March 29, 2024

Iraq Wants Ashraf Residents Relocated by End of Year

THE EPOCH TIMES

UN envoy appointed to mediate dispute over Camp Ashraf

Iraq has declared that it will close Camp Ashraf by Dec. 31 and relocate—using force if necessary—the approximately 3,400 Iranian refugees who live there.

Demonstrators hold up petitions to President Barack Obama to protect the Iranian Ashraf refugee camp in Iraq during a freedom rally in front of the White House in Washington on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Camp residents say they are willing to relocate to other countries but don’t want to be relocated within Iraq, claiming that the Iraqi government has become increasingly hostile.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) has received refugee applications from the exiles, but processing the claims and moving so many people will take time. An extension to the deadline has been requested.

The camp’s residents fear they will be persecuted if they remain in Iraq and face execution if they are deported to Iran.

European Union Foreign Affairs Representative Catherine Ashton has appointed Jean de Ruyt as a special envoy to advise on how the EU will respond to the issue.

At a press conference three days ago in Baghdad, an Iraqi adviser said they are sticking to their deadline. However, the Cabinet may consider moving the deadline if the UN comes up with a firm commitment to relocate the residents by a certain date.

De Ruyt said he will work with the Iraqi government to come up with a solution that is acceptable.

“The most pressing task is to pressure Iraq to remove this deadline to allow the UNHCR to do its job,” said Sharam Golestaneh with the Iran Democratic Association in Ottawa.

“In the next few days we are hoping that we can have much more activity on this issue. If we have learned one thing it’s that inaction leads to genocide and we can never let that happen again,” said Golestaneh, referring to two major raids by Iraqi forces on the camp in July 2009 and in April 2010 in which some residents were wounded and killed.

Golestaneh has concerns about the Dec. 31 deadline as it coincides with the withdrawal of the U.S. Army from Iraq. He notes that attacks on the camp have occurred even when U.S. troops were present.

“When the U.S. Army is not there and without a UN presence, what will happen to the people in the camp?” he said.

 “So we say to the Iraqi government, if you are really willing to solve this issue and you don’t want the people there, then you have to work with the UN to find a workable solution and don’t enforce an impractical deadline, so they [the UN] can get the job done.”

Displaced

Camp Ashraf began in 1986 as a camp for displaced Iranians who belonged to the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, an opposition group that wanted to see democracy established in Iran.

In the 1990s the group was labeled a terrorist organization—a brand that has endured despite removal from the list by the Council of European Union and support from the British and EU parliaments.

Located north of Baghdad, Camp Ashraf has become a thorn in the side of the Iraqi government, which is endeavoring to improve relations with neighboring Iran and views the residents as terrorists.

Forty-one members of Congress have written an urgent letter to the UN Secretary- General about the need to deploy blue helmet U.N. peacekeepers to Ashraf.

Golestaneh says his group is asking the U.N. to send monitors rather than a military presence to “minimize the risk of bloodshed” at the camp.

“If the U.N. is there rather than the U.S., [the Iraqi regime] can’t see it as someone trying to impose their will on Iraq,” he says.

When the United States turned over control of the camp to Iraq in June 2009, the government said it would treat the residents humanely in accordance with its domestic and international obligations.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/iraq-wants-ashraf-residents-relocated-by-end-of-year-138325.html

IAEA report on Iran poses challenges for United States

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) — A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency released Tuesday provided the strongest evidence yet that Iran is close to developing nuclear weapons, including clandestine procurement of equipment and design information needed to make nuclear arms, high explosives testing and detonator development to set off a nuclear charge, computer modeling of a core of a nuclear warhead, and preparatory work for a nuclear weapons test — powerful evidence that refutes the regime’s specious claims that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States should never take the option of military force off the table when it comes to dealing with Iran because the regime is clearly trying to obtain a nuclear weapon and has repressed its own people.

“The regime has absolutely no legitimacy left,” added Rice.

In all probability, however, any military campaign against Iran’s nuclear sites would ignite yet another Middle East conflict with neither clear winners nor a predictable endgame. For its part, Tehran has promised to inflict “heavy damage” on both Israel and the United States in retaliation for any such strikes. These aren’t idle threats.

Following revelations about its alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States in Washington, the Iranian regime has shown itself willing and capable to strike at the heart of the United States. The planned assassination was in the words of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a “dangerous escalation” in that Iran chose to hit out at enemies beyond its usual targets like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Concrete change in Iran has to come from within. Dictatorships were toppled in Tunisia and Egypt after the people rose up against their oppressors. The lack of outside intervention fueled a sense of popular ownership of these changes. The popular rebellion threatening the Syrian regime is the latest sign that these movements cannot be prevented and will ultimately prevail.

The people of Iran, too, can bring down the ruling mullahs without the United States and its allies intervening militarily and risking lives. The uprising of 2009, while brutally repressed, displayed nationwide and overwhelming support for regime change.

Ironically, U.S. policy toward Iran has prevented that change from becoming reality because the best organized and largest Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq has been shackled for the past 14 years.

In less than eight weeks, the government of Iraq plans to close Camp Ashraf, where thousands of MEK members have lived for more than 25 years. If Baghdad were allowed to make good on its threat to wipe the camp off the map by the end of this year, it will result in a humanitarian catastrophe.

A declaration signed by 180 members of the European Parliament in October warned that, “The lives of 3,400 Iranian dissidents, including 1,000 women, in Camp Ashraf, Iraq are in danger.” They added that Nouri al-Maliki’s arbitrary decision to close Ashraf could be used as a pretext for a large-scale massacre.

They were joined by 42 members of the House of Representatives, who urged U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to use his wherewithal to “station a full-time monitoring team in Camp Ashraf,” urging the Iraqi government to “immediately lift the deadline to close down Camp Ashraf by the end of the year.”

Human rights groups, like Amnesty International, have also warned that Camp Ashraf residents “are at serious risk of severe human rights violations if the Iraqi government goes ahead with its plans to force the closure of the camp.”

The Iraqis have already demonstrated their willingness to use deadly force. Camp Ashraf has been attacked several times by Iraqi security forces causing the deaths of dozens of residents and injuries to others, rights groups say. On April 8, Iraqi forces brutally raided the camp, killing 36 residents, including eight women, and injuring more than 300. In July 2009, a similar attack took the lives of 11 residents.

Sadly, all this has happened under the nose of the U.S. military, which promised Camp Ashraf protection before turning over responsibility to Iraq in 2009. Iraqi forces used U.S. weapons in the latest raid. Afraid that their crimes will be revealed, Iraqi authorities have prevented the entry of U.S. and European lawmakers as well as journalists into Camp Ashraf.

Iraqi military incursions continue ahead of what could be the final push in December. Around 40 vehicles, both military and police, entered Camp Ashraf on Nov. 1. This was both a dry run of the definitive attack and part of the psychological warfare to which residents are routinely subjected. Hundreds of loud speakers have been set up around Camp Ashraf as part of preparations for the bloody showdown.

All this comes despite the designation of Camp Ashraf residents as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and despite the fact that U.S. forces are legally and morally bound to protect them. The United Nations has officially considered Ashraf residents as “asylum seekers,” calling on Iraq to extend the deadline. Amnesty International has called on the international community to resettle residents in third countries before it’s too late.

If the United States persists with its policy of malign neglect toward the unarmed residents of Camp Ashraf, those responsible will start the New Year with blood on their hands.

If, on the other hand, Washington forces Iraq to cancel its deadline and to facilitate asylum applications, it would prove the credibility of its promises and help saving the lives of members of Iran’s principal opposition movement which has the capability to help bring change to Iran by Iranians, obviating the need for foreign military intervention.

(Ali Safavi is president of Near East Policy Research, a policy analysis firm in Washington (www.neareastpolicy.com).

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Outside-View/2011/11/09/Outside-View-IAEA-report-on-Iran-poses-challenges-for-United-States

Iraqi Deputy PM criticizes al-Maliki on deadline for closure of Camp Ashraf

An Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Saleh al-Motlaq, warned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about another attack against Camp Ashraf by the Iraqi Forces and criticized him for setting a deadline for closure of Camp Ashraf, home to some 3400 Iranian dissidents in Iraq.

Mr. Motlaq who is also a leader of al-Iraqiya, the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament,   said in an interview with Iraqi TV al-Sharqiya on Sunday (6 Nov. 2011) : “If Mr. Nouri al-Maliki once again attack Camp Ashraf and once again kill its residents, not only it will be committing an shameful act against the Iraqi people but it will cause a rift between us and the rest of the world.”

“Setting a deadline and saying that if you do not leave by the deadline, we will massacre you and will shed blood and cause a war with the rest of the world is not right,” he added.

Mr. Motlaq said: “My dignity as an Iraqi does not allow me to let the Iranian regime rule over me, form my government, run my economy, and kill my people.”

Interview with al-Shargiya TV, 6 Nov. 2011 – Dr. Saleh Motlaq, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister and a leader of al-Iraqiya:

Is it right that we destroy our relationships with the world community because of the Iranian regime? I believe that if the Iraqi government and in particular Mr. Nouri al-Maliki once again attack Camp Ashraf, they would be committing a shameful act against the Iraqis and will cause a big disparity between us and the rest of the world.

Today, the entire world states that they [Camp Ashraf residents] are protected persons according to the Fourth Geneva conventions. It is not right to set a deadline and declare that if they do not leave by the deadline, we will massacre them and will shed blood that would cause a rift between us and the rest of the world.

The government must take into consideration the dignity of the Iraqi people, the Iraqi history and the Arab dignity. They [the camp residents] are our guests and we should no longer treat them they we have in the past.

If resolving the issue requires six more months or one more year, we must consider extending the deadline so we can resolve the issue in a humanitarian manner. I consider the Iranian people as our neighbors, friends, Muslims, and brothers and consider Iran a neighbor country and would want our relationships to enhance. But my opposition has and continues to be against the way the Iranian regime treats and interferes in Iraq. The Iranian regime in cooperation with the US formed the current government in Iraq and plays a role in Iraq and as an Iraqi, my dignity does not allow me to let the Iranian regime rule over me, form my government, run my economy, and kill my people.  I cannot tolerate its paramilitary units equipped with silencer weapons.

Is it right that we ruin our relationships with the rest of the world because of the Iranian regime? I believe that if the Iraqi government and in particular if Mr. Nouri al-Maliki once again attack Ashraf and once again kill its residents, not only it will be committing an shameful act against the Iraqi people but it will cause a rift between us and the rest of the world. Today, the entire world says that they [Camp Ashraf residents] are protected persons according to the Fourth Geneva conventions and we have so far reached good agreements with the [UN] High Commissioner for Refugees and it is registering each camp resident as a refugee and plans to transfer them to a third country. But this process needs some time. We cannot complete this process within two months. Setting a deadline and saying that if you do not leave by the deadline, we will massacre you and will shed blood and cause a war with the rest of the world is not right. This is not one person’s decision but a decision to be made by all Iraqis. And the person who wants to make such a decision should take into consideration the credibility and dignity of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi history and the Arab ethics.

They [Camp Ashraf residents] are our guests and we should no longer treat them like we have in the past. This was not our manner as Iraqis or as Arabs. If resolving this issue needs six more months or one more year, we should consider such a time in order to resolve the issue in a humanitarian manner.

 

Rehearsal for a Bloodbath

THE HUFFINGTON POST

It was at 11 pm on Halloween, 31 October, that Iraqi security forces made their latest menacing incursion into Camp Ashraf. Thirty military vehicles accompanied by 10 police cars entered the camp northeast of Baghdad where 3,400 Iranian dissidents live, intimidating residents with glaring lights and deafening noise and conducting exercises around their homes.

A Camp Ashraf resident wounded by the Iraqi forces during the April 8, 2011 massacre

Simultaneously, the 300 loudspeakers placed around Ashraf to pile on the psychological pressure stepped up their barrage of threats and insults.

This bullying show of force followed a press conference in Baghdad earlier in the day at which Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s foreign minister, promised his visiting Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi, that Iraq would keep its promise of closing Camp Ashraf by 31 December, which is also the date that the last US soldier is due to leave Iraq. The world now has less than two months in which to stop this closure turning into a possible massacre. After two armed assaults by the Iraqi Army on the camp in 2009 and last April – when 36 people, including eight women, were killed and 300 were injured by soldiers carrying US-made weapons – there are no grounds for believing that the December closure will be carried out peacefully and humanely. The Ashraf residents, protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention, are members of the principal Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).

The Iranian Resistance says it fears the clerical regime in Iran and the Iraqi government are setting the stage for a new bloodbath in Ashraf. It is urging the US, the European Union and the United Nations to prevent it, calling for the implementation of the appeal of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in a report to the Security Council on 7 July, in which he asked “all stakeholders involved to increase their efforts to explore options and seek a consensual solution.”

One of the stakeholders is the United States, which earlier promised Ashraf residents its protection. But so far President Barack Obama has shown little sign of being willing to put the necessary pressure on Baghdad to make sure that Ashraf residents are treated humanely.

During the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Ashraf residents remained neutral. The following year, the US gave written guarantees to all of them that, in return for a voluntary disarmament, the US would protect them. But, in early 2009, the US handed over responsibility for the security of the camp to Iraqi forces. Since then, apart from the two violent military assaults, the camp has been under a punishing blockade, with residents deprived of basic services, such as access to proper medical help.

At the behest of Tehran, the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki set 31 December as the final deadline for the camp to close. Iran, rattled by fears of contagion of the Arab Spring and facing a growing international crisis caused by its drive to develop nuclear weapons and by exposure of its terrorist activities – the most recent being a foiled plot against the Saudi ambassador to Washington – wants Ashraf wiped out at any cost.

In September, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, stating that the Iranian dissidents are asylum-seekers entitled to international protection, urged that Ashraf’s closure be delayed. Still, Baghdad insists that the December deadline be met. Iraq has not the slightest interest in letting the UNHCR carry out its mission. Rather, by refusing to cooperate, it is creating the pretext to claim that no progress has been made and that the only solution is the closure of the camp by force.

One way out of this dreadful situation would be to station UN monitors in Ashraf alongside peacekeeping forces to allow the UNHCR to do its work until the final resettlement of Ashraf residents.

The US may be leaving Iraq but it still has a lot of leverage vis-à-vis the government in Baghdad and at the UN It could and it should make a move.

As things are evolving and if Maliki gets away with his plan to impose the deadline, just as the Christmas and New Year holidays are in full swing, the prospect is that the world will sit and watch while men and women are killed in cold blood or mutilated, crushed by US-supplied armoured personnel carriers.

Speaking to the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs on 27 October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington had sought assurances from Iraq “that it will treat Ashraf residents humanely, that it will not transfer the residents to a country that they may have reasons to fear.”

The time for words is over. Concrete actions are now essential to safeguard the residents of Camp Ashraf. The US has the power to help them. If not, 2012, a crucial election year, risks starting with a tragedy that the world could have stopped.

Brian Binley is a Conservative Member of Parliament for Northampton South

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/brian-binley/camp-ashraf-rehearsal-for-a-bloodbath_b_1076303.html

A US Pledge of Protection: What Is It Worth?

THE HUFFINGTON POST

The UN sanctioned US/NATO Libya operation to topple Gaddafi was based on a singular premise: where there is a looming humanitarian catastrophe and the international community has the means to stop it, it should intervene to do so. Whether the US/NATO involvement exceeded that mandate is another story. But what is indisputable is the legitimization of humanitarian intervention in such circumstances.

Today, President Barack Obama has available the same rationale that justified intervention in Libya to justify a non-military response to avert a humanitarian disaster in Iraq where 3,400 Iranian dissidents — members of the principal Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) — have been subjected to regular shootings and harassment by Iraqi soldiers. Located at Camp Ashraf, northeast of Baghdad, they are threatened with deportation to Iran. Yet, the Obama Administration seems oblivious to their fate, writing them off presumably as the price of better relations with Iraq or perhaps an opportunity for “engagement” with Iran.

On Dec. 31, 2011, the day that the last American soldier is due to leave Iraq, Camp Ashraf is under orders by the Iraqi regime to close down and for its residents to be dispersed to prisons or concentration camps, or to the tender mercies of Iranian executioners. Two unprovoked armed assaults by the Iraqi Army on Camp Ashraf in 2009 and last April resulted in over forty dead and hundreds injured by Iraqi soldiers carrying US-made weapons. There is no reason to hope that the impending closure will be either peaceful or humane, despite the fact that the Ashraf residents were granted protected persons status under the Fourth Geneva Convention by the US military.

Following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Ashraf residents were provided with written guarantees by US authorities that, in return for disarming voluntarily, the US would protect them. But, since early 2009, when the US handed over responsibility for the security of Camp Ashraf to Iraqi forces, that guarantee has become a cruel hoax as the Iraqi Army continues to impose a punishing blockade, depriving residents of basic services, including access to medical care.

The hand of Iran’s mullahs is easily detectible in this turn of events. Tehran has reputedly insisted that the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki set Dec. 31 as the deadline for the camp’s closure. Iran, rattled by fears of contagion of the Arab Spring and facing a growing international crisis over its drive to develop nuclear weapons and encouragement of terrorist activities abroad (the most recent being the foiled plot against the Saudi ambassador to Washington), wants Camp Ashraf and its residents eliminated at any cost.

Fortunately, the United Nations has stepped into this cauldron of abandoned concern. In September, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), declared that Ashraf residents are asylum-seekers entitled to international protection, and accordingly urged that, at the very least, Ashraf’s closure be delayed. The government of Iraq has ignored these pleas and insists that the December closure deadline is firm.

Yesterday, in a last-ditch effort to head off the impending humanitarian crisis, the top UN envoy to Iraq offered to broker the closing of Camp Ashraf and to prevent Iraqi officials from forcing its residents out at year’s end. It remains to be seen whether these efforts will bear any fruit. If they do not, it appears likely that Iraq will continue preparations for another onslaught on Ashraf’s defenseless residents, with a bloodbath in the offing.

We are at the eleventh hour. All concerned, and especially the United States, must put press now to assure that the Dec. 31 deadline for the closure of Camp Ashraf is not implemented. Instead, UN monitors should be stationed in Ashraf and the UN should send peacekeeping forces to allow the UNHCR to do its work of peaceably resettling Ashraf’s residents.

Surely, the United States, which has expended so much treasure in lives and money in restructuring Iraq as a friend of the United States retains sufficient leverage to influence a more benevolent approach by the Maliki regime. After all, it was the US military that gave Ashraf’s residents its written assurances of US protection. The failure of the US State Department to remove the MEK from the US List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (despite the plea of the US Court of Appeals that it act expeditiously to provide a further review based on more credible evidence), is of no consequence: all concede that humanitarian concerns apply equally regardless of any such listing.

What is at stake is not only the fate of the 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf, but the integrity of US commitments of protection. The fate of the Ashraf residents has become the litmus test of whether American pledges of humanitarian protection can be trusted. For the United States to not do its utmost to ensure that the recipients of US guarantees are not massacred, or dispersed so they can be killed in small groups, is innately incompatible with the moral high ground that President Obama staked out in dealing with freedom and democracy in the Arab world.

The US has the means to intervene without the need for military action — direct or indirect — by US forces. The only thing needed is the political will and courage to ensure that the integrity of what the United States says and does is not dishonored.

Allan Gerson is the Chairman of AG International Law in Washington D.C. He is presently involved with other attorneys in representing the PMOI/MEK in its efforts to be removed from the State Department List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allan-gerson/a-us-pledge-of-protection_b_1076369.html

Isolation not Invasion

THE HUFFINGTON POST

A pre-emptive attack by Israel or coalition forces against Iran’s nuclear facilities would prove disastrous to the interests of the West.

Although just rumour and rhetoric at present, if such thoughts were to become a reality they would represent a major set back for the democratic ambitions of an Iranian population determined to bring about change without international intervention. Equally importantly they could impact massively on those democrats in the Arab Spring countries working to establish democratic regimes through the ballot box.

Let us put such thoughts into context. For too long the West has tiptoed around Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, closing its eyes to Iran’s nuclear weapon programme. Time and again British and US leaders have appeased the Mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard and each step along that path, taken in the vain hope that the regime can somehow be moderated, has simply strengthened the regime’s view that the West is both weak and vacillating. In fact they have had the opposite effect of actually emboldening the regime.

Time and again we have been told that engagement with Tehran is the only solution. Time and again Tehran has come to the nuclear negotiations table, taken all the carrots offered, and then used the proverbial stick to punish us by supporting terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

We should, of course, deal with the Iranian regime in a forceful and meaningful manner using every tool at our disposal short of military intervention. But the time is not right to step over that line.

The West’s ambition seems to have centred on only two options when attempting to deal with Iran’s nuclear threat. The first is appeasement and the second is war. Both are dangerous and neither should be considered as practical solutions.

The third option, to which little thought has been given, revolves around the solution proffered by the Iranian resistance leader, Mrs Maryam Rajavi. Incidentally, it is supported by a large group of British Parliamentarians and would involve isolating the regime with targeted sanctions whilst actively supporting the Iranian people’s opposition movement both, internally and externally.

The first step has to be political and economic isolation using sanctions levied against the regime’s entire infrastructure, whilst at the same time removing the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from the list of banned organisations in the US which was initially enacted as a part of the appeasement programme during previous nuclear negotiations.

Secondly, we must end talk of war which can only help to silence the voice of Iranian opposition in the country. We must end talk of appeasement which has bitterly disappointed Iranian opposition both inside Iran’s borders and beyond and we must act to isolate the Iranian regime whilst supporting the Iranian peoples democratic opposition movement recognising the value of the Chinese proverb that my “enemy’s enemy is my friend.”

That’s the Third Way to create internal regime change and nullify Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

The big question is why the West has failed to recognise that option.

Brian Binley, Conservative Member of Parliament for Northampton South

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/brian-binley/tehran-nuclear-weapons-isolation-not-invasion_b_1076317.html

Iraq’s License to Kill

THE HUFFINGTON POST

Have you ever heard of someone be given an official deadline to be killed? Imagine you are sitting in your home and you are told by the government: in less than two months we will attack and kill you. And you have nowhere to go.

Well, that’s exactly what seems to be happening with the 3400 inhabitants of Camp Ashraf, an Iranian opposition camp set up 25 years ago in Iraq, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The residents, who are completely unarmed and defenseless refugees, including over a thousand of women and children, have been told that on 31 December 2011 – when American troops will completely withdraw from Iraq, the camp has to be evacuated. But they have not been given an alternative place to go.

In the past two years, since the US handed over security of the camp to the Iraqi forces, the camp residents have been continuously harassed and attacked by Iraqi army who under the orders of Prime Minister Maliki seem to be doing Tehran’s bidding. According to UN, at least 34 residents were shot dead or crushed under Iraqi army vehicles in the latest assault in April.

Tehran is obviously increasingly worried for popular uprisings with deepening internal division and crises over recent multi-billion fraud scandals and the fall of its ally-dictatorships in North Africa and the Middle East.

It therefore sees the residents of Ashraf who form the core of the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (MEK/PMOI) – the best-organised opposition to mullahs’ dictatorship, as an existential threat.

Realising that the Assad government’s days in Syria are numbered, the Mullahs do not want to have an organised group of dedicated men and women who campaign for human rights, separation between religion and state, gender equality, right for ethnic and religious minorities and a nuclear-free Iran next to their borders.

After being given a deadline to leave, Ashraf residents sent applications for asylum to UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Having confirmed receipt of the applications, the UN now says it has to conduct individual interviews with all residents to decide on each case and to find host countries, something that could take up to a year to accomplish. The High Commissioner therefore sent a letter to Iraqi premier asking him to extend the deadline until UN has accomplished total transfer of the residents to third countries.

But Iraq has rejected any extension of the deadline. On Monday, in a joint press conference with Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the press: “We have declared that the decision to close down Ashraf by the end of the year shall be implemented. In letters to the United Nations Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Refugees, and the European Union, we have emphasized the government’s decision in this regard.”

Earlier this week over 180 Members of European Parliament expressed their outrage over Iraq’s non-compliance with the international community to find a peaceful solution for Camp Ashraf. “This deadline could be used as a pretext for a large-scale massacre”, the lawmakers warned in a joint statement.

Amnesty International in a Public Statement and an Urgent Action just urged the Iraqi government to comply with international calls to extend the deadline for closing Camp Ashraf.

Last night the US Congress Foreign Affairs Committee adopted a new resolution on harsher sanctions against Iran which also urged Iraq to postpone the closure of Camp Ashraf. “If history is any guide, it will see another massacre,” Congressman Ted Poe warned during the debate.

At a same time a letter signed by nearly three dozen US lawmakers urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to prevent a fresh outbreak of violence at Camp Ashraf. The camp residents have been subjected to “deadly incursions and repeated incidents of harassment” by Iraqi forces, the lawmakers stressed.

The President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq, Struan Stevenson, in an article published in Washington Times this week expressed his outrage of Americans walking away from Iraq leaving Ashraf in the hands of Iran’s mercenaries.

“If the United States does not keep its word and honour its unfinished business with the men, women and children of Camp Ashraf, rest assured that Iran will settle its own unfinished business with them.

“Time is of the essence. Only eight weeks are left until the last American soldier leaves Iraq. The lives of 3,400 Iranian dissidents are at stake – and so is American credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world.

“Make no mistake about it: A Srebrenica-style massacre will happen at Camp Ashraf. When it does, no Americans will be able to say they weren’t warned,” Stevenson wrote.

The US may think it can walk away and let a massacre happen, but history will tell, as the Dutch government finally failed in international tribunals 16 years after walking away from Srebrenica.

Abbas Rezai is a Human Rights and Foreign Policy Writer

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/abbas-rezai/iraqs-license-to-kill_b_1074003.html

 

U.N. envoy offers to mediate dispute over Camp Ashraf

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Displaced Iranians face Dec. 31 to close their camp 

A U.N. envoy on Thursday offered to broker the peaceful closing of a camp for Iranian exiles in Iraq where residents and U.S. lawmakers say an Iraqi military crackdown may be imminent.

An aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who calls the residents of Camp Ashraf “terrorists,” said Iraq’s Cabinet will consider extending its deadline for closing the compound beyond Dec. 31.

U.N. envoy Martin Kobler offered to mediate between camp residents and Mr. Maliki’s government at a news conference in Baghdad.

“There [are] a number of problems that still have to be solved. This needs time, this needs space,” he said.

“The situation, as it is, is not satisfactory, neither to Camp Ashraf residents nor to the government nor to the international community.”

He said he would seek to start talks after the weeklong Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, which begins Sunday.

Camp Ashraf is inhabited by 3,400 members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, an Iranian opposition group that the State Department designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.

The camp, located north of Baghdad, has become a major irritant for the Maliki government, which is trying to improve relations with neighboring Iran. Supporters of the Mujahedeen dispute the terrorist label and accused Mr. Maliki of caving to pressure from Iran.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has said that the Iraqi deadline leaves too little time for the United Nations to process requests for refugee status from the camp’s residents, who fear they will be persecuted if they stay on in Iraq and executed if they are deported to Iran.

Late Monday night, Iraqi troops and police entered the camp with sirens blaring in what residents said was an attempt to intimidate them.

On April 8, the Iraqi army attacked the camp killing 36 residents, including eight women. More than 300 others were wounded.

In recent conversations with their Iraqi counterparts, U.S. officials have expressed concern for the safety of the camp’s residents.

The U.S. turned over control of Camp Ashraf to the Iraqi government in June of 2009. At the time, the Iraqi government had provided the United States with written assurances that it would treat Camp Ashraf residents humanely, in accordance with Iraqi laws and its international obligations.

“In addition, the government of Iraq stated that it would not transfer residents of Ashraf to a country where they might have reason to fear persecution for their religious or political beliefs or where there are substantial grounds for believing that they would be tortured,” said Noel Clay, a State Department spokesman in Washington.

“We continue to urge the government of Iraq, at the very highest levels, to honor its commitments to treat the residents of Ashraf humanely.”

On Wednesday, nearly three dozen members of Congress sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging him to prevent a fresh wave of violence at Camp Ashraf.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/3/un-envoy-offers-to-mediate-dispute-over-camp-ashra/

What’s Next for Iran?

On Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously approved harsher penalties against Iran, citing the regime’s plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador on American soil.

This latest Iranian provocation signals an alarming escalation by a terrorist regime that has been complicit in killing U.S. soldiers through its proxies, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Shia radicals in Iraq.

What evil can we expect next from the Mullahs’ brutal regime?

In a word, the wholesale slaughter of 3,400 unarmed Iranian dissidents whom the U.S. government has sworn to protect…a looming humanitarian catastrophe we are honor-bound to prevent.

There’s no doubt that December 31 will be especially joyful this year; a time when families across our country can welcome home the last remaining sons and daughters who fought bravely in Iraq. 

But December 31 will also mark the illegal and arbitrary deadline set by Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, at Tehran’s direction, for closing Camp Ashraf and dispersing its residents throughout the country– where they can be tortured or killed quietly out of sight of the international community. This is hardly the “successful” conclusion of the nine-year military intervention in Iraq that Americans will want to remember–or that the American president will want to claim as his legacy in an uphill re-election campaign.

Camp Ashraf, Iraq is home to members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) who are “protected persons” under the Geneva Convention. 

The MEK is the principal Iranian opposition movement and it is committed to non-violent regime change and a democratic, nuclear-free Iranian future. 

During the past 25 years, this community has transformed Ashraf from a barren piece of land into a modern, vibrant town with universities, libraries and convention centers, parks, pools, and sports facilities. The Mullah’s in Iran consider MEK an existential threat and have vowed to annihilate its members in Camp Ashraf at all costs.

In 2004, the United States gave each and every man, woman, and child living in Camp Ashraf, a written guarantee of protection until they could be relocated safely. But since early 2009, when the U.S. handed over the camp to the Iraqis, Ashraf has been under a suffocating siege. Residents have been subjected to psychological torture and deprived of basic necessities including access to medical services.

Twice — in July 2009 and in April 2011 — defenseless Ashraf residents were brutally attacked by Iraqi troops acting on Tehran’s orders. The result was 36 dead, including eight women, and over 300 injured. And that was while US troops were in the country! Imagine what will happen when the U.S. military presence in Iraq is removed.

Seeking to extend its influence in the region, Iran will most assuredly exploit President Obama’s decision to leave Iraq without any U.S. military presence. And the opportunity to forge a deeper alliance with Iraq finds a willing partner in Nouri al-Maliki who has flouted international outrage over his actions with respect of Camp Ashraf.

In an ominous development earlier this week, Iraqi military and police units in humvees and trucks entered Camp Ashraf around midnight, sounding their sirens and brandishing their weapons in a calculated effort to intimidate and terrorize the residents.

Maliki’s previous attacks on Camp Ashraf were roundly condemned by The Secretary of State, the UK Foreign Office, the EU High Representative, the U.S. Congress, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and international human rights groups such as Amnesty International. 

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry described the raid a “massacre,” calling for a thorough, independent investigation, and emphasizing that Iraqis must refrain from any further military action against Camp Ashraf.

When, shortly thereafter, the European Parliament offered a long-term, peaceful solution to the crisis wherein Ashraf residents would be peacefully evacuated and re-settled in EU member states and other countries (including the US), the Iraqi foreign minister prevented a European Parliament delegation from visiting the Camp.

In June, a senior bipartisan delegation of the House Foreign Affairs Committee also travelled to Baghdad to see Camp Ashraf investigate the April 8th massacre. The Congressmen met Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Once again, access to the camp was denied. The delegation held a press conference in the US Embassy after the meeting and called the Ashraf raid a “crime against humanity.”

The need for intervention by the US, EU and U.N. is urgent. American taxpayers, who are funding 27% of the annual U.N. budget for peacekeeping, should demand that the international organization immediately dispatch blue helmet forces to safeguard the unarmed men, women, and children in Camp Ashraf.

In his 2009 Cairo address, President Obama promised a new chapter in U.S. relations with the Muslim world. Make no mistake about it, America’s inaction in the face of a Srebrenica-style massacre at Camp Ashraf will leave an indelible stain on Muslim-U.S. relations–one that will not be easily forgotten or forgiven in the Muslim world.

The amendment to the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011 that was unanimously adopted yesterday in the House Foreign Affairs Committee calls on the Obama administration to pressure Iraq to ensure the safety of the camp residents, prevent their involuntary return to Iran, and delay closing the camp until the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees can resettle them in another country.

Clearly, the United States has a moral and legal duty to uphold the promises it made to the residents of Camp Ashraf, Iraq. To do otherwise would hand Iran a victory, seriously damage American credibility throughout the world and lead to a humanitarian disaster that must be prevented.

Howard Dean is the former Democratic governor of Vermont. He served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005-09. Tom Ridge is the former Republican governor of Pennsylvania. He served as our country’s first Secretary of Homeland Security in the administration of President George W. Bush.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/11/03/whats-next-for-iran

UN to broker deal between Iraq, Iranian exiles

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Gorguis Yacoub, left, representative of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks to journalists during a joint press conference with Martin Kobler, right, top U.N. envoy to Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011. The top U.N. envoy to Iraq is offering to broker the peaceful closing of a camp of Iranian exiles before the government in Baghdad forces its residents out at the end of the year. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

BAGHDAD (AP) — In a last-ditch attempt to head off a confrontation, the top U.N. envoy to Iraq on Thursday offered to broker the peaceful closing of a camp of Iranian exiles before the government in Baghdad forces its residents out at the end of the year.

An aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Iraq’s Cabinet would consider easing its deadline if a solution can be agreed on quickly.

At issue is a group of about 3,300 exiles at the remote Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province who seek the overthrow of Tehran’s clerical rulers. Members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, they won refuge at Ashraf decades ago during the regime of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni who saw them as a convenient ally against Tehran’s theocracy.

Since Saddam’s fall in 2003, the exiles have become an irritant to Iraq’s Shiite-led government, which is trying to bolster ties with Iran.

A deadly April raid on the camp by Iraqi forces drew international criticism of Baghdad’s treatment of the group. Al-Maliki responded by pledging to deport the Ashraf residents by the end of the year. The Ashraf residents fear they will be sent back to Iran and imprisoned or persecuted.

“There is a number of problems that still have to be solved,” U.N. envoy Martin Kobler said at a news conference in Baghdad. “This needs time, this needs space.”

He added: “The situation, as it is, is not satisfactory, neither to Camp Ashraf residents nor to the government nor to the international community.”

Kobler said he would seek to start talks after weeklong Muslim Eid al-Adha observance, which begins Sunday.

Ashraf residents are trying to win asylum in the United States, Canada and countries in the European Union but have not been widely successful. The U.S. considers the People’s Mujahedeen a terrorist organization, although the European Union removed it from its terror list several years ago.

Also at the news conference was al-Maliki aide Gorguis Yacoub who, in a turnabout for the government, opened the possibility that the deportation deadline could be extended. He said that decision would be up to the Cabinet, repeating the government’s stance that it wants the Ashraf residents out of Iraq by the end of the year.

Asked if the Cabinet would grant an extension, Yacoub said it would be a possibility “if there to be quick measures in order to achieve” a resolution.

In a statement, Ashraf spokesman Shahriar Kia said the deadline should be canceled outright to give all sides enough time to resolve the years-long dispute. He noted that legislators across the world — including some in Congress and the European Parliament — have demanded that the residents be granted refugee status, which would protect them.

Kia said Ashraf residents have been especially fearful in the last few days after additional Iraqi troops began gathering outside the camp’s gate and waking them up with taunts broadcast through loudspeakers during early morning hours. Iraqi troops took similar actions just before the deadly April 8 raid that left dozens dead.

Journalists are barred from entering Camp Ashraf, and U.N. monitors have been given only limited access. Kia called on the government to withdraw its troops and allow a U.N. monitor to be stationed at the camp.

“Anything less than this is a prelude to the massacre of the residents and a worst repeat of previous bloodbath,” he said.

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Associated Press Writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.