Shapur Bakhtiar

Shapur Bakhtiar

Shapur Bakhtiar (or Shapour Bakhtiar , Persian شاپور بختیار; * June 26, 1914 in Kanarak near Isfahan ; † August 6, 1991 in Suresnes near Paris ) was an Iranian politician and Prime Minister of Iran from January to February 1979 .

Life

Shapur Bakhtiar was born on June 26, 1914 as a member of the tribal union of Bakhtiar . His maternal grandfather, Najaf-Gholi Khan Samsam ol-Saltaneh , was Prime Minister of Iran from July 1911 to December 1912 during the Constitutional Revolution and in 1918 at the end of the First World War . A relative of Shapur, Teymur Bakhtiar , was the first director of the Iranian secret service SAVAK . Another relative, Soraya , was the second wife of Mohammad Reza Shah .

At the age of seven, Schapur lost his mother. He first attended school in Isfahan. Later he went to the French school in Beirut . There he met the future Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda , who went to the French school in Beirut at the same time as Schapur. Shapur's father was executed for high treason in 1934 under the reign of Reza Shah . Shapur Bakhtiar returned to Iran.

In 1936 he left Iran for France , where he graduated three years later in politics , philosophy and law . Bachtiar received his PhD in political science from the Sorbonne . During the Spanish Civil War, Bakhtiar campaigned for the Spanish Republic against Franco. In 1940 he volunteered for the French army and later the Resistance to take part in the fight against the German occupation. In 1946 Bakhtiar returned to Iran and found work in the newly created Ministry of Labor, initially as head of the Ministry's branch in Esfahan Province , and from 1951 as Deputy Minister of Labor in Mohammad Mossadegh's cabinet .

Shapur Bachtiar was married to the French Madeleine for the first time. The marriage had four children. In later exile in Paris, he married a distant relative named Shahin. They had a son.

Leader of the National Front

After the overthrow of the Mossadegh government in 1953, Bakhtiar became the political opponent of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a leading member of the National Front . He was arrested several times for political reasons in the following years. In the "National Resistance Movement" he worked with Mehdi Bāzargān and Ayatollah Mahmud Taleghani .

Iranian Prime Minister

At the end of 1978, after sustained mass protests, the situation became increasingly difficult for the Shah, and the monarch offered Bakhtiar the post of Prime Minister as a gesture of courtesy to his opponents. And Shapur Bakhtiar was prepared to put aside his personal aversion to Mohammad Reza Shah in the interests of the country in this precarious political situation. The conversation between Mohammad Reza Shah and Shapur Bakhtiar was factual and clear. Bakhtiar told Mohammad Reza Shah:

“Your father killed my father. You threw me in jail. I shouldn't have any personal loyalty to your dynasty. But I am firmly convinced that Iran is not yet ready for a democratic republic. And when the nation is ready to be a democracy, it can also take the form of a constitutional monarchy. At the moment, however, our most important task is to stop these barbarians. "

On December 28, 1978, Mohammad Reza asked Shah Shapur Bakhtiar to form a new government. The fact that Shapur Bakhtiar assumed the office of Prime Minister under the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah earned him expulsion from the “National Front”. The leading party members of the National Front had long ago agreed with Khomeini that he would only take over the government under his leadership.

The Shah left the country on January 16, 1979. On February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran. On his return Khomeini declared the Bakhtiar government illegal, and on February 5, 1979 he appointed Mehdi Bāzargān as Prime Minister of the Transition. Street fighting broke out in Tehran on February 8th. After the army refused to support Prime Minister Bakhtiar and declared neutrality in the political dispute between Khomeini and Bakhtiar, Bakhtiar had to flee his house to avoid being arrested by Khomeini's militias. On February 11, 1979, the previous order collapsed completely. The prison guards had fled. The Iranian Revolution had entered a new phase. Shapur Bakhtiar left Iran for France in April 1979.

Exile and assassinations in France

Bakhtiar fought the new regime from exile until his death in 1991. He founded the "National Resistance Movement of Iran". His political works include the book “Ma fidélité” (Edition Albin Michel), published in Paris in 1982. He also founded an opposition radio station whose programs were broadcast in Iran and Europe, among others. Bachtiar always advocated a strict separation of state and religion and the maintenance or re-establishment of the secular system in Iran and became one for most of the political groups in opposition to the Islamist regime of Iran (especially the constitutional monarchists and moderate nationalists) Leadership figure.

The Islamic regime of Iran tried to kill him at his house in the Paris suburb of Suresnes as early as July 1980 . He escaped, but a neighbor and a police officer died in the attack. He did not survive a later assassination attempt on August 6, 1991, when three people, including a friend and confidante of Bakhtiar named Fereydoun Bouyerahmadi and two agents of the Iranian Ministry of Information and Security, " VEVAK ", Ali Vakili Rad and Mohammad Azadi , partially falsified ID cards (both agents) outwitted the police guard in front of his house, got into the house and brutally stabbed him and his secretary Sorusch Katibeh . Despite a large police presence, the bodies were not discovered until 36 hours later, on August 8th. Two assassins (Bouyerahmadi and Azadi) escaped to the US and Iran, respectively, but the third fugitive, Ali Vakili Rad, was arrested in Geneva with an accomplice named Zeynolabedin (Zeyal) Sarhadi , a great-nephew of the then Iranian President Akbar Hāschemi Rafsanjāni , and extradited to France by the Swiss government. Ali Vakili Rad was sentenced to life imprisonment but deported to Iran in May 2010. Zeynolabedin (Zeyal) Sarhadi was acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

Shapur Bakhtiar's body was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris .

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. 103-110.

Web links

• Report on the murder trial on YouTube
• Bachtiar dedicated website (English)
• Shapur Bachtiar in the Iran Chamber Society (English)
• Articles about Bachtiars role in the Islamic Revolution (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Image by Najaf-Gholi Samsam ol-Saltaneh (accessed on August 5, 2008)
2. ↑ Shahpur Bakhtiar in: The Free Dictionary by Farlex. (accessed on August 5, 2008)
3. ↑ Chapour Bachtiar: Ma Fidélité. Edition Albin Michel, Paris 1985
4. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, Vol. 1, p. 105.
5. ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami: Life and Times of the Shah. University of California Press, 2009, p. 496.
6. ↑ Robert E. Huyser: "There is blood on your hands" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 1986 ( online ).
7. ^ Alan Riding: France Vows to Press for Release of Newly Taken Hostage. In: New York Times, August 10, 1991 (accessed August 5, 2008)
8. ↑ Thomas Sancton: The Tehran Connection. In: Time from March 21, 1994 (accessed August 5, 2008)
9. ^ ^{A b} Alan Riding: 3 Iranians Go on Trial in France in Slaying of Exiled Ex-Premier. In: New York Times, November 3, 1994 (accessed August 5, 2008)
10. ^ William C. Rempel: Tale of Deadly Iranian Network Woven in Paris. ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Los Angeles Times, November 3, 1994 (accessed August 5, 2008) 
11. ↑ IRIcrimes.org: Shapour Bakhtiar. ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on August 5, 2008) 
12. ↑ US State Department: 1994 Human Rights Report: Iran. ( Memento of the original from March 28, 2012 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on August 5, 2008) 
13. ^ Image of Shapur Bakhtiar's final resting place (accessed on August 5, 2008)