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The noose tightens around Iranian refugees at Camp Ashraf

December 12, 2011 by

 

The Iraqi government has announced that it plans to close Camp Ashraf, home to more than 3,000 Iranian dissidents by the end of the year. But the decision has put the international community in a difficult position.

During his visit to the US this week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has a number of issues on the agenda, primarily the December 31, 2011, withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq. But at Camp Ashraf – home to more than 3,000 Iranian dissidents in Iraq – all eyes are set on whether Maliki’s visit could bring a resolution to a looming crisis over the future of the refugee camp.

December 31 also happens to be the deadline set by Maliki’s government to dismantle the camp, which is situated in Iraq’s Diyala province about 60 kilometres north of Baghdad.

A sprawling camp that emerged in the mid-1980s, Camp Ashraf is a base of the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI), a resistance group opposed to the Iranian theocratic regime and reviled in Tehran. Under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the group – which is also called the Mujahideen Khalq – mounted attacks against the Iranian government.

Following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the camp was disarmed and secured by US troops until 2009, when the US turned the camp over to the Iraqi government.

Since the handover to the Iraqi government, human rights groups have criticised the Iraqi military of regularly targeting “unarmed dissidents in the camp”. The most recent incident occurred in April, when 34 camp residents were killed, according to the UN.

“Considering the previous dramatic incidents in the camp against its unarmed inhabitants, we can expect the worst, which would mean a new bloodbath if Baghdad implements its [December 31 camp dismantling] decision,” warned Afchine Alavi, a spokesman for the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is composed mainly of Mujahideen Khalq members.

Alavi was speaking at an international conference in Paris over the weekend, when NCRI members – along with a number of former senior US military and political leaders – called for “urgent action by the international community” to intervene with Iraqi leaders.

UN call for extension of camp closure deadline

The UN has appealed to the Iraqi government to delay the planned December 31 closure of Camp Ashraf, with UN special envoy for Iraq Martin Kobler calling on Maliki’s government to extend the deadline “in order to permit adequate time and space for a solution to be found”.

But the Iraqi government has insisted that the camp must close by the end of the year. Baghdad says Camp Ashraf is a security threat and Iraq’s UN ambassador Hamid al-Bayati maintains that Iraq cannot host any group “which will attack neighboring countries”.

Critics however state that the Iraqi government’s sole purpose for closing down the camp is to please the Iranian government. “No timetable, no interest in Iraq justifies the closure of Camp Ashraf,” said Alavi. “They’re acting solely in Iran’s interests. Iran dictates the terms to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.”

With Baghdad attempting to bolster ties with Iran, the dissidents in Camp Ashraf have become a major irritant to Iraq’s Shiite-led government. Both countries have Shiite majorities and in Iraq, Shiite political groups dominate power with many Iraqi politicians – including Maliki – having spent time in exile in Iran.

Following the December 31, 2011, withdrawal of US troops, there are growing concerns in Washington over Iran’s influence in Iraq.

Lobbying to get struck off the terrorist list

Saturday’s conference in Paris ended with delegates issuing an appeal to US President Barack Obama. “On the eve of the Iraqi Prime Minister’s visit to the United States, we are writing to call for immediate action to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Camp Ashraf in Iraq,” said the final declaration.

The pressure on Washington is no coincidence. Under the Geneva Conventions, the US granted the refugees of Camp Ashraf the status of “protected persons” while maintaining the Mujahideen Khalq on the US list of terrorist organisations.

The EU, on the other hand, removed the group from its “black list” in 2009, following several court rulings. But the group has a shadowy reputation, with the New York-based Human Rights Watch accusing the Mujahideen Khalq of controlling the camp with an iron hand and muzzling residents who challenge its authority.

In a New York Times report, a US State Department official, who declined to be named, said the camp’s leaders “exert total control over the lives of Ashraf’s residents, much like we would see in a totalitarian cult,” requiring fawning devotion to the group’s leaders, Maryam Rajavi, who lives in France, and her husband, Massoud, whose whereabouts are unknown.

Supporters of the group however deny the charges say it has renounced violence and has not engaged in terrorist acts for a decade.

In an interview with FRANCE 24 on the sidelines of Saturday’s conference, Brig. Gen. David Phillips, the commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade of the US Army, which was responsible for the security of Camp Ashraf in 2004, said he found no evidence that the group was a terrorist organisation.

“Initially, when I arrived at Camp Ashraf, I was told simply that they’re a foreign terrorist organisation. I tried very hard to get information as to why they are that type of organisation. I was never able to substantiate any of those allegations, [which was] very frustrating for my soldiers and I,” said Phillips.

As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton completes a review of the terrorist designation, there has been a massive lobbying effort in the US for a designation reversal.

The lobbying effort has won high profile supporters in the US, including Andrew Card, President George W. Bush’s chief of staff, who attended Saturday’s conference in Paris.

“I’m a very strong advocate of their being taken off that list,” said Card in an interview with FRANCE 24. “I hope that the Obama administration will move quickly to make sure they’re no longer on the State Department terrorist list.”

Card maintains that the US bears a responsibility to protect the residents of Camp Ashraf and that Washington’s credibility is at stake following the attacks in the camp after the 2009 camp handover to Iraqi forces. “We want to make very sure that the word that America gave to the people of Camp Ashraf that they will be protected is respected by Prime Minister Maliki,” said Card.

In a December 6 column in the Washington Post, Maliki noted that “the camp’s residents are classified as a terrorist organisation by many countries and thus have no legal basis to remain in Iraq,” before adding, “No country would accept the presence of foreign insurgents on its soil, but we will work hard to find a peaceful solution that upholds the international values of human rights.”

Finding a peaceful resolution to the current crisis is just what the residents of Camp Ashraf want. But the clock is ticking and for the more than 3,000 camp residents, there is little guarantee of what the New Year will bring.

 

Filed Under: Luminaries, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

An Iranian political agenda exists to force Mujahedin E-Khalq out of Iraq

December 12, 2011 by

Aswat al-Iraq

BAGHDAD /Aswat al-Iraq –  The official spokesman of al-Iraqiya List, led by former PrimeMinister Iyad Allawi, has said on Monday that “there is a politicalagenda, moved by Iran to give an impression for the expulsion of theanti-Tehran Mujahedin El-Khalq organization’s residents from east Iraq’s AshrafCamp.”

“Thepolitical agenda is known to be moved by the Iranian Regime and does notreflect the real wish of the Iraqi people, which we surely reject and thinkthat our previous position had been a position of principle, because the caseof residents of Ashraf Camp was based on International agreements and theGeneva Treaty,” Haider al-Mulla said in a statement, copy of which was receivedby Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

“TheIraqi government has no other alternative but to lean to the statement of theUN Secretary-General’s Representative, and we believe that the HigherCommission for the Immigrants Affair possesses realistic mechanisms to settlethis dossier, whilst talk about moving the residents of Ashraf Camp from Diyalato another Iraqi province inside Iraq is part of an Iranian agenda, aimed atliquidating Mujahedin El-Khalq’s elements,” he said.

The Iraqigovernment had issued a decision to put an end for the presence of the saidOrganization in Iraq before the end of 2011, charging it with being,” aterrorist organization that had shared in killing Iraqis.

The anti-TehranMujahedin E-Khalq organization is based in Ashraf Camp in northeast Iraq’sDiala Province, for which it had moved after shifting its command into Iraq in1985, where it had enjoyed support by the previous Iraqi regime, in its attacksagainst Iran. 

SKH (TS)/SR

http://ku.aswataliraq.info/(S(gqhfqs55lggfedazi2vfrs45))/Default1.aspx?page=article_page&id=132633&l=1

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

SAVING CAMP ASHRAF

December 12, 2011 by

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

More than 60 members of Congress and a human rights commission named for the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the House are urging President Obama to use his Monday meeting with the prime minister of Iraq to demand he protect Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf.

The letters sent to the White House on Friday are the latest developments in a growing U.S. campaign to prevent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from closing the former military base north of Baghdad by the end of this month.

More than 3,400 Iranian exiles fear the Iraqi government will evict them from Camp Ashraf and deport many of them to Iran, where they face execution as opponents of the brutal theocratic regime.

U.S. supporters of the Camp Ashraf residents are expected to protest outside the White House during Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. al-Maliki. Speakers at the 11 a.m. rally will include former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell and former Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island Democrat, the protest organizers said.

In their letter, the 66 members of Congress expressed their distrust of Mr. al-Maliki because he broke his promise to protect the Camp Ashraf residents after U.S. forces turned over control of the compound to Iraq in 2009.

American forces disarmed the dissidents in 2003, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein. The United States treated the camp residents as “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions.

Iraqi forces twice attacked the unarmed dissidents, killing nine people in July 2009 and 36 in April this year. They wounded hundreds in both assaults.

“Our lack of trust in Mr. Maliki is well-founded,” the House members said.

“It is imperative that Mr. Maliki understand, in the clearest terms, that harm to Camp Ashraf residents will be met with severe consequences from the United States.”

The signatories on the bipartisan letter spanned the political spectrum from liberals of the Congressional Black Caucus to conservative tea party members.

The letter from the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission emphasized the need for U.N. officials to have more time to interview all Camp Ashraf residents who have applied for refugee status. The commission added that Mr. al-Maliki would violate a U.N. treaty on civil and political rights by forcibly relocating the Iranian dissidents.

The commission, formerly known as the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, was named after the late Tom Lantos, a California Democrat and only Holocaust survivor to serve in the House.

Mr. al-Maliki has partially based his decision to expel the dissidents on the inclusion of the group, called the Mujahedin-e Khalq, on the U.S. terrorist list, although the State Department is under a court order to review the group’s status.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/11/embassy-row-152434741/

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News, US Congress Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Iraq’s Looming Massacre of Iranian MEK Refugees

December 9, 2011 by

THE DAILY BEAST

 When the last U.S. troops leave Dec. 31, Iraqi forces will destroy Camp Ashraf, home to thousands of Iranian refugees belonging to the MEK. Geoffrey Robertson on the appalling human-rights tragedy unfolding.

The time bomb that is ticking toward a new human-rights disaster is near Baghdad, in a 25-acre compound, where 3,400 refugees from Iranian religious fascism await the cruelest of fates. Whilst nominally under United Nations protection, 36 of them have been killed by Iraqi forces already this year, and Dec. 31, the deadline for the U.S. troop pullout, is likely to be their deadline as well. The Iraqi government, under pressure from Iran, has announced that on that very same date it will demolish Camp Ashraf.

The camp houses the remnants of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK)—once described by Ayatollah Khomeini as “a syncretic mix of Marxism and Islam.” It started in Tehran universities in the late 1960s, attracting idealistic students who fought guerrilla battles against the shah’s secret police, but whose dreams of a secular state were soon dashed by the rule of the ayatollah. Hundreds were killed in student protests by his Revolutionary Guards, whilst thousands were arrested and then executed or (if lucky) sentenced to long prison terms.

Some escaped to Paris, but the fickle French expelled them in 1986 under pressure from Iran. They had nowhere to go but Iraq, where Saddam Hussein welcomed them to Camp Ashraf and used them as a “Free Iran” force. After the truce in 1988, Khomeini issued a secret fatwa ordering that all MEK supporters in Iranian prisons should be killed. In a bloodbath that ranks as the worst prisoner-of-war atrocity since the Japanese death marches at the end of World War II, thousands were summarily executed, under the orders of Ali Khamenei, then Iran’s president and now its supreme leader, and Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Camp Ashraf remained. Its residents were protected under the Geneva Conventions and were in any event refugees unable to return to Iran because of a well-founded fear—indeed, a certainty—that they would be executed both as traitors and as mohareb, or enemies of God. After the invasion in 2003, the U.S. formally recognized the MEK as having the status of “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions. Their weapons were decommissioned by the U.S. forces, and every Ashraf resident signed a written agreement denouncing terrorism and rejecting violence. In return, the U.S. promised to protect them until their final disposition. They built roads and residential complexes at the camp, with educational, social, and sports facilities, and infrastructure worth millions of dollars.

On Oct. 7, 2005, the deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition forces praised the residents of Camp Ashraf for “working together in the spirit of common humanitarianism,” and confirmed the coalition’s endorsement of their right to be protected from violence and their right as refugees not to be “refouled”; i.e., sent back to Iran. Their safety seemed assured, especially after the MEK did the world a service by revealing Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Natanz. That, of course, merely deepened the Iranian regime’s hatred of them, and it began intense diplomatic pressure on Iraq to close down Camp Ashraf.

Once the U.S. troop pullout began in 2008, the pressure started to have an effect. The Iraqi government formally demanded that it should take over security at the camp because the MEK was a “terrorist organization.” Gen. David Petraeus insisted that they were “protected persons” and U.S. forces would defend them. But Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced his determination to “put an end” to the MEK. As soon as all U.S. combat forces had left, he ordered a joint Army and police attack on the camp. In July 2009, U.S. military observers watched helplessly as Iraqi forces besieged and then attacked the camp, killing 11 residents (six were shot, the others beaten to death) and wounding hundreds. The operation was apparently intended to terrify the residents into leaving voluntarily, but instead it steeled their resolve.

Despite an international outcry, Maliki continued the siege of the camp, denying supplies of food and medicine. In early 2011 Iran stepped up its demands that the camp be destroyed. After Camp Grizzly, a nearby U.S. Army observation post, was disbanded, Maliki ordered another murderous assault in April, leaving 35 dead and more than 300 injured with gunshot and shrapnel wounds. Iran immediately congratulated Iraq for its “positive stance that strengthens mutual relations”—presumably a stance that was positive because it included killing innocent people that both governments disliked.

There was, of course, an international outcry. The U.N. commissioner for human rights and the European Union deplored the killings and called for an independent and transparent inquiry, which the lying Maliki promised but never set up. There was hand-wringing at the White House, “deeply troubled” by the casualties, but not troubled enough to do anything to protect the residents from the massacre that is likely when the U.S. troops leave Dec. 31. That is when Maliki’s deadline expires and his Army and police will move in, destroying the camp, whose buildings and facilities are worth millions of dollars, without compensation. Doubtless they will kill residents, just as they recklessly killed them in 2009 and in April 2011, and remove the rest to a prison in Baghdad, ready, perhaps for Iranian interrogators.

International law is clear: the people of Ashraf are refugees, and they are entitled to protection from the kind of brutality that almost certainly awaits them from Maliki’s forces. The U.S. has abandoned them and UNAMI, the remaining U.N. mission, has been pathetic—its “ambassador,” a German diplomat, has refused to meet the residents and has allowed himself to be fobbed off for months by the government. He is not even objecting to Camp Ashraf’s closure, but only asking for its residents to be relocated inside Iraq, which would make it easier for more of them to be killed.

The conduct of the U.N.’s refugee agency, in relation to people it accepts as asylum seekers whose claims demand adjudication, also has been lacking in humanity. It has a duty to process their claims, but it declines to do so inside the camp. It has persistently delayed whilst claiming to look for a ”safe” location to conduct interviews outside the camp, although it must be obvious that for Iranian dissidents, no location in Iraq is “safe” from Maliki’s army and police.

Although no one doubts that these Iranians would face persecution if returned to Iran, the UNHCR claims, wrongly in law, that it cannot accord the group refugee status until each and every one of them has been interviewed. This special treatment, it says, is because the MEK has “a history of armed activities.” But that is not international law, and in any event the group’s armed activities ended in 2001. By deliberately stalling on any peaceful solution and putting at risk the lives of those it should be protecting, the UNHCR is playing Iran’s game.

Ironically, the Obama administration has given a free kick to Camp Ashraf’s enemies with its failure to lift its “terrorist” designation on the MEK. This designation was removed by court order in the U.K., where the court described it as “perverse,” and in Europe, but the label remains in the U.S., pursuant to Section 219 of its Immigration and Nationality Act. Over a year ago a U.S. court ordered the State Department to reconsider, because the designation had been made without due process. The failure of the State Department to do so provides the tormentors of the Ashraf refugees—Iran and the pro-Iranian Iraqi government—with a bogus excuse to deny them their rights.

Many American and British soldiers died for the cause of liberating Iraq from Saddam’s oppression; it is galling to see his successor behaving with comparable brutality. Iraq is now a sovereign state and its power to expropriate Camp Ashraf, after paying appropriate compensation, cannot be doubted. But nor can its duty under international law to protect these refugees and give them safe passage out of Iraq, where they will be persecuted, and avoid Iran, where they will be killed. European countries should give them refuge—France, in particular, which wrongly expelled many of them in 1986. Until that can be arranged, Camp Ashraf must remain. Otherwise, in just a few weeks time, it is very likely that more of its residents will be massacred.

Geoffrey Robertson QC was president of the U.N.’s war crimes court in Sierra Leone and is the author of Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice (The New Press).

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

To most of the world, Iranian dissidents are not terrorists

December 8, 2011 by

THE WASHINGTON POST

Letter to the Editor

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki [“Building a stable Iraq,” op-ed, Dec. 6] made clear the pretext that has been used to justify his country’s policy of brutality against the approximately 3,400 members of the Iranian dissident group the Mujahedin el-Khalq (MEK), located at Camp Ashraf, 60 kilometers north of Baghdad. “The camp’s residents,” he stated, “are classified as a terrorist organization by many countries, and thus have no legal basis to remain inIraq.” 

This is untrue. Only theUnited StatesandCanada— and, of course,Iran— continue to maintain the MEK on their respective lists of terrorist organizations. More than two years ago, an appellate court inBritainthrew out that designation as baseless, and the European Union soon followed suit. 

Nearly three years ago, theUnited Statesformally relinquished sovereignty overCampAshrafto the Iraqis. In July 2009, and in April of this year, Iraqi forces invaded Ashraf, killing nearly 50 residents and injuring hundreds. More recently, Mr. Maliki has insisted that the people of Ashraf leave the country, although he knows that there is nowhere for them to go, largely because of theU.S.terrorist designation. In apparent preparation for a mass deportation, he proposes to consolidate them in a remote location. With deportation, they quite likely will be left to the tender mercies of the Iranian regime. 

In this context, Mr. Maliki’s expressed interest in seeing the fate of the MEK “resolved peacefully and with the help of the United Nations” will have to await the test of credibility: Actions speak louder than words. 

Allan Gerson and Steven M. Schneebaum, Washington 

The writers are lawyers representing the Mujahedin el-Khalq in theUnited Statesin its efforts to remove the group’s designation as a terrorist entity. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/to-most-of-the-world-iranian-dissidents-are-not-terrorists/2011/12/06/gIQAi48GgO_story.html

 

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Iraqi MP: Iran Should Give Incentives to Iraq for Expelling MEK

December 8, 2011 by

Stop Fundamentalism

An Iraqi Member of Parliament in Maliki’s bloc told reporters today that it would be a grave mistake for Iraq expelling the MEK without receiving adequate incentives from Iran, said Shafagh News website.  She also stressed that there are a great many armed groups operating in Iraq supported by the Iranian regime while their cases remain undisclosed.

“Iraq’s foreign policy is full of flaws,” said Batoul Farough from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bloc in the Iraqi parliament told to Shafagh news reporter, “one of such mistakes is expelling the MEK without receiving any incentive from the Iranian side.”

“This will result in a situation where Iraq will no longer have a pressure leverage against neighboring countries that intervene in Iraqi affaires,” highlighted Farough.

Another member of the bloc, Ali Al-Alagh, said that the members of the MEK after closing the camp at the end of this year will be taken to various temporary locations specially designated for this purpose in Iraq. He added that Iraq is under a lot of pressure from Iran with this regard.

MEK members are the principal Iranian opposition movement in exile who have lived in Iraq for the past 25 years in a camp internationally known as Camp Ashraf located about 80 kilometers north of Baghdad.  The 3400 residents in the camp are unarmed and are currently being considered for refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Last April Iraqi forces raided the camp killing 36 residents including 8 women.  Since the incident the Iraqi government has put a blockade on the camp and threatens to close the camp at the end of the year and disperse the residents in different locations in Iraq.  

Residents say that they will not be willingly relocated inside Iraq as that will be tantamount to a group suicide.

Martin Kobler, the United Nations Secretary General Special Envoy to Iraq told a meeting of the Security Council Tuesday that at Ashraf, “Lives are at stake, they need protection,” calling for the UN to take strong measure to prevent a large scale massacre of the resident.

http://www.stopfundamentalism.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1274:iraqi-mp-iran-should-give-incentives-to-iraq-for-expelling-mek

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Arab lawyers and jurists describe Ashraf Camp case as “genocide”

December 8, 2011 by

Aswat al-Iraq

BAGHDAD –  Three thousand Arab and Iraqi lawyers and jurists have described the “time-table” set for Ashraf Camp as “genocide.”

In a statement received by Aswat al-Iraq, issued at the end of a press conference held in Cairo by lawyers and jurists from Iraq, Egypt and Jordan, they said that “Iranis attempting to forcibly move them to other provinces to kill them at a later stage,” regarding ” the next step as a genocide against humanity.”

“Although the Iraqi government has given assurances, the fact is that the future holds a potential genocide,” the statement added.

It called on the Arab League to interfere and called on the Iraqi government to cancel its decision to expel the anti-Iranian Ashraf Camp residents, pending their transfer to a third country.

Ashraf Camp is the base for anti-Iranian Mujahidi Khalq, which is regarded by the US, Iraq and Iran as a terrorist organization, while the European Union removed it from its black list in 2009.

The 3,400 camp residents lack any official standing inIraq at time of Iraqi government threats to close it by the end of this year.

http://ku.aswataliraq.info/Default1.aspx?page=article_page&id=132579&l=1

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Lawmakers, retired colonel voice support for Iranian exile group

December 8, 2011 by

STARS AND STRIPES

BAGHDAD — Lawmakers and former military officials called on the U.S. government to protect an Iranian exile group in Iraq facing resettlement by the end of the year, citing conflict with Iraqi security forces earlier this year that killed dozens of people.

The hearing came in the wake of an intensive lobbying effort by former high-level U.S. government officials to have the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terror groups.

The 3,400 MEK members at the camp were friendly to U.S. forces who oversaw their settlement at Camp Ashraf until the U.S. relinquished control in 2009, former camp commander and retired Army Col. Wesley Martin told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Wednesday, according to published testimony.

Martin advocated relocating the group to the United States, and referred to an April video that purportedly showed 34 unarmed people being killed during resistance to Iraqi security forces entering the compound as evidence that the Iraqi government had no intention of protecting them.

During the video, some rushed to the aid of fallen comrades during the gunfire, according to Martin.

“I know if either myself or the American warriors with me at Ashraf had been under such an attack, the residents at Ashraf would have been rushing equally fast to our rescue,” Martin said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said during the hearing that the camp risked massacre by Iraqi forces without special protection, according to a New York Times report.

The State Department is re-examining MEK’s status as a terrorist organization, said Ambassador Daniel Fried, who was appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to oversee the MEK’s situation.

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lawmakers, retired colonel voice support for Iranian exile group

December 8, 2011 by

STARS and STRIPES

BAGHDAD — Lawmakers and former military officials called on the U.S. government to protect an Iranian exile group in Iraq facing resettlement by the end of the year, citing conflict with Iraqi security forces earlier this year that killed dozens of people.

The hearing came in the wake of an intensive lobbying effort by former high-level U.S. government officials to have the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terror groups.

The 3,400 MEK members at the camp were friendly to U.S. forces who oversaw their settlement at Camp Ashraf until the U.S. relinquished control in 2009, former camp commander and retired Army Col. Wesley Martin told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Wednesday, according to published testimony.

Martin advocated relocating the group to the United States, and referred to an April video that purportedly showed 34 unarmed people being killed during resistance to Iraqi security forces entering the compound as evidence that the Iraqi government had no intention of protecting them.

During the video, some rushed to the aid of fallen comrades during the gunfire, according to Martin.

“I know if either myself or the American warriors with me at Ashraf had been under such an attack, the residents at Ashraf would have been rushing equally fast to our rescue,” Martin said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said during the hearing that the camp risked massacre by Iraqi forces without special protection, according to a New York Times report.

The State Department is re-examining MEK’s status as a terrorist organization, said Ambassador Daniel Fried, who was appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to oversee the MEK’s situation.

Fried told the committee that the group’s past activities include the killing of six Americans and bombing of U.S. companies in Iran during its opposition to the Shah’s rule in the 1970s. The group continued its attacks against Iran’s current theocracy through the 1990s, according to the State Department.

The group also has been accused of aiding Saddam Hussein in repressing Kurdish and Shiite revolts following the Gulf War, although supporters say that such claims are groundless and politically motivated.

Immigration issues and other hurdles would preclude resettling the group in the United States, Fried said. Although he condemned Iraq’s use of violence against the group, he also blamed the group for its steadfast refusal to move to another location within Iraq.

“A humane and secure relocation is possible, but it will take intense and serious efforts by all parties,” Fried said, according to testimony.

Earlier this week, the U.N. envoy for Iraq called on the Iraqi government to extend the resettlement deadline and said in a briefing to the U.N. Security Council that the government “has a responsibility to ensure the safety, security and welfare of the residents.”

slavine@pstripes.osd.mil

http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/iraq/lawmakers-retired-colonel-voice-support-for-iranian-exile-group-1.162833

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News, US Congress Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

U.S. warns Iraq against eviction of foes of Iran

December 7, 2011 by

 THE WASHINGTON TIMES 

Deadline for closing camp of 3,400 nears

A senior U.S. official Wednesday warned Iraq against using violence to evict unarmed Iranian dissidents from a camp north of Baghdad by the end of the month, as a top member of Congress accused the State Department of moving at a snail’s pace to prevent what he called a possible massacre of the residents of Camp Ashraf.

“There is no doubt that the situation is serious. We are worried about the possibility of violence, and we are working flat out to ward it off,” Daniel Fried, special adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Camp Ashraf, said at a House subcommittee hearing.

The Iraqi government has set a Dec. 31 deadline to close Camp Ashraf, home to about 3,400 members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

The State Department, which listed the MEK as a terrorist organization in 1997, is reviewing this designation after a July 2010 order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs oversight and investigations subcommittee, snapped at Mr. Fried after he said the State Department is working at an “intense pace” to persuade the Iraqi government to extend the deadline.

“Maybe it’s an intense pace for a snail,” the California Republican said.

Mr. Fried told lawmakers the Iraqi government regards its decision to close the camp as a legitimate exercise of its sovereignty.

“Yet the exercise of a sovereign right does not obviate the need for care and restraint,” he said. “We expect the Iraqi government to refrain from the use of violence.”

“At the same time, the camp leadership must respect Iraqi sovereignty and refrain from acts of provocation, as we seek to resolve this matter,” he added.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers called on the Iraqi government to extend its deadline to close Camp Ashraf and on the Obama administration to take the MEK off the terrorist list.

Mr. Rohrabacher warned of the consequences of not preventing what he said was the imminent massacre of the camp’s residents by Iraqi forces.

“Why are we, the United States, being an accomplice to this crime? If they are deported or subjected to another massacre, the blood in the sand will also stain the Gucci shoes of the U.S. State Department,” he said.

The MEK, also known as the Peoples 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.

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

In June 2009, the United States turned over control of Camp Ashraf to the Iraqi government, which gave written assurances that it would treat the residents humanely.

However, Iraqi forces have attacked the camp several times, most recently on April 8, when the security forces killed 36 residents, including eight women.

The residents of Camp Ashraf fear that they will be arrested and executed if they are sent to Iran.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/7/us-warns-iraq-against-eviction-of-foes-of-iran/

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