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

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

PRNewswire

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ —  Friday, January 27, 2012, marks the 300th day of a sit-in across from the US Department of State by the families and supporters of Camp Ashraf residents.

The participants will be asking Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to revoke the unwarranted designation of the MEK based on the facts and law and as a necessary condition for safety and security of the residents of Camp Ashraf

3,400 members of Iran’s principal opposition the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) and their families reside in Camp Ashraf. They have been formally recognized as “asylum seekers” by the United Nations since September 2011.

Following the April 2011 massacre at Camp Ashraf by Iraqi forces, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), the Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade revealed that, “In private discussions, the Iraqi ambassador’s office has said the blood is not on the hands of the Iraqi government but is at least partially on the hands of the State department because the MEK is listed as a terrorist group and, accordingly, Iraq doesn’t feel that it has to respect the human rights of those in the camp.”

The H. RES 60, which has some 100 bi-partisan cosponsors, reiterates that “the FTO designation of the MEK has been used by Iranian surrogates in Iraq as well as the Nuri al-Maliki Government in Iraq to attack the MEK members in Camp Ashraf or impose inhumane restrictions on them, which has led to loss of life.”

Meanwhile, officials in the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have told members of Congress that MEK’s FTO designation has blocked the UN agency’s efforts to find a safe haven outside of Iraq for Ashraf residents.

As Iraqi government continues to breach its agreement with the United Nations for a peaceful resolution to the humanitarian crisis in Camp Ashraf, time is running out to re-settle the residents in third countries.

The prompt and expeditious removal of MEK’s FTO designation will enhance US efforts to better fulfill its moral and legal responsibilities for ensuring safety of Ashraf residents. It will also remove a major obstacle to the resettlement of the residents in other countries. 

SOURCE: US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/day-300-of-state-department-sit-in-iranian-americans-call-on-secretary-clinton-to-delist-the-mek-protect-camp-ashraf-residents-138164424.html

Council of Europe

Strasbourg, 25.01.2012 – In a statement adopted today at its meeting in Strasbourg, the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called on the Iraqi authorities not to turn Camp Liberty into a prison, and called on the UNHCR to begin its work in Ashraf and end the delay in affirming the refugee status of the residents there.

While the international community is planning to find a peaceful solution for Ashraf and the residents are helping to make it come true through the relinquishment of their certain rights, the Iranian regime is planning for the failure of this solution through the Iraqi government.

The initial area allocated to the residents in Camp Liberty has reduced by 80 times and the living conditions in the camp are far less than initially proposed. The limited area is becoming enclosed by concrete walls; it is insisted that Iraqi police should be present inside the camp; freedom of movement is not allowed; there are increasing restrictions for the residents such as not being allowed to transfer their vehicles to Camp Liberty and to send a team of Ashraf technicians in order to assess the conditions of the camp. This will be a forcible relocation to a prison.

The Committee urges the Iraqi government to abandon the obstructions and to implement the international laws and standards with all details in the relocation of the residents to Camp Liberty, and urges the UNHCR to defend the resident’s rights within the laws and to immediately start its work in Ashraf, and not wait until Liberty Camp is ready, in order to expedite the resident’s resettlement in third countries.

We encourage Council of Europe member and observer states to consider positively the resettlement demands of Ashraf residents.

http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/NewsManager/EMB_NewsManagerView.asp?ID=7359&L=2

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Iranian dissidents at a camp north of Baghdad allege that the Iraqi government is preparing a “concentration camp” to which they are to be relocated under a United Nations-brokered plan. 

Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad International Airport, has been picked as a temporary home for more than 3,000 Camp Ashraf residents – former Iranian resistance fighters sheltered in Iraq since 1986.

But the camp has been reduced to a fraction of its original size and is surrounded by tall concrete walls and is monitored by surveillance cameras and police – all violations of the U.N. deal with the Iraqi government, said Shahriar Kia, a Camp Ashraf spokesman.

“This is clearly not only a concentration camp, but a prison,” he said in a telephone interview.

Radhia Achouri, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, told The Washington Times that Camp Liberty fails to meet U.N. standards.

“The government of Iraq is yet to complete the preparation of Camp Liberty in accordance with the international humanitarian criteria specified in the [U.N. agreement],” she said in an emailed response to questions from The Times.

Ms. Achouri said Camp Ashraf residents will move to Camp Liberty only after “the U.N. is satisfied, upon verification of the camp, that these humanitarian criteria are met.”

The Iraqi government had set a Dec. 31 deadline to close Camp Ashraf. Last month, it agreed to extend the deadline to the end of April, by which time it wants all Camp Ashraf residents to leave Iraq.

In December, Martin Kobler, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Iraq, struck the deal with the Iraqi government to move Camp Ashraf residents to Camp Liberty. The leadership of the resistance movement, known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), agreed to relocate 400 residents as a goodwill gesture.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accuses the MEK of being a terrorist group and wants to close the camp. The U.S. State Department designated the MEK as a terrorist organization in 1997, but American forces disarmed the resistance in 2003 after invading Iraq to topple dictator Saddam Hussein.

In the past couple of weeks, the Iranian exiles have reported rocket attacks on Camp Ashraf. The Iraqi government also has announced arrest warrants for 126 residents.

Mr. al-Maliki’s critics, including Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, accuse the prime minister of acting at the behest of the Shiite regime in Iran, which has pursued the resistance for decades.

“It was purely an Iranian decision to transfer [the Iranian exiles] from Camp Ashraf,” Mr. Mutlaq said in a phone interview.

“There is no reason to transport them to another location inside Iraq when we are looking to move them to other countries. It doesn’t make sense. We feel ashamed that they are suffering in our country,” he added.

Iraqi government spokesmen did not answer their phones or respond to emailed requests for comment from The Washington Times.

According to the U.N. agreement, the U.N. refugee agency will determine the refugee status of the dissidents after they are relocated to Camp Liberty in a necessary first step for their resettlement outside Iraq.

The deal potentially avoided what the exiles and their supporters feared would be a massacre by Iraqi army and police if they tried to close the camp by force.

Mr. Kia said Camp Ashraf residents have not been permitted to visit Camp Liberty but have received information on conditions at the site from sources inside Iran.

While the Iraqi government is solely responsible for the safety and security of the Iranian dissidents, it has agreed to allow the United Nations to station monitors at Camp Liberty.

U.N. officials have been visiting Camp Liberty regularly. They were accompanied by U.S. Embassy officials on a recent visit.

The Obama administration supports the U.N.-led effort.

“We are closely engaged with the U.N. and the Iraqi government, which are working to ensure that conditions at former Camp Liberty are consistent with international humanitarian standards,” said Noel Clay, a State Department spokesman.

He said the United States wants “a safe, secure, humane resolution of the impasse at Camp Ashraf.”

“Our interest is humanitarian and independent of our views of the MEK’s record,” he added.

The MEK, also known as People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, was responsible for terrorist attacks in Iran in the 1970s that killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians, according to the State Department. The group also received military and financial support from Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Camp Ashraf’s residents surrendered their weapons in 2003 as part of a cease-fire agreement with U.S. forces. The State Department is reviewing its designation of MEK as a terrorist organization. The European Union removed the group from its terrorist blacklist in 2009.

Mr. Kia, the Camp Ashraf spokesman, said residents haven’t changed their mind about moving to Camp Liberty, but they first want written assurances from the United Nations that all humanitarian conditions have been met at the new site.

Ms. Achouri, the U.N. spokeswoman in Baghdad, said the United Nations has urged the Iraqi government to accommodate requests from the residents of Camp Ashraf for more space at Camp Liberty and other requests, such as allowing the exiles to bring their vehicles to what will be their new home.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/23/iran-dissidents-iraq-force-into-concentration-camp/

While the world is rightly concerned about Iran’s nuclear and terrorist threats, it is imperative to also keep the focus on the plight of Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, argues David Amess MP.

In December, as a result of an intense international campaign, a humanitarian catastrophe was prevented regarding the 3,400 residents of Ashraf, members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, Tehran’s arch nemesis.

Nouri-al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq, acting at the behest of the clerical regime ruling Iran, had set an arbitrary deadline to close Camp Ashraf, the home of the dissidents for the past 25 years, by the end of 2011.

In the last days of 2011, subsequent to written assurances by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the United Nations, guaranteeing the safety and wellbeing of Ashraf residents, Mrs Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the Iranian Resistance, persuaded Ashraf residents to agree to move to Camp Liberty, a former US military camp near Baghdad, so the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) could start reaffirming the refugee status of Ashraf residents as a prelude to relocation to third countries.

But less than a month after the agreement, the international community has been confronted with yet another series of dangerous provocations by the government of Iraq.

Meanwhile, it has become evident that Camp Liberty has been looted, vandalised and pilfered away to a point that it is not inhabitable. Actually Maliki has ridiculously reduced the size of Camp Liberty available to Ashraf residents and is trying to turn it into a concentration camp.

As such, despite the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed between the Government of Iraq and the UN, Al-Maliki just last week in an interview with Iranian state media, repeated the false accusations of the Iranian mullahs and said that he has arrest warrants for more than 126 of the residents. This means that he is willingly capitulating further to the demands of Iran’s theocratic regime. Twice in 2009 and 2011 he ordered armed attacks on Camp Ashraf, leaving 47 residents dead.

The international community must now draw its own conclusions. There has been so far too much equivocation from the international community, in particular by the United Nations. It would be foolhardy on the part of the UN to think that it could get positive results with Maliki to resolve the Ashraf crisis by seeking accommodation and being spineless.

As Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York, pointed out in an international conference on Ashraf in Paris on January 20: “The UN has not objected to any of Maliki’s misconduct. 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 what they’re doing is submitting to the demands of the Iranian mullahs.”

General Hugh Shelton, the former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, while referring to the conditions of Camp Liberty and recent remarks made by Maliki, said: “Ambassador Kobler, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative in Iraq, must bring the violations of the Government of Iraq to the attention of the UN secretary general and to the Security Council. That is what an ambassador gets paid to do”.

According to Philippe Douste-Blazy, the former French foreign minister: “As long as the minimum requirements of the inhabitants, particularly in terms of bringing their goods and their vehicles, respecting their privacy or cancelling arrest warrants fabricated to harass them and turn them over to the Iranian regime, are not met, the transfer to the new camp will be a forcible displacement, unacceptable and contrary to all conventions. I urge the UN secretary general not to sign an agreement about that.”

Premonitions of another humanitarian crisis loom on the horizon. In order to prevent this from becoming a bitter reality, the international community must compel Iraq to stop breaching its commitments to the UN regarding Ashraf.

First and foremost, the UN must not keep silent as Iraq breaches its commitments.

Subsequently, the UNHCR should in no unequivocal terms tell Maliki that the UN can no longer tolerate deliberate delaying tactics improvised by the government of Iraq. Ashraf residents’ emergency circumstances and the government of Iraq’s obstructions make it imperative for the UNHCR to follow the collective determination process for the residents. This is an inevitable step to guarantee safety and security of Ashraf residents against various irrepressible threats.

By taking these measures, the UN would make it clear that its objective and mandate is to protect and to guarantee the safety and wellbeing of Ashraf resident and it is not beholden to seeking Maliki’s satisfaction.

This is what the world is waiting to hear from the UN.

David Amess has been a Conservative Member of Parliament since 1983.

http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/urgent-international-action-required-at-camp-ashraf

NCRI – In an interview on Monday January 16, 2012 with the mullahs’ regime Arabic TV channel al-Alam, the Iraqi Prime Minister completely despoiled the MOU signed with the UN on Ashraf and his engagements towards the UN and the US, repeating false accusations by the mullahs’ regime:  “The PMOI is involved in terrorism. They have been condemned on international level for their involvement in terrorism, so it is not possible, neither legally nor for interest considerations for this organization to be allowed to stay in Iraq.”

Admitting having taken repressive and criminal measures against Ashraf residents he said:  “We pressured them.  Our position was to end their presence on December 31.  In actuality we had taken all measures to prepare to end this presence in any form possible.   There were interventions and mediations.   The UN Secretary General contacted.  Personalities and officials due to interest and that it wouldn’t result in a confrontation with them and as a result they requested they, in four months in 2012, stay until the fourth month.   But an agreement with the United Nation took place for it to take over this job and this (United Nations) take their responsibility.   Until the end of fourth month is reached, Ashraf will be closed and will be returned to its owners and they will be transferred to a new camp near the airport.”
  
The Iraqi Prime Minister, who receives orders from the Tehran regime, said in clear violation of the MOU: “We have now 121 arrest warrants for those who are now in Ashraf city, who have committed crimes.” He added:  “At the end of the fourth month their departure from the country should be finished.  Either they will go to Iran under the Amnesty given by the Islamic Republic or they will go to countries that will extend them refugee status and those who have passports will travel normally to countries they have their passport such as Canada or France or other countries they have their passport.”
 
He then threatened: “We have endured them for long and we will endure them for the next four months and we will see that if the United Nations will be able (to resettle them – translator) or not. If it couldn’t then we will act because we own this country and we are the authority and such an organization is a violation of our authority.”

At the same time, information from inside the mullahs’ regime shows that Danaifar, the mullahs’ regime ambassador in Baghdad, has asked Maliki to “extradite to Iran those leading the PMOI in camp Ashraf, and Maliki has promised to turn over those people in the time frame set by the regime and would do all in his power to further shorten the period.”

According to the same information the Iraqi government, on orders received from Iran and by “building high wall around the camp and the presence of a large number of security forces inside the perimeter of the new camp” is trying to increase pressure on the residents while trying to hurdle the implementation of the MOU, hindering his own engagements according to the signed document, in order to allege that the PMOI was not cooperating and was violating the MOU.
 
Therefore there is no doubt, as the Iranian Resistance has time and again confirmed, including in statements of January 2, 9 and 13, that the Iranian regime aided by the Iraqi government wants to prevent a peaceful settlement of the Ashraf problem.  A settlement confirmed by the international community including Secretary Clinton, Baroness Ashton and the Secretary General of the UN and for which accomplishment the Ashraf residents have to this day abandoned many of their just rights.
 
Maliki’s remarks and his government’s acts constitute a clear violation of December 25 MOU signed by the Iraqi government and the special representative of the UN Secretary General and the latter’s letter of December 28 to Ashraf residents, showing clearly that Maliki wants to turn camp Liberty into a prison for Ashraf residents with the signature of the United Nations, in order to pressure them to surrender to the religious dictatorship ruling Iran. Be it by insisting on the faked warrants or consistent mention of the “amnesty issued by the Islamic Republic” or stressing that he would take action unless all Ashraf residents left Iraq by the end of April, he reveals criminal plans by the Iranian regime and his ill intentions to implement those plans. It is ridiculous to talk of amnesty in a regime having executed 43 people since the New Year, with at least three political prisoners charged with having familial relations with Ashraf residents among them.
 
On the verge of faked legislative elections for the mullahs’ parliament, and increasing internal crisis and at a time when the uprising of the Syrian people has made the bell toll for the mullahs’ regime, this regime tries to avoid certain downfall through acquiring atomic weapons and annihilation of its main opposition through Iraqi proxies.
 
Regretting the complete denial, in words and in deeds, of the MOU just after its signature by the Iraqi government, Mrs Rajavi called for firm position and urgent action by the UN Security Council and Secretary General, the US administration and the European union on the Iraqi violations and the series of illegal acts of the Iraqi government along with continuous violation of international conventions and law related to Ashraf residents. She once again called for an international conference with the participation of representatives of the UNHCR, OHCHR, special representative for the UN Secretary General, representatives of Ashraf residents, the Iraqi government, the US administration and the European Union.
 
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
January 17, 2012

http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/ashraf/11623-mou-signed-with-un-violated-by-maliki-through-repressive-measures-against-camp-ashraf-residents-and-announcing-that-arrest-warrants-are-issued-against-them

THE HUFFINGTON POST

“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

That old adage is being tested these days in Iraq, where the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki is doing its best to fool the 3400 members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK) into a no-win move from their home in Camp Ashraf. But the Iranian dissidents and the world community is not buying.

Camp Ashraf had been under the protection of U.S. forces since its residents voluntarily handed over their weapons in 2003 and were recognised as “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention. But in 2009, when the U.S. began its withdrawal from Iraq, that “protection” switched to the Maliki government – and so did the treatment of the men, women, and children there.

Since then, Ashraf has been besieged, forcibly attacked twice resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries, and suffered harassment with everything from blaring loudspeakers, denial of food, water and medical services and have even been subjected to rocket attacks. To make matters worse, Maliki also set a 31 December, 2011, deadline for the residents to leave the camp, and be dispersed around Iraq thus breaking their cohesion and making them more vulnerable to personal attack.

At the same time, he blocked efforts by the United Nations refugee agency to screen the residents to allow them to qualify for political asylum elsewhere.

Then, a week before the deadline, the UN, U.S. and Maliki reached an agreement that would allow the dissidents to move to an abandoned U.S. Army base called Camp Liberty, near Baghdad, under the watchful eyes of UN peacekeepers and U.S. monitors.

It sounded good, and the MEK said 400 residents were prepared to go, providing reasonable guarantees were given, in order to test the Iraqi promises – but the euphoria was short-lived. This is where the “fool me twice” situation arises.

First, Baghdad reneged on its promise to allow Ashraf residents to take their vehicles and moveable assets with them. Then, it reduced the area of Camp Liberty to be used by the residents from 40 square kilometers to less than ONE! And it started building a wall that would make it a virtual prison.

The international community therefore rejected the Iraqi offer. They also gave a profound “No” to Maliki’s actions having clearly recognized that he was acting at the behest of his friends, the Mullahs in Tehran, who fear the MEK and all dissidents, both at home and in the Iranian Diaspora.

“Fool me twice” was clearly not an option at an international conference held in defence of Ashraf in Paris on Friday, December 6, attended by leading politicians from across the world including representing both U.S. political parties, together with Mrs Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance.

Indeed, Mrs. Rajavi, who lives in exile in Paris, offered to travel to Baghdad to participate in negotiations to resolve the fate of the Ashraf residents, but the Maliki government rejected that, just as it has blocked the UN relief agency from interviewing the dissidents at Ashraf.

Gov. Ed Rendell, former chair of the Democratic National Committee and governor of Pennsylvania put it clearly when he said: “There are two words that the United States and the United Nations haven’t used that have to be used – ‘why’ and ‘no.'” ‘Why’ to moving Camp Ashraf residents in the first place, since the camp is in the middle of nowhere and a problem to no one. And ‘no’ to the Iraqi government’s objection to having United Nations blue helmets or U.S. troops protecting the residents of Ashraf until they were relocated.

Condemning these obstructions, the conference endorsed Mrs. Rajavi’s proposal for a special meeting to be held in Paris, Brussels, or Geneva, to be presided over by the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Iraq (SGSR); and attended by herself or Camp Ashraf representatives; authoritative Iraqi officials; Ambassador Daniel Fried, Secretary Clinton’s special representative on Camp Ashraf; the representative of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad for Camp Ashraf, and others.

Whilst standing with the Ashraf residents, the U.S. must also remove the shackles from the MEK, which it has listed as a terrorist organization for more than a decade, even though the UK and EU removed such listings years ago. Whilst the reasons may have been understandable, though wrongheaded, when they were originally applied, they surely don’t apply today.

At a time when Tehran threatens to execute an American ‘spy’ and blockade the Straits of Hormuz, the U.S. needs the support of all the opponents of the mullahs they can get. There is no reason for the terrorist listing, as the U.S. Federal Court and courts in Europe and the UK have determined, and Secretary Clinton should act quickly to remove it.

The mullahs fooled the U.S. government into putting the MEK on the terrorist list; now the U.S. must show that it won’t be fooled again.

Brian Binley: Conservative Member of Parliament for Northampton South

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/brian-binley/unshackle-mek-protect-ashraf-residents_b_1208578.html