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What is the Purpose of the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organizations List?

March 18, 2010 by

PolicyWatch #1643

By Patrick Clawson
March 18, 2010

The United States maintains a range of “terrorist lists,” of which the Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list is one of the better known. But in two recent court cases, the U.S. government has offered arguments that raise questions about the purpose of the list.

FTO List vs. State Sponsors List

Another list is that of state sponsors of terrorism. The act of naming a foreign government as a terrorism sponsor is one instrument among many to affect the general foreign policy stance of the country concerned. Yet in practice, the state sponsors category has become a list of governments Washington simply does not like, often with little connection to terrorism; witness the continued presence of Cuba and the longtime presence North Korea. By contrast, governments that actually do sponsor terrorism but that Washington does not wish to single out are omitted from the list. A case in point is Lebanon, whose governing coalition includes Hizballah, the terrorist activities of which are protected and defended by the Lebanese government.

The decision to attempt to affect a state’s foreign policy differs substantially from that of prohibiting material support to an organization, the latter being the objective specified in the law mandating the FTO list. Whereas the decision to influence a state’s foreign policy is political in intent, blocking support to terrorist groups is much more like a policing matter, on which the United States can hope for cooperation from foreign governments irrespective of their views about U.S. foreign policy. If decisions about listing organizations as sponsors of terrorism are made based on general foreign policy considerations rather than on evidence about terrorist activities, the list may well be seen as a political tool, in which case other governments will be less likely to cooperate in blocking material support to listed groups.

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 stipulates that even if an organization is engaged in terrorism or retains the capability and intent to do so, national security considerations may warrant its removal from the FTO list. The law, however, does not provide for the reverse — that is, maintaining a listing for nonterrorist national security reasons. Instead, the law requires that a group be maintained on the list only if it “engages in terrorist activity.” When in 1999 the State Department dropped three groups from the FTO list, officials seemed to endorse the position that to remain on the list after the biennial review, a group had to have been involved in terrorist activities during the preceding two years.

The PKK Case

In February 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, in which the latter entity wanted to provide legal advice to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK has changed names several times, with the most recent being Kongra Gele Kurdistane (Kurdistan People’s Congress). Further, it is worth noting that the PKK has a history of claiming to abandon terrorism but not doing so. Six months after Turkey captured PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in February 1999, the organization declared a ceasefire and said it would disband in February 2002. But the PKK moved its terrorists from Turkey to northern Iraq and, within a few years, resumed its terrorist activities. This scenario illustrates the risk of taking at face value a group’s claim that it has abandoned terrorism.

Much of the argument against the Humanitarian Law Project in the Supreme Court case turned on the scope of the term “material support.” But an additional issue involved the character of the support provided, including advice on why and how to stop terrorist activities. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who represented the U.S. government, asked, “Can you say to an organization, look, you guys really should lay down your arms?… Well, now you can’t. Because when you tell people, here’s how to apply for aid and here’s how to represent yourself within international organizations or within the U.S. Congress, you’ve given them an extremely valuable skill that they can use for all kinds of purposes, legal or illegal.” In this statement, Kagan suggests that it is illegal to advise groups to abandon terrorism. And yet one struggles to see how such a position advances the objective of countering terrorism. The State Department’s website states, “FTO designations…are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business.” Surely it is appropriate to encourage groups to drop their terrorist activities, as the United States successfully did with some extremist Irish Republican groups and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The People’s Mujahedin of Iran Case

The People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), aka Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), has been on the FTO list since the list was started in 1997. More than thirty years ago, a faction arising from PMOI engaged in terrorism against Americans. Yet if the criterion for being on the FTO list is whether a group has ever engaged in terrorism, then many organizations with which the U.S. government has important dealings, such as the PLO, belong on the list. Every two years after 1997, the FTO listing of PMOI was reviewed and retained, until 2004, when the time period for mandatory review was increased to five years. The decision by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2009 to maintain the FTO listing of PMOI did not set forth detailed reasons or criteria, other than stating that “the circumstances that were the basis for the 2003 redesignation…have not changed in such a manner as to warrant revocation.”

In repeated yet unsuccessful bids, PMOI has sought to have its designation overturned by U.S. courts, in cases decided in 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2004. By contrast, the group has had greater success in more recent attempts in Europe. Listings of PMOI as a terrorist organization by the European Union (EU) were in 2006-2008 repeatedly overturned by the European Court of Justice, and the EU Council of Ministers removed PMOI definitively from its terrorist list in January 2009. Two years prior, Britain’s Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), which exists solely to review terrorist designations and has access to all classified British government information, ruled, “Having carefully considered all the material before us, we have concluded that the decision [made] at the First Stage [that PMOI was engaged in terrorism] is properly characterised as perverse. We recognise that a finding of perversity is uncommon.” In 2008, the English Court of Appeal stated, “The reality is that neither in the open material nor in the closed material was there any reliable evidence that supported a conclusion that PMOI retained an intention to resort to terrorist activities in the future.”

In January 2010, oral arguments were completed in the U.S. Court of Appeals-D.C. Circuit in the case of PMOI v. U.S. Department of Stateregarding the 2009 listing of the group. During the hearing, the government’s counsel acknowledged that the public portion of the administrative record was devoid of any evidence to justify the secretary of state’s decision. In other words, no unclassified statement had been released that summarized, or even hinted at, the classified evidence used by Secretary Rice in reaching her decision.

The 2009 decision to continue listing PMOI was striking on several grounds. First, according to the New York Times, the State Department’s top counterterrorism official, Ambassador Dell Dailey, pushed to have PMOI delisted, but Secretary Rice overruled Dailey and other counterterrorism professionals. Second, the secretary’s decision came after the European court cases won by PMOI, in which the group prevailed against repeated efforts by European governments to continue listing it — listings widely perceived to be for foreign policy purposes rather than based on counterterrorism principles. Third, the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism contain numerous nonterrorist allegations against PMOI without offering any indication that the group continues to engage in terrorism. The most recent episodes cited are several years old, and those incidents arguably fit the Geneva Conventions’ criteria for irregular warfare rather than terrorism.

In light of these factors, and given that the original designation was described by the official then serving as assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs as an action taken after the Iranian government raised the matter, one can only wonder if the secretary’s decision was based on foreign policy considerations outside the criteria set out in the law.

It would seem to be in the U.S. interest to encourage PMOI to disengage from all terrorist activities. Perhaps the U.S. government does not accept the group’s oft-repeated claim to have abandoned terrorism. If so, Washington should inform PMOI of steps it must take to establish its bona fides. Failure to do so will only feed the perception that the continued FTO listing of PMOI is for reasons other than terrorism.

Patrick Clawson is deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=3188

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Reality Check: Understanding the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK)

March 2, 2010 by

The Huffington Post
March 2, 2010
By Ali Safavi, Member of Iran’s Parliament in Exile; President of Near East Policy Research

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) was founded in 1965 by three Muslim university graduates and sought to replace the Shah’s dictatorship with a representative government that respects human rights. But after the 1979 revolution, it fell victim to the new dictatorship’s onslaught. So far, it has lost tens of thousands of its members and supporters to the ruling regime, most famously during a massacre in 1988, which Amnesty International has dubbed “a crime against humanity.”[1] Though a Muslim organization, the MEK seeks a secular republic in Iran based on democracy and political pluralism.

Given that despite an unprecedentedly harsh crackdown, the Tehran regime has failed to extinguish the freedom cry in Iran which erupted more than eight months ago, it is imperative to get a better understanding of the organized opposition, whose role in future developments will continue to be of critical importance. In virtue of its significant impact on Iranian affairs over the past 45 years, especially following the 1979 revolution, the MEK has long been targeted by the regime and its foreign apologists with a plethora of accusations meant to vilify the organization and diminish its influence now and in the future.

The purpose of this forum is to dispense with some of these myths originally propagated by Tehran’s intelligence services against the MEK, and also try to respond to various questions regarding the organization and its actions. Readers are welcome to comment on these posts or ask for further clarification.

NEXT WEEK: Mujahedin-e Khalq: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists?****

Mujahedin-e Khalq: “Islamic-Marxists”?

“Masud [Massoud] Rajavi… is the leader of the movement. Its intention is to replace the current backward Islamic regime with a modernized Shiite Islam drawing its egalitarian principles from Koranic sources rather then Marx” ~ Former Undersecretary of State George W. BallOne of the many allegations levied against the MEK has been that it is an “Islamic-Marxist” organization, purportedly combining Marxist philosophy with its proclaimed Islamic ideology.

The MEK was founded in 1965 as a Muslim organization. It saw the society divided between tyranny and liberation forces, and not believers and non-believers. Like most Iranians, its founders sought a secular republic and the establishment of a democracy in Iran. MEK has never endeavored towards an ideological government, be it Islamic or otherwise.

The origins of the “Islamic-Marxist” label date back to the early 1970s, when the Shah’s secret police, SAVAK, sought to erode the organization’s growing popularity among young Iranians. The Iranian scholar Afshin Matin-Asgari described it as “an ingenious polemical label” used by the Shah’s regime to discredit its enemies.[2]

After the Shah’s overthrow in 1979, Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the newly established clerical regime, recycled the Shah’s propaganda relics in his own attempts to alienate a new generation of Iranians who wanted a democratic order. At the forefront of this generation was the MEK, which according to historian Ervand Abrahamian, came into the fore with a “reputation as a modern secular organization.”[3]

The group’s gatherings attracted hundreds of thousands of people. More than half a million people took part in its protest in June 1981.[4] By mid-1981, “the circulation of Mojahed [MEK’s newspaper] had reached 500,000” far surpassing the official newspapers.[5] For Khomeini, this was a serious force to be reckoned with.

To confront the MEK, he alleged that the organization is not truly Islamic. Claiming that it had an “eclectic” ideology, which mixed Islam with Marxism, he called them “the Monafeqin” (literally, “hypocrites”), a derogatory term which is still used by the regime (most notably in their gatherings with the chants of “Death to America, Death to Monafeqin”).

By doing this, Khomeini wanted to pave the way for the violent crack down on the organization’s activities. In other words, his plan was to delegitimize the MEK first on religious grounds and then proceed to eliminate it.

In a 1981 interview, Massoud Rajavi, then MEK’s leader, said: “Every high school student knows that believing in God, Jesus Christ and Muhammad is incompatible with the philosophy of Marxism. … But for dictators like Khomeini, ‘Islamic Marxist’ is a very profitable phrase to use against any opposition. If Jesus Christ and Muhammad were alive and protesting against Khomeini, he would call them Marxists, too.”[6]

In fact, MEK’s history shows a pronounced rejection of the philosophy of Marxism. In late 1979, Massoud Rajavi presented the ideological viewpoints of the MEK in a series of lectures in Tehran University entitled “Comprehending the World,” later published in a 15-volume book. The lectures were meant to clearly demarcate the MEK’s Islamic ideology against Khomeini’s fundamentalist interpretation of Islam on the one hand and Marxism on the other.[7]

According to Syracuse University professor Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Rajavi provides the MEK’s critique of the limitations of a host of “isms” such as scholasticism, positivism, pragmatism, scientism, empiricism, and rationalism. But Rajavi saves his most extensive critical commentary for Marxist materialistic epistemology. The chief target of the lectures was the Russian biochemist Aleksander Ivanovich Oparin (1894-1980), whose theory on the origin of life was first formulated in 1922. By subjecting the materialistic doctrines of Oparin and a host of other orthodox Marxist thinkers to a philosophical critique, the MEK hoped to challenge the vigorous presence of Marxism within Iranian intellectual circles. The group remained skeptical of Marxism’s philosophical postulates and rejected the latter’s cardinal doctrine of historical materialism. It held firm to the beliefs in the existence of God, revelation, the afterlife, the spirit, salvation, destiny, and the people’s commitment to these intangible principles.[8]

So, clearly, the MEK’s is not Marxist. If it were, Khomeini would have been able to easily eradicate the organization. But, in fact, in virtue of its ideology which had its roots in a Muslim country, the MEK survived Khomeini’s ideological onslaught, which incidentally eliminated every other opponent, including Marxists, from the political arena at the time.[9]

The MEK’s ideological stance also guaranteed its complete independence from other political powers like the Soviet Union. Precisely because of such emphasis on independence and freedom, Marxist organizations like the pro-Moscow Tudeh Party vehemently spurned the MEK.[10]

The Tudeh leaders’ unconditional backing of Khomeini, part of a policy dictated by the Soviet KGB, led them to describe the MEK as “a bastion of liberalism and imperialism.” The Tudeh Party described the MEK’s actions during those years as American conspiracies, and many MEK supporters later executed on Khomeini’s orders were wrapped in American flags before burial.

In his book, The Center of the Universe: The Geopolitics of Iran, Graham E. Fuller noted that the Mojahedin’s Islamic orientation was a major impediment to the Soviets’ effort to gain influence within the organization: “The Soviets in the past have also been interested in other leftist movements such as the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (‘The People’s Holy Warriors’) but had almost no success in establishing any influence over it because of that group’s own suspicions of Moscow and its at least nominal commitment to Islam.” [11]

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, especially after the Bolshevik victory in Russia, Iran’s northern provinces like Gilan and Mazandaran turned into the mainstay of the pro-Moscow Communist Tudeh Party. Marxism further gained momentum among Iranian youths and intellectuals after Marxist-inspired movements sprang up in Africa and Latin America in the latter half of the century.

Against this backdrop, the MEK’s arrival into the political scene, as the first democratic Muslim organization in contemporary Iran, changed the landscape completely. Intellectuals and youths now felt their ideals revived in an organization with potential mass appeal that could materialize their democratic desires. Following the 1979 revolution, the MEK’s growth proved that earlier predictions about its widespread appeal were indeed true.

People in the northern provinces, for example, began to embrace the MEK’s Islamic ideology on a wide scale. Roughly a year after the Revolution, more than 300,000 people from the city of Rasht in Gilan province gathered in a stadium to hear MEK’s leader Massoud Rajavi speak. The rising tide of support for the MEK in former Tudeh strongholds, helped increase the Marxist and Communist organizations’ enmity towards the MEK. At the same time, the MEK’s tolerant and democratic interpretation of Islam alienated and threatened Khomeini’s fundamentalist clique. This explains why the Communist Tudeh and the ostensibly Islamic Khomeinists quickly forged an unexpected and ironic alliance against the MEK.

In a 1979 report from Tehran, the Washington Post wrote about the MEK’s “large public following,” adding that the “Mujahideen owe much of their impact to their unquestioned religious credentials, which make them acceptable — if sometimes only barely — to Khomeini’s followers in contrast to the Marxists, Maoists, Trotskyites and other atheist splinter groups.”[12]

The MEK’s Islamic ideology, however, is also sharply distinct from the fundamentalist Islamic ideology of the likes of Khomeini and the regime’s terrorist proxies in the region. Its interpretation of Islam is one which gives solid ideological grounds for embracing science and modernity, and advancing modern social causes such as gender equality, participatory democracy and popular sovereignty. Currently, the entire leadership council of the MEK is comprised of women.

The MEK is impenetrable against fundamentalist propaganda, since it challenges Islamic extremism not from the position of “enemies of Islam,” but as committed Muslims. Blessed with the most effective and practical ideological and cultural weapon, the MEK has emerged as the antithesis to the fundamentalist and extremist ideology haunting the Middle East under the veneer of Islam. Three decades ago, former Undersecretary of State George Ball chastised Western press for characterizing the MEK as Marxist. He wrote, “The sloppy press habit of dismissing the Mujahedeen as ‘leftists’ badly confuses the problem. Masud [Massoud] Rajavi… is the leader of the movement. Its intention is to replace the current backward Islamic regime with a modernized Shiite Islam drawing its egalitarian principles from Koranic sources rather then Marx.”[13]

Endnotes:
[1] Fear of Ill-treatment/possible prisoner of conscience, Public AI Index: MDE 13/128/2007, Amnesty International, November 2, 2007, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE13/128/2007/en/d6ea449a-d359-11dd-a329-2f46302a8cc6/mde131282007en.pdf
[2] Afshin Matin-Asgari, 2004, “From social democracy to social democracy: the twentieth-century odyssey of the Iranian Left“. In: Cronin, Stephanie, editor. Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left: London and New York: Routledge Curzon. pp. 37-64 (cited originally in Iran Policy Committee, White Paper, Sept. 13, 2005, p. 42. http://www.iranpolicycommittee.org).
[3] Ervand Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 187
[4] Ibid. p. 218
[5] Ibid. p. 207.
[6] Massoud Rajavi, interview, “We Are on the Offensive,” Time Magazine, September 14, 1981.
[7] According to the French daily Le Monde, “some 10,000 people presented their admission cards to listen for three hours to the lectures […and additionally] the courses [were] recorded on video cassettes and distributed in 35 cities. They [were] also published in paperback and sold by the hundreds of thousands of copies.” Le Monde, Paris, 29 March 1980.
[8] Mehrzad Boroujerdi, “Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism“, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1996. pp. 117-9 (cited originally in Iran Policy Committee, White Paper, September. 13, 2005, p. 42. http://www.iranpolicycommittee.org).
[9] In March 1980, Le Monde wrote: “The daily Jomhouri Islami has devoted entire pages to writings against the Mojahedin and its leadership. On the eve of the election, hundreds of thousands of newsletters abounding in vituperations were distributed. In one, Mr. Rajavi is described as a SAVAK agent. Doubtless, the fundamentalist clergy consider these leftist Muslims a greater enemy than the Marxist organizations, easily discredited with the label of atheist.” (Le Monde, Paris, March 29, 1980).
[10] Ervand Abrahamian, a US historian, writes that the communist Tudeh and Majority faction of the Fedayeen “pleaded with the Mojahedin to join their Anti-Imperialist Democratic Front; to remember that the United States was still Iran’s main enemy; to avoid allying with pro¬-Western liberals,” adding that the Minority faction of the Fedayeen (still opposed to the regime) accused the Mojahedin of “flirting with pro-American liberals such as Bazargan.” The author writes that “the Mojahedin rebuffed the pleas and criticism.” Op. cit., p. 215.
[11] Graham E. Fuller, “The Center of the Universe: The Geopolitics of Iran,” (Westview Press: 1991), p. 179.
[12] Jonathan Randal, “Iranian Leftists Emerge From Isolation,” The Washington Post, 3 December 1979.
[13] George W. Ball, Op-Ed, “Iran’s Bleak Future,” The Washington Post, August 19, 1981.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-safavi/mujahedin-e-khalq-pmoimek_b_482770.html

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America, terrorists and Nelson Mandela

January 15, 2010 by

REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

Woe betide the organization or individual who lands on America’s terrorist list. The consequences are dire and it’s easier to get on the list than off it even if you turn to peaceful politics. Just ask Nelson Mandela.

One of the great statesmen of our time, Mandela stayed on the American terrorist blacklist for 15 years after winning the Nobel Prize prior to becoming South Africa’s first post-Apartheid president. He was removed from the list after then president George W. Bush signed into law a bill that took the label “terrorist” off members of the African National Congress (ANC), the group that used sabotage, bombings and armed attacks against the white minority regime.

The ANC became South Africa’s governing party after the fall of apartheid but the U.S. restrictions imposed on ANC militants stayed in place. Why? Bureaucratic inertia is as good an explanation as any and a look at the current list of what is officially labelled Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) suggests that once a group earns the designation, it is difficult to shake.

The consequences of a U.S. terrorist designation include freezing an organisation’s funds, banning its members from travelling to the U.S. and imposing harsh penalties (up to 15 years in prison) on people who provide “material support or resources” to an FTO.

At present, there are 44 groups on the list, ranged in alphabetical order from the Palestinian Abu Nidal Organisation to the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia. The Abu Nidal group, according to the government’s own country reports on terrorism, “is largely considered inactive.” The Congressional Research Service, a bipartisan agency which provides research and analysis for Congress, has wondered why it is still on the list.

One can ask the same about the Colombian group, added to the list in 2001. The bulk of the paramilitary organisation demobilized years ago and the latest U.S. government report says its “organizational structure no longer exists.”

In between Abu Nidal and the Colombians are groups whose terrorist acts and future intentions are undisputed – al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad – as well as one which is waging a protracted legal battle to have its terrorist label taken off.

EUROPE, U.S. OUT OF SYNCH
That is the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian resistance group on which the United States is out of synch with Britain and the 27-member European Union. After years of legal wrangling, Britain took the MEK off its terrorist blacklist in 2008 and the EU followed suit last year. In the last week of the administration of George W. Bush, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied the  group’s petition that its terrorist label be taken off.

The MEK’s case came up again this week in a wood-panelled Washington courtroom where high-powered lawyers debated whether Rice had acted “reasonably” in doing so.

Yes, she had, the government’s lawyer, Douglas Letter, told the three-judge panel, given the MEK’s past history of violence. In his written brief, he scoffed at “claims that ‘the tiger has changed its stripes,’” a reference to the group’s contention that it had foresworn violent acts in 2001 in favor of peaceful change.

Rulings by foreign courts, the argument went, were not germane to the case in the U.S. Those decisions included one by Britain’s Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), a body established to review disputes over terrorist designations. The POAC found it would be “perverse” to stick to that label and ordered the Home Office to remove the MEK from the terrorist blacklist.

When the Washington Court of Appeals will rule on the MEK’s latest (and fifth) petition is not clear but if the past is any guide, political rather than legal considerations will decide the fate of the group in the U.S. American administrations have been using the terrorist organizations list and a separate list of “state sponsors of terrorism” as political tools.

Washington added the MEK to the terrorist list in 1997, at a time when the Clinton administration hoped the move would facilitate opening a dialogue with Iran and its newly-elected President, Mohammad Khatami, who was seen as moderate open to better relations with the U.S. The MEK served as a bargaining chip but the hoped-for dialogue didn’t go anywhere.

Neither did President Barack Obama’s diplomatic overtures to the theocrats ruling Iran. There has been no apparent progress on negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and the government has turned deaf ears to international criticism of increasingly savage repression of anti-government dissent. Obama was guarded in his initial reaction to the crackdown on popular protests that erupted after Iran’s elections in June.

But he finally spoke out against the government in December: “For months, the Iranian people have sought nothing more than to exercise their universal rights. Each time they have done so, they have been met with the iron fist of brutality, even on solemn occasions and holy days.”

Despite the tough language, he has obviously not given up hope for negotiations. “We … want to keep the door to dialogue open,” Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said in January. Which probably means that the MEK, hated by Iran’s rulers, will retain its role as a bargaining counter and stay on the terrorist list.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2010/01/15/america-terrorists-and-nelson-mandela/

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Human bargaining chips in deals with Iran

August 20, 2009 by

REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

Seven summers ago, in a crowded conference room of a Washington hotel, an Iranian exile leader gave the first detailed public account of Iran’s until-then secret nuclear projects at the cities of Natanz and Arak. It greatly turned up the volume of a seemingly endless international controversy over Iran’s nuclear intentions.

The disclosures, on August 14, 2002, did little to earn the group that made them, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), merit points from the U.S. government. A year later, the Washington office of the NCRI, the political offshoot of Iran’s Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) resistance movement, was shut. The State Department placed the group on its list of terrorist organizations. (The MEK, also known as the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran, had been given that designation in 1997).

Now, another five summers later, two dozen MEK supporters are on hunger strike across from the White House to exhort the U.S. government to stick to promises to protect some 3,500 members of the organization in a camp north of Baghdad. Iraqi forces stormed Camp Ashraf in late July and the MEK says nine residents were killed in the initial assault. Two have since died of their injuries.

Hunger strikes in solidarity with the residents of Camp Ashraf were also taking place in Berlin, London, Brussels and Ottawa and at the camp itself. They draw attention to an arrangement that was both unique and bizarre – an enclave of people labeled terrorists by Washington but protected by U.S. military forces – and speak volumes about erratic U.S. policies on a group hated by Iran’s theocracy.

Those at Camp Ashraf, including around 1,000 women, have become, in effect, bargaining chips in the complicated relationship between the United States, Iraq and Iran. The raid on the camp coincided with a visit to Iraq by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. What better way for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to demonstrate  that the Iraqis, not the Americans, are in charge now that Iraqi troops have assumed control under the Status of Forces Agreement signed last year?

What better way, too for Maliki, once derided as an American puppet, to show Iran’s hard-liners and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iraq’s Shi’ite-dominated government wants to tighten relations with Tehran? The raid on Camp Ashraf drew applause from Iranian officials, including Ali Larijani, the hard-line speaker of parliament. “Praiseworthy,” he said, “even though it is rather late.”

The MEK was founded in 1965 by leftist students and intellectuals opposed to the Shah of Iran, and it played a part in the Islamic revolution that toppled his rule in 1979. But it soon fell out with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and was banned in 1981, when it began a campaign of bombings and assassinations of government officials.

WARNINGS OF HUMANITARIAN DISASTER

In 1986, under an agreement with Saddam Hussein, it established bases in Iraq from where it launched cross-border raids into Iran.

Since 2003, when U.S. forces disarmed MEK guerrillas in Camp Ashraf and took over its protection, the government in Iran has repeatedly demanded that they be turned over to Iran. Their prospects there would be bleak, more so at a time when the Iranian government is staging mass trials of people who demonstrated against Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in June.

In an open letter to President Barack Obama, in the form of a full-page advertisement in the Washington Times, MEK supporters this week warned of a humanitarian disaster unless U.S. forces reassumed control, at least temporarily. “The long-term solution to the problem is the presence in Ashraf of United Nations forces or at least a U.N. monitoring mission.”

This is not the first time that the MEK has served as a bargaining chip in Middle Eastern politics. The group was placed on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations in 1997 at a time when the Clinton administration hoped the move would facilitate opening a dialogue with Iran and its newly elected president, Mohammad Khatami, who was seen as a moderate.

The European Union put the MEK on its terrorist blacklist five years later. Critics of the decision saw it as kowtowing to Iranian demands to avoid harming important trade relations. After years of legal wrangling, the EU took the MEK off its list of banned terrorist organizations on Jan. 26, a decision that infuriated Tehran.

Somewhat ironically for a country described as the world’s “most active state sponsor of terrorism” by the U.S. State Department, Iran said the EU’s decision meant Europe had “distanced itself from the path of the international community in fighting terror.”

The Obama administration has shown no sign of even considering taking the MEK off the terrorist list and thus further complicate its already complicated relations with Iran. Is abandoning the people at Camp Ashraf to an uncertain fate an option?

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2009/08/20/human-bargaining-chips-in-deals-with-iran/

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Washington Times, January 14, 2009: 10 Point Plan for Future of Iran

January 14, 2009 by

 

Washington Times, January 14, 2009: 10 Point Plan for Future of Iran

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Washington Times, January 7, 2009: EP Group Calls on US to Delist MEK

January 7, 2009 by

Washington Times, January 7, 2009: EP Group Calls on US to Delist MEK

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Increasing Pressure on Iranian Opposition in Iraq

August 4, 2008 by

PolicyWatch #1394
By Raymond Tanter
August 4, 2008

Throughout summer 2008, Iraqi politicians tied to Tehran have put increasing political pressure on the U.S. government to allow Baghdad to control Camp Ashraf, the base housing Iran’s main opposition — the Mujahedin e Khalq (MEK). Options regarding Iraqi-based MEK members are limited, but include the following: sending them to the United States; allowing them to stay in Iraq under Iraqi control; dispersing them to surrounding countries, including Iran; or maintaining the status quo with the continued protection of the U.S. military. Since each option is problematic, finding a solution is neither easy nor simple.

Escalating Pressure

On July 4, 2008, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, called for MEK’s expulsion from Iraq, adding that the group “instigates tribal conflicts, interferes in the internal affairs of Iraq, and creates hostility between the parliament and government of Iraq and the Iraqi electorate.” On July 8, Iraqi government spokesman Abbas Bayati told al-Zaman: “The presence of the Mujahedin Organization in Iraq is illegal. We will ask the United States to put Camp Ashraf, the [MEK’s] bastion, under the control of the Iraqi government.”

On July 9, an English language agency of the Iranian regime, Press TV, reported, “Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari has declared the imminent expulsion of members of Mujahedin-e Khalq from Iraq.” And on July 10, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kezemi-Qomi, told Press TVthat “an Iraqi committee has been formed to expel the . . . [MEK] from the country.”

International Law

International humanitarian law is vital to the MEK issue, especially if the group’s adversaries succeed in their efforts. Coalition forces recognize the residents of Ashraf as “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention, as does the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). In 2004, the ICRC reiterated its position in a letter stating: “Those persons who are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention remain protected by the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

And in March 2007, the ICRC reminded relevant authorities “of their obligations to act in accordance with the principle of non-refoulement [a term in international law that concerns the protection of refugees dispersed to countries where they would face persecution] when transferring persons to another state or authority.” This statement is an acknowledgment of the nontransferable status of the protection of Ashraf under the present circumstances.

During the same year, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reiterated its position that “bodies of international law, particularly international humanitarian law and human rights law, have positive relevance to the Ashraf situation and could confer protections on individuals who fear serious risks if returned to their country of origin.” As such, UNHCR cautioned Iraqi authorities and the coalition “to refrain from any action that could endanger the life or security of these individuals, such as their forcible deportation from Iraq or their forced displacement inside Iraq.”

In February 2006, Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner, the coalition’s deputy commanding general, reiterated the protected-persons status of the people of Ashraf. He acknowledged coalition responsibilities regarding the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of civilians, stating, “The coalition remains deeply committed to the security and rights of the protected people of Ashraf and the principle of non-refoulement.”

Problematic Options

Assuming a transfer of MEK members were possible, many questions remain regarding their destination. There are many reasons why it would be difficult for the European and U.S. governments, or Iraq’s Kurdish regional bloc, to accept the MEK en masse to their territories.

Moving the group’s members to the United States, for instance, is currently impossible because of MEK’s status as a foreign terrorist organization. This status could change, however, if the designation is lifted in October 2008 when the Department of State performs a regular review process. This appears to be a viable possibility given recent developments in the United Kingdom, where the British government was forced to remove the group from its terrorist list after an independent judicial commission — one ratified by a British appeals court — determined that such a designation was no longer appropriate.

If Ashraf’s security responsibilities were transferred to Iraqi security forces, as demanded by the Iranian regime, it would be a flagrant violation of international laws and conventions. Since it is widely reported that the Iranian regime has infiltrated Iraqi military and security forces, and wields significant influence within the government, such a move would certainly invite a humanitarian catastrophe. No U.S. president would want to leave such a legacy.

Moreover, dispersing the MEK, in addition to being illegal, is likely to decrease the international community’s leverage over the Iranian regime. Because the regime pays more attention to the opposition in Iraq than all other opposition groups combined, a case could be made to rely on the MEK as leverage to encourage Tehran to give up its quest for nuclear weapons capability.

Conclusion

If MEK members remain in Iraq under the protection of U.S. forces, such an arrangement should be explicit in agreements negotiated between Iraq and the United States. Given that military components of the Iraqi government cannot be trusted to provide security for Ashraf and guarantee protected persons status conferred under the Fourth Geneva Convention, transfer to Iraqi control would risk a humanitarian disaster.

The argument for protecting the human rights of MEK members need not be based on a favorable view of the organization. One need not accept or reject the claim by some that the group provides useful intelligence, or that it is an important means to unsettle Tehran.

It would be especially unfortunate if the treatment of the MEK was harsher because of a desire to secure concessions from Tehran on the nuclear impasse. Not only is it inappropriate to abandon the principles of human rights for concessionary purposes, but such an approach would be counterproductive on the nuclear front. This strategy would show Iran that its nuclear program has won it leverage on unconnected issues — thus reducing Iran’s incentive to abandon its program — and it would destroy what is arguably Tehran’s main opposition.

Raymond Tanter, a visiting professor of government at Georgetown University, is an adjunct scholar at The Washington Institute, researching U.S. policy options toward Iran.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2919

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A Roadmap for the Foreign Terrorist Organizations List

April 25, 2008 by

PolicyWatch #1366

By Patrick Clawson
April 25, 2008

Although the Foreign Terrorist Organizationslist has a set of criteria for designating groups, there is little clarity in practice about the process for revocation. Even after organizations have renounced terrorism for many years, their designations persist without a clear explanation, and are based on the assumption that historical violence indicates future potential.

A November 2007 court ruling by the UK’s Proscribed Organizations Appeals Commission (POAC) ordered the British government to remove the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran — known to the U.S. government as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) — from its terrorist organizations list. This decision, along with a similar decision by the European Court of First Instance (a level below the European Court of Justice), and the mandatory review of the group’s designation by the U.S. State Department in October 2008, provides an opportunity to evaluate how terrorist designation is assessed. According to the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Protection Act, if no designation review is conducted during a five-year period, the U.S. secretary of state must determine whether a revocation is appropriate.

The Role of Non-Terrorist Criteria

Any designation review should be based only on terrorism issues, not on the general U.S. government view of the organization in question. If the decision to designate a group is made on foreign policy considerations rather than evidence, then the list will be branded as a political instrument, thus reducing its utility as a means for encouraging other governments to take action against certain terrorist organizations. This is what happened to the list of terrorism-sponsoring states, which simply looks like a set of countries the U.S. government does not like.

In the MEK’s case, its designation should not be based on the group’s political stance or worries about U.S.-Iranian relations, nor should it be a reward for its reports on Iran’s nuclear activities. Over the past three years, the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism have cited no alleged MEK terrorist activity since 2001, yet have increased allegations pertaining the group’s non-terrorist activities. The 2007 edition of the Reports, due out by the end of April 2008, is bound to continue this trend.

These allegations — support for the U.S. embassy takeover in Tehran in 1979, allegiance to Islamic Marxism, suppression of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites, participation in the oil for food scandal, and the self-immolation of its supporters during protests — are not related to the legal criteria for terrorist designation and are probably meant to discredit the MEK. These allegations are irrelevant, and some are also based on contestable evidence. This example of irrelevant information reinforces the need for the State Department to create explicit guidelines by which it moves a group from designation to revocation.

Dealing with History

History plays an important part in terrorist designation, especially when considering groups that no longer participate in violent activity. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is one such example. The PLO clearly used to be a terrorist group, but now enjoys good relations with the United States. Since the PLO complied with the 1993 Declaration of Principles and renounced terrorism, the organization was not listed on the State Department’s first edition of its Foreign Terrorist Organizations list in 1997 or in President Clinton’s 1995 Executive Order 12947 on Middle East terrorism. Since the reevaluation of the PLO designation preceded the creation of the State Department list and the subsequent legislation regulating the process of review, the PLO case provides little insight into how revocation would occur under the current system.

In contrast, the November 2007 POAC ruling is a more recent and relevant example of terrorist designation review. In fact, the 144-page POAC ruling addresses the historical actions of the MEK in detail. Regarding the past seven years, the POAC finds,

Whatever the accurate characterization of the organization’s activities between 1980 and 2001, the position in 2006-2007 is radically different, and has been so since 2001…The [MEK] has conducted no military activity of any kind since about August 2001, whether in Iran or elsewhere in the world…This is attributable to a deliberate decision of the [MEK] made at an extraordinary congress held in Iraq in June 2001, namely, to abandon all military action (or activities) in Iran…There is no evidence that the [MEK] has at any time since 2003 sought to re-create any form of structure that was capable of carrying out or supporting terrorist acts. There is no evidence of any attempt to “prepare” for terrorism. There is no evidence of any encouragement to others to commit acts of terrorism…. The above factors, combined with the 5 years that had since passed since the summer of 2001, demanded the conclusion that continued proscription could not be lawfully justified.

Inherent in the POAC order to revoke MEK’s designation — an order the UK government is appealing — are three principles: the organization’s formal decision to renounce violence, the cessation of terrorist activity, and the five year period of peace. Perhaps the Department of State does not want to use these particular principles when re-evaluating a group’s terrorist designation, but it should adopt a set of guidelines and explain them to the public. It should also explain how it applies those principles in each case; if the MEK is designated, some specific reasons should be given. Preferably, the State Department should provide a road map for what a designated group must do to be removed from the list. For the MEK, what, if anything, must it do to show it has renounced terrorism in practice as well as in theory.

Conclusion

While the State Department routinely reinstated MEK’s designation as a terrorist group on April 8, it must do a more formal and in-depth review by October 2008. That review’s decision should be based on two factors. First, the State Department should only decide if the group is or is not a terrorist group, and not bring in irrelevant information. The criteria should be used in an unbiased, professional manner, relying on evidence rather than prejudice or rumor.

Second, the decision should be based on clear set of rules regarding how the U.S. government revokes this kind of designation. At present, it seems that past terrorist activities — no matter how old or far removed — are susceptible to being interpreted as evidence of future potential, consequently justifying a group’s continued designation. In contrast, the POAC has set forward several useful principles for evaluating an organization’s violent past and peaceful present; the U.S. government should do the same.

Patrick Clawson is deputy director for research at The Washington Institute.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2808

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Mojahedin of Iran are “not concerned with terrorism”

January 25, 2008 by

Friday, 25 January 2008
Source: Le Soir, Belgium daily

By maintaining the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) on the European list of terrorist organizations, the 27 EU countries are “no longer following the rule of law… PMOI’s fundamental rights continue to be violated,” says a report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted on Wednesday by an overwhelming majority.

And what about a case of an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland, found innocent in the courts of Italy and Switzerland, but fails to remove his name from the list of terrorists drawn up by the U.N. Security Council? Neither Bern nor Rome do have the requisite powers to counter the injustice in New York. Worse still, the two capitals may not know why the individual was placed on blacklist.

The report that has been prepared by a Swiss parliamentarian, the chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights was ratified by the almost unanimous vote on Wednesday after a long debate. Dick Marty is the same person who had investigated the CIA flights.

Mr. Marty explained that the development of such lists had “nothing to do with the law”, was the result of a “political deal”, and that this was a “totally unacceptable system”, “perverse” (the word was used by a London court to describe proscription used against the Iranian opposition movement, PMOI).

“We cannot fight Terrorism with injustice. These blacklists are our Guantanamo, “said Marty. The vote on the report by 101 in favor, 3 against and 4 abstentions, is revealing: the rare opposition came from British, Polish and Romanian parliamentarians.

In political terms, the report confirms the injustice done to the main Iranian opposition movement, PMOI, despite favorable judgments handed down in 2006 and 2007 by the courts in Luxembourg and London. As a reminder, PMOI is a previously armed movement – its latest military operations dates back to June 2001 – which Britain has placed in March 2001 on its national list of banned organizations. London then put pressure on the EU to add this organization to its list.

Since then, the Mojahedin are fighting in two fronts – Luxembourg and London – to get them off the lists. Their argument, recently confirmed in law: Only it is London that alleges them based on single report secret evidence that is empty and fueled by the Tehran regime and broadcasted by London and Brussels.

The game in London is more astonishing, as stated yesterday by the British socialist Rudi Vis, if we finally recognize that PMOI had “not been concerned with terrorism” this would enable the Mojahedin to present itself as the “main opposition” to the mullahs, which would mean “taking a big step in the establishment of democracy in Iran.”

The first court victory by PMOI goes back to December 2006 when the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, found that the evidence that Europe gathered were insufficient. Brussels has responded by adopting a “new policy”, a trick that obsoletes the judgment. The latest European list of terrorist organizations, released in December, continues to consider PMOI as “terrorist”. But according to the report which has just voted on Wednesday by the Council of Europe, the new EU regulation suffers the same deficiencies as the previous legislation: “In all cases, the ‘new’ procedures are also as failing as that previous” Marty noted in the report.

And already PMOI has taken the new procedures, as a matter of urgency, to the European Court. The victory of PMOI is clear on this front and one can expect that Brussels will be more readily condemned. Since it was the London which has nourished a pseudo-intelligence dossier against the Mojahedin, they have attacked the British list. Since the list is prepared on the basis of secret documents; it should take a special administrative court – Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission (POAC) – whose magistrates have security clearances required to consult the secret documents.

On 30 November, POAC delivered a judgment which is a slap in the face of London: the British government was forced to propose to parliament the withdrawal of PMOI form the list of banned organizations. Arguments: the Home Office has misinterpreted the law, has ignored important facts, and ultimately took a “perverse” decision against the PMOI. This is good news for the Iranian opposition. But as recalled Dick Marty, it is still 370 people in the world (including one Italian-Swiss) whose assets are frozen when they were merely “suspected” of terrorism.

The report was translated from French by NCRI-FAC

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MEK sense: Lift ‘Terror’ Designation on Iranian Group

June 15, 2007 by

The Washington Times

Since the theocratic regime of Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in 1979, and under Khomeini’s successors, Iran has consistently out-maneuvered the United States and our allies through a crafty combination of diplomatic manipulation; exploitation of commercial considerations; support for terrorists and kidnappers; the use of proxy agents in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere; and, in recent years, playing the nuclear card. 

Earlier this year, we were relieved to see the 15 British sailors and marines return home from their captivity in Iran unharmed. But it is shocking and galling that Iran managed to win a propaganda victory over the West through a brazen act of piracy on the high seas and clear violations of the Geneva Conventions’ rules on the treatment of prisoners. 

Also this month, U.S. military commanders have reported that Iran is supplying weapons to both Sunni and Shi’ite militias in Iraq — directly putting our troops at risk of death or serious injury, while causing a terrible toll for thousands of Iraqis on both sides of the Sunni-Shi’ite divide. 

And just in the past few days, in utter defiance of the world community, Iranian officials have confirmed that 3,000 centrifuges used to enrich uranium are in place at the illicit nuclear facility at Natanz and that the goal is to eventually install 50,000 centrifuges. 

These recent developments, on top of Iran’s ongoing efforts to spread its extremist jihadist ideology, have brought us to a crisis point in dealing with the Iranian threat. We need to develop a better strategy to protect our national interests and the security of our friends and allies in the region. 

As members of Congress from opposite sides of the aisle, we have been working for years to inject new policy ideas into the U.S. framework for dealing with Iran. It is clear that the United States and the international community must make better use of all the tools at our disposal for dealing with the multiple threats emanating from Iran. 

These tools include a range of financial and economic sanctions. Bipartisan legislation is currently pending in Congress to strengthen existing sanctions regimes by preventing new investment in Iran’s oil and gas sector and requiring the divestiture of existing investments. We strongly support our colleagues’ initiatives in these areas. But, to be truly effective, sanctions must be multilateral. Tehran has been able to count on China and Russia to push for the weakening of measures proposed by the United States. 

The official U.S. line regarding our policy toward Iran is that “all options are on the table.” Yet there is one vitally important option that is not “on the table,” but should be: empowering the Iranian democratic opposition, in general, and, specifically, recognizing one of the most effective and best organized Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK). 

The Iranian government has gone to tremendous lengths, both directly and indirectly, to discredit and weaken the MEK, largely through disinformation programs. Why is the regime so obsessively focused on a relatively small opposition group based largely in the Iranian diaspora? The MEK is a moderate, democratic, secular organization that has consistently opposed the regime’s extremist policies with a message of democratic reform and individual freedom — a message that Iran’s ruling mullahs don’t want their people to hear. 

Furthermore, the MEK has been a remarkably reliable source of intelligence on Iran’s clandestine nuclear program and on Iranian meddling in Iraq. 

But, in a bizarre twist of U.S. policy, the MEK has been labeled by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization, originally placed on the blacklist in 1997 as a concession to “moderates” in Tehran who were then believed to be ascendant — one of the regime’s key strategic victories over America and the West during the past three decades of fruitless negotiations. 

Listing the MEK as “terrorists” is both an injustice and manifestly contrary to U.S. interests. To remedy this situation, there is growing bipartisan support in Congress to urge Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to remove the MEK from the terrorist list, using procedures enacted into law in 2004 to de-designate listed organizations that no longer qualify for such treatment. 

The MEK has voluntarily disarmed and renounced violence. Despite inaccurate information to the contrary, the MEK has never targeted U.S. citizens or interests. 

The MEK, and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition of which MEK is a member, have tremendous reach inside of Iran and a capacity to help build a successful grassroots movement to bring about democratic reform. 

From its base in Iraq, where 3,800 MEK members live under the protection of coalition forces, the organization has provided intelligence on Iran’s support for terrorism in Iraq. Lt. Gen. David Odierno, commander of the Multinational Corps-Iraq, has described the MEK as “extremely cooperative” in ensuring security.

An Iran committed to a belligerent, revolutionary agenda will continue to threaten its neighbors and global security. Long-term stability in the Middle East depends upon a stable, secular, democratic Iran that does not export terror, violent upheaval and a radical ideology. Our efforts should be directed at fostering democratic change within Iran by empowering the very opposition organizations that share our goals and values.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican, represents Colorado’s 6th Congressional District. Rep. Bob Filner, a Democrat, represents California’s 51st Congressional District.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jun/14/20070614-085518-9253r/

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