March 29, 2024

Sounding the alarm on Camp Ashraf

TORONTO STAR

While the world prepares to celebrate the beginning of the New Year, the people of Camp Ashraf, Iraq, live in imminent peril. At the camp — set up by American forces — 3,400 Iranian refugees are facing prospective massacre at the hands of the Iraqi government. The majority of residents have survived until now because of U.S. protection, but with American forces leaving by the end of the year, the Iraqi government has imposed an arbitrary deadline of Dec. 31 for residents to leave. Those who have nowhere to go will likely be attacked and killed; yet, the international community has been largely silent to their plight.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has designated residents of Camp Ashraf as asylum seekers, and decries its lack of access to them. We know that the residents of Camp Ashraf have faced ongoing harassment and intimidation by both the Iraqi and Iranian governments. Indeed, twice this year alone residents of the camp have been indiscriminately killed and wounded.

The residents are predominately Iranians who oppose Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime and strive for a free and democratic Iran. In what may be viewed as a double death sentence, when the deadline is passed they are likely to be summarily murdered by Iraqi forces, or find themselves forcefully transferred back to Iran — where they will face the same targeted persecution that has met countless others who courageously resist Ahmadinejad’s regime. Meanwhile, reports on the ground indicate that the Iraqi army is gearing up for an attack, raising fears that residents may not even be safe at Ashraf until Dec. 31.

Over the past two weeks, the House of Commons subcommittee on international human rights — of which I am vice-chair — heard chilling testimony from witnesses, including former United States attorney general Michael Mukasey — a staunch advocate for protecting the residents of Camp Ashraf — who stated plainly: “The Iraqi government has made it clear that they will . . . go in there with troops and kill people wholesale. Either that or they will redistribute them within Iraq to locations where they can be disposed of out of sight of the international community.”

We also heard from retired U.S. army colonel Wesley Martin — the first full colonel to command Camp Ashraf — who said of the U.S. war in Iraq: “We’ve made a lot of mistakes, and many people have paid the ultimate price for those mistakes. Unless positive steps are taken very quickly, 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf will be the next to pick up the tab.”

Indeed, the subcommittee was so moved it adopted a unanimous resolution calling on the Government of Canada — in concert with our international partners — to undertake immediate action to help ensure the lives of those at Camp Ashraf are not in jeopardy.

In particular, we called upon the government of Iraq to extend the deadline for residents to leave beyond Dec. 31 and to allow international observers and aid groups into Camp Ashraf — including to interview residents individually to find out their eligibility for refugee status. Further, we called upon the Government of Canada — in conjunction with our allies — to seek a UN Security Council resolution putting a protective force in place to ensure the safety of refugees at Camp Ashraf; Moreover, the committee called upon the United States to fulfill its moral and legal obligations toward the residents of Camp Ashraf and not forget about those who will be left behind when U.S. troops leave Iraq.

As the world prepares to ring in a new year, let us act to protect the people of Camp Ashraf from certain displacement and likely death and resolve to hold the Government of Iraq to account for its actions. The time to act on Ashraf is now; tomorrow may be too late.

Irwin Cotler is the Member of Parliament for Mount Royal and a former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada. He is vice-chair of the subcommittee on international human rights.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1103599–sounding-the-alarm-on-camp-ashraf

As US troops leave Iraq, an assault is planned that should shame us all

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

A tragedy is presently unfolding in Iraq that makes a mockery of the boast by US defence secretary Leon Panetta that American forces are leaving it a “free, independent and sovereign country”. And in two weeks’ time it seems set to come to a bloody climax.

For some years this column has been drawing attention to the horrible threat that hangs over Camp Ashraf, the once neatly-ordered town on the Iranian border which has, since 2001, been home to 3,400 Iranian exiles, members of the People’s Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI), the leading group opposed to the tyranny of the mullahs in Tehran.

In 2004, the Ashraf residents surrendered their arms in return for personal written guarantees of safety from US General David Phillips. But for months now, in anticipation of the last US forces leaving Iraq, Ashraf has been besieged by thousands of Iraqi troops, under the personal direction of prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. They are acting in league with gangs of thugs from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Tehran’s equivalent of the old Soviet KGB, responsible for ruthless suppression at home and fostering terrorism abroad.

On a recent visit to Washington, Maliki openly admitted that he was preparing to close Ashraf on December 31, at Tehran’s behest. In April an assault on the town left 36 dead and 11 more have died in incidents since. In a fortnight’s time, Ashraf will be invaded and its residents are likely to be slaughtered on the spot or dispersed around Iraq, to be killed at a later date, or deported to face imprisonment or death in Iran.

No one is more anguished by this betrayal, as he recently indicated in a speech, than General Phillips.

But what is most bewildering about the tragedy is the apparent desire of the US and British governments to condone Maliki’s collaboration with the murderous intentions of Tehran – despite protests from an impressive array of former senior US officials and thousands of American and European politicians, including more than 100 from our own Parliament. Why has our Government been so keen to bow to Iran’s wishes, paving the way for the destruction of Ashraf by those same Revolutionary Guards who recently sacked our embassy in Tehran?

Britain’s opaque part in this story has been as disgraceful as anything in the humiliating record of our involvements in Iraq – which is neither free nor independent, and is less of a sovereign country today than it was when ruled by Saddam Hussein.

http://www.iranfocus.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24214:as-us-troops-leave-iraq-an-assault-is-planned-that-should-shame-us-all

A Humanitarian Catastrophe at Ashraf Spells Political Catastrophe for the White House

 THE AMERICAN THINKER

U.S. troops are set to completely withdraw from Iraq on the 31st of December.  That is also the date for another more ominous deadline: al-Maliki’s government has ordered what looks to be a bloody attack on innocent political refugees on that very same day, despite strong condemnations from human rights groups, parliamentarians, and journalists from around the world.  Maliki’s order to empty Camp Ashraf, which will no doubt lead to a massacre, came after his meeting with the Iranian leader Khamenei.  Dispersion of the camp residents no doubt will resemble what happened to the Jewish community during the Second World War. 

The attack will target the 3,400 residents of Ashraf, or “Camp New Iraq,” who are Iranian political dissidents hated by Iraq’s powerful neighbor.  The camp has been attacked by Iraqi forces twice before, once in April this year and once in 2009, and in total more than 47 of the civilian residents were killed — either shot or run over by armored vehicles.  At present the camp is inhumanely blockaded by Iraqi troops who prevent medical and other vital supplies, journalists, human rights groups, and parliamentarians from entering.  Al-Maliki is now summoned by the tribunal court in Spain for crime against humanity.  The fact is that the Iraqi government’s plan is now to disperse rather than allowing the U.N. high commissioner for refugees the time needed to safely resettle the residents in Europe. 

The residents of the camp have a complicated history.  They fled Iran after tens of thousands of political dissidents were executed by the Khomeini regime in the eighties.  They were welcomed in Iraq, which, with the support of Western governments, was at war with Iran.  Most of the residents have lived in or near Ashraf now for a quarter-century and have built lives, schools, and a beautiful mosque there.  They were also integral in revealing the Iranian secret nuclear facilities.  As a source of inspiration, they are important to the “Persian Spring.”  All in all, this is more than enough to put them on the regime’s death list. 

The residents also have a complicated history with the U.S.  In 1997, as a gesture of goodwill to the “moderate” Khatami government in Iran, the U.S. put the residents (or rather the organization many of them belong to) on the State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations, without any factual basis.  In the EU and Britain, courts have declared terror designations of this organization “perverse” and removed them.  Despite a federal court ruling ordering the designation to be reviewed, the removal process is being stalled for political reasons in the U.S. by the State Department.  At the same time, the residents of Ashraf have been protected by and had very good relationships with U.S. troops, been designated as protected persons by the U.S. under the fourth Geneva Convention, and have been declared U.S. allies by chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, FBI directors, and other prominent members of the intelligence community.

 But never mind this complicated history — the facts of the current situation remain.  On the last day of this year, President Obama will participate in a ceremony analogous to standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier underneath a banner reading “Mission Accomplished.”  CNN will show footage of the last U.S. troops leaving Iraq.  On split-screen, they will show thousands of Iraqi troops pouring into a refugee camp with the purpose of “dispersing” the residents across Iraq.  In practice, this will mean firing indiscriminately at civilians, burning buildings, dragging severely ill men and women out of the clinic, running people over with trucks, and kidnapping residents to be tortured.  All of this has happened in Ashraf before.  Twice.  See YouTube if you don’t believe it.  The residents will not go quietly, because they know that they will be going to their deaths.  Their unarmed and peaceful resistance will be met by deadly violence by U.S.-trained forces under the command of an Iran-friendly budding dictator. 

The residents of Ashraf enjoy as wide bipartisan support as any issue in Washington today.  But that support will quickly translate into a very pointed and harsh critique by the Republicans of how the Obama administration, for political reasons, is abandoning U.S. allies in its rush to leave Iraq.  The Republican candidates will, with good reason, attack the president’s failed Iran policy.  They already have, but now there will be blood on the administration’s hands to prove the point.  The split-screen video described above will prove to be a political nightmare for the president. 

Human rights advocates, U.S. allies, and family members of the residents have pleaded with the administration to take action — to pressure Iraq to cancel its deadline for the “closure” of the camp and allow the UNHCR to do its work.  Their humanitarian pleas have fallen on deaf ears.  It is with a sad heart that one can note that the residents’ best hope of survival is the political survival instincts of President Obama.  Perhaps the administration will listen if it becomes clear that its members have electoral skin in the game, and not just a moral responsibility.  Voters are looking for true leadership — and I, for one — hope that the president will display it in saving 3,400 lives in Ashraf. 

Henrik Hermansson is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Political Science, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/a_humanitarian_catastrophe_at_ashraf_spells_political_catastrophe_for_the_white_house.html

Iraq’s Maliki Unleashes Moqtada Sadr’s Hired Mob against Iranian Exiles in Camp Ashraf

StopFundamentalism.com

According to reports from Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, directed by the Iranian government, has unleashed the Moqtada Sadr’s hired mobs against the Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf.

Faced with increasing opposition from various political circles in Iraq to his stance toward the Iranian opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq whose members reside in Camp Ashraf, Maliki intends to use Moqtada Sadr’s followers who are paid with Iranian money to pressure the camp’s residents.

Since Maliki entered the Iranian-arranged alliance with Moqtada Sadr in order to secure his position as prime minister, he has increasingly used Sadr’s loyalists as street shock troops to attack Iraqis protesting Maliki’s affiliation with Iran rulers. Use of state-sponsored mobs for fulfilling state’s political and suppressive objectives has its roots in the post-1979 Iran where the government unleashed them to attack opposition rallies and storm foreign embassies.

According to a report by the Associated Press from Iraq, several hundred Iraqi followers of Moqtada Sadr (out of seven million strong population of Baghdad) took part in a gathering on Friday, hoisting his large size pictures and shouting slogan against the MEK. They repeated the Iranian government’s demand for the closing of Camp Ashraf and the group’s forcible relocation to an Iraqi-run detention center. Other reports from Baghdad indicate the heavy presence of the Iranian embassy staff in the state-run rally and Farsi speaking individuals who were organizing the mob.

Last September, the Iranian Fars News Agency affiliated with the country’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, quoted Moqtada Sadr as calling for closure of Camp Ashraf and expulsion of its residents.

On Saturday, December 16, the main Iraqi radio Aswat al-Iraq quoted the spokesman of the Iraqiya opposition coalition as saying that forcible transfer of Camp Ashraf residents to another place in Iraq is “an Iranian intelligence project” Member of Iraq’s Parliament Haidar al-Mulla told Aswat al-Iraq that there “a well-known political agenda, moved by Iranian intelligence to transfer the residents of the camp, which is rejected by us.”  He added that “Iraqiya bloc demanded appointing observers to protect the camp, and to initiate quick actions by the United Nations on this matter.”

Observer fear the sudden emergence of state-sponsored mobs in Baghdad and around Camp Ashraf in recent days, in addition to significant movement of military personnel and vehicles in and around Camp Ashraf, all point to an extensive attack by Maliki against unarmed and defenseless residents of the Camp.

Maliki has so far defied calls by the UN Secretary Genera’s special representative in Iraq, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, European Union, and a bi-partisan group in the US Congress, to postpone the closing of Camp Ashraf so that there is time for the UN refugee agency to process the camp’s 3,400 residents’ applications for political refugee status. His continued defiance of the international community and his countless breach of the human rights of the camp’s residents since 2009, including two large scale massacres in 2009 and 2011, leave no doubt that Maliki’s Iranian-engineered plan to relocate the residents to a so-called safe place is in reality a one-way trip to death chambers for the Iranian dissidents with nearly 1,000 women among them.

http://blogs.stopfundamentalism.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68:iraqs-maliki-unleashes-moqtada-sadrs-hired-mob-against-iranian-exiles-in-camp-ashraf

Remembering lessons of appeasement

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Obama risks complicity by ignoring Iran’s threats against Camp Ashraf

Dec. 7 was the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. On that morning in 1941, 353 Japanese fighters, bombers and torpedo planes attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet in two waves. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, four sunk. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers. In total, 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,402 Americans were killed and 1,282 wounded.

The attack shocked America and led directly to the American entry into World War II. The following day, the United States declared war on Japan. On Aug. 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, causing the greatest man-made disaster in history. The aim was to stop Japan from warmongering. President Truman, after ordering the dropping of a second bomb over Nagasaki said: “Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.” Are we heading for another disastrous response like that?

This all happened after several years of appeasement, trying to convince Hitler that his best interest was to work “peacefully” with his neighbors. But appeasement only emboldened Hitler to believe he could get away with his crimes, so he committed more.

History seems to be repeating itself, but the question remains: Have our leaders learned their lesson? It is now more than 30 years since the Iranian regime began terrorizing its own people and the world. It started with taking U.S. Embassy personnel hostage. Soon terrorism became a significant pillar of Iran’s foreign policy, backed by funding and training of people to carry their weapons into Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza. The other pillar was bribery and offerings of lucrative oil deals with Western companies. While the West was busy looking for a moderate interlocutor, the regime built its nuclear-weapons program.

After a recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran’s nuclear-program advances, a question was raised in diplomatic circles: What shall we do? The British government took the lead and called for more sanctions. Iran responded in the usual way a bully does: They attacked the British Embassy and took the staff hostage. Foreign Secretary William Hague responded swiftly and closed the Iranian Embassy in London. The bully retreated, proving what we learned in primary school – that the bully is a coward if you stand up to him.

The difference between Iran today and Germany in the 1930s is the existence of an organized opposition to the brutal rulers of Iran. This opposition allows a route to regime change that does not involve direct war.

But appeasers have been at work again. In the hope of containing Iran’s ambitions, they agreed to encumber opposition members by labeling them terrorists, hence extending the repression they endured in Iran to the rest of the world. The People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI) challenged this unjust label, and they won court case after court case finally being delisted in the United Kingdom in 2008 and in the European Union in 2009. But the U.S. government has so far refused to abide by the federal appeals court ruling of July 2010 to re-examine the PMOI listing. The court was not convinced of the validity of the reasons given by the State Department. Scores of American generals and former administration officials have called for lifting the ban because it has been used by Iranian regime proxies in Iraq as a justification for two brutal attacks on the residence of PMOI members at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met President Obama in the Oval Office on Monday. Already calls have been made to Mr. Obama to warn Iraq and Mr. Maliki from attempting to forcefully disperse the residents of the camp in Iraq, which Iraqi forces, aided by Iran, have twice attacked, killing dozens of unarmed residents and wounding hundreds. Iran wants Iraq to do its dirty work of eliminating its organized opposition. Mr. al-Maliki relied on Iran to secure a second term, so he thinks he has to comply. Mr. Obama is the man in position to stop Mr. al-Maliki from committing another crime against humanity.

If he heeds history’s lessons, Mr. Obama will stop Mr. al-Maliki and send a signal to Iran that their bullying is not working. Otherwise, he will find himself complicit in a war crime that Mr. al-Maliki intends to carry out. As human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson said in a meeting in Paris on Dec. 10, silence is complicity in a war crime. I am sure Mr. Obama would not like to go down in history with such a charge on his record.

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale is chairman of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/15/remembering-lessons-of-appeasement/

Camp Ashraf exiles file US complaint against Iran, Iraq

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

Iranian-Americans shout slogans against Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri-al-Maliki on December 13, near the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC. Four Iranian exiles have filed a complaint in US court against senior Iranian and Iraqi officials for their alleged role in an April attack on Camp Ashraf, a site for Iranian dissidents in Iraq. (AFP Photo/Karen Bleier)

WASHINGTON — Four Iranian exiles have filed a complaint in US court against senior Iranian and Iraqi officials for their alleged role in an April attack on Camp Ashraf, a site for Iranian dissidents in Iraq.

The Iranians, three of whom received political asylum in the United States and another resided in the United States, claim they suffered “heavy injuries” during an April 8 attack on Camp Ashraf, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in US District Court in Washington.

The site north of Baghdad houses some 3,400 Iranian refugees hostile to the regime in Tehran. It is controlled by the People’s Mujahedeen, which Washington blacklists as a terrorist group.

In their civil lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim they were victims of “assault and battery, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress” in the attack by Iraqi forces. They also claim Iranian forces participated.

The lawsuit accuses Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leadership of the Quds force — the shadowy special operations unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that operates abroad — as well as senior Iraqi military officials of having “conspired” with and exercised “command and control over the perpetrators of torture and attacks against the unarmed civilians of Camp Ashraf.”

The plaintiffs demand damages for “torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and crimes against humanity as violations of international and domestic law.”

The controversial April raid by Iraqi security forces left at least 36 people dead and scores injured. Residents said the Iraqi forces attacked them.

Saddam Hussein allowed the rebel People’s Mujahedeen to set up the camp in the 1980s when his forces were at war with Iran, and the camp came under US military protection when US-led forces toppled Saddam in 2003.

US forces, however, handed over security responsibility to Baghdad authorities in January 2009.

The Iraqi government says the camp is a threat to its relations with neighboring Iran and is demanding that it close by December 31.

But the United Nations appealed last week for an extension to the deadline to allow more time in negotiations with the camp’s residents, who are refusing to move unless they are given UN protection.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hLdT1s7qPGwsfbc_y1EETiBuGu9g

USCCAR Strongly Condemns Washington Post’s Editorial for Giving Iraq’s Maliki License to Murder Camp Ashraf Residents

PRNewswire

Iranian-Americans participate in a rally outside the White House to support the protection of Camp Ashraf in Iraq, which houses 3,400 members of the Iranian opposition party, MEK. The event was planned to coincide with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's visit with President Barack Obama on December 12, 2011. (Erin Sutherland/MCT via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR) deplores Washington Post’s editorial (“A U.S. plan to save Iranians who remain in Iraq”, Dec. 14), endorsing a US plan for relocation of 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf to an Iraqi-run de facto detention center near Baghdad’s International airport, formerly known as Camp Liberty.

The insidious piece, replete with double-entendre and mixing of absolutely no facts and lots of fiction, is effectively a farewell gift to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, on his way back to Baghdad, to set in motion the plan for the massacre of Camp Ashraf residents. The Post is suggesting to have the lives of these Iranians under the control of Maliki, a man, who David Ignatius of the Post has described as “the conspirator turned chief executive” and a “backroom plotter,” whose “own Dawa Party bombed the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait in 1983.”

The editorial’s case about relocation of the residents to such a detention center as the best plan to end this humanitarian crisis peacefully is at best wishful thinking. It is an extremely dangerous suggestion that could prepare the ground for yet another Srebrenica-style massacre. Without any practical and actionable guarantees by the international community, nothing would deter the Iraqi forces of al-Maliki from repeating the massacres they perpetrated in July 2009 and April 2011, killing 47 residents – including eight women – and wounding 1070. To cover its bloody tracks, the Iraqi government, with the help of the US Embassy, has blocked any investigation into these crimes – as UN had demanded – by the US and European Union parliamentary fact-finding missions.

In light of these killings and the three-year illegal and barbaric siege of Camp Ashraf, the Post’s blindness to volume of facts all pointing to Iraq’s systematic and deliberate breach of its commitment toward Ashraf residents, and to the equally abhorring United States’ inaction in the face of Iraq’s repeated violation of its so-called written assurances to the United States, is ominously suspect.

Astonishingly, in line with Iran’s thirty-year-old policy of blaming the MEK’s leadership for whatever atrocities Iran’s ruling tyrants have committed against the organization – a ploy widely used by Maliki following the July 2009 and April 2011 attacks – the Post’s editorial, in an ultimate act of falsification, sinisterly attempts to shift the blame for an impending massacre away from Maliki – and by extension from the Obama administration – to MEK’s leadership, accusing it of making “unrealistic demands.”  We must repeat to the Post the following facts:

• Camp Ashraf residents were recognized by the United States as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and as such the US provided them protection until January 2009. According to article 45 of the Convention, that responsibility does not elapse if the new protecting power (Iraq since 2009) does not have the capacity and the intent to provide protection. Iraq has failed on both fronts and thus from a legal standpoint the United States, as the original protecting power, is still bound to ensure the residents’ protection whether or not it has a presence in Iraq.
 
• In 2003 and again in 2004, the United States gave written guaranteed commitment of protection to every individual in Ashraf as long as they remain in Iraq. America is, therefore, still morally and legally responsible for their safety and security.
 
• Last September, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) declared that Camp Ashraf residents have applied for refugee status and therefore, under international law as “asylum seekers” they must be able to benefit from basic protection of their security and well-being.

Against this background, the demand by Camp Ashraf residents and its leadership that “U.S. troops or U.N. peacekeeping forces provide security at the new camp,” is indeed completely “realistic” and in line with America’s promises and UNHCR’s declaration.

If the Post’s editorial finds the residents’ morally and legally justified and actionable demand “unrealistic,” then it is acting as a de facto voice of an administration that is dishonoring America by reneging on its commitment to a group of unarmed men, women and children, who in the words of Brig. Gen. David Phillips, former Commandant of U.S. Army Military Police Corps and former Senior Commanding Officer at Camp Ashraf, were vetted and completely investigated by several US agencies which were not able to find an iota of evidence linking any of them to any act of violence.

Furthermore, the Washington Post shamelessly refers to some of the most patriotic Americans as a “stable of handsomely-paid” mouthpieces of the MEK. This is astonishing as the paper itself has never wasted any time to support the misguided policy of the US State Department to designate the MEK as a terrorist organization in 1997 for purely political considerations and appeasement of the mullahs of Tehran. The designation, legally and factually discredited and revoked in the United Kingdom, France, and the European Union, and declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals as it violated the due process rights of the MEK, has been used by the Maliki government as a pretext to slaughter the residents.

Additionally, the editorial alleges that the MEK was responsible for killing Americans more than four decades ago when multiple credible independent sources have provided ample countervailing evidence that the current MEK in its entirety has had nothing to do with it.

The Washington Post is wise to remember that history may not judge kindly its expediency in support of an administration that seeks reelection by throwing a group of innocent men and 1,000 Muslim women, who have already been victimized by the barbarism of Iraqi soldiers, into the wolves. Unfortunately, in this case of the impending humanitarian catastrophe of monumental dimension, the Post has opted to take the wrong side and has issued a license to murder the residents by blaming the victims instead of the butchers.

SOURCE:  US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR)

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usccar-strongly-condemns-washington-posts-editorial-for-giving-iraqs-maliki-license-to-murder-camp-ashraf-residents-135674098.html

Camp Ashraf “massacre” must be stopped

 THE INDEPENDENT

America’s involvement in the second Gulf War in Iraq – whether you were in favour of it or opposed it – is about to end. The Prime Minister of the “new” Iraq was in Washington this week as the guest of President Obama.

Most people assumed that any future government would abide by the principles of human rights and democracy.  But there is an inconvenient truth that is hard to understand for the families of our soldiers who died there and the troops themselves who were wounded. It is hard for the families of unknown number of Iraqi civilians who died there, and for the Iranian dissidents stranded there at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

The truth is that Prim Minister Nouri al-Maliki, has apparently turned out to be a stooge of the Iranian regime who seems to have a disregard for basic human rights and international law. Camp Ashraf has become the barometer for his disregard of the world community and those who died to bring him to office.

This Camp is home to 3400 members of Iran’s main opposition group, the MEK, an organization that epitomizes the spirit of the Arab Spring. The MEK hopes to one day replace the brutal regime in Iran with a democracy. Their manifesto espouses the desire to create equal rights between men and women, for Iran to have a free press, be non-nuclear Iran and espouse other forward-thinking policies.

The reason for this brutal treatment lies in Al Maliki’s close relationship with Iran and that country’s desire to wipe out its main enemy. Iran’s influence within Iraq has included flooding the country with IEDs to pressuring Maliki to attack the mullahs’ opponents. This influence must be stopped.

The oppression of these residents and Al Maliki’s disregard for international law started within the first few weeks of Iraqi forces taking over security of the Camp. He gave assurances that the residents would be given “humane treatment”; yet over the past two years, they have been psychologically tortured 24 hours a day with 300 loudspeakers blaring at their doorstep. They have been denied access to food, fuel, and medicines, resulting in the deaths of a number of residents. But most disturbingly, Iraqi forces have stormed this Camp of unarmed civilians twice, murdering resulting in the deaths of 47 people. Video footage of these events showed unarmed civilians apparently being shot in the head at close range with semiautomatic weapons, as well as being run over by Humvee vehicles. It was condemned by many international bodies as nothing short of a massacre.

The situation has now reached a crisis point. The regime in Iran realizes that it is close to achieving its goal of wiping out its opposition and has pressured the Iraqi government to close the Camp by the end of the year and to disperse the residents throughout Iraq.

Considering the Iraqi armed forces’ history in relation to Camp Ashraf, and their closeness to the regime in Iran, this statement is widely seen as nothing short of a declaration of war on these unarmed civilians. The Iraqis say they would allow the UNHCR to interview the residents once they have been moved and that they would allow UN monitors constant access to them. If that’s the case, why doesn’t the Iraqi army allow these interviews to take place in Camp Ashraf? Why have it been doing its utmost to disrupt the UNHCR from carrying out its work? The reality must be that Nouri al-Maliki knows that if the UNHCR interviews these civilians, they will be granted asylum in third countries and the Iraqis, acting at Tehran’s behest, will have lost the opportunity to destroy the spirit of Ashraf and its people.

This is the same man who six hours prior to the last ” massacre” in April promised the residents of Camp Ashraf and the U.S. Embassy that he had no intention of using violence. Six hours later, 36 civilians lay dead. It appears he can no longer be trusted not to do Iran’s dirty work.

There is still time for a peaceful solution to this dilemma. The international community must pressure the Iraqi government to cancel its end-of-year dead line. This would allow the UNHCR the time to carry out its refugee status interviews with the residents. The final step, and one which would hopefully bring about a happy ending, would be for the residents to be transferred to third countries.

These three steps are achievable – the only obstacle is the Iraqi government and Nouri al-Maliki.

This international pressure must take place now. There is less than three weeks until the dead line and an unavoidable bloody outcome. With al-Maliki visiting America, the U.S.  has a wonderful opportunity to apply diplomatic pressure. The U.S.  should do this to show solidarity with the spirit of the Arab spring; it should do it for the residents of Camp Ashraf; and it should do it so that the all those who died in Iraq did not die in vain.

America is the country that signed a personal pact with every single member of the Camp, giving them protected person status. America must continue to give them what they were promised – protection from the despots in Iran and their henchmen in Iraq. Anything less will leave the US politically and legally complicit in any future bloodshed.
The clock is ticking and time is running out. The U.S. and President Obama must keep their promise to the freedom seeking people of Camp Ashraf.

The UK government as the major partner in the coalition that brought about current government in Iraq is also equally responsible and must act to stop the massacre and persuade the UN to send blue helmets to protect the residents of Ashraf.

Mark Williams is Liberal-Democrat Member of Parliament for Ceredigion and a member of British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/12/15/camp-ashraf-massacre-must-be-stopped/

Obama must act before the US implicates itself in a war crime at Camp Ashraf

 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

It is rare that the US will find itself singing from the same hymn sheet as the brutal religious theocracy in Iran. As I write this letter, a peculiar and tragic piece of politics is being played out in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, which has, inconceivably, united these two opposite parties.

Camp Ashraf is home to 3,400 members of the MEK, Iran’s main opposition group. They have been fighting for decades to create a democratic state in Iran.

During the Clinton administration, the US government declared that the MEK were terrorists, in order to bring Iran and its apparently moderate president Khatami to the negotiation table. It was appeasement of the worst kind. Over the past decade the 4,000 parliamentarians across the globe who have shown solidarity with the MEK have managed to get the ‘terrorist’ designation removed from EU and British lists. But despite support from numerous members of congress, including former US presidential candidate Howard Dean, the US is still doing Iran’s bidding by keeping this classification.

This failed piece of foreign policy is now being used to murder innocent civilians in Camp Ashraf.

In early 2004, US armed forces took over security of the camp and gave personal assurances to each and every person living there, designating them as protected persons under the fourth Geneva Convention. Unfortunately, they have received anything but protection.

The security of the camp was passed over to the Iraqi government in 2009. Within days, Iranian intelligence officials were allowed onto the site and their campaign of torture and intimidation started. Iran’s influence in Iraq has been growing over the past few years. The vast majority of US soldiers die at the hands of Iranian made IEDs (improvised explosive device). The residents have had vital supplies, such as food, fuel and medicine, restricted causing unnecessary deaths. The worst of this illegal treatment has been two military attacks on the camp. In April 2011, the Iraqi army attacked and massacred 36 unarmed civilians. Video footage which was released by the residents showed Iraqi soldiers shooting residents in the head and neck from point-blank range using semi automatic weapons. UNAMI (United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq) officials examined the deceased and confirmed the manner of their deaths. This tragic event was widely considered to be a war crime.

Unfortunately, one of the excuses which the Iraqi government has used is that these people are terrorists.

The Iraqi government and their puppet masters in Iran want MEK members to be removed the camp. Residents have declared that, despite living in Iraq for over 25 years, they are willing to go. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has announced that they are ready and waiting to assess each resident for refugee status. This would then allow them to be moved to third countries which would accept them.

Over the past few months the Iraqi government has refused the UNHCR access to camp residents. The route to a peaceful solution is available, but the reality is that leaders in Iraq and Iran are not looking for a peaceful ending. Iran realizes that it has the opportunity, and a willing ally, to wipe out its main opposition and they are hell-bent on achieving this.

Rather than allow the UNHCR access, the Iraqi government has announced that it will close the camp at the end of the year and that all residents will be relocated to other camps within Iraq. At the point of relocation, the UNHCR will be allowed access.

Residents have stated that they are only willing to be relocated within Iraq if these new locations are protected by UN blue helmets. In addition, they do not want to be moved until the UNHCR has recorded the names of every member of the camp prior to relocation. This is an important point.

Iranian security agents and their Iraqi counterparts have been working on an operation to murder many of these residents in transit, before any international body has recorded their details.  

The reality is that Iraq’s treatment of these innocent civilians over the past few years renders any promise they make utterly worthless.

Following Iraqi President’s Nouri Al-Maliki’s visit to the Oval Office earlier this week, President Obama must now make it abundantly clear that Camp Ashraf’s residents must be treated humanely. Al-Maliki must abandon his end of year deadline, as well the idea of relocation. The UNHCR must be allowed access to the residents in Camp Ashraf. If these points are followed, the saga of Camp Ashraf could come to a peaceful end.

Saeid Zabeti’s family fled Iran following the 1979 revolution. He has six family members currently living at Camp Ashraf.

http://www.newint.org/blog/2011/12/15/camp-ashraf-threatened-closure/

Decision to close Iran exile camp ‘irreversible’: Iraq PM

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

Iranian-Americans wave banners and shout slogans against Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri-al-Maliki December 13, 2011 near the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC. Simultaneous with the visit of Maliki, to the Chamber of Commerce, Iranian-Americans and relatives of the 3400 Iranian dissidents at Camp Ashraf held a rally against Maliki and his plans to, at behest of the Iranian regime, close Camp Ashraf and forcibly relocate its residents by the end of the year. The family members of Ashraf residents and Iranian-Americans believe this would prelude a massacre of defenseless residents of the camp. Iraqi Armed Forces, under the command of Maliki, violently attacked Camp Ashraf twice -- in July 2009 and in April 2011 -- killing 47 and wounding more than 1,000 unarmed residents. Iranian-Americans believe Maliki should be held accountable for the crimes he committed against humanity. The residents of Camp Ashraf signed an agreement with the US Government in 2003, guaranteeing their protection until their final disposition. AFP PHOTO/Karen BLEIER (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s decision to close a camp housing Iranian dissidents by year-end is “irreversible,” Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told AFP on Thursday, rejecting UN calls for a delay to avoid bloodshed.

Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, houses some 3,400 Iranian refugees hostile to the regime in Tehran. It is controlled by the People’s Mujahedeen, which Washington blacklists as a terrorist group.

“The decision we made is irreversible, especially because this organisation refused the visit of a UN representative to Camp Ashraf,” Maliki said.

“They’ve rejected the UN plan, which means this is a criminal gang and we cannot permit a criminal gang to remain here,” he added.

Saddam Hussein allowed the rebel People’s Mujahedeen to set up the camp when his forces were at war with Iran in the 1980s.

When Saddam was overthrown in the US-led invasion of 2003, the camp came under US military protection but US forces handed over security responsiblity to the Baghdad authorities in January 2009.

The Iraqi government says the camp is a threat to its relations with neighbouring Iran and is demanding that it close by December 31.

But last week the United Nations appealed for an extension to the deadline to allow more time for a solution to be negotiated with the camp’s residents who are refusing to move unless they are given UN protection.

The positions of the residents and the government “remain far apart,” the UN envoy to Iraq, Martin Kobler, told the UN Security Council, appealing to the international community to find new homes for the exiles.

In Paris, an exile Iranian group challenged Maliki’s statement that UN officials were not allowed to visit the camp.

“Last week, UN representatives were able to enter Ashraf two times,” said Mohamad Mohadessine, an official of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a group opposed to the Tehran regime.

“By these abject lies, Maliki does nothing other than prepare the terrain for a massacre of the residents of Ashraf and to counter muliple international apeals to delay the closing of Ashraf,” he added in a statement.

The camp has been in the spotlight since a controversial April raid by Iraqi security forces left at least 36 people dead and scores injured. Residents said the Iraqi forces attacked them.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hKiy836ZHWmvUNlwLgoArO7zH1Pg