Fox News “Special Report”: Panel Discusses America’s Promise of Protection to Camp Ashraf Residents
Statement by the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General on Camp Ashraf
The following statement was issued on 26 December by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
The Secretary-General welcomes the signing on 25 December of a Memorandum of Understanding between the United Nations and the Government of Iraq for the voluntary relocation of the residents of Camp New Iraq (formerly Camp Ashraf). He believes that the agreement lays the foundation for a peaceful and durable solution to the situation, respecting both the sovereignty of Iraq and its international humanitarian and human rights obligations. The Memorandum of Understanding is the result of intense negotiations between his Special Representative for Iraq, Martin Kobler, and representatives of the Iraqi Government. The residents of the camp have also been consulted.
The Secretary-General welcomes the decision of the Government of Iraq to extend the deadline for the closure of the camp to provide more time and space for the peaceful voluntary relocation of the residents. As reflected in the Memorandum of Understanding, the Government of Iraq has a clear and exclusive responsibility to ensure the safety and security of the residents. At the same time, the residents of Camp New Iraq have to abide by the laws of Iraq. He appeals to all concerned to continue to demonstrate flexibility and good faith, and move towards the swift implementation of the relocation plan. The Secretary-General reminds all concerned that any violence or attempt at a forcible solution would be unacceptable. The Secretary-General also reiterates his call to Member States to accept the residents who are eligible for voluntary return or resettlement as soon as possible.
The United Nations has been involved in this issue from a purely humanitarian perspective and has played the role of an impartial facilitator. Under the leadership of Special Representative Martin Kobler, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees remain committed to continue supporting a peaceful and durable solution to the situation of the residents of the camp.
Rockets strike Iran dissident camp in Iraq
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
At least two rockets struck a camp in central Iraq housing Iranian dissidents Sunday evening, a senior army officer said, as Baghdad and the UN signed a pact aimed at resolving the residents’ status.
Sunday’s deal had been welcomed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and came after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said his government would extend a year-end deadline for the removal of the camp residents from Iraq.
“Two rockets landed on Camp Ashraf last night,” an Iraqi army colonel said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The casualties are unknown because we are forbidden from entering the camp.”
It was not immediately clear who fired the rockets.
The group which occupies Camp Ashraf, the People’s Mujahedeen, said in a statement that four rockets struck their base at 8:00 pm (1700 GMT) on Sunday evening, and accused groups loyal to Iran of being behind the attack.
Also on Sunday, Iraq and the UN signed a pact under which Baghdad will resettle members of the People’s Mujehedeen and provide security while the UN determines their refugee status.
The United Nations said in a statement that it and the government of Iraq had “signed today a memorandum of understanding for a humanitarian and peaceful resolution of the situation of the residents” of the camp.
It said Iraq will relocate them to a “transit location for a process of refugee status determination by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a necessary first step for their resettlement outside Iraq”.
Iraq had committed to “ensure the safety and security of the residents at the new location”, said the statement.
The agreement was signed by UN envoy Martin Kobler and Iraqi National Security Adviser Falah al-Fayadh.
It did not give the location to which the residents would be moved or provide a timeline, but Maliki has said the camp will now close in April, rather than at the end of this year.
Clinton in a statement said the deal marks an “important step toward a humane resolution to the ongoing situation at (Camp) Ashraf.”
She added that US embassy officials would visit the new site “regularly and frequently” in support of the UN plan.
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein allowed the rebel People’s Mujahedeen to set up the camp during the war with Iran in the 1980s.
When Saddam was overthrown in the US-led invasion of 2003, the camp came under US military protection, but American forces handed over security responsibilities for the site to the Baghdad authorities in January 2009.
The camp, home to around 3,400 residents, has been back in the spotlight since a controversial April raid by Iraqi security forces left at least 34 people dead and scores injured.
http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-un-sign-deal-over-iran-dissident-camp-220858357.html
Secretary Clinton: Situation at Ashraf
US DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Secretary of State
The signing of this Memorandum of Understanding represents significant progress on this issue and outlines steps necessary to achieve a peaceful and viable solution for the residents of Ashraf, including their temporary relocation to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad International Airport. At this new location, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) will be able to conduct refugee status determinations for the residents of Ashraf — a necessary first step toward resettlement to third countries.
We are encouraged by the Iraqi government’s willingness to commit to this plan, and expect it to fulfill all its responsibilities, especially the elements of the MOU that provide for the safety and security of Ashraf’s residents. We welcome the agreement by the Government of Iraq to allow the United Nations to station monitors at this new location around the clock and to observe the move from Ashraf to this new location. In addition, officials from U.S. Embassy Baghdad will visit regularly and frequently. We also welcome the Iraqi government’s willingness to delay the final closure of Camp Ashraf to give this plan time for implementation.
To be successful, this resettlement must also have the full support of the Camp’s residents, and we urge them to work with the UN to implement this relocation. All those who want to see the people at Camp Ashraf safe and secure should work together to see that the agreed upon plan is carried out.
Martin Kobler Signs Memorandum of Understanding with Iraqi Government for Voluntary Relocation of Residents of Camp New Iraq
UNAMI Press Releases
Baghdad, 25 December 2011- The United Nations and the Government of Iraq signed today a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a humanitarian and peaceful resolution of the situation of the residents of camp New Iraq (former Ashraf).
The MoU was signed on behalf of the United Nations by the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq, Mr. Martin Kobler, and on behalf of the Government of Iraq by the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Iraq, Mr. Faleh Fayad.
“The United Nations involvement in this issue has been from a purely humanitarian perspective. It has done its utmost as an impartial facilitator to find a peaceful and durable solution to the situation of the residents of the camp. The MoU respects the sovereignty of Iraq and its international humanitarian and human rights obligations and protects the security and rights of the camp’s residents”, SRSG Kobler said. “At the same time, the residents of camp New Iraq have to abide by the laws of Iraq”, he added
The MoU was developed through a series of joint meetings between the United Nations and Iraqi government representatives. UNAMI also consulted extensively with the residents of the camp.
In broad outline, the MoU establishes a process whereby the Government of Iraq will relocate the residents to a temporary transit location for a process of refugee status determination by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a necessary first step for their resettlement outside Iraq. The United Nations will provide around the clock monitoring until the completion of the process. The UNHCR will immediately deploy a team at the new location to proceed with the verification and adjudication of the claims for refugee status it had received. The MoU includes a clear commitment from the Government of Iraq that it will ensure the safety and security of the residents at the new location. The Government also commits to the substantial involvement of its Ministry of Human Rights throughout the process, including the provision of a liaison officer.
“I want to make it very clear that this MoU is about voluntary relocation and its implementation is based firmly on all sides acting peacefully and in good faith. This will permit the UN to remain engaged in the process.” SRSG Kobler said.
“I would like to highlight that the Government is exclusively responsible for the safety and security of the residents both during their transfer and in the new location until they leave the country”, SRSG Kobler added.
“I also reiterate my call to Members States of the UN to accept the residents of the camp in their countries”, SRSG Kobler said.
SRSG Kobler expressed his gratitude to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for its valuable and active support to the UN facilitation process as well as to the UNHCR for its full engagement and tireless efforts to help ensure a humanitarian, peaceful and durable solution for the camp’s residents.
http://www.uniraq.org/newsroom/getarticle.asp?ArticleID=1617
Terrorist Quds Force affiliated teams fire Katusha rockets at Camp Ashraf
NCRI – On Sunday evening, around 20:00 hours (Baghdad local time) terror teams affiliated with the Iranian regime’s terrorist Quds Force targeted Camp Ashraf with Katusha rockets that landed inside the southern section of the camp near where the housing units of the residents.
On Thursday, General Hossein Hamedani, a commander of Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) acknowledged, in an interview with IRGC’s Fars news agency , that he had been personally to Camp Ashraf for reconnaissance activities and setting the stage for an attack against the camp.
Since one week ago, some 400 agents of Iranian regime’s Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS) had been stationed in a building complex in northern part of Ashraf. The building had been occupied by the Iraqi forces during their attack on camp on April 8, 2011.
Therefore, the Iranian regime and its terrorist Quds Force are the ones that are in practice exercising their “sovereignty” over the camp area.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
December 25, 2011
Abandoning America’s Iraqi and Iranian allies
UNITE PRESS INTERNATIONAL
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 (UPI) — As U.S. troops head home from Iraq, Americans welcome them with open arms and take pride in others who risked their lives to support the U.S. side — direct hires like translators left behind plus Iraqi and Iranian supporters.
U.S. diplomats actively manage a crisis in the Iraqi Parliament between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki‘s supporters against former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and Iraqiya, his multi-sectarian group of mainly Sunni and moderate Shiite Muslims. The crisis involves another major Sunni — Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who escaped to the Kurdish area because of an arrest warrant on apparently trumped-up charges he ran a death squad.
American envoys pay too little attention to Iraqi and Iranian facilitators of the wartime effort and needs them to counter al-Qaida of Iraq and Tehran’s efforts to destabilize Iraq.
Consider the contribution of Sunni tribal partners to a drop in violence during 2007-08. They added weight to the increase in American boots on the ground. Although the surge receives the credit for decreasing violence, an “awakening” among Arab tribes removed over 100,000 Sunnis — a political surge reinforcing the U.S. military surge.
U.S. Barack Obama, D-Ill., stated Oct. 22, 2008, in Time magazine that “The Sunni awakening changed the dynamic in Iraq fundamentally. It could not have occurred unless there were some contacts and intermediaries to peel off those who are tribal leaders, regional leaders (and) Sunni nationalists.”
My trip to Iraq in October 2008 validated Obama’s hunch: I met scores of Iraqi awakening tribesmen of Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha, a Sunni leader from Ramadi west of Baghdad. In exchange for reinforcing the American surge, they expected protection. But Washington is leaving such Sunni partners “in limbo.”
Other Iraqi friends who assisted the U.S. military are moderate Shiites from Iraq’s southern provinces. Sheik Walid told me he joined the fight against al-Qaida of Iraq after meeting with U.S. military forces in Camp Ashraf, home to Iranian dissidents in Iraq, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq.
Tearing a page from Obama’s playbook about interlocutors helping Iraqis join the American alignment against al-Qaida, Sheik Walid explained that his tribe had dozens of trilateral meetings with the U.S. military mediated by the MeK in Camp Ashraf.
While al-Qaida of Iraq has almost been decimated by U.S. Special Operations raids, there are indications of resurgence. Sunni tribes may be the best antidote to al-Qaida but might not be as trusting after being ditched by Washington and isolated by Baghdad.
Washington is also leaving its former Iranian partners in danger. While Sunnis and moderate Shiites are imperiled, Iraqis can blend into the culture, an option unavailable to Iranian dissidents. As opponents of Tehran, they are endangered outside the relatively safe confines of Camp Ashraf.
Even the camp is a risky place because Iraqi forces launched bloody assaults against these unarmed Iranian civilians in July 2009 and April 2011; Baghdad threatened to remove camp residents forcibly this month to put a coda on the U.S. withdrawal. Even though Iraq extended the timeline until mid-2012 for its move against the camp, its residents remain at risk.
The U.S. State Department’s plan, ostensibly to save the Iranian dissidents, trusts twice violated Iraqi assurances they would be treated humanely if they would leave the camp for a former U.S. base — Camp Liberty. The department wrongly blames MeK leaders in Paris of preventing Ashraf rank and file acceptance of this plan.
On the basis of my interviews with MeK leaders in Paris and European Parliament documents, I determined that since May 2011, the MeK leadership accepted an EU-brokered plan for Ashraf residents to be interviewed as individuals in a safe location for resettlement in third countries. They would accept any location the United Nations chooses, if it guarantees protection from and back to Ashraf, a position reiterated this week.
Eight years since the invasion and close of the U.S. military role, there is a need for a more assertive U.S. political role to create a “diplomatic umbrella” to shield moderate Iraqi parliamentarians, former U.S. direct hires but especially Washington’s Iranian allies.
The Iranian dissidents face the most serious dangers; consequently, Washington could put teeth in a demarche to Baghdad by privately conditioning a portion of economic assistance on whether Iraq consents to a U.N. team interviewing the Iranians at a secure location in a third country for resettlement outside of Iraq.
The American-supported Iraq relocation plan without protection for the residents of Ashraf is a toxic recipe for an avoidable humanitarian tragedy for which responsible American and Iraqi officials can be held accountable in international tribunals.
(Raymond Tanter, an adjunct professor in the Government Department of Georgetown University, served on the National Security Council senior staff in the Reagan administration and is author of “Terror Tagging of an Iranian Dissident Organization.”)
Amnesty International: Residents of ‘Camp Shraf’ in Iraq at risk
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Between 400 and 800 Iranian nationals living in a camp in Iraq could be transferred to a new location at the end of this year. Their security could be at risk while they are being moved. Amnesty International is calling on the Iraqi authorities to ensure the ir protection .
Camp New Iraq, formerly known as Camp Ashraf, situated 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, is home to some 3,250 Iranian asylum-seekers who have lived in Iraq for some 25 years. They are associated with the Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). The camp has been attacked several times by Iraqi security forces, most recently in April 2011, causing the deaths of dozens of residents and injuries to others.
On 15 December, the Iraqi authorities publicly confirmed their plans to close the camp on 31 December this year. In an interview with press agency Agence France Presse (AFP), Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said that the decision to close the camp was “irreversible”. On 21 December, Nuri al-Maliki announced that he had agreed to extend the deadline for closing the camp until April 2012, but wanted the camp’s residents to have left Iraq by then. However between 400 and 800 residents could be temporarily moved to another camp, known as Camp Liberty, before the end of the year. Meanwhile the residents of Camp Ashraf have agreed that 400 residents can move to Camp Liberty, if certain safeguards are in place regarding their protection. PMOI representatives have announced they are ready to negotiate this with the Iraqi government as soon as possible as well as negotiating a peaceful solution for the rest of the residents.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had previously announced in a statement that it had received a high number of asylum requests from the camp residents and was putting in place a process to assess such requests on an individual basis. This process has not yet started.
Three year siege of Ashraf, war crime and crime against humanity, not to be whitewashed
NCRI – The AFP on Wednesday December 21 quoted the United States’ State Department as follows: “After tensions related to necessary supplies to the camp during recent months, it seems that no problem remains as to the supply of food and water but some ‘worrying’ remains on fuel supplies.” Those affirmations are completely erroneous and devoid of truth. The Iraqi government, on strict demands from the Iranian regime, has imposed a harsh all round siege on Ashraf since three years ago, a siege strongly intensified during recent months.
- Since the beginning of 2009 and especially during the last two years, repressive Iraqi forces have continuously hurdled the transfer of the urgently sick and the wounded to Baghdad hospitals or even those of Erbil or Baqouba, as well as blocking medical supplies to the camp. Since April 17, 2011, no medicine has been permitted into the camp. Twelve ill or wounded residents have died during last year because of this siege. Cases concerning those people have been referred to the United Nations and the US administration.
- Since February 8, 2011, not a single drop of gasoline has entered the camp. Since May 17, no diesel fuel needed for lights, heating or air conditioning units or even kitchens has been supplied to the camp. Even the fuel needed to produce electricity has been stopped since last month, with agents of the terrorist Qods force breaking fuel pipes on December 13 to deprive the power center of the fuel. The gas reserve has thus been emptied and the power station is now out of production. On November 2, repressive forces even prevented biomass and coal, to be used as alternate fuel, from entering the camp.
- Repressive forces have even abstained from turning the corps of Mrs. Zahra Mehrsefat, resident of Ashraf who died on September 20 because of medical shortages, to her family.
- Psychological torture of residents which has been going on since nearly two years, continues through 300 loudspeakers on a permanent basis. Family members, lawyers, members of parliaments and Human rights’ activists have been barred from visiting the camp since three years. Working by the residents to gain part of their expenses has been prohibited.
By any standard, the above mentioned points as well as a long list of shortages and pressures imposed on the camp are considered an inhuman and criminal siege. The United Nations and the United States of America have been informed of every single violation described above.
The Iranian Resistance regrets the unjust and unrealistic attitude of the US State Department and calls for an international fact finding delegation to be formed in order that a true report on the dimensions of this criminal siege be produced for public awareness and for international courts. By any standards, such a siege is considered a clear example of crime against humanity and war crime with nobody being able to whitewash it.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
December 22, 2011