Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – May 7, 1999

There appears to be some progress on the issue of Kosovo. At the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Germany, attended by the Russian foreign minister, they reached an agreement that Kosovo’s autonomy should be taken seriously, that armed forces under the management of the United Nations should maintain peace and security for the people, and that the refugees should return. There is still, however, some ambiguity regarding the presence of armed forces from NATO countries. In Israel, opinion polls indicate that [Ehud] Barak, the rival of [Benjamin] Netanyahu, has taken the lead, and the Arabs also support him because he is considered a moderate and is also from [the] Likud [Party].

I sent my reply to Mr. Karbaschi’s letter to his wife through Faezeh. Some people disagreed with the sentence I had written about the necessity of abiding by the law, but I did not accept their view. Effat and Fati also went to the Karbaschi family’s home in the afternoon to offer them support and consolation.

Before noon, Mr. [Mehdi] Karoubi, [Secretary of the Association of Combatant Clerics], came. We talked for about two hours. He considers the factional divisions in the country dangerous and asked me to take action to resolve the problem and create understanding. He said that the right-wing faction should refrain from arresting and sentencing people and similar actions, and should release [Gholamhossein] Karbaschi and [Mohsen] Kadivar and others, refrain from exclusionary measures in the elections, and that the Leader should intervene in the country’s affairs to the extent that Imam Khomeini did. He believes that the right-wing faction currently has little support among the general population.

He spoke at length about the past, the period of the struggle, and the circumstances during Imam Khomeini’s time and afterward. In particular, he discussed the period of [Abulhassan] Bani-Sadr and the pressure placed on the late [Seyed Mohammad] Beheshti and me, and said that the situation of the people today is different from that time. He criticized the actions of the right-wing faction during the commemoration ceremony for the martyrdom of [Ali] Sayyad [Shirazi], saying that they had made life difficult for the people and for Sayyad’s neighbors, and that people such as Mansour Arzi had taken advantage of the situation. He also criticized the statements made by the MPs who had sought the impeachment of Mohajerani in Parliament, particularly the unfounded remarks by Mr. [Seyed Reza] Taghavi, [representative from Tehran], regarding Zan newspaper, which Faezeh had also denied.

During his remarks, Mr. Karoubi said that in the Fourth Parliament, I had caused their defeat in the elections. I told him that the slogans and harsh positions adopted by the left-wing faction at that time against the country’s development programs had marginalized them, just as the right-wing faction has become marginalized today because of similar slogans and positions. He expressed concern about the possibility of Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi becoming head of the Judiciary and said that Ali-Agha Hojjat-Kermani claimed to have personally heard that, before the Revolution, Shahroudi had spoken badly of Imam Khomeini.

In Turkey, the prosecutor’s office has called for the closure of the Virtue Party. Last year, they similarly shut down the Islamist Welfare Party. This time, they have begun this anti-Islamic move under the pretext of Ms. Merve Kavakçı’s headscarf.

The United States announced that it had sent another 170 aircraft to Europe for the war, bringing the number of U.S. warplanes assigned to the campaign against Serbia to 700. The U.S. Congress has allocated $13 billion for the Balkan War. In Scotland and Wales in Britain, parliamentary elections have been held for the first time in 300 years, and the Labour Party is ahead of the other parties.

Today, a powerful earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale occurred south of Shiraz. It caused 27 deaths, 140 injuries, and extensive destruction in the villages of Arjan and Kazerun. If the earthquake’s epicenter had been in the city, the damage would have been much greater.

Yesterday’s newspapers reported that my name was on the assassination list of the Mahdaviat group, which was recently arrested, and that the news had received extensive coverage in foreign media. I have not yet received any official information regarding this matter.

I finished reading the Book of the Bible. The passages concerning the Revelation of John are similar to accounts of the Mi'raj, but with greater ambiguities and more unbelievable material.