Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
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REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RNISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETi<br />
turkish daily news - Sepember 25, 1993<br />
THE ECON01\IIST SElyrEl\IBEI{ 25TH 1~m:~<br />
Iran<br />
For the oppressed<br />
FROM A CORRESPONDENT<br />
IN IRAN<br />
HECONTROLS $4 billion worth ofinvestment<br />
in 1,200companies and nobody,<br />
except for Iran's spiritual lea<strong>de</strong>r,<br />
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, can fire him. He is<br />
Mohsen Rafiqdoost, managing director of<br />
Iran's Bonyad-e-Mostazafan, the Foundation<br />
of the Oppressed.<br />
The bonyad was s<strong>et</strong> up on the fortune of<br />
the shah and other Iranians who fled the<br />
1979 revolution, and has been enriched<br />
since then with fresh confiscated property<br />
(seebox). The largest of several foundations<br />
supposed to redistribute the country's<br />
wealth, its given taskis to s<strong>et</strong> up universities,<br />
build cheap housing and provi<strong>de</strong> affordable<br />
medical care. Italso makes a handsome<br />
profit for itself.<br />
Its investments range wi<strong>de</strong>: from agriculture<br />
and textiles to food and tourism. It<br />
can change its spots at will, acting as a private<br />
company when buying privatised<br />
firms, but going "public" to control such<br />
"strategic" businesses as the national shipping<br />
line, enshrined in the Iranian constitution<br />
as a publicly-owned agency.<br />
The bonyad owns several five-star hotels<br />
and is even building an amusement park in<br />
Tehran along Disneyland lines, in a joint<br />
venture with a European construction firm.<br />
The i<strong>de</strong>a of Minnie Mouse in full-length<br />
chador may not sound a winner, but no one<br />
doubts Mr Rafiqdoost's shrewdness. The<br />
bonyad's operating profit last year reached<br />
570 billion rials ($400m), the highest ever.<br />
Mr Rafiqdoost topk it over in 1989, after<br />
commanding the Revolutionary Guards<br />
during Iran's eight-year war with Iraq; he<br />
claims that one-third of the profit goes directly<br />
to victims ef the war.<br />
Wealthy Iranians fear the bonyad's huge<br />
expansion, not least because their own ass<strong>et</strong>s<br />
are constantly un<strong>de</strong>r threat. But even<br />
the unwealthy are starting to feel that it and<br />
other foundations have sold out for the sake<br />
of profit. "They are supposed to build housing<br />
for the poor, but only the rich can afford<br />
the mansions they build," says a low-paid<br />
government employee, trying to make ends<br />
me<strong>et</strong> by working nights as a taxi driver.<br />
"They are for the oppressed in name only."<br />
Mr Rafiqdoost admits his foundation<br />
makes a healthy profit from some of its<br />
housing, but says that all the proceeds will<br />
eventually reach the poor. Meanwhile, his<br />
staffdoseem to have their minds on making<br />
money. They gladly recite the extent of their<br />
investments and the <strong>de</strong>pth of their control<br />
over the Iranian economy. Mr Rafiqdoost<br />
himself is proud of the fact that the government<br />
will often approach him to intervene<br />
in economic policy. When lifting its subsidy<br />
on chickens, for example, it asked the<br />
bonyad to import millions of chickeQs, to<br />
bring down the price. "We have intervened<br />
over iron, tea, rice and cooking oil," says Mr<br />
Rafiqdoost.<br />
In a country that thrives on rumour and<br />
speculation, the foundations are a favourite<br />
targ<strong>et</strong>. Many Iranians suspect that they are<br />
used as <strong>de</strong>niable vehicles to control everything<br />
from the pro-Iranian Hizbullah to the<br />
bounty on the head of Salman Rushdie.<br />
(The 15Khordad Foundation, which offered<br />
that $2m bounty, is the most secr<strong>et</strong>ive foundation<br />
of all.)<br />
Economic information in Iran is almost<br />
as sensitive as military secr<strong>et</strong>s, and few<br />
really know what the foundations are up to.<br />
Allegations of political involvement are difficult<br />
to prove. Many accuse them of corruption,<br />
a criticism that Mr Rafiqdoost dismisses<br />
as politically motivated. But with no<br />
sharehol<strong>de</strong>rs, no public accounts and answerable<br />
only to Iran's religious lea<strong>de</strong>r, the<br />
bonyads are a law unto themselves.<br />
.<br />
THE ECONOMIST SEPTEMBER 25TH 1993<br />
3