Jamshid Amouzegar

Jamshid Amouzegar was born on June 26, 1923, in Tehran. His father, Habibollah Amouzegar, became the Minister of Culture in 1951. After completing high school, Jamshid Amouzegar studied at the Faculty of Law and Technical Sciences at Tehran University for two years and went to the United States to continue his education in 1943. He continued his education in the United States in the field of Hydraulics and Hygiene and was successful in obtaining a Ph.D. from the United States. Jamshid Amouzegar worked at the United Nations in 1951 and was commissioned by the United Nations in that same year to work in Iran as the agent of the United Nations. Seven years later on August 29, 1958, he became the Minister of Labour in Iran, this was the first job of Jamshid Amouzegar and he remained as a minister for sixteen and a half years.

Jamshid Amouzegar was elected as the Minister of Agriculture on October 27, 1959. It was in this job that he approved the land reform law in the National parliament.

When Manouchehr Eqbal’s government resigned, in 1960, he resigned from governmental work and started a freelance and non-governmental career, as a consultant engineer until the government of Hasan-Ali Mansour was established. He then became the Minister of Health on March 8, 1954.

When Hasan-Ali Mansour was assassinated, on January 21, 1965, Jamshid Amouzegar stayed in his job in the first government of Amir-Abbas Hoveyda and was the Minister of Health.

During the thirteen years of the prime ministry of Amir-Abbas Hoveyda he twenty-four times made changes in the government cabinet, but the only one who remained in the ministry and did not change until he replaced Hoveyda was Jamshid Amouzegar.

Until the victory of the Islamic Revolution of the Iranian people which was led by Imam Khomeini, Jamshid Amouzegar co-operated with some of the country’s political groups, such as the National Party, New Iran Party and Resurrection Party, and in 1978 he became the general-secretary of the Resurrection Party.

When Jamshid Amouzegar was working in the ministry, there were important events that accelerated the Iranian people’s revolution. The most important thing that prompted the revolution was the publication of the article “Iran and the Red and Black Colonialism” published on January 7, 1978. This article was published in the Etela’at newspapers. Two days after the publication of this article, a demonstration took place in Qom, and several people were wounded and six were killed. On February 18, 1978, the commemoration ceremony of the fortieth anniversary of the victims in Qom was held in some parts of the country. In Tabriz, protests were suppressed by the army. Immediately after the repression of the army, Jamshid Amouzegar said that there was not even one person from the actual citizens of Tabriz among the demonstrators.

Alexander Azmoudeh was Jamshid Amouzegar’s uncle, who was dismissed from his position as the governor of East Azerbaijan province after the uprising of the people of Tabriz. When the month of Ramadan began, revolutionary events also intensified and the people of Esfahan burned down the Shah Abbas Hotel and several cinemas and banks and government offices in Esfahan, during a demonstration and because of this, Amouzegar was forced to set a curfew in Esfahan and around Esfahan on 11 August 1978.

Another incident that accelerated the overthrow of the government of Jamshid Amouzegar was a fire at the Rex Movie Cinema in Abadan, which was burnt down by a group on August 19, 1978, and 377 people were killed there.

Jamshid Amouzegar resigned after the fire in Abadan’s Rex Cinema on 27 August 1978. Jafar Sharif-Emami was appointed to replace him. He also resigned from being the secretary-general of the Resurrection group. Before his resignation he had withdrawn his fund from the country, he and his family immigrated to the United States on the pretext of his wife’s illness and with the permission of Mohammad Reza Shah.

Amouzegar had many jobs, including the head of a representative group on behalf of Iran at the World Health Organization, the head of a representative group from Iran at the International Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the head of Iran’s representative group in OPEC, and a member of the management committee of the University of Tehran.

Amouzegar was a member of Freemason groups. After the revolution, he was known guilty and was forced to return his property by the Islamic Revolutionary court, and this sentence was passed without his presence in the court.

Amouzegar, along with his friends, is working in the imperialist club in the United States to weaken the Islamic Revolution, and they sometimes publish articles in Persian-language publications which are outside the country.