Reuters
By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS, July 19 (Reuters) – U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon called in a report made public on Tuesday for stepped-up efforts to resolve the problem of Iranian exiles living at a camp in Iraq that was the scene of a bloody clash in April.

Camp Ashraf, some 65 km (40 miles) from Baghdad, houses the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI), which mounted attacks on Iran before the U.S.-led overthrow of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The future of the camp has been uncertain since the United States turned it over to Iraqi control in 2009. Unlike Saddam, who fought an eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s, Iraq's current government is sympathetic towards Tehran and has vowed to close the camp by the end of this year.

In April, the camp — which houses 3,400 people — was the scene of clashes between Iraqi security forces and residents, 34 of whom were killed according to a U.N. investigation.

“I … encourage all stakeholders involved to increase their efforts to explore options and seek a consensual solution that ensures respect for Iraq's sovereignty while also being consistent with international human rights law and humanitarian principles,” Ban said in a regular report on Iraq.

“To this end, I call upon (U.N.) member states to help to support and facilitate the implementation of any arrangement that is acceptable to the government of Iraq and the camp residents,” the U.N. Secretary-General added.

Earlier this month, PMOI leader Maryam Rajavi rejected a U.S. proposal to move the camp residents to another location chosen by the Iraqi government, saying the plan would lead to a “massacre.” The PMOI is officially considered a terrorist group by Washington but enjoys some support in the U.S. Congress.

Camp residents have voiced fears that they will eventually be handed over to Iran.

INVESTIGATION PENDING

In his report, Ban urged Iraqi authorities to refrain from use of force and ensure adequate access for camp residents to goods and services.

Rights group Amnesty International said in a statement last week that Iraq should halt “harassment” of the exiles, who have said they could not buy basic medicines and had been denied permission to travel outside the camp for medical treatment.

At a Security Council debate on Iraq on Tuesday, Baghdad’s U.N. Ambassador Hamid Bayati said his country had allowed U.N. representatives and U.S. forces to enter the camp to deliver food and medicine.

He also said Baghdad had expressed a willingness to start an investigation of the April clash, a probe that Ban said “remains pending.”

Bayati said Iraq had decided “to work on (camp residents’) resettlement and guaranteeing their human rights” but gave no details of its plans. He charged that the PMOI “considers the camp as liberated and holy territories for them and refuses to leave it, which is a stark challenge to Iraq's sovereignty.”

Bayati said the April clashes started after Iraqi forces attempting to assert control of part of the camp were attacked with fire bombs and knives.

But Mohammad Mohadessin, a Paris-based representative of the camp residents, said in a statement sent to Reuters that Ban’s account of the incident “clearly lays bare the lies by the Iraqi ambassador.” (Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/un-chief-urges-solution-to-iranian-exiles-in-iraq

The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Monday, July 18, 2011

 by Bob Barr

Over the last several months, peoples in several Middle Eastern countries have taken to the streets in protest of oppressive governments — reflecting a profound desire for reform and an end to corruption. Many politicians in Washington have hailed these protests and openly encouraged government leaders in the countries affected to take meaningful steps to transition to democratic rule. Except for Iran.

When the Iranian people rose up in June 2009 and began a wide and continuing protest against the Ahmadinejad administration and its religious leaders, all we heard from Washington was a modest degree of lip-service. Meanwhile, scores of Iranian youths wearing green, the color of the opposition, were killed, tortured, or imprisoned.

Iran remains the elephant in the room in terms of U.S. foreign policy. While sanctions have been placed on the country and other punitive diplomatic initiatives imposed, there has been no serious focus on or support for the Achilles Heel of the regime in Tehran — the Iranian people and their organized opposition.

In fact, the past three U.S. administrations have seriously and expressly weakened the ability of opposition forces in Iran to effect positive change. All three have done this by abusing U.S. law that permits the State Department to designate entities as “terrorist organizations” and thereby deny them recognition and access to resources. This is precisely what the federal government for 14 years has done to the single most important and best organized Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

The MEK is not in fact a terrorist organization, but was so designated in 1997 by the Clinton Administration to curry favor with Tehran. This ill-placed “goodwill gesture” effectively destroyed the ability of MEK to develop support and raise resources in the U.S. and elsewhere. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama continued the policy, despite its obvious lack of success at producing any positive changes to the repressive regime in Iran. In fact, a strong argument can be made that continuing to placate Tehran by designating the most important opposition group in the country as a “terrorist organization,” has actually strengthened the regime.

Ramifications of this policy extend also to military and national security concerns. Iran’s continued development of nuclear and missile capabilities very well could be slowed by strengthening, rather than weakening, civil opposition groups. Groups like the MEK are more concerned with increasing freedom within Iran than with saber-rattling and wasting resources on dangerous nuclear weaponry.

To be sure, the MEK is controversial, and other Iranian opposition groups, including those associated with the former Shah, despise it. But being “controversial” is hardly a basis on which to black ball a legitimate political entity whose goals – freeing the Iranian people from the grip of religious zealots – coincide with official U.S. policy.

This view is shared by many leading military, intelligence and diplomatic experts in the United States. Earlier this year, three former Bush Administration officials – Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, Frances Fragos Townsend – along with Rudy Giuliani, wrote in the National Review that “MEK is not a terrorist group.” They noted also that the organization had, in fact, proved to be an asset to the United States by “provid[ing] valuable intelligence to the United States on Iranian nuclear plans.” John Bolton, Bush’s former UN Ambassador, concurs in this assessment.

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle also see the value in helping rather than hurting the MEK — 83 members of the House have co-sponsored a resolution encouraging the State Department to delist the organization.

Ironically, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made statements publicly supporting “all Iranians who wish for a government that respects their human rights, their dignity and their freedom.” But the gulf between her public statements and official administration policy continuing the unfair and counterproductive punishing of MEK, belies Washington commitment to “human rights, dignity and freedom” in Iran.

by Bob Barr — The Barr Code

http://blogs.ajc.com/bob-barr-blog/2011/07/18/us-policy-helping-iran-regime/

PRNewswire

July 18, 2011

WASHINGTON, July 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The following is being released by the Iranian American Community of Northern California:

In a symposium, coinciding with the anniversary of the ruling by a U.S. Federal Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the main Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK), former senior U.S. government officials called on the Department of State to expeditiously complete its review and remove the group from its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).

Panel of Senior Former US Officials Calls for De-Listing of the MEK, Protection for Camp Ashraf

The bi-partisan panel expressed dismay over the administration’s failure to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, home to 3,400 members of the MEK and their families.

General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1997-2001), General James T. Conway, Commandant of the Marine Corps (2006-2010); Governor Howard Dean, former Chair, Democratic National Committee; Louis Freeh, former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Togo West Jr., former Secretary of Veterans Affairs; Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania (2003-2011); Prof. Sarah Sewall, Director of Mass Atrocity Response Operations, Harvard Kennedy School of Government; and Professor Anita McBride, Chief of Staff to First Lady Laura Bush (2005-2009) spoke at the conference, moderated by Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, Director of Policy Planning of the U.S. Department of State (2003-2005).

“Whatever our political affiliation, it has no bearing today, as we are unified shoulder to shoulder in our effort to help right this wrong, to de-list the MEK and to help the people at Camp Ashraf,” Ambassador Reiss said in his opening remarks.

General Shelton remarked, “The State Department has failed to provide any, either classified or declassified, information that states why the MEK should have been placed on the list in the first place. They also last week, exceeded the 180 days that they had been given by the Court to produce evidence to substantiate their reasons why the MEK is on the list. I say, Wake up, State Department, take the MEK off the FTO list today.”

“We should not forget that the MEK is the best organized, it is the most formidable opposition to the current Iranian regime. It has challenged the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism for the past 32 years,” he added.

Governor Dean described the April 8, 2011 massacre at Camp Ashraf by the Iraqi forces as a war crime. “What looms in front of us is a far bigger war crime, and that is the massacre of the remainder of the 3,400 residents. And it is very clear there can be no assurance by the Iraqi Government that would have the credibility that we could rely on or that the people of Ashraf could rely on.”

Referring to the recent heightened campaign by the Iranian regime and its U.S.-based lobby to overshadow the growing consensus in the U.S. Congress and among policy and political circles on the need to immediately de-list the MEK, Governor Dean stated, “These people are not terrorists. You see in the paper the pro-Iranian lobbyist saying, well, they’re a cult and they’re this and they’re that. Well, first of all, I don’t believe that’s true, but even if it were, does that justify the murder in cold blood of people who are under American protection? I think not. Let’s stop the name calling and the foolishness and look at this for what it is. This is genocide, and we will not have it.”

Director Freeh emphasized, “The MEK… is not a terrorist group. Do you think for a moment that the likes of the people on this panel would be here if there was even a remote possibility that this organization was a Foreign Terrorist Organization? By the way, we all keep contacts with our associations and our agencies. No one has come up to me or any of my colleagues from their current agencies and said, you know I don’t think you should be doing this; this is a bad organization; this is an organization that has terrorists’ intent or capability. That’s not happened.”

Referring to the year-long use of delay tactics by the State Department in finalizing its review of the MEK status as “an absolute legal disgrace,” the former FBI Director said. “It’s a slow walk to nowhere, intended to frustrate the litigants and defy the order of the Court.”

“The fact that they have maintained this organization improperly without legal or factual basis on the Foreign Terrorist Organization List has given the Iranian regime, through its proxy in Baghdad, a license to kill… So the indecision here is not just an indecision. It is a facilitation of this regime through its proxy in Baghdad, unfortunately, murdering and killing….,” he added.

Former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Togo West Jr., said that he expected the Secretary of State “to do the right thing with respect to the MEK listing and to de-list the MEK. That is not our question. Our question is when? How long? How much more information needs to be reviewed? The State Department has not even responded to the Court of Appeals’ ruling of last year just yet.”

In regards to the dire humanitarian crisis imposed on Camp Ashraf, Mr. West stated, “I am less than clear on what our Government is going to do about Camp Ashraf, and it troubles me greatly… I agree with what has been said about the disaster that arises if they are forced to relocate inside Iraq. I agree that the United States continues to have a responsibility for that, and I urge the United States to step up to that responsibility.”

Dr. Sewall described the Iraqi army’s actions in Camp Ashraf on April 8 as “mass atrocity” and “slaughter of unarmed civilians” and warned, “We are at risk of an extraordinary humanitarian crisis by the end of this year unless we are able to rally the international community to step up to the plate. And here, I do think the United States bears a special responsibility. I do not think that we can, regardless of the legality, hide behind [Iraqi] sovereignty to escape the moral obligation that comes from the history that we have had with Camp Ashraf.”

General James Conway, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, began his remarks about the MEK and Camp Ashraf based on his “own observations and experiences” as “the only member of the panel that has had physical responsibilities for their security.” “As I dispatched some of my commanders to sit down and talk with these folks, as I visited myself, these people are not terrorists. They’re no more terrorists than the people here on the panel… We asked those people to disarm. They’re the only people in Iraq who are disarmed. And yet, these people complied willingly and have done what we asked them to do,” he said.

“Now, it seems to me the oppressive events [at Camp Ashraf] are such today that we have got to reconsider our national posture towards the people at Camp Ashraf and the MEK in general… And I’ve got to tell you what happened recently should be a national outrage and, unfortunately, I don’t see it,” Gen. Conway added.

Gov. Rendell  said, “I will send a letter to President Obama and to Secretary Clinton telling them, one, that the United States is morally bound to do everything we can to ensure the safety of the residents of Camp Ashraf and, two, if, Director Freeh and General Shelton and General Conway and Governor Dean and the rest of these great panelists say that MEK is a force for good and the best hope we have for a third option in Iran, then, good Lord, take them off the terrorist list. Take them off the terrorist list.”

“The fight being waged to de-list the MEK, the fight to protect the residents of Camp Ashraf, this fight is not their fight alone. It’s not your fight alone. It is America’s fight as well. Both our interests and our values are inextricably linked in this case. To the residents of Camp Ashraf, we stand with you, we will continue to work to change U.S. policy, and we will not rest until we succeed,” Ambassador Reiss said in his concluding remarks.

SOURCE Iranian American Community of Northern California

Iran Focus

DC Rally across the State department Demands Immediate De-listing of the MEK

A spokesperson for the demonstrators said they were protesting against the Administration’s delay in announcing a decision on the MEK’s status and to demand the group’s de-listing.

The Huffington Post

The U.S. State Department’s inclusion of Iran’s main opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), in the list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) has been fiercely criticized by members of Congress and former U.S. government officials over the past several months. The criticism was heightened when on April 8, 2011, under a direct order from Tehran, Iraqi forces launched a vicious attack against the residents of Camp Ashraf in Iraq, home to 3,400 MEK members. Videos of the assault show Iraqi soldiers armed with AK-47s shooting at unarmed camp residents in cold blood.

The April massacre at Camp Ashraf brought into light not just the political blunder of the MEK’s terrorist designation, but also its tragic humanitarian cost. Today, the lives of 3,400 people are at the mercy of an Iraqi government which uses the U.S. designation as a justification for murder. Many of the residents at Camp Ashraf have relatives in the US or Western Europe. Some, including my own brother, are former residents of the United States.

On June 18, tens of thousands of Iranian exiles gathered near Paris, France, to call for the protection of Camp Ashraf and the removal of the MEK from the State Department’s FTO list. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran — a broad political coalition which has the MEK as a member organization — dozens of parliamentarians from around the world, including the U.S., and several former senior U.S. officials, called on Washington to live up to its obligation of protecting Camp Ashraf as a valuable ally in the region. Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge described Ashraf as “a thorn in the side of the real terrorists, the Iranian regime.”

Indeed, the humanitarian challenges at Camp Ashraf and the folly of designating the MEK as a terrorist organization has been recognized by Washington for quite some time. A 2009 State Department cable released by Wikileaks highlights the “Catch 22” situation the U.S. has found themselves in, stating:

If the government of Iraq acts harshly against the MEK and provokes a reaction, the [U.S. government] faces a challenging dilemma: we either protect members of a foreign terrorist organization against actions of the Iraqi security forces and risk violating the U.S.-Iraq security agreement, or we decline to protect the MEK in the face of a humanitarian crisis, thus leading to international condemnation of both the U.S. government and the government of Iraq.

Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Ashraf residents have been caught in the crossfire between the Iranian regime, Iraq, and the United States. In 2003, the U.S. bombed Camp Ashraf, resulting in hundreds of causalities and at least 50 deaths. It was later revealed that the bombings were part of a quid-pro-quo between the Iranian regime and Washington. Tehran offered to repatriate some al-Qaeda suspects if the U.S. cracked down on the MEK.

In 2004, MEK members at Camp Ashraf voluntarily handed over weapons they used to protect themselves in exchange for protection by U.S. forces. The U.S. recognized them as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Meanwhile the MEK continued to serve as an invaluable ally by being the first to expose the regime’s secret nuclear weapons program. Several American Generals and Colonels have also commended the MEK for saving American lives by providing them with intelligence regarding the Iranian regime’s meddling in Iraq, and with the locations of planted roadside bombs.

Fast forward to July 2009 when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s forces invaded the camp and murdered 11 residents. Video footage provided by camp residents show a U.S. soldier with a handheld video camera recording the attacks as they were happening. When the soldier is approached by a blood-soaked camp resident, he is seen shaking his head, mumbling, “I’m sorry” as he turns his back, entering an SUV, and drives away from the camp.

Just hours before the most recent attack on April 8, 2011, the U.S. military unit that was in Camp Ashraf for the previous four days was ordered out of the Camp. The order was given despite the objections of the Colonel in charge, who had requested further reinforcements to protect the residents, and flouting international laws such as the UN RtoP (Responsibility to Protect) mandate, of which the U.S. is a member state.

For those of us who remain oceans and continents away from our loved ones, barred from visits, and restricted to following events on our TV screens, we are forced to live with the fact that our family members in Ashraf are being used as human bargaining chips, mere pawns in the global game of Realpolitik. As a result, they are deprived of the most basic human rights that should be afforded to refugees and defenseless civilians.

This gut-wrenching fact haunts us day in and day out as we wait in apprehension, keeping one eye on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Ashraf, and the other on the State Department’s inexplicable delay in revoking the MEK’s designation. Next week will be one year since the federal court of appeals for the District of Columbia issued a landmark judgment, concluding that the Secretary had erred in not revoking the MEK’s designation and strongly suggested that she remove the label. It is time for Secretary Clinton to abide by the rule of law.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hajar-mojtahedzadeh/the-real-face-of-realpoli_b_892469.html

United Press International

LONDON, July 6 (UPI) — As Syrian President Bashar Assad continues to defy the demands of the Syrian people for change and maintains a policy of massacring his own people, evidence has arisen of a dangerous external influence in Syria.

This external influence is not as Assad has intimated, that of Western influence in the protests, but rather the disturbing role now being played by the Iranian regime in the crackdown on the Syrian people.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other U.S. officials have highlighted the growing role being played by the Iranian regime in the crackdown in Syria, including the Iranian regime supplying Syria with weapons and training to intensify the crackdown.

It can be no coincidence that the methods used by the Syrian forces are similar to those used by the Iranian regime to brutally crack down on the Iranian people’s protests of 2009.

Now as Western leaders continue to lead from behind on the issue of the Arab Spring, weak in their condemnation of the crackdowns and disappointingly lacking in their support for the democratic movements, Iran has set its sights on crushing the Arab Spring and thereby ending the hope of the Iranian people that the Arab Spring will assist their democratic opposition movement.

Lest we forget, even a heavily watered down U.N. Security Council resolution drafted by the United Kingdom and France looks to be in trouble as Russia threatens any resolution with its veto.

The Iranian regime’s influence has found itself more evidently in Iraq where the regime has helped to power Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister who essentially usurped power and who considers himself undoubtedly to be a deputy of the Iranian regime. The regime’s influence in Iraq was clear in April of this year when Iraqi forces under clear direction from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei carried out a violent massacre against 3,400 members of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran who are resident in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, leaving 36 unarmed residents killed and more than 345 seriously wounded.

The PMOI is Iran’s largest organized opposition group and is believed to have played a leading role in recent uprisings inside Iran. Undoubtedly the group’s democratic ideals and ability to organize widespread protests inside Iran is something the regime’s hierarchy greatly fears.

As the regime shows its clear intent to support governments in the region in crushing the Arab Spring while also attempting to destroy the PMOI in Iraq and activists inside the country, the West’s failure to act against this Iranian threat could have dire regional consequences.

It is clear that the United States, United Kingdom and European Union must now do all within their power to curtail the Iranian regime’s destructive influence in the region, thereby allowing the democratic movements of the Arab Spring to continue and the flourishing shoots of the Iranian Summer to strengthen.

This was the exact demand of about 100,000 Iranian exiles who gathered June 18 in Paris to demand that the United Nations, United States and European Union guarantee protection for the PMOI members resident at Camp Ashraf and to call on Western governments to support the Arab Spring and allow it to lead into an Iranian Summer.

Iranians were not alone in their call. They were joined by 4,000 parliamentarians the world over, including the majority members of 31 parliaments who declared their support for the European plan for Ashraf, and decisively rejected the displacement of Ashraf residents inside Iraq, regarding it as a precursor to committing a new massacre.

Backed by heavyweights such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge who addressed the gathering, the crowd highlighted that if in Iraq where U.S. soldiers remain active and where so many coalition troops have died we are unable to protect Iranians to whom the United States gave personal guarantees to protect, what hope was there for the democratic movements across the region.

As Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran, pointed out in her speech on June 18: “The world community, in particular the United Nations and the United States, are responsible for the protection and security of Camp Ashraf residents. And we tell them that you have no right to invoke Iraqi sovereignty to justify your inaction in the face of crimes against humanity and war crimes. This blatantly violates your international obligations.”

We must support the demands of the 100,000 in Paris and the millions across the Middle East who are demanding freedom and democracy. Inhibiting Iranian influence in the region is part and parcel of supporting the Arab Spring. This must be done by the United Nations providing protection to the residents of Camp Ashraf and the international community showing its support for the Iranian people’s democratic rights.

Act now and come autumn rather than bemoan the defeat of the Arab Spring we will be hailing the arrival of the Iranian Summer.

(David Amess is a member of the British Parliament from the Conservative Party)

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Outside-View/2011/07/06/Outside-View-Arab-Spring-needs-Iranian-Summer-to-survive/UPI-10751309954560/#ixzz1So3MZkTO