shot at in Jaleh Square in Tehran. On that Friday, which was to go down in Iran history as Black Friday of 1978 , 64 demonstrators and 70 police officers and soldiers of the army were killed. The opposition spoke of 15,000 protesters dead. Hoveyda was so shocked by the incident that he resigned from his position as court minister. Prime Minister Jamjid Amusegar also resigned. Jafar Sharif-Emami took over the office of Prime Minister. After his resignation, the Shah offered Hoveyda the post of Iranian ambassador to Belgium, but Hoveyda declined.

On November 8, 1978, two months after the exchange of fire in Jaleh Square, Amir Abbas Hoveyda was arrested and placed under house arrest as the person primarily responsible for the use of armed security forces. 60 officers loyal to the Shah were arrested with Hoveyda.

After Khomeini's return on February 1, 1979, friends tried to persuade Hoveyda to flee the house. The guards had fled the revolutionaries, and Hoveyda was free to go. But Hoveyda stayed. He had nothing to reproach himself for and believed that he could stand up to any court. Hoveyda was taken to Refah School , Khomeini's headquarters during the first days of the revolution. Then, on March 15, 1979, the first trial took place, which was to last only two hours. The court, headed by revolutionary judge Sadegh Chalkhali , did not come to a verdict after two hours and adjourned. Another hearing took place on April 7, 1979. This time the verdict was reached after two hours. Hoveyda has been charged with seventeen offenses, including "destruction of agriculture and forests". Minutes after Khalkhali read the death sentence , he was taken into the school yard and shot twice. Severely wounded, he asked that he should finally be shot . Chalkhali is said to have fired the last and fatal shot himself. Others say that a clergyman named Hadi killed Ghaffari . He is said to have shot himself in the neck with a pistol, whereupon Hoveida fell and begged for the coup de grace. And then, according to British journalist Christopher de Bellaigue, his last words were: "It shouldn't have ended like this."

The German Embassy Counselor Strenziok informed the Foreign Office on April 9, 1979 of the execution of Hoveyda:

“Announcement of yesterday's execution of ex-Prime Minister Hoveyda was completely unexpected and shocking not only for foreign observers. ... The guilty verdict was summarized as responsibility for the incarceration, torture and death of patriots, corruption, promoting foreign influence in Iran and supporting the Pahlavi regime. ... The activity of the Revolutionary Courts, which was resumed with increased intensity, was apparently Khomeini's response to the demands made recently by democrats, liberals and other human rights activists who want to water down his revolution and his Islamic Republic for him. Hoveyda's execution initially destroyed all hopes that Western-modernist legal ideas and norms could have a place in Khomeini's Islamic Republic. "

Hoveyda's body remained a showpiece of the revolution in the forensic medicine cold room for three months until he was finally buried anonymously in an unknown location.

literature

• Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. The men and women who made modern Iran, 1941–1979. Volume 1. Syracus University Press et al., Syracus NY et al. 2008, ISBN 978-0-8156-0907-0 , pp. 193-204.
• Abbas Milani: The Persian Sphinx - Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution, a Biography, IBTauris, 2000.

Web links

Commons : Amir Abbas Hoveyda  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Former official website of Hoveydas (English) ( Memento of February 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
• Extensive photo documentation from the time before, during and after the revolution in Iran ( memento from October 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) with several photos of Hoveydas 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Abbas Milani. The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and The Riddle of the Iranian Revolution . Mage Pub 2000, ISBN 1-85043-328-3 .
2. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 197.
3. ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami. The Life and Times of The Shah . University of California Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-520-25328-5 .
4. ↑ Abbas Milani: The Persian Sphinx. IBTauris, 2000, ISBN 978-1-850-43328-6 , p. 206. Restricted preview in Google Book Search
5. ↑ Amir Abbas Hoveyda: Iran's Future. In: Jane w. Jacqz (Ed.): Past, Present, and Future. Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies, 1976, pp. 449-450.
6. ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. University of California Press, 2009, p. 446.
7. ^ Charles Kurzmann: The Unthinkable Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 18.
8. ^ Charles Kurzmann: The Unthinkable Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 37.
9. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, pp. 202f.
10. ↑ Nicholas M. Nikazmerad: A Chronological Survey of the Iranian Revolution . In: Iranian Studies . 13, No. 1/4, 1980, pp. 327-368. Retrieved July 31, 2013.
11. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 204.
12. ^ FAZ of April 6, 2019
13. ↑ Michael Ploetz, Tim Szatkowski: Files on the Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany 1979 Vol. I: January to June 30, 1979. R. Oldenbourg Verlag Munich, 2010, p. 464.