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Bi-Partisan Members of Congress, Prominent Former Officials Call for Peaceful Resettlement of Camp Ashraf Residents, Removal of the Dissidents from Terrorist List

February 7, 2012 by

PRNEWSWIRE

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Members of Congress, prominent scholars and former U.S. officials called for a speedy and peaceful end to the standoff over the fate of 3,400 pro-democracy Iranian dissidents at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, amid warnings that a failure to quickly and safely relocate them would endanger their lives.

“There is a looming genocide that could occur if a number of different things don’t go right in the next weeks and months,” warned former FBI Director Louis Freeh. “Our goal here is to make sure that genocide does not occur.”

“This issue is simple, and at this critical time, the U.S. position must be clear and steadfast,” added Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “International humanitarian standards must be upheld, human rights must be respected – these are universal obligations, and the residents of Camp Ashraf deserve no less.”

The event, held in the Cannon Caucus Room, was sponsored by the House Foreign Affairs Committee member Ted Poe (R-TX). Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Dan Lungren (R-CA) and Trent Franks, (R-AZ) also spoke.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, also spoke in support of those at Camp Ashraf, as did Marc Ginsberg, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Morocco during the Clinton administration.

The residents of Camp Ashraf are members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Speakers also called for the State Department to remove the group from its list of terrorist organizations, a move that would speed their relocation, a view shared by renowned lawyer Alan Dershowitz and former New York Senator Alfonse D’Amato.

The group, which was placed on the list in 1997, renounced violence in 2001. When the U.S. military took control of the camp in 2003, it conducted detailed research and analysis on each of the residents there – all of whom voluntarily disarmed – and found no evidence of terrorist activity or association. Parallel investigations by other U.S. and international law enforcement organizations reached the same conclusion.

“A thorough individual background investigation… produced no evidence of wrongdoing, no evidence of criminal acts, and absolutely no evidence of terrorism by these people,” said retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. David Phillips, who was the camp’s commander. “I didn’t read or get my information second and third hand. I lived it. I experienced it. I know it.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose government took over control of Camp Ashraf from the U.S. military in 2009, has claimed that the Iranian dissidents’ presence in Iraq “raises problems with Iran.” In 2009 and 2011, the camp was attacked by Iraqi forces, resulting in 47 deaths and more than 1,000 injuries. Maliki had sought to close the camp at the end of 2011, but bowed to international pressure and allowed it to stay open until the end of April.

At issue is the fate of the dissidents; whose return to Iran would be tantamount to a death sentence. The MEK, other Iranian dissident groups and human rights organizations argue that those living in Camp Ashraf should be safely relocated to other nations by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. And while the Camp residents have already been granted “protected persons” status under the 4th Geneva Convention, Iraq has practically blocked the resettlement efforts by not allowing the UNHCR to start its process even though the UN body declared its readiness to do so in September.

The residents’ supporters are also wary of the Iraqi government’s desire to move them to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near Baghdad International Airport, citing the lack of access to the camp by family members and lawyers, the lack of freedom of movement, the absence of UN inspectors inside the camp, the belief that those housed there would be denied adequate medical care, and the fear that they would be mistreated or brutalized by Iraqi forces.

“The way Camp Liberty has been pre-designed and controlled by the Iraqi regime, clearly at the behest of the Iranian regime, it is now a prison camp, not a refugee camp,” Freeh said.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bi-partisan-members-of-congress-prominent-former-officials-call-for-peaceful-resettlement-of-camp-ashraf-residents-removal-of-the-dissidents-from-terrorist-list—-californian-society-for-democracy-in-iran-138898629.html

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EU, US must accept Camp Ashraf inmates: Iranian dissident

February 7, 2012 by

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

BRUSSELS — The EU and United States must take in ailing and wounded inmates from a camp in Iraq housing thousands of Iranian dissidents, the leader of an Iranian opposition group said Tuesday.

“I urge the European Union and the United States to immediately accept a certain number of sick and wounded residents” from Camp Ashraf,” Maryam Rajavi, who heads the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said on the sidelines of a meeting at the European parliament in Brussels.

“Any delay in this regard is unacceptable and unjustifiable,” she told AFP.

There are some 3,400 Iranians living in Ashraf, home for the past 30 years to Iranian dissidents, who are now facing expulsion as Baghdad wants to close down the camp.

The camp was set up when Iraq and Iran were at war in the 1980s by the then Iranian People’s Mujahedeen, which joined forces with the Iraqis to fight the Tehran government.

The camp came under US control until January 2009, when US forces transferred security for the camp to Iraq.

The camp’s residents are being assessed individually by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees after applying for refugee status, to allow them to resettle elsewhere, but fears are that the process cannot be completed within the time-frame set by Baghdad.

Under a pact signed on December 25 between the United Nations and the Iraqi government, the residents of camp Ashraf will be transferred to Camp Liberty, another site near Baghdad.

The People’s Mujahedeen has said it will only accept a move to Camp Liberty if this did not involve prison-like conditions.

“The EU, the US and the UN must intervene actively and immediately to prevent Camp Liberty from being transformed into a prison,” said Rajavi, adding that residents there must be free to come and go freely.

Her organisation says there is no potable water in the camp and that residents are not allowed to leave freely or have access to lawyers and doctors.

Daniel Fried, the US diplomat in charge of the Camp Ashraf issue, called on the People’s Mujahedeen to move to the new temporary home in accordance with the December 25 agreement.

Fried said that the United States was informed that an Iraqi representative held “businesslike and productive” discussions with the People’s Mujahedeen on Monday about the move.

“The United States welcomes this progress and we look forward to the first residents moving from Camp Ashraf to Camp Hurriya (Liberty) in the immediate future,” Fried told reporters on a conference call from Washington.

“The residents of Camp Ashraf must make the decision to start this relocation process. Camp Ashraf is no longer a viable home for them. They have no secure future there,” he said.

“The government of Iraq has committed itself to the security of the people at Camp Hurriya and is aware that the United States expects it to fulfill its responsibility,” he said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hMW_oWblVkbYYcvCYd360MHXdFSQ

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Statement of European-American Conference in the European Parliament

February 7, 2012 by

Statement of European-American Conference in the European Parliament 

February 7, 2012 

A European-American Conference was convened on invitation of the Friends of Free Iran intergroup in the European Parliament on February 7, in relation to the current political situation in Iran and the region, and the necessity of protecting Ashraf residents, members of the Iranian opposition. The conference was presided over by Jim Higgins, member of the European Parliament’s Bureau. Dozens of EU parliamentarians, including Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Vice-President of the European Parliament, Struan Stevenson, head of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq in the parliament, and many prestigious American personalities such as Howard Dean, former US Presidential candidate and Chairman of the Democratic National Convention, Senator Robert Torricelli, former US Congressman Patrick Kennedy and John Bruton Former Prime Minister of Ireland spoke at the event. The Iranian Resistance’s President-elect, Mrs Maryam Rajavi, was the keynote speaker of the event. Participants underlined the following points: 

1. As the uprising in Syria has placed that country’s dictator on the verge of collapse and the tide in the region is rapidly turning against the Iranian regime and its puppet government in Iraq, the Iranian regime’s leader, Khamenei, declared war on the international community on Friday, February 3, in Tehran’s Friday prayer meeting and announced that his regime, in disregard of all international sanctions, will continue its nuclear weapons program and meddling in the region, and will push to establish Islamist regimes in the region. He once again called for the destruction of Israel and claimed that the United States is on the verge of collapse. 

2. Such posturing is not from a position of power but reflects the depth of the Iranian regime’s crisis and weakness that prevents it from showing any flexibility. Any compromise by this regime is tantamount to its accelerated downfall and implosion. Khamenei threatened his internal rivals to submit to the will of his Guardians Council as Iranian society seethes with dissent and economic crises engulf the regime. His aim is to forestall yet another round of internal uprisings on the eve of the regime’s sham parliamentary elections. The Guardians Council is comprised of members appointed directly or indirectly by Khamenei himself. 

3. The Iranian regime is bent on the destruction of Ashraf residents, members of the main Iranian opposition, before the tide of change reaches Iraq and Iran from Syria, so that it can face that challenge easier. The regime knows very well that the Iranian Resistance movement is the main force that can lead and transform the enormous dissent inside Iranian society towards a fundamental change to democracy. 

4. The experience of the uprisings of 2009 and 2011 showed that former members of this regime that are now presenting themselves as the Green movement have never had the political capacity or the moral courage to lead the people’s uprising and in effect provide service to the Khamenei regime to dampen and stifle dissent by sowing seeds of despair among the people. They seek to maintain the current regime structure and constitution without the slightest price and to implant themselves within the institutions of power.

5. The conference  agreed that the international community, especially the EU and US, should recognize the Iranian Resistance and its President-elect as the legitimate opposition and democratic alternative to the Iranian regime and protect Ashraf residents. This is not only a political and moral obligation but a necessity to achieve world peace. Mrs Rajavi rightfully pointed out that although the sanctions are very necessary, but the lasting solution to rid the world of religious fascism that seeks nuclear weapons is regime change and the establishment of a secular democracy with a non-nuclear stance. This change can only be achieved at the hands of the Iranian people and resistance. 

6. The conference condemned any pressures applied to Ashraf residents to force them to transfer to Camp Liberty and stressed that the prerequisite of any transfer of Ashraf residents to Liberty was providing the minimum assurances to the residents – assurances that are legitimate and reasonable and without which Liberty would be nothing more than a prison. The freedom to transfer moveable property and vehicles to Liberty, the lack of a police presence inside of the small Camp Liberty area, freedom of movement, provision of minimum living area, are the minimums that if the Iraqi  government is not ready to provide, will show a sinister intention and would therefore preclude any transfer by the residents. 

7. The conference expressed great appreciation for Mrs Rajavi’s courageous and goodwill initiative to transfer 400 residents with their moveable property and vehicles to Liberty in order to prepare the way for the transfer of the rest of the residents. The conference expressed hope that the Iraqi government accepts this generous initiative and reciprocates with goodwill. Without providing these conditions, the transfer of the rest of the residents will not be possible. 

8- The conference stressed considering all limitation and dangers that exist in Liberty, it strongly supports a solution that following transfer of the first 400 residents to Liberty, the second group would be transferred only when the first group has left Liberty to third countries. In other words, in Liberty, there will never be more that 400 people. 

9- The conference, recognizing the efforts of the Special Representative of the United Nation Secretary General, Ambassador Martin Kobler, regarding Camp Ashraf, stresses that he should consider the fact that Ashraf residents, the leadership of the camp and Mrs. Rajavi have shown maximum flexibility and cooperation and have relinquished many given rights in doing so.  It is now time that Mr Kobler took an impartial position and bravely defended the minimum rights of Ashraf residents disregarding reactions of the government of Iraq and Iranian regime.  He has the international community on his side and undoubtedly can achieve the minimums if he puts aside political considerations.

The conference regretted the fact that the Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 25 December without the agreement or awareness of the residents, and that Camp Liberty was announced to be ready in a statement released on 31 January, again without the knowledge of residents while the camp does not meet international human rights and humanitarian standards. In this regard the conference, in order to clarify any misunderstanding, called for an “Executive Document of the Arrangements of Transfer” to be signed by the Special Representative, the representatives of residents, and government of Iraq to prevent Iraq from violating oral commitments as it has done in the past. 

10- The conference applauded the stance of the UN Commissioner for Refugees and called on the UNHCR to start the reaffirmation of refugee status of Ashraf residents objecting imposed limitation by the government of Iraq.  For over 5 months this process, which is necessary to resettle Ashraf residents, has been stalled. 

11- The conference welcomed and appreciated valuable considerations by the Un Secretary General about Ashraf and asked him and the UN Security Council to condemn limitations imposed against UNAMI and the UNHCR by the government of Iraq and help the Special Representative to take powerful and effective steps toward a peaceful solution for the issue of Ashraf, disregarding pressures of the government of Iraq and the Iranian regime. 

12- The conference also called on the European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton, Secretary Clinton and the government of United States to take a more active role in this regard, support the United Nations and Ambassador Kobler, provide necessary sources to the UNHCR, and start the process of accepting Ashraf residents specially the ill and wounded in a swift manner.  The U.S. government was specifically called on to remove the illegal and illegitimate terrorist tag against the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, MEK, in order to remove the main obstacle on the way of resettlement of residents in third countries and eliminate al-Maliki’s main excuse for suppressing them.  With the economic and political leverage available, the international community and specifically the United States should not allow the government of al-Maliki, which has come to power and maintains it with the aid of the United States, to massacre the defenceless residents of Ashraf that the United States accepted the responsibility of their protection legally and officially in 2003. 

Friends of a free Iran

European Parliament

Brussels 

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EU Parliament hosts conf. on situation in Iran

February 7, 2012 by

KUWAIT NEWS AGENCY
 
BRUSSELS, Feb 7 (KUNA) — A European-American Conference was convened at invitation of the Friends of Free Iran intergroup in the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday on the current political situation in Iran and the region, and the Ashraf camp in Iraq, The conference was presided over by Jim Higgins, member of the European Parliament’s Bureau.

According to a statement released by the organisers, dozens of EU parliamentarians, including Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Vice-President of the European Parliament, Struan Stevenson, head of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq in the EP, and many prestigious American personalities such as Howard Dean, former US Presidential candidate and Chairman of the Democratic National Convention, Senator Robert Torricelli, former US Congressman Patrick Kennedy and John Bruton Former Prime Minister of Ireland spoke at the event.

The Paris-based leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Maryam Rajavi, was the keynote speaker of the event. Friends of a Free Iran intergroup was formed in 2004 and consists of over 100 MEPs from various political groups.

http://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2220071&language=en

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‘Voluntary’ Imprisonment at Camp Liberty?

February 6, 2012 by

THE HUFFINGTON POST

Once again the plight of Camp Ashraf attracts international attention. The issue: a statement published by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), headed by Ambassador Martin Kobler, calling on residents to move to Camp Liberty.

According to the statement, Camp Liberty – an abandoned US base near Baghdad airport – is now in compliance with “international humanitarian standards” for housing “5.500 people”. Human rights experts however point to serious shortcomings.

Following last year’s brutal massacre of dozens of defenceless refugees at Ashraf by the Iraqi army, which brought swift international condemnations, Iraq quickly announced a deadline to shut down Camp Ashraf by 31 December 2011. The residents had no option but to leave the country, Iraq said.

Since last September, UN’s refugee body (UNHCR) has been ready to start the Refugee Status Determination process of the over 3000 “asylum-seekers” at Camp Ashraf. The process, however, never started as Iraq barred UNHCR from doing interviews inside or even nearby Ashraf.

It further emerged that Iraq had no intention of speeding up departures from Ashraf to third countries. Instead, it was implementing Tehran’s instructions for setting impossible conditions to obtain another excuse to launch attacks on Ashraf when the deadline would expire. Ashraf houses members of the most devoted and long-lasting opposition to the mullahs’ rule, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

UN Secretary General’s Special Representative, Martin Kobler, was tasked to find a “peaceful solution” to the drama. He proposed Camp Liberty as a temporary relocation for Ashraf residents so that the UNHCR would start the interviews. Iraq extended the deadline to April 2012 on condition that people would move to Liberty promptly. A group of 400 residents declared themselves ready to move to Liberty with their movable property to test Iraq’s intentions.

But it became increasingly clear that no sincere intention to facilitate the refugee process existed from the Iraqi side. The real plan seems to be initiated from Tehran to create a detention centre to further distress and hopefully breakdown the persistent Iranian dissidents.

In a statement on 25 January, the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe called ‘Don’t turn Camp Liberty into a prison for Ashraf residents’.

The initial 40 square km area of Camp Liberty had been reduced to only half a square km. The area is being encircled by 3.6 meter high concrete walls. The residents or their legal representation are not allowed to visit the camp in advance.

Furthermore, vehicles or other movable property beyond travel bags are not allowed to be taken in. There’s no access to lawyers or medical services. No face-to-face or 24-hour access to UN observers as it had been suggested before. Armed security forces will have permanent presence inside the camp. All entrees and exits are controlled by the army. Freedom of movement is nonexistent.

“Any relocation outside Camp (Ashraf) proceed on a voluntary basis, with freedom of movement the most desirable state at the site of relocation,” the UNHCR said in a statement on 1 February highlighting the shortcoming of UNAMI’s statement.

“It’s not a transit camp; it’s not a refugee settlement; it’s a detention centre, a prison!” Guy Goodwin-Gill, Professor of International Refugee Law at Oxford University stressed during a conference in Westminster 31 January. “Such conditions are poor, nothing short of inhumane and should not be endorsed by Ambassador Kobler,” he declared in a separate statement.

But during a press conference in Brussels on 2 February, Kobler again reiterated his proposal. “It requires a voluntary decision by Camp Ashraf residents to relocate from Camp Ashraf to Liberty.”

“There are two options for camp Ashraf residents: To stay in Ashraf…but this is an option which might lead to violence!..Or to use the offer of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to go to Camp Liberty,” he concluded.

In other words: Die in Ashraf or move voluntarily to a prison!

“Kobler is acting like a salesman trying to sell an imperfect package with no guarantees,” a source close to the negotiations said.

While it is a well-known principle that UN officials do not sit down and discuss the condition of an asylum-seeker with a government that he or she has escaped from, Mr Kobler has made no secret of his good contacts with the Iranian Ambassador over Ashraf.

“I am in close contacts with Iranian authorities,” Kobler was quoted by the German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine on 4 February. “I am confident that many (residents) will go back to Iran,” he claimed.

“Who gave him authority to speak for our loved ones?” Saeed Fathi, exiled-Iranian lawyer who has relatives in Ashraf said. “This is an insult to their dignity!”

Mr Kobler got explicit backing from UN, EU and US to solve the Ashraf crises. His failure to use that power to convince Iraq to uphold basic human rights standards at Camp Liberty is therefore seen as very unfortunate.

“Yet another ‘Done Deal’ just as he did with the MoU and the UNAMI statement,” Fathi deplored. “Issuing press releases decorated with words such as ‘humanitarian standards’ to cover up the human rights shortcoming is simply immoral.”

Abbas Rezai is a Human Rights and Foreign Policy Writer

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/abbas-rezai/voluntary-imprisonment-at_b_1256279.html

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USCCAR Deplores Reckless Decisions by UNAMI’s Chief on Camp Ashraf

February 2, 2012 by

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR), representing thousands of Iran-Americans whose loved-ones reside in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, condemns the reckless and potentially harmful assertions made in the January 31 statement issued by Ambassador Martin Kobler, head of United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Iraq.

USCCAR warns that Mr. Kobler should not become a part and parcel of a despicable joint Iranian-Iraqi “working plan” aimed at dismantling Iran’s principal organized opposition, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) whose 3,400 members and their families currently reside in Ashraf.

Mr. Kobler must be reminded that last September, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) formally recognized the residents of Ashraf as “asylum seekers,” a status which, according to UNHCR, entitles them to certain rights and protections based on international humanitarian standards. In its February 1, 2012 statement, UNHCR once again described all residents of Ashraf as “persons of concern.”

While Ambassador Kobler has made a great deal about the number of toilets and faucets at Camp Liberty, he has failed to mention that humanitarian standards at the Camp – including the right to freedom of movement and access to lawyers and medical services – are effectively non-existent.

In addition, the Camp Liberty is encircled with thick 12-feet high concrete walls and surrounded by the Iraqi military forces. The residents will not have in-person round-the-clock access to UN observers, who will be stationed outside the Camp perimeter while Iraqi police will be inside. The residents are not even permitted to take their vehicles and moveable belongings.

In its February 1st statement, UNHCR attached “utmost importance to peaceful solutions being found.” The UN Refugee Agency further emphasized that any relocation outside Camp Ashraf must proceed on a voluntary basis, “with freedom of movement the most desirable state at the site of relocation.” UNHCR did not certify Camp Liberty in its statement but said it only “has been advising on the technicalities of improving the camp infrastructure.”

Mr. Kobler’s impartiality is a must when dealing with the lives of 3,400 defenseless asylum seekers. However, his actions have made a fait accompli situation designed to force the residents of Ashraf into “voluntarily” accepting the relocation terms crafted by Tehran and set forward by the Iraqi government. 

SOURCE: US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR)

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usccar-deplores-reckless-decisions-by-unamis-chief-on-camp-ashraf-138578039.html

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Iranian Dissidents Must Not Be Sent To A Concentration Camp

January 30, 2012 by

THE OFFICIAL WIRE

The Iranian Dissidents living in Camp Ashraf in Iraq are to be relocated to a new camp near the Baghdad airport. The matter has been a shock and badly troubling for the 3300 persons living in the camp, for the simple reason that they are being forced to leave the place they have lived in for more than 20 years. Furthermore, the information received about the new camp, where the Iranian civilians are to be relocated to, seems to be changing and becoming more disturbing everyday.

The residents were first told that the new location, Camp Liberty, which used to be a base for American soldiers, had the advantage of being large enough to locate the 3400 dissidents. This was despite the fact that the base was a desert-like place hardly suitable for men and women civilians. This information however, was soon proved to be wrong and the Iraqi government decided to force the men and women in the camp to much smaller place. The first information was that the camp was of an area of 40 sq km. However, they were later told that only 0.6 sq km of the new camp will be available to them and four meter walls will be put around the camp. No-one would be allowed to leave or enter the camp either. This no doubt reminds everyone of the concentration camps used by the Nazi regime for its opponents.

Looking at the history of the term concentration camp, one cannot help noticing the resemblances which exist.  At the time, Hitler ordered to have his opponents physically concentrated in one place, and that is where the word concentration camp came from. One can also read in the history books that the term concentration camp referred to a camp in which people were detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.

Sadly, these are the very conditions that the Iranian dissidents have been subjected to and the conditions have continuously become worse during the past year. The residents in Camp Ashraf are in fact intellectuals who have decided to stand up against the fundamentalist regime in Iran and demand democracy and freedom. But the fact is that they are receiving a harsh treatment from the international institutions, which are supposed to defend their rights. 

We know today that the 3300 exiles would only be permitted to occupy a tiny corner of Camp Liberty, barely quarter of a mile square, which had been completely looted, was without running water and around which the Iraqis were erecting a 15ft concrete wall. Far from being offered a safe haven, it seemed, they were to await their fate crammed into what the European Council last week denounced as “a prison”, watched inside and out by armed Iraqi and Iranian guards.
  Worst of all is that the UN representative, who is following the events on behalf of the United Nations Secretary General, is not helping the matter either.  The happenings are indeed outrageous and cannot be accepted in the 21st century. As many humanitarian figures, including the archbishop of Wales have re-iterated: “This is totally unacceptable. How could 3,400 people, including 1,000 women, be located in such a small area?”

The new camp is about 40 times smaller that the area that the dissidents have lived in up until now, and the issue has thus become one that can easily lead to another act of genocide.

Kambiz Assai is a former political prisoner and a human rights activist in the UK.

http://news.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=313650

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Regime Change in Iran: The Conditions Are Now Ripe

January 30, 2012 by

THE HUFFINGTON POST

Life as a mullah in Iran must be pretty disconcerting. All those in power in Tehran today are no doubt deeply worried about their economic wellbeing and the future of their rule. Sanctions have come in waves and are sapping away at the foundations of the national economy. The US and the European Union are intent on disabling the Iranian central bank, the oil industry, and even the regime’s ability to trade gold and diamonds.

If economic problems were not enough, the mullahs’ main regional ally, Syria, is descending into civil war. From Tehran, it must seem like only a matter of time before Damascus falls – much like Tripoli did – leaving the mullahs with no nearby ally other than war-torn Iraq.

Those in power are probably constantly looking over their collective shoulder. As with other countries of North Africa and the Middle East, Iranians are a youthful, restive people who have shown a willingness to rise up against totalitarianism in the past.

Conditions are, in short, ripe for regime change. All that is required is for an organised opposition to rise up and take the reins of power. For the mullahs, this last point is key: the Iranian opposition, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), must be annihilated at all costs if they are to survive.

Within this context it is easy to see why the 3,400 men and woman living in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, are at the top of the list of Tehran’s targets. These people are PMOI/MEK sympathisers and have represented a thorn in the side of the Iranian regime for decades.

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iran’s stooge in Baghdad, threatened to dismantle the camp by the end of 2011 and scatter the residents. Given that Iraqi troops had already raided the camp on more than one occasion, killing dozens, there were real fears that the camp’s end would also be the end of the residents themselves. The deadline was only extended when PMOI/MEK leader Maryam Rajavi agreed that the residents be re-housed in Camp Liberty, a former US military base in the Iraqi capital.

Mrs Rajavi’s agreement was given reluctantly and only after receiving assurances from the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and that the United Nations would monitor conditions in Camp Liberty, where many residents faced a long stay. Sadly, this trust has been betrayed within weeks. Not only is the Iraqi government reneging on its promises to respect the lives and decency of the Ashraf community, the UN is keeping silent about the transformation of Camp Liberty into a concentration camp, a place more fit for cattle than human beings.

“Do you think the UN’s action with regard to Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty is unusual?”, asked Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, during his speech to an international conference earlier this month. “They’re ignoring the fact that these people are going to live in one square kilometre. They’re ignoring the fact that there’s no drinking water in Camp Liberty”. There is not a “single road with asphalt in the camp” or a “single piece of green area”, Mr Giuliani told the conference, which was organised by the French Committee for Democracy and Human Rights in Iran. This was not a camp, he said, but a prison.

“The Iraqi government has refused to allow any of the residents to visit because they don’t want them to see how terrible the conditions of their imprisonment are going to be”, he continued. “The UN has not objected to any of this. It is simply disgraceful for the UN to allow this to go forward. It’s disgraceful for the UN to submit to the demands of a regime like Maliki’s and ultimately to close its eyes to the fact that really what they’re doing is submitting to the demands of the Iranian mullahs”. Al-Maliki was, the event heard, “just a puppet on a string doing the bidding of the Iranian mullahs.”

To add salt to the wounds, the UN ambassador to Iraq, Martin Kobler, has failed to deny the most outrageous Iranian claims. According to the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad, hundreds of the Camp Ashraf residents are willing to be transferred to Tehran – where, as PMOI supporters they would face prison, torture and possibly execution. The United Nations considers the PMOI/MEK to be a terrorist organisation, according to the latest Iranian diplomatic salvo. Why doesn’t Mr Kobler deny these falsehoods? Whose side is the UN on?

Ashraf residents must believe that theirs is a story of betrayal. It was the US, after all, that, after liberating Iraq, promised to protect them if they agreed to disarm. The US is out of Iraq, but the residents are far from safe. A second betrayal is now in the making. For a body such as the United Nations, silence in the face of oppression is nothing short of scandalous.

Lord Carlile of Berriew, CBE, FRSA, QC

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/lord-carlile/iran-regime-change-conditions-are-ripe_b_1237828.html

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UN envoy consigns Iranian exiles to ‘prison’ in a shameful deal with Tehran

January 29, 2012 by

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

The week before Christmas, I reported on what appeared to be a fast-looming tragedy. In Iraq, 3,300 unarmed Iranian exiles, who had lived since the 1980s at Camp Ashraf, a neat town they built in the desert near the Iranian border, were being threatened with massacre on December 31.

The threat was issued by Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, acting in conjunction with Iran’s murderous Revolutionary Guards, who regard the People’s Mujahideen of Iran (the PMOI), part of the National Council for Resistance in Iran, as their most hated enemies. As the deadline neared, following intense diplomatic activity, not least by the US government (which gave a written guarantee of protection to each of the Ashraf residents in 2003, in return for the surrender of their arms), the UN signed an agreement with the Iraqi government, brokered by the UN’s special representative in Iraq, Martin Kolber, a former German diplomat.

The Ashraf residents would be transferred to Camp Liberty, a former US base covering 25 square miles near Baghdad, from where the UN would arrange their transfer to third countries. On Christmas Day, this was welcomed by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

It then emerged, however, that the 3,300 exiles would only be permitted to occupy a tiny corner of Camp Liberty, barely quarter of a mile square, which had been completely looted, was without running water and around which the Iraqis were erecting a 15ft concrete wall. They would not be allowed to bring vehicles or personal belongings, or leave the camp. Far from being offered a safe haven, it seemed, they were to await their fate crammed into what the European Council last week denounced as “a prison”, watched inside and out by armed Iraqi and Iranian guards.

As scandalous as anything in the past month has been the part played by the UN’s Mr Kolber who, far from protesting at this betrayal, met in Baghdad with the Iranian ambassador, himself a senior Revolutionary Guards commander. After the meeting he announced first that 750, then 1,250, of the exiles were willing to return to Iran. There is nothing they could dread more, since they know that they would either be imprisoned or killed. But Kobler’s claim has been trumpeted by Tehran as a victory, and the deadly impasse remains.

General David Phillips, the former head of the US Military Police, who gave the Ashraf residents those personal guarantees of their safety, has expressed his anguish at these developments. He has now been joined in protesting at the betrayal by an array of distinguished international figures, including Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York.

But on what authority could a UN official become party to this inhuman deal? And why does our Government appear to condone what is going on? The Foreign Office recently confirmed to me that they still regard the PMOI as terrorists, despite being told in 2008 that they must remove it from their list of proscribed terrorist organisations, when Lord Chief Justice Philips ruled that they had been unable to produce a shred of evidence to justify this. What dark game are they all playing – in our name?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9045657/How-I-woke-up-to-the-untruths-of-Barack-Obama.html

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UN hands Iran ‘propaganda fodder’ over Camp Ashraf

January 27, 2012 by

Remarks attributed to the UN’s top diplomat in Iraq have handed Tehran a propaganda coup by suggesting Camp Ashraf dissidents want to return to Iran, writes a member of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom

In 1942, in the middle of World War Two, a well-intentioned senior European diplomat went to meet a top Gestapo general to discuss the fate of thousands of Jews who had fled Nazi occupation to seek refuge in a neighbouring country. After the meeting, the general announced that the diplomat had told him that a large number of the Jews had become weary of being away from their motherland and were looking forward to going back to the “warmth” of their country – even under Nazi rule.

The story sounded farfetched, but the gloating Gestapo man insisted that the conversation took place. The European diplomat, for unexplained reasons, was not inclined to deny it, though it was evident that he had provided propaganda fodder to the Nazis. In reality, the tale was farfetched. Such a meeting never took place, to the best of our knowledge.

Now fast forward 70 years. Something very analogous to this story is taking place – and this time it is bitter reality, not a tale. It involves the fate of 3,400 Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, members of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran, the principal Iranian opposition movement. These Iranians fled the ruthless rule of the clerical regime and took refuge in Camp Ashraf, across the border. Following the American led occupation of Iraq, Ashraf residents disarmed to the United States voluntarily. In return, every resident signed an agreement with the Americans guaranteeing his or her protection until final disposition.

Troubles for Ashraf residents began when the US turned over the security of the camp to Iraqis in 2009. Iraqi forces, acting at the behest of the Iranian regime, have killed 47 of the defenceless residents and wounded more than 1,000 in two massacres. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s arbitrary deadline to close Ashraf by the end of 2011 set the stage for a humanitarian catastrophe, but it was revoked in the final days of December due to international pressure.

Subsequently – with guarantees for the safety and wellbeing of the residents by the US Secretary of State and the United Nations – Maryam Rajavi, the charismatic leader of Iranian dissidents, prevented another massacre and persuaded the residents to move to Camp Liberty, a former US military base near Baghdad, under constant United Nations monitoring. The government of Iraq also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UN to that effect.

But Maliki, under orders from Tehran, has been reneging on the agreement. Camp Liberty has been looted; it has no running water, no electricity, no infrastructure, and Iraq has reduced the allocated size from 40 square kilometres to one square kilometre. It also is erecting walls that would turn Camp Liberty into a virtual concentration camp. All the while, the UN and the Special Representative of the Secretary General to Iraq, Ambassador Martin Kobler, have not objected.

Now comes the perplexing part. On January 22, the mullahs’ regime, in its media, quoted its ambassador to Iraq Hassan DanaiiFar, a senior commander of the notorious Revolutionary Guards – our modern Gestapo – as saying that he met with Kobler and was told that : “In meetings that the UN representative has had with members of this grouplet in Camp Ashraf, the majority of members…declared readiness to return to Iran but the terrorist commanders of this grouplet have not let them out of the camp and somehow have taken the members hostage.”

The mullahs’ ambassador said that the UN ambassador told him that at least 750 Ashraf residents are willing to go back to the mullahs’ rule. Many questions come to mind immediately. If the mission of the UN is solely humanitarian and to save the Ashraf residents, does the UN envision a humanitarian role for Iran in dealing with its arch enemies? It is the old fox and the henhouse story. According to the residents, the UN ambassador has only met Ashraf residents for 15 minutes. How was he able to make such an assessment that 750 of the residents want to go to their executioners?

The Iranian state press has had a field day with the remarks attributed to the UN’s top diplomat in Iraq. Actually, since the UN ambassador has not denied these remarks attributed to him, Tehran is inflating the original figures and the Fars news agency, on January 24, quoted the mullahs’ ambassador as claiming that he had been told that 1,260 of the residents are eager to go back to the mullahs. Further silence by the UN ambassador only allows Tehran to further exaggerate the figure.

Every day that goes by without a denial by Kobler increases the shadow of doubt. The ambassador should know that this would make his mandate murky. The UN Charter stipulates that one of its aims is to achieve international cooperation in “promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms.” Assuming that this could be done by playing into the hands of an oppressor regime like the mullahs’ is not moral, ethical, or defensible. It is foolhardy and would cost lives of innocent people.

Lord King of West Bromwich is a member of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom

http://www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/1416/un-hands-iran-propaganda-coup-over-ashraf-dissidents

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