Speech [Fifty years of Pahlavi family's crimes]

I seek refuge in God from the accursed Satan

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

I would like to thank the gentlemen for coming here and putting up with the inconveniences to commiserate with me and express their sympathy with the nation. I pray to the Exalted and Blessed God for everybody's health. You know how much suffering the nation has undergone during the fifty odd years of this (Pahlavi) family's rule of oppression and injustice, which had caused it to lose its freedom and the country to be shorn of its independence. The heads of the nation, various social classes, clergy, intellectuals, academicians, merchants all underwent hardships and adversities. How many people in prisons have lost their lives under the most atrocious forms of torture, the horror of which we cannot even imagine? They had brought torture specialists from Israel to train torturers here to inflict torture! As it had been relayed to us, the legs of some clergymen had been sawed off; some others had been made to lie on a metal plate and electricity passed through their bodies and were burned ...! Stories of this sort have been relayed to us, but other discoveries to be made later will make us understand what (torturous) days these ill-fated ones and this nation had gone through.

On the other hand, they (regime) had pushed the country backward in the name of the" great civilization". Our culture is a colonial one that does not allow the growth and education of our children. Despite nearly seventy years of having a school system and thirty odd years or more of having universities, if anyone wants to have his tonsils removed, they are told to go to London to be operated! If, for instance, someone complains of a chest pain or any other illnesses, he should go abroad! It is because they never allowed the youth to grow and get educated. In the course of my journey, when I went to Paris, people from different places would come to see me. These included 400 Iranians residing in Germany, who apparently were sent there to study in the field of atomic energy. They complained that, firstly, they were not allowed to learn the existing technology properly and, secondly, that it would be to the detriment of Iran because when oil resources were depleted, this would also be finished! It (atomic energy) would replace oil and if it were erected now, it would be exhausted before oil was exhausted. Therefore, it is deleterious to Iran, not to mention the human damage it might incur for the Iranian nation. So they did not let these students get properly educated. What the foreign powers wanted was whatever that would be harmful for our country.

You know that they (Pahlavi regime) destroyed our agriculture, so that now we depend on foreign countries for everything we need. They fully destroyed our animal husbandry. They gave or rented out our pastureland to foreigners. They" nationalized" our jungles; they (the Pahlavi regime) took away the nation's right to use them and gave them to foreigners. Today, every place in this country you point your finger at is in ruins. They took away whatever we had and fled, leaving a devastated country for us. Now, our government is heir to a pile of debris in which everything has been smashed to smithereens. We should build it from its foundation.

Their propaganda was so intensive that the Gulf countries believed that if the Shah were gone, the world would turn topsy-turvy! This belief has also found currency in Iran. Later, they will understand what this family has done to our nation. This family plundered and looted all the treasuries of the nation. During Rida Shah's time, they (Pahlavis) filled suitcases with jewels, took them to a ship, and sailed off. In the middle of the sea, a small boat came and Rida Shah was put into it; the ship sailed on to Britain with all the jewels! This took place during his time.

During the regime of this one (Shah), everything was packed and was carted off even before he fled. They took all the jewels, looted almost everything, and went away. Oil, which is the most precious resource of this country, the wealth that the future generations should utilize, has been inordinately extracted and had this man (Shah) stayed in power for another twenty years, it would have been exhausted. He himself used to say that our oil would last no more than twenty odd years «1»! It is because they had opened the pipes and profusely gave the oil to foreigners. What did he get in return?

For America, an outstanding example of those foreigners to whom oil was gifted and which was supposed to give us arms in exchange, they built a military base. But the Americans did not give us arms! That is, the truth of the matter was they did give us weapons in exchange for the oil but ones we could not use! Today we cannot find anyone who can use those arms. All those arms were kept in the military base and they built a large number of bases, so that, in case America started a war with the USSR, Iran could be used as its base. They took our oil to serve their interests and in exchange, they got something that would also be to their interests! Both ways they pocketed the benefits. Such were the crimes they had committed against the country.

They say that in the Gulf there are people, who are avid supporters of the Shah. Now, they should worship his decomposing bones! These traitors should prostrate before his decayed bones. Now, he is but decaying bones that neither America nor Rabat, «2» where he is, will accept. They are saying that they do not recognize him as king and that he cannot remain there. He cannot even go to Britain, which does not acknowledge him, either. Everybody is denying him entry. He had better go to the Gulf and join his cronies!

Well, you must know that they had committed such actions. Our nation, the brave nation of Iran, reached the end of it tether and armed with the power of Islam and faith, it rebelled and, with the same power of faith, succeeded. We are indebted to the young, the `lower' class of young people, and the deprived youth, for this movement, advancement and victory. These youth took this struggle to fruition and made this movement successful. We should thank them. Anyway, you should advise those who had forgone the struggle in your locality.(Tell them that) no matter how loud they shout" Shah!" there is no longer a Shah for whom you should cry out! Return to the fold of Islam. What are useful to us are Islam and Islamic truths. Islam is the guardian of all of our actions. It makes you prosperous and prepares the world and the afterlife.

May God grant you all success. I thank you once again for coming. I now feel indisposed I cannot continue talking. I do not feel well. May God's peace, mercy and blessings be upon you.