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/

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

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Wants terror label lifted as camp closing nears

The Iraqi government is using the State Department’s terrorist designation of a group of Iranian dissidents as an excuse to crack down on the unarmed exiles in their camp north of Baghdad, a top Republican lawmaker said Tuesday.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said taking the group off the terrorism list would deprive the Iraqi government of this cover and expose it as a puppet of the theocratic regime in neighboring Iran.

“The Iraqi government is kissing the bloody boots of the mullahs in Tehran,” Mr. Rohrabacher said.

Mr. Rohrabacher is scheduled to convene a subcommittee hearing on Wednesday to seek an explanation from State Department officials about a court-ordered review of the terrorist label and an update on developments at Camp Ashraf.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has set a Dec. 31 deadline to close Camp Ashraf and relocate the 3,400 Iranian dissidents of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), a former military wing of the Iranian resistance that U.S. forces disarmed in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has said the deadline does not leave enough time to process the residents’ refugee status requests.

The Iraqi army attacked the camp on April 8, killing 36 residents, including eight women. More than 300 others were wounded. On Oct. 31, Iraqi troops and police entered the camp with sirens blaring in what residents said was an attempt to intimidate them. Supporters say all signs point to an impending massacre at Camp Ashraf.

“If we officially designated a group of people as a terrorist organization, we shouldn’t be surprised when someone commits an act of violence against them,” Mr. Rohrabacher said in an interview.

“However, the people at Camp Ashraf are not terrorists, and it is a great disservice to truth and to them and to finding some kind of peace in that part of the world to continue designating them as terrorists.”

Mr. al-Maliki wrote in The Washington Post this week that Camp Ashraf residents “are classified as a terrorist organization by many countries and thus have no legal basis to remain in Iraq.”

The Iraqi Embassy in Brussels last month sent a letter to the European Parliament in which it listed the designation of MEK as a terrorist organization by the “international community” as a reason to justify its decision to close Camp Ashraf by the end of the year.

Mr. Rohrabacher said taking the group off the U.S. terrorism list is not likely to change the Iraqi government’s attitude.

“They are trying to placate the mullahs, and that is not going to change simply because we change the designation,” he said.

“All we would have done is eliminate their cover, which is ‘These are terrorists, so thus we can do this,’ when in fact all they are doing is the bidding of a mullah dictatorship in Tehran,” he added.

The MEK has bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and is backed by prominent former officials, including those who have served in Republican as well as Democratic administrations. The MEK also IS known as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.

In July of 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit gave the State Department six months to re-examine its decision to keep the group on the terrorist list. The State Department designated MEK as a foreign terrorist organization on Oct. 8, 1997.

“Our focus is on reviewing the [terrorist] designation in accordance with the D.C. Circuit’s decision and applicable law,” said Noel Clay, a State Department spokesman.

The State Department is “working as quickly as possible to complete the review,” he added. At the end of the review, it will be up to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to decide whether to maintain or rescind the terrorist label.

State Department officials Daniel Fried, special adviser on Camp Ashraf, and Barbara Leaf, deputy assistant secretary for Iraq in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, are scheduled to testify at the subcommittee hearing.

President Obama is scheduled to meet with Mr. Maliki at the White House on Dec. 12.

Sam Drzymala, a spokesman for Rep. Russ Carnahan, the subcommittee’s co-chairman, said the Missouri Democrat hopes to get an update at the briefing on the status of the “safety, protection and potential relocation options for the residents of Camp Ashraf as the U.S. military transitions out of Iraq.”

All U.S. combat troops are expected to leave Iraq by the end of the year.

In June of 2009, the U.S. turned over control of Camp Ashraf to the Iraqi government, which gave written assurances that it would treat the residents in accordance with Iraq’s constitution and its international obligations.

Ed Rendell, a Democrat and former governor of Pennsylvania, said the al-Maliki government “cannot and should not be trusted to protect the lives of the residents of [Camp] Ashraf.”

Tom Ridge, homeland security secretary under former President George W. Bush, said the Iraqi government has to make a decision.

“Will they be a friend of the United States … or a lackey to Iran?” he asked.

He and Mr. Rendell spoke along with other MEK supporters at an event in Washington last week.

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

Besides the U.S., Canada, Iraq and Iran list MEK as a terrorist organization. Britain and the European Union took MEK off their lists of terrorist organizations in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

Earlier this year, French magistrates dismissed terrorism charges against MEK members after an eight-year investigation.

The State Department accuses the MEK of terrorist attacks in Iran in the 1970s that killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians. MEK also received military and financial support from Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to the State Department.

There is considerable debate in Washington over taking the MEK off the terrorist list.

Kenneth Katzman, a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs at the Congressional Research Service, said some U.S. officials are convinced that such action would be viewed by the Iranian government as a hostile act and eliminate hope for a resumption of talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said taking MEK off the terrorist list would set back U.S. interests in Iran for years.

“An American embrace of a group that has killed so many Iranians and allied itself with Saddam Hussein and other American embassies would be a world-class [mistake],” he said.

Others argue that delisting the MEK would be interpreted by the Iranian opposition as the U.S. throwing its weight behind what they say is an undemocratic group that does not have much support inside Iran.

“This is not a group the U.S. would look to work with as part of a policy of supporting groups that are trying to achieve human rights and democracy,” said Mr. Katzman.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/6/rohrabacher-presses-state-on-future-of-iranian-exi/

 

IRAN FOCUS

Washington, Dec. 06 – Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in the United States plan to hold a hearing on Wednesday into the responsibility of the State Department towards a camp of Iranian exiles in Iraq which is feared to come under attack by Iraqi forces as US forces leave the country by the end of the year.

Camp Ashraf, home to some 3,400 members of Iran’s main opposition movement Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI / MEK), was attacked in April by the Iraqi military, leaving 36 residents killed and hundreds injured. The MEK claims the attack was carried out at the behest of Iran. It was the second deadly assault on the camp. In July 2009, at least 11 residents were killed and 500 wounded when Iraqi forces tried to overrun the camp.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has vowed to close Camp Ashraf before the end of the year, which the residents fear would be a prelude to a massacre by Iraqi forces.  

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia plan to hold a joint hearing, entitled: “Camp Ashraf: Iraqi Obligations and State Department Accountability”.

Daniel Fried, the Special Advisor on Ashraf at the State Department, and Barbara Leaf, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iraq at the department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs will be questioned by lawmakers, according to a statement by the office of Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) who chairs the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, former Assistance Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs and Col. Wesley Martin (Ret.), former Camp Ashraf commander, are the other witnesses.

The situation at Camp Ashraf has also been a source of major concern in the upper chamber of the U.S. Congress. Last month, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to  “press the Iraqi government to extend its deadline for closing Camp Ashraf so that UNHCR can complete its work of assessing the refugee status of each of the camp’s residents”.

http://www.iranfocus.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24143:congress-to-hold-hearing-into-us-responsibility-for-camp-ashraf

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Two Republican senators are pressing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to guarantee the safety of thousands of Iranian dissidents in Iraq, where the government is planning to evict them from a former military camp by the end of the year and possibly deport them to Iran, where they would be killed as terrorists. 

Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina asked Mrs. Clinton in a recent letter how the United States can keep its promise to protect the 3,400 unarmed residents of Camp Ashraf after all U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq by Dec. 31. 

“These individuals seek protection from the oppressive government in Iran and fear, with good reason, that a forced return to Iran would be tantamount to a death sentence for them,” said Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham, both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. 

“Once U.S. troops have fully withdrawn from Iraq, it is hard to see how the United States will be able to honor our pledge to protect the lives and basic human rights of the civilian population of Camp Ashraf.” 

Although the United States transferred control of the camp to Iraq in 2009, the continued presence of U.S. troops has prevented Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki from evicting the dissidents. 

However, Iraqi troops repeatedly have raided the camp, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. They also have cut off supplies to the residents. 

Critics accuse Mr. Maliki of trying to win favor with Iran’s theocratic dictatorship. 

The letter from Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham accompanied one from about a dozen bipartisan members of the House who also called on Mrs. Clinton to stop the Iraqis from evicting the Iranian dissidents. 

The congressional support comes as the Iranian dissidents are gaining support from former U.S. officials, members of the European Parliament and about 2,500 tribal leaders inside Iraq who gathered about a million signatures on petitions opposing the eviction at Camp Ashraf. 

“We believe the Iranian dissidents have a valid status, and we consider them our guests, and we call on the government and all peace-loving people around the globe to find a solution for them,” Sheik Youssef al-Aziz, chief of the al-Baeeg clan, told the Agence France-Presse in Baghdad. 

Sheik Matlab al-Taei, head of the Iraqi Tribal Council, said that “jurists, physicians and clerics” were among “approximately a million Iraqi citizens” who signed the petitions. 

Some of the strongest support for the Iranian dissidents is coming from the European Parliament, where Struan Stevenson, a Conservative Party member from Scotland, is leading the effort to prevent their eviction.

“The government of Iraq is continuously working on its plan to attack Ashraf and massacre the residents,” he said at a news conference in Brussels on Wednesday. 

He accused Iraq of working with agents from Iran’s intelligence agency to prepare for the expulsion of the residents. Mr. Stevenson said Iraqi forces plan to separate the men from the women and transfer them “to various locations around Iraq.” The 120 leaders in the camp will be arrested and deported to Iran. 

Mr. Stevenson, chairman of the European Parliament’s committee for relations with Iraq, said the United Nations is working to register the camp residents as refugees and have them transferred to other countries, but U.N. officials cannot complete their work before the end of the year. 

He called on EU foreign ministers to “show they have some spine” and pressure Iraq into cooperating with the United Nations. 

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, vice president of the European Parliament, last week said, “There is no doubt that any relocation inside Iraq is tantamount to sending the residents to their deaths. 

“We in the European Parliament do not trust the Iraqi government and its assurances.” 

The dissidents are members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, a formerly armed resistance that sought to overthrow the Iranian government. U.S. troops disarmed them in 2003 after toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who had allowed the dissidents to operate in Iraq against his regional rival Iran. 

The United States put the Iranian resistance on its list of terrorist groups in 1997, when former President Bill Clinton was trying to open talks with Iran and meet a key demand for negotiations. However, a U.S. federal court has ordered the State Department to justify keeping the group on the blacklist. 

The European Union removed the group from its terrorist list in 2009 after a top European court found no evidence that the Mujahedeen is a terrorist organization.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/1/embassy-row-699350423/

 

 THE EPOCH TIMES

High-profile former officials tell Secretary Clinton to take the MEK off the terrorist list

WASHINGTON—When President Obama announced on Oct. 21 that all American combat troops would be out of Iraq by year’s end, no one in Iraq could be more impacted than the people residing in a little known refugee site called Camp Ashraf located 41 miles north of Bagdad, and 66 miles from the Iranian western border. With the U.S. pullout, these refugees are especially worried for their safety.

“Whatever dwindling influence the U.S. Government still retains in Iraq, it will evaporate completely once American forces exit [Iraq],” said Ambassador Mitchell Reiss in Washington, Oct. 28, at a briefing in support of the refugees.

The Maliki government of Iraq has stated it wants Camp Ashraf closed and the refugees deported by the end of the year. The Ashraf residents fear that they will be sent back to Iran, where they were an opposition group, and could be executed. Three Iranians visiting their sons in the camp, upon returning home, were each executed in Dec. 2010 -Jan. 2011.

In the last few days, Iraqi troops in larger numbers have been outside the gates, awakening the residents early in the morning with taunts broadcast through loud speakers. The residents remember April 8 this year, when this kind of harassment was a prelude to the Iraqi military firing on unarmed residents, killing 36 and wounding scores that outside observers called a massacre. There was also an attack in 2010 that killed 11.

“I talked to a very senior member of the Administration today who said, and I quote, ‘If we do not act and act soon, there will be blood on our hands,’” said General Hugh Shelton, 14th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Oct. 28 press conference.

Refugees for 25 years
For 25 years, Camp Ashraf has been the home of 3,400 members of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq or “MEK,” an opposition group to the current Iranian government. The group is also known by other designations: the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) and the MKO.

Because MEK opposed the Iranian theocratic Shiite Islamic Republic, the Sunni Saddam Hussein permitted them in 1986 to base themselves in Iraq. When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, the MEK agreed to a cease-fire with the U.S. and turned in their weapons. In return, the U.S. granted the camp residents “protected persons” status under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

In 2009, the Americans turned over their jurisdiction to the Iraq government. The exiles are now at the mercy of Iraq’s Shiite-led government, which has been courting closer relations with their enemy Iran. It is noteworthy that while on a visit to Iran last June, Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani first made the announcement that Camp Ashraf would be closed by the end of this year.

Since the transfer, the unarmed refugees of the camp have suffered from harassment and incursions from the Iraq government.

UN Protection
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been accepting petitions from residents of the camp requesting the granting of refugee status. This is only the first step of becoming “asylum seekers.” They need time for the UNHCR to make a determination and process each claim. And they want the UNHCR at the compound to do the processing and act as a buffer to the Iraqi armed forces.

Shelton said the UN needs to have a permanent, full-time monitoring force in place at Camp Ashraf, “to protect the Ashraf residents until a final disposition can be made for their future.”

U.N. envoy Martin Kobler said Nov. 3 at a news conference in Baghdad that he is trying to broker a deal to get more time and better access, according to the AP. At the news conference, an aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the Iraq cabinet could extend the deportation deadline, but made no commitment to do so.

Presently, journalists are banned at the compound and the UN has limited access.

At a congressional hearing, Oct. 31, the Chairwoman, House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for assurances that the administration was taking measures to ensure the safety and final resolution of the Camp Ashraf residents. 

Secretary Clinton responded, “With respect to Camp Ashraf, which we deeply are concerned about, we know that there is an on-going and very legitimate expression of concern. We have elicited written assurances from government of Iraq that it will treat Ashraf residents humanely, that it will not transfer the residents to a country that they may have reasons to fear.” 

Delisting MEK
One reason that the residents of Camp Ashraf have been harassed, killed and had difficulties moving to a third country is that MEK is listed by the Department of State as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). The supporters of the MEK say it was done for political reasons in 1997. The U.S. was hoping to engage the reform movement that was seemingly taking hold in Iran with the election of moderate Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, the predecessor of Ahmadinejad.

“The whole reason the MEK was kept on the list was an appeasement to Ahmadinejad, because we thought with false hope that this would allow the United States to provide some meaningful dialogue with a repressive regime,” said former Deputy Director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service John Sano at the pro-MEK briefing.

Many former senior U.S. officials who have served in the administrations of presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton have called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to delist the MEK.

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton and Peter Pace, Former Attorney General Mukasey, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and ex-chairman of the Democratic National Committee Gov. Howard Dean have spoken publicly for the Iranian resistance group. 

In Congress, there is bipartisan support, including Bob Filner (D.-Calif.), Dana Rohrabacher (R.-Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D.-Tex.), Ted Poe (R.-Tex.), and John Lewis (D-Ga.) 

These high-profile officials believe that a dialogue with the mullahs ruling Iran is futile. The regime continues with its nuclear program and sponsoring worldwide terrorism. Regime change is the only pathway to peacefully resolving our differences with Iran, they say. The MEK is perceived as a legitimate resistance movement to the Iranian regime. Removing the terrorist label will enable the group to legally raise funds in the U.S. and more easily relocate to other countries. 

The U.K. and European Union removed the MEK from their terrorist lists in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

Louis Freeh said that when the Clinton administration put MEK on the list, he was director of the F.B.I. and they opposed it. The designation of FTO was retained during the Bush administration because we were told Iran would diminish the number of IEDs used against American troops in Iraq, which didn’t happen, he said on Fox news.

U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said July 7 at a Congressional hearing on the April 8 massacre, “So long as MEK remains mistakenly designated as a foreign terrorist organization, the forces in the Iraqi government that favor accommodation with Iran … can use that designation to support their violence against the group.” 

Freeh noted the irony of the State Department list of 49 terrorist organizations that doesn’t include the Haqqani Network or Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, which have killed thousands of Americans troops, while an unarmed group is persecuted.

The State Department’s unclassified report on the MEK stresses the violence in the 1970s and 1980s but nothing is mentioned of the last decade. MEK says it has disarmed and renounced violence for more than a decade. Under the rules for being put on the FTO list, the State Department must reevaluate when circumstances change. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals in a ruling in July 2010 said that the State Department did not use “due process” with the MEK designation and said that MEK should have had the opportunity to rebut the unclassified information used for its designation.

Daily, Shelton and Sano said at the pro-MEK briefing that they concluded there was no evidence of terrorism by the MEK. 

Secretary Clinton acknowledged that the European Union had overturned the terrorist designation but said on VOA’s Parazit TV Show, Oct 26, “We’re still assessing the evidence here in the United States.” 

Supporters of the MEK are growing impatient for Secretary Clinton to make a decision, with the clock ticking as the year winds down and the imminent threat of yet another massacre justified by the terrorist label.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said Oct. 28 to Clinton, “You’re not doing as much as you can. It’s been 500 days since the court has ordered us to reconsider this terrorist designation and that should be plenty of time to understand what the issues are.”

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/tensions-mounting-for-iranian-exiles-fearful-of-another-massacre-142241.html

PRNewswire

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — At a briefing in the US Senate, entitled “US Troop Drawdown in Iraq: 50 Days to Impending Humanitarian Catastrophe at Camp Ashraf,” Professor Ruth Wedgwood, Director of the International Law and Organizations Program of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University; Professor Raymond Tanter, former Senior Staff on the National Security Council and President of Iran Policy Committee; Bruce McColm, former Executive Director of the Freedom House; and Colonel Wesley Martin, USA (Ret.), former senior anti-terrorism/force-protection officer for Coalition forces in Iraq and Commandant of Camp Ashraf, outlined specific actions the US Congress should take before the Iraqi government’s December 31 deadline to close down Camp Ashraf to prevent another massacre and facilitate the residents’ re-settlement to third countries.

Describing the prospect of large-scale slaughter in Camp Ashraf by the Iraqi forces with the departure of US forces as “Srebrenica part 2,” Prof. Wedgwood said, “We don’t like leaving the Marines behind and we shouldn’t leave behind people to whom we promised protection when they disarmed themselves… So I think if anybody in the White House were listening… or Hillary Clinton… They can’t just walk away from a promise like that without some significant disgrace.”

In regards to resettling Ashraf residents, Prof. Wedgwood added, “If we don’t lead nobody will. And if we conspicuously stand down from leadership everybody uses that as a safe pass to avoid going to jail… When adversary senses weakness they act on it. And it takes that kind of American fortitude which I think Barack Obama has… and I think Secretary Clinton would not want to be passive in the face of, any repetition of the Srebrenica.”

Referring to the statement by Senator John Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair, who described the April 8th attack on Ashraf a “massacre,” Prof. Tanter stressed, “This kind of public statement is precisely what is necessary in order to raise this issue to the top of the radar screen of American politics, of American international politics.”

Mr. McColm remarked that “the United States the European Union, the UN and the residents of Camp Ashraf agreed that the UNHCR should register and interview each resident in the Camp so that they could be repatriated as refugees to third countries… The problem is that Prime Minister Maliki wants to close Camp Ashraf by the end of December. They want to disperse the residents inside Iraq and even want to return some to Iran which is against international law.”

Col. Martin dismissed the “hollow assurances” Prime Minister Maliki has given the United States to treat Ashraf residents humanely. “We need the State Department held accountable…The deadline needs to be extended with the United Nations’ Blue Helmets on the ground,” he emphasized.

SOURCE Iranian-American Community of Northern California

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/policy-human-rights-scholars-urge-congressional-action-to-avert-massacre-at-camp-ashraf-after-us-troop-withdrawal-according-to-iranian-american-community-of-northern-california-133922633.html