November 23, 2024

Posts Comments

An Iranian political agenda exists to force Mujahedin E-Khalq out of Iraq

December 12, 2011 by

Aswat al-Iraq

BAGHDAD /Aswat al-Iraq –  The official spokesman of al-Iraqiya List, led by former PrimeMinister Iyad Allawi, has said on Monday that “there is a politicalagenda, moved by Iran to give an impression for the expulsion of theanti-Tehran Mujahedin El-Khalq organization’s residents from east Iraq’s AshrafCamp.”

“Thepolitical agenda is known to be moved by the Iranian Regime and does notreflect the real wish of the Iraqi people, which we surely reject and thinkthat our previous position had been a position of principle, because the caseof residents of Ashraf Camp was based on International agreements and theGeneva Treaty,” Haider al-Mulla said in a statement, copy of which was receivedby Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

“TheIraqi government has no other alternative but to lean to the statement of theUN Secretary-General’s Representative, and we believe that the HigherCommission for the Immigrants Affair possesses realistic mechanisms to settlethis dossier, whilst talk about moving the residents of Ashraf Camp from Diyalato another Iraqi province inside Iraq is part of an Iranian agenda, aimed atliquidating Mujahedin El-Khalq’s elements,” he said.

The Iraqigovernment had issued a decision to put an end for the presence of the saidOrganization in Iraq before the end of 2011, charging it with being,” aterrorist organization that had shared in killing Iraqis.

The anti-TehranMujahedin E-Khalq organization is based in Ashraf Camp in northeast Iraq’sDiala Province, for which it had moved after shifting its command into Iraq in1985, where it had enjoyed support by the previous Iraqi regime, in its attacksagainst Iran. 

SKH (TS)/SR

http://ku.aswataliraq.info/(S(gqhfqs55lggfedazi2vfrs45))/Default1.aspx?page=article_page&id=132633&l=1

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

SAVING CAMP ASHRAF

December 12, 2011 by

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

More than 60 members of Congress and a human rights commission named for the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the House are urging President Obama to use his Monday meeting with the prime minister of Iraq to demand he protect Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf.

The letters sent to the White House on Friday are the latest developments in a growing U.S. campaign to prevent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from closing the former military base north of Baghdad by the end of this month.

More than 3,400 Iranian exiles fear the Iraqi government will evict them from Camp Ashraf and deport many of them to Iran, where they face execution as opponents of the brutal theocratic regime.

U.S. supporters of the Camp Ashraf residents are expected to protest outside the White House during Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. al-Maliki. Speakers at the 11 a.m. rally will include former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell and former Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island Democrat, the protest organizers said.

In their letter, the 66 members of Congress expressed their distrust of Mr. al-Maliki because he broke his promise to protect the Camp Ashraf residents after U.S. forces turned over control of the compound to Iraq in 2009.

American forces disarmed the dissidents in 2003, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein. The United States treated the camp residents as “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions.

Iraqi forces twice attacked the unarmed dissidents, killing nine people in July 2009 and 36 in April this year. They wounded hundreds in both assaults.

“Our lack of trust in Mr. Maliki is well-founded,” the House members said.

“It is imperative that Mr. Maliki understand, in the clearest terms, that harm to Camp Ashraf residents will be met with severe consequences from the United States.”

The signatories on the bipartisan letter spanned the political spectrum from liberals of the Congressional Black Caucus to conservative tea party members.

The letter from the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission emphasized the need for U.N. officials to have more time to interview all Camp Ashraf residents who have applied for refugee status. The commission added that Mr. al-Maliki would violate a U.N. treaty on civil and political rights by forcibly relocating the Iranian dissidents.

The commission, formerly known as the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, was named after the late Tom Lantos, a California Democrat and only Holocaust survivor to serve in the House.

Mr. al-Maliki has partially based his decision to expel the dissidents on the inclusion of the group, called the Mujahedin-e Khalq, on the U.S. terrorist list, although the State Department is under a court order to review the group’s status.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/11/embassy-row-152434741/

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News, US Congress Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Iraq’s Looming Massacre of Iranian MEK Refugees

December 9, 2011 by

THE DAILY BEAST

 When the last U.S. troops leave Dec. 31, Iraqi forces will destroy Camp Ashraf, home to thousands of Iranian refugees belonging to the MEK. Geoffrey Robertson on the appalling human-rights tragedy unfolding.

The time bomb that is ticking toward a new human-rights disaster is near Baghdad, in a 25-acre compound, where 3,400 refugees from Iranian religious fascism await the cruelest of fates. Whilst nominally under United Nations protection, 36 of them have been killed by Iraqi forces already this year, and Dec. 31, the deadline for the U.S. troop pullout, is likely to be their deadline as well. The Iraqi government, under pressure from Iran, has announced that on that very same date it will demolish Camp Ashraf.

The camp houses the remnants of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK)—once described by Ayatollah Khomeini as “a syncretic mix of Marxism and Islam.” It started in Tehran universities in the late 1960s, attracting idealistic students who fought guerrilla battles against the shah’s secret police, but whose dreams of a secular state were soon dashed by the rule of the ayatollah. Hundreds were killed in student protests by his Revolutionary Guards, whilst thousands were arrested and then executed or (if lucky) sentenced to long prison terms.

Some escaped to Paris, but the fickle French expelled them in 1986 under pressure from Iran. They had nowhere to go but Iraq, where Saddam Hussein welcomed them to Camp Ashraf and used them as a “Free Iran” force. After the truce in 1988, Khomeini issued a secret fatwa ordering that all MEK supporters in Iranian prisons should be killed. In a bloodbath that ranks as the worst prisoner-of-war atrocity since the Japanese death marches at the end of World War II, thousands were summarily executed, under the orders of Ali Khamenei, then Iran’s president and now its supreme leader, and Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Camp Ashraf remained. Its residents were protected under the Geneva Conventions and were in any event refugees unable to return to Iran because of a well-founded fear—indeed, a certainty—that they would be executed both as traitors and as mohareb, or enemies of God. After the invasion in 2003, the U.S. formally recognized the MEK as having the status of “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions. Their weapons were decommissioned by the U.S. forces, and every Ashraf resident signed a written agreement denouncing terrorism and rejecting violence. In return, the U.S. promised to protect them until their final disposition. They built roads and residential complexes at the camp, with educational, social, and sports facilities, and infrastructure worth millions of dollars.

On Oct. 7, 2005, the deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition forces praised the residents of Camp Ashraf for “working together in the spirit of common humanitarianism,” and confirmed the coalition’s endorsement of their right to be protected from violence and their right as refugees not to be “refouled”; i.e., sent back to Iran. Their safety seemed assured, especially after the MEK did the world a service by revealing Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Natanz. That, of course, merely deepened the Iranian regime’s hatred of them, and it began intense diplomatic pressure on Iraq to close down Camp Ashraf.

Once the U.S. troop pullout began in 2008, the pressure started to have an effect. The Iraqi government formally demanded that it should take over security at the camp because the MEK was a “terrorist organization.” Gen. David Petraeus insisted that they were “protected persons” and U.S. forces would defend them. But Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced his determination to “put an end” to the MEK. As soon as all U.S. combat forces had left, he ordered a joint Army and police attack on the camp. In July 2009, U.S. military observers watched helplessly as Iraqi forces besieged and then attacked the camp, killing 11 residents (six were shot, the others beaten to death) and wounding hundreds. The operation was apparently intended to terrify the residents into leaving voluntarily, but instead it steeled their resolve.

Despite an international outcry, Maliki continued the siege of the camp, denying supplies of food and medicine. In early 2011 Iran stepped up its demands that the camp be destroyed. After Camp Grizzly, a nearby U.S. Army observation post, was disbanded, Maliki ordered another murderous assault in April, leaving 35 dead and more than 300 injured with gunshot and shrapnel wounds. Iran immediately congratulated Iraq for its “positive stance that strengthens mutual relations”—presumably a stance that was positive because it included killing innocent people that both governments disliked.

There was, of course, an international outcry. The U.N. commissioner for human rights and the European Union deplored the killings and called for an independent and transparent inquiry, which the lying Maliki promised but never set up. There was hand-wringing at the White House, “deeply troubled” by the casualties, but not troubled enough to do anything to protect the residents from the massacre that is likely when the U.S. troops leave Dec. 31. That is when Maliki’s deadline expires and his Army and police will move in, destroying the camp, whose buildings and facilities are worth millions of dollars, without compensation. Doubtless they will kill residents, just as they recklessly killed them in 2009 and in April 2011, and remove the rest to a prison in Baghdad, ready, perhaps for Iranian interrogators.

International law is clear: the people of Ashraf are refugees, and they are entitled to protection from the kind of brutality that almost certainly awaits them from Maliki’s forces. The U.S. has abandoned them and UNAMI, the remaining U.N. mission, has been pathetic—its “ambassador,” a German diplomat, has refused to meet the residents and has allowed himself to be fobbed off for months by the government. He is not even objecting to Camp Ashraf’s closure, but only asking for its residents to be relocated inside Iraq, which would make it easier for more of them to be killed.

The conduct of the U.N.’s refugee agency, in relation to people it accepts as asylum seekers whose claims demand adjudication, also has been lacking in humanity. It has a duty to process their claims, but it declines to do so inside the camp. It has persistently delayed whilst claiming to look for a ”safe” location to conduct interviews outside the camp, although it must be obvious that for Iranian dissidents, no location in Iraq is “safe” from Maliki’s army and police.

Although no one doubts that these Iranians would face persecution if returned to Iran, the UNHCR claims, wrongly in law, that it cannot accord the group refugee status until each and every one of them has been interviewed. This special treatment, it says, is because the MEK has “a history of armed activities.” But that is not international law, and in any event the group’s armed activities ended in 2001. By deliberately stalling on any peaceful solution and putting at risk the lives of those it should be protecting, the UNHCR is playing Iran’s game.

Ironically, the Obama administration has given a free kick to Camp Ashraf’s enemies with its failure to lift its “terrorist” designation on the MEK. This designation was removed by court order in the U.K., where the court described it as “perverse,” and in Europe, but the label remains in the U.S., pursuant to Section 219 of its Immigration and Nationality Act. Over a year ago a U.S. court ordered the State Department to reconsider, because the designation had been made without due process. The failure of the State Department to do so provides the tormentors of the Ashraf refugees—Iran and the pro-Iranian Iraqi government—with a bogus excuse to deny them their rights.

Many American and British soldiers died for the cause of liberating Iraq from Saddam’s oppression; it is galling to see his successor behaving with comparable brutality. Iraq is now a sovereign state and its power to expropriate Camp Ashraf, after paying appropriate compensation, cannot be doubted. But nor can its duty under international law to protect these refugees and give them safe passage out of Iraq, where they will be persecuted, and avoid Iran, where they will be killed. European countries should give them refuge—France, in particular, which wrongly expelled many of them in 1986. Until that can be arranged, Camp Ashraf must remain. Otherwise, in just a few weeks time, it is very likely that more of its residents will be massacred.

Geoffrey Robertson QC was president of the U.N.’s war crimes court in Sierra Leone and is the author of Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice (The New Press).

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

To most of the world, Iranian dissidents are not terrorists

December 8, 2011 by

THE WASHINGTON POST

Letter to the Editor

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki [“Building a stable Iraq,” op-ed, Dec. 6] made clear the pretext that has been used to justify his country’s policy of brutality against the approximately 3,400 members of the Iranian dissident group the Mujahedin el-Khalq (MEK), located at Camp Ashraf, 60 kilometers north of Baghdad. “The camp’s residents,” he stated, “are classified as a terrorist organization by many countries, and thus have no legal basis to remain inIraq.” 

This is untrue. Only theUnited StatesandCanada— and, of course,Iran— continue to maintain the MEK on their respective lists of terrorist organizations. More than two years ago, an appellate court inBritainthrew out that designation as baseless, and the European Union soon followed suit. 

Nearly three years ago, theUnited Statesformally relinquished sovereignty overCampAshrafto the Iraqis. In July 2009, and in April of this year, Iraqi forces invaded Ashraf, killing nearly 50 residents and injuring hundreds. More recently, Mr. Maliki has insisted that the people of Ashraf leave the country, although he knows that there is nowhere for them to go, largely because of theU.S.terrorist designation. In apparent preparation for a mass deportation, he proposes to consolidate them in a remote location. With deportation, they quite likely will be left to the tender mercies of the Iranian regime. 

In this context, Mr. Maliki’s expressed interest in seeing the fate of the MEK “resolved peacefully and with the help of the United Nations” will have to await the test of credibility: Actions speak louder than words. 

Allan Gerson and Steven M. Schneebaum, Washington 

The writers are lawyers representing the Mujahedin el-Khalq in theUnited Statesin its efforts to remove the group’s designation as a terrorist entity. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/to-most-of-the-world-iranian-dissidents-are-not-terrorists/2011/12/06/gIQAi48GgO_story.html

 

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Iraqi MP: Iran Should Give Incentives to Iraq for Expelling MEK

December 8, 2011 by

Stop Fundamentalism

An Iraqi Member of Parliament in Maliki’s bloc told reporters today that it would be a grave mistake for Iraq expelling the MEK without receiving adequate incentives from Iran, said Shafagh News website.  She also stressed that there are a great many armed groups operating in Iraq supported by the Iranian regime while their cases remain undisclosed.

“Iraq’s foreign policy is full of flaws,” said Batoul Farough from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bloc in the Iraqi parliament told to Shafagh news reporter, “one of such mistakes is expelling the MEK without receiving any incentive from the Iranian side.”

“This will result in a situation where Iraq will no longer have a pressure leverage against neighboring countries that intervene in Iraqi affaires,” highlighted Farough.

Another member of the bloc, Ali Al-Alagh, said that the members of the MEK after closing the camp at the end of this year will be taken to various temporary locations specially designated for this purpose in Iraq. He added that Iraq is under a lot of pressure from Iran with this regard.

MEK members are the principal Iranian opposition movement in exile who have lived in Iraq for the past 25 years in a camp internationally known as Camp Ashraf located about 80 kilometers north of Baghdad.  The 3400 residents in the camp are unarmed and are currently being considered for refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Last April Iraqi forces raided the camp killing 36 residents including 8 women.  Since the incident the Iraqi government has put a blockade on the camp and threatens to close the camp at the end of the year and disperse the residents in different locations in Iraq.  

Residents say that they will not be willingly relocated inside Iraq as that will be tantamount to a group suicide.

Martin Kobler, the United Nations Secretary General Special Envoy to Iraq told a meeting of the Security Council Tuesday that at Ashraf, “Lives are at stake, they need protection,” calling for the UN to take strong measure to prevent a large scale massacre of the resident.

http://www.stopfundamentalism.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1274:iraqi-mp-iran-should-give-incentives-to-iraq-for-expelling-mek

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Arab lawyers and jurists describe Ashraf Camp case as “genocide”

December 8, 2011 by

Aswat al-Iraq

BAGHDAD –  Three thousand Arab and Iraqi lawyers and jurists have described the “time-table” set for Ashraf Camp as “genocide.”

In a statement received by Aswat al-Iraq, issued at the end of a press conference held in Cairo by lawyers and jurists from Iraq, Egypt and Jordan, they said that “Iranis attempting to forcibly move them to other provinces to kill them at a later stage,” regarding ” the next step as a genocide against humanity.”

“Although the Iraqi government has given assurances, the fact is that the future holds a potential genocide,” the statement added.

It called on the Arab League to interfere and called on the Iraqi government to cancel its decision to expel the anti-Iranian Ashraf Camp residents, pending their transfer to a third country.

Ashraf Camp is the base for anti-Iranian Mujahidi Khalq, which is regarded by the US, Iraq and Iran as a terrorist organization, while the European Union removed it from its black list in 2009.

The 3,400 camp residents lack any official standing inIraq at time of Iraqi government threats to close it by the end of this year.

http://ku.aswataliraq.info/Default1.aspx?page=article_page&id=132579&l=1

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lawmakers, retired colonel voice support for Iranian exile group

December 8, 2011 by

STARS AND STRIPES

BAGHDAD — Lawmakers and former military officials called on the U.S. government to protect an Iranian exile group in Iraq facing resettlement by the end of the year, citing conflict with Iraqi security forces earlier this year that killed dozens of people.

The hearing came in the wake of an intensive lobbying effort by former high-level U.S. government officials to have the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terror groups.

The 3,400 MEK members at the camp were friendly to U.S. forces who oversaw their settlement at Camp Ashraf until the U.S. relinquished control in 2009, former camp commander and retired Army Col. Wesley Martin told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Wednesday, according to published testimony.

Martin advocated relocating the group to the United States, and referred to an April video that purportedly showed 34 unarmed people being killed during resistance to Iraqi security forces entering the compound as evidence that the Iraqi government had no intention of protecting them.

During the video, some rushed to the aid of fallen comrades during the gunfire, according to Martin.

“I know if either myself or the American warriors with me at Ashraf had been under such an attack, the residents at Ashraf would have been rushing equally fast to our rescue,” Martin said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said during the hearing that the camp risked massacre by Iraqi forces without special protection, according to a New York Times report.

The State Department is re-examining MEK’s status as a terrorist organization, said Ambassador Daniel Fried, who was appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to oversee the MEK’s situation.

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lawmakers, retired colonel voice support for Iranian exile group

December 8, 2011 by

STARS and STRIPES

BAGHDAD — Lawmakers and former military officials called on the U.S. government to protect an Iranian exile group in Iraq facing resettlement by the end of the year, citing conflict with Iraqi security forces earlier this year that killed dozens of people.

The hearing came in the wake of an intensive lobbying effort by former high-level U.S. government officials to have the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terror groups.

The 3,400 MEK members at the camp were friendly to U.S. forces who oversaw their settlement at Camp Ashraf until the U.S. relinquished control in 2009, former camp commander and retired Army Col. Wesley Martin told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Wednesday, according to published testimony.

Martin advocated relocating the group to the United States, and referred to an April video that purportedly showed 34 unarmed people being killed during resistance to Iraqi security forces entering the compound as evidence that the Iraqi government had no intention of protecting them.

During the video, some rushed to the aid of fallen comrades during the gunfire, according to Martin.

“I know if either myself or the American warriors with me at Ashraf had been under such an attack, the residents at Ashraf would have been rushing equally fast to our rescue,” Martin said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said during the hearing that the camp risked massacre by Iraqi forces without special protection, according to a New York Times report.

The State Department is re-examining MEK’s status as a terrorist organization, said Ambassador Daniel Fried, who was appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to oversee the MEK’s situation.

Fried told the committee that the group’s past activities include the killing of six Americans and bombing of U.S. companies in Iran during its opposition to the Shah’s rule in the 1970s. The group continued its attacks against Iran’s current theocracy through the 1990s, according to the State Department.

The group also has been accused of aiding Saddam Hussein in repressing Kurdish and Shiite revolts following the Gulf War, although supporters say that such claims are groundless and politically motivated.

Immigration issues and other hurdles would preclude resettling the group in the United States, Fried said. Although he condemned Iraq’s use of violence against the group, he also blamed the group for its steadfast refusal to move to another location within Iraq.

“A humane and secure relocation is possible, but it will take intense and serious efforts by all parties,” Fried said, according to testimony.

Earlier this week, the U.N. envoy for Iraq called on the Iraqi government to extend the resettlement deadline and said in a briefing to the U.N. Security Council that the government “has a responsibility to ensure the safety, security and welfare of the residents.”

slavine@pstripes.osd.mil

http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/iraq/lawmakers-retired-colonel-voice-support-for-iranian-exile-group-1.162833

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News, US Congress Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

U.S. warns Iraq against eviction of foes of Iran

December 7, 2011 by

 THE WASHINGTON TIMES 

Deadline for closing camp of 3,400 nears

A senior U.S. official Wednesday warned Iraq against using violence to evict unarmed Iranian dissidents from a camp north of Baghdad by the end of the month, as a top member of Congress accused the State Department of moving at a snail’s pace to prevent what he called a possible massacre of the residents of Camp Ashraf.

“There is no doubt that the situation is serious. We are worried about the possibility of violence, and we are working flat out to ward it off,” Daniel Fried, special adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Camp Ashraf, said at a House subcommittee hearing.

The Iraqi government has set a Dec. 31 deadline to close Camp Ashraf, home to about 3,400 members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

The State Department, which listed the MEK as a terrorist organization in 1997, is reviewing this designation after a July 2010 order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs oversight and investigations subcommittee, snapped at Mr. Fried after he said the State Department is working at an “intense pace” to persuade the Iraqi government to extend the deadline.

“Maybe it’s an intense pace for a snail,” the California Republican said.

Mr. Fried told lawmakers the Iraqi government regards its decision to close the camp as a legitimate exercise of its sovereignty.

“Yet the exercise of a sovereign right does not obviate the need for care and restraint,” he said. “We expect the Iraqi government to refrain from the use of violence.”

“At the same time, the camp leadership must respect Iraqi sovereignty and refrain from acts of provocation, as we seek to resolve this matter,” he added.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers called on the Iraqi government to extend its deadline to close Camp Ashraf and on the Obama administration to take the MEK off the terrorist list.

Mr. Rohrabacher warned of the consequences of not preventing what he said was the imminent massacre of the camp’s residents by Iraqi forces.

“Why are we, the United States, being an accomplice to this crime? If they are deported or subjected to another massacre, the blood in the sand will also stain the Gucci shoes of the U.S. State Department,” he said.

The MEK, also known as the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran, was responsible for terrorist attacks in Iran in the 1970s that killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians, according to the State Department.

Camp Ashraf’s residents surrendered their weapons in 2003 as part of a cease-fire agreement with U.S. forces.

In June 2009, the United States turned over control of Camp Ashraf to the Iraqi government, which gave written assurances that it would treat the residents humanely.

However, Iraqi forces have attacked the camp several times, most recently on April 8, when the security forces killed 36 residents, including eight women.

The residents of Camp Ashraf fear that they will be arrested and executed if they are sent to Iran.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/7/us-warns-iraq-against-eviction-of-foes-of-iran/

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Iran refugees fear bloodbath

December 7, 2011 by

THE NEW YORK POST

As he hosts Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Monday, President Obama will need to hastily tie upIraq’s loose ends — including CampAshraf, a mess that could quickly turn ugly and cloud Obama’s chance to claim “promise fulfilled” on ending the Iraq war. 

Maliki: Closing camp to please Tehran.

At year’s end, as US troops leave Iraq, Maliki plans to evacuate Ashraf. Since 1986, when Saddam Hussein took them under his wing as part of his war against Ayatollah Khomeini, the camp near the Iraq-Iran border has housed members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) — a group that Tehran’s mullahs consider a formidable foe. 

When they handed over their weapons to theUSmilitary in 2005, ending their status as an armed militia, camp residents received written American assurances that they wouldn’t be sent back toIranand that we’d guarantee their safety. 

Yet that safety is in serious doubt, because Baghdadis much friendlier to Tehran these days. Last spring, as soon as US forces withdrew from the area, Iraqi troops entered Ashraf  (now more a city than a “camp”), indiscriminately killing residents. More recently, loudspeakers started blaring music and propaganda into the camp at all hours. 

Residents now fear that if they leave Ashraf, they’d quickly be “disappeared.” Though unarmed, some plan to resist Maliki’s evacuation, or “defend our home,” as they put it. 

Ali Safavi, aWashingtonactivist with close ties to the MEK, says they believe Maliki is “doingTehran’s bidding,” planning to prosecute, kill or hand them over to the mullahs. 

The United Nations is trying to determine how many of the 3,500 people at Ashraf can be relocated. Though a few have legal rights to live in America, Canada, Australia or Europe, most hold only Iranian citizenship — and returning there is likely a death sentence. 

The UN sorting process is complex, and Western countries aren’t eager to offer asylum to MEK members. So the UN’s point man inIraq, Martin Kobler, is calling on Americaand others to press Maliki to extend his year-end deadline for six months. And, as a European diplomat put it, “We also do need a long-term solution.” 

Since America is unlikely to accept all (or even most) Ashraf refugees, the least Obama can do is make a public demand, standing next to Maliki, that the Iraqi extend his deadline while we actively look for resettlement solutions. 

Yes, the MEK is often described as a cult. And (despite formidable bipartisan lobbying efforts) the State Department is yet to remove the group from its list of terrorist organizations. 

But Ashraf  shouldn’t become a violent coda to our Iraq withdrawal. For years, the group has been helpful in exposing Iran’s nuclear secrets and undermining the program. And we promised safety. 

If we leave them toIran’s mercy now, we confirm the impression that we’re a fair-weather friend to the enemies of our enemy. Worse: If we fail to tie up such loose ends inIraq, we deepen the impression that we’re running scared after spending eight years and much blood and treasure there.  

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/iran_refugees_fear_bloodbath_ZADOaK9T4NKqoEd75moSxM

 

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,