September first reminds us of a disputed attack at Camp Ashraf which left 52 out of 100 camp residents dead and 7 people allegedly got missed.
After the majority residents of Camp Ashraf had been relocated to Camp Liberty as a Temporary Transit Location based on the December2011 Quadra agreement between Bagdad, UN, US and MKO, 100 residents remained behind in Camp under the pretext of resolving the issue of remaining properties of the group.
However, the main reason was that the Mujahedin Khalq leadership hidden agenda was to bring the members back to the camp Ashraf.
Indeed, since the downfall of Saddam Hussein as their benefactor in Iraq, the newly established Iraqi Shiite government has repeatedly reiterated their unwillingness to host the ousted dictator’s allies in their soil, considering the MKO’s heinous atrocities against Iraqi people.
However, the Rajavis ignored the legal decision of the legitimate government and the people of Iraq and kept insisting on keeping members in Iraq.
The MKO leadership considered the Camp Ashraf as their strategic-ideological base which could guarantee the group’s armed substance along with its cult-like structure. So they prolonged their stay in Camp Ashraf and Iraq.
On September1, 2013 Mujahedin Khalq press were first to publish the news, Photographs and videos of the scene of the suspicious attack were shown. Broadcasting their own version of events, the organization immediately claimed the violent act was conducted by an Iraqi SWAT team.
The Iraqi officials on the other hand denied the accusations asserting that some MKO members attacked and killed two soldiers outside the gate. The Iraqi officials said “an internal dispute was to blame”, Associated Press reported at the time.
The incident followed by condemnations –while assigning no blame – from UN, EU, European and US governments, asking Iraq to launch an investigation into the attack. Amnesty International also called for an impartial inquiry.
United Nations officials visited the camp Ashraf shortly after the incident and condemned the bloodshed, but they didn’t report any findings as to who was responsible. []
Although some news reported the attackers to be Intifada Iraqi youth whose families had been massacred by the MKO as Iraq ousted dictator’s ally, the tragic assault on Ashraf remained unclear to date.
Whoever perpetrated the attack, still the MKO leaders are to blame for murders because of their resistance toward evacuation of the Camp despite the Iraq, US, European Union and UNAMI several times calling on the Cult leadership to evacuate Ashraf considering the previous attacks on both MKO camps as well as the December2011 MoU .
At last the tragic controversial bloody incident at the Camp Ashraf forced the Cult leadership to evacuate the Camp. Some 10 days after the tragic incident the 42 remaining survivals left the Camp to reside in the Camp Liberty and await to be transferred to third countries.
The MKO members’ transfer to Temporary Transit Location and evacuating the Camp Ashraf was truly a new start in the group’s declining course.
The number of defections has been significantly increased since the relocation to TTL as the MKO cult leaders could not maintain their cult structure completely. The MKO leaders couldn’t resist towards transferring Liberty residents to third countries. More than three hundred members have been transferred to Albania, Germany and Italy. there are unconfirmed news quoting informed sources in Iraqi Foreign Ministry as stating that 850 of the Camp Liberty residents will be relocated in the US, Canada, Albania and Romania up to end of 2014.[]
Despite the Cult futile efforts to rebuild its cultic structure in any country its members are being transferred in order to keep the transferees within the cult boundaries, still a large number of the MKO members who relocated to Albania distanced themselves from the group and connected to the former members in Europe and have started denouncing the MKO.
So as the MKO leaders who see their cult on the verge of collapse and losing their decades-long hostages seems to prefer to make use of the Liberty captives in a way which best benefits their interests. That is to make 3000+ martyrs out of them.
The heavy lobbying struggle by MKO’s widespread propaganda network in European countries is hard at work to buy time for the leaders of Mujahedin to keep members in Iraq and at the same time make Iraqi government accountable for the insecurity and sufferings of the TTL residents.
A.Sepinoud