Letters

Open Letter to Mr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras

Parlement européen

Bât. Altiero Spinelli

11E205

60, rue Wiertz / Wiertzstraat 60

B-1047 Bruxelles/Brussel

Dear Sir,

I read about your recent unofficial trip to the infamous Camp Ashraf garrison which houses the remains of the Mojahedin Khalq terrorist organisation.

Of course, as Vice-President of the European Parliament, I was surprised that I did not hear of your visit from Iraqi government officials. Perhaps you did not see the need to discuss your concerns about this foreign terrorist entity with the legitimate government of the country you were visiting. Unfortunately, the unofficial nature of your visit to this terrorist group aligns you with the remains of the Saddam regime in Iraq.

I also read the open letter sent to your good self from Sahar Foundation in Baghdad – I have the honour to have been involved in its creation in Iraq earlier this year to save the victims of this terrorist cult.

Dear Sir,

The letter sent to you by Sahar Foundation needs no further elaboration but it is worth reminding your good self that the government of Iraq (with which I am now in regular contact and consultation) regards the group in which you have such an interest as part and parcel of Saddam’s repressive army and therefore is adamant to expel them from their country. The Iraqi government sees no benefit or in fact obligation to assist a part of Saddam’s private army who are neither Iraqis nor civilians. You must surely agree that these people cannot remain in Iraq. The American army will soon hand over the security of Diyali province to the Iraqi government which has pledged to remove the group from the country.

You visited the camp without any human rights organisation representative accompanying your good self. You visited the camp without any official from the government of Iraq and you visited the camp without even investigating the allegations as to what is really going on behind its closed doors. Whatever your intention, yours was certainly not a visit to investigate allegations of widespread, unnecessary hysterectomies performed on women in the camp, otherwise you would have taken the trouble of asking a couple of physicians to accompany you. You even failed to take an independent translator with you (or did the cult leaders deny entry to independent people?)

Dear Sir,

The least you could have done was to take with you a couple of the many hundreds of parents who have not been allowed to see their children for the last 25 years. Or, you could have asked for telephone lines to be installed to contact the people inside the camp.

Dear Mr Vidal-Quadras,

Did you not notice that the camp has no children inside? Did you not think that this is because the cult leader has banned marriage and family relations? Did you not notice that the citizens of "Ashraf City" wear uniforms and do not see "Rejection of Violence" as contradictory with "military training"? Did you not notice that all the people who were allowed to get near you were saying the same thing and acting the same way? Dear Sir, you are a politician. Surely you know better than anyone that if you have 10 people who wear the same uniform, say the same thing, laugh at the same time and shout at the same time, there must be a dictating force behind them.

And did you not see that the "city" you visited had no nursery, no shops, no school, no cinema, no marriage registry office, no public phone box, no post office, no….

Dear Sir, I really think you should visit the camp again, and this time I offer my services to accompany your good self. After all, I don’t think that they have taken you to see the anti-nuclear Leadership compound which was built as a gift to Massoud Rajavi by Saddam Hussein, I am sure they have not let you visit the "Exit" section of the camp where over 300 people who refuse to take military orders are imprisoned by the cult.

Dear Sir,

Immediately after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Massoud Rajavi, guru of the Mojahedin Khalq cult, went into hiding. After three years incommunicado, a statement was issued in 2006 in his name. In it Rajavi announced his timescale for toppling the Iranian regime: "in the next two years". Little attention was given at the time. Rajavi has made this kind of claim frequently over the past 30 years without effect.

Information from inside the cult, however, indicates that the specific deadline of January 2009 is part of a more sinister plan by the cult leaders. Following the announcement of this date, every member was required to sign a piece of paper giving their oath that they will not leave the cult until January 2009 – by which time, according to Rajavi, the regime must be toppled.

Rajavi’s message states that when the deadline of January 2009 arrives: ‘anyone who wants to can leave, and I will myself throw out all the useless ones. I will keep the rest who are pure, and I will tell them then what they have to do for me’. Experts on the MKO’s cult jargon interpret this as Rajavi’s intention to have his followers ‘wreak havoc’; the most predictable scenarios being mass suicide in Camp Ashraf and/or attacks on external interests with suicidal intensity in other parts of the world where the MKO cult has bases. That is, the ‘pure’ MKO operatives will kill all Rajavi’s opponents in Europe and then kill themselves.

The 2006 US State Department Country Reports on Terrorism, which describes the Mojahedin as a terrorist entity with cult-like characteristics, warned: "Many MEK leaders and operatives, however, remain at large, and the number of at-large MEK operatives who received weapons and bomb-making instruction from Saddam Hussein’s regime remains a source of significant concern."

Our friends who have managed to escape for the camp during the last 5 years are deeply worried about yet another series of self-immolations or even suicide operations like the ones carried out by order of the cult leaders as recently as 2003.

We are deeply concerned that with the elapse of the deadline of January 2009 as Massoud Rajavi has promised, the remaining people will be forced into mass suicide and or mass murder of the ones who do not obey Rajavi anymore.

Sir, as someone who has access to the cult leaders, as someone who now has access to the inside of the camp, and as someone who has the ability and the power to make a difference, I urge you to help us to:

1- Open the gates of this camp ASAP to human rights organization representatives, in particular to independent physicians and psychologists.

2- Open the gates of this camp to the immediate families of people inside, some of whom have not seen their loved ones for over two decades.

3- Arrange a place of refuge (to replace the TIPF) for the ones who do not wish to continue serving the leaders of a terrorist cult so that they could run away from the hands of the Camp leaders.

4- Facilitate the transfer of all the people in the camp from Iraq to the safety of European countries where they can be rehabilitated and re integrated into normal societies.

Preliminary to a return visit, I would like to meet with you and bring to your attention some basic facts and information concerning Camp Ashraf and to discuss with you the Iraqi government’s position toward the group which you apparently failed to ascertain whilst visiting their country.

Attached documents:

Iran Interlink Special Report from Baghdad

http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=4095 

Report of a meeting on the MKO in the European Parliament

http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=5097 

Report "No Exit" by Human Rights Watch

http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=797 

Report of the US State Department 2007

http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=818 

Letter of SAHAR Foundation from Baghdad

http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=5350 

.

Yours

Massoud Khdabandeh

Cc:

– Office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maleki

– Office of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani

– Office of Javier Solana, Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union

– Office of Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the UN

– Human Rights Watch (New York)

– Amnesty international (London)

– UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office

– US State Department

– Embassies of France, Germany, Russia and China in London

– Relevant MEPs