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Terrorist MEK to be expelled from Iraq

A Conference in Baghdad University on Friday 25 November was organised by Al-Edalat Al-Iraqi Society, headed by Dr Nafe Al-Isa, which represents the families of 25,000 Iraqi victims of the MEK.
The Conference was held in Al-Hakim Conference Centre in Baghdad University and hundreds of tribal leaders, University lecturers, Governmental representatives and officials, NGOs and media representatives filled the salon. Although Camp Ashraf and the MEK is an issue specific to the government and citizens of Iraq, the Conference organisers made sure to invite Western agencies, such as the UN, EU and diplomats who have claimed or expressed an interest in Camp Ashraf. Unfortunately, however, any such invitees were apparently unable to leave the Green Zone to attend the Conference and talk to the delegates.
Opening the Conference, Dr Nafe, speaking on behalf of the families of victims of MEK violence, asked that those MEK leaders who were responsible for this violence be brought to justice before their deportation.
Speakers from the government and NGOs all emphasized that the deadline for deportation must be strictly adhered to and that Iraqi and international law against terrorism and crime must be upheld. Other speakers, in particular the tribal leaders spoke about the MEK’s crimes which they have witnessed in recent years in Diyala province. They were highly critical of the failure of the American military to dismantle the camp after 2003, and were scathing of the continued American backing which allowed the camp to be used for training and inciting terrorism against Iraqis.
On this theme, Jasem Al- Ebadi, Member of Parliament and member of the parliamentary Human Rights Commission used his speech to criticise EU efforts to keep the terrorist group intact and their opposition to the deportation process. He commented that if they are so in love with this terrorist group, why don’t they take them to their own countries?

(Mr. Al- Shahmani, MP)

Mr Adnan Al-Shahmani, head of the Parliamentary Committee to oversee the expulsion of the MEK announced in the Conference that the deadline would not be extended and that the camp will be closed by the end of the year. He also explained that the Iraqi Judiciary had issued its final verdict that the camp should be closed and the land handed back to the original owners.
Mr Al- Shahmani also criticized the West for its silence toward the crimes committed by the group against civilians, and asked international communities not to remain silent in the case of the abuse of the rights of the families of the victims of the MEK.

(Mr. Al- Shahmani, meeting families)

Mr Al-Shahmani also met with the representatives of the families of hostages inside Camp Ashraf and the delegation from European countries who are campaigning to ensure a peaceful outcome to the standoff at the camp.

(Mr. Khodabandeh)

Massoud Khodabandeh, from Middle East Strategy Consultants which is working with the Iraqi government to resolve the situation at Camp Ashraf, introduced his book ‘The Life of Camp Ashraf – Mojahedin-e Khalq Victims of Many Masters’ to the Conference. The book places the MEK in the context of its foreign ownership and concludes that these owners have invested heavily in the MEK’s ability to commit acts of violence and terrorism, and that this is the reason for western resistance to closing the camp. The book particularly highlights the MEK’s refusal to allow residents of the camp to have contact with their immediate families as a fundamental human rights abuse of every person in the camp.

(Ms. Abdollahi)

Ms Abdollahi represented the families and asked for help to release the hostages (including her own son) from the camp. Ms Abdollahi reminded the Conference that the families’ struggle to find their relatives had been going on since 2003 and that a permanent picket had been established two years ago. She stressed that when searching for a solution the families of course have the security and safety of all the residents as their utmost priority. The families have the simplest and easily granted request – to visit their loved ones who are in the camp. This does not depend on the removal of the MEK from Iraq and would be simple to do. The only barrier to this request is the order of the MEK leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. They can easily resolve this issue by ordering that the families of MEK members be allowed to have free and unfettered contact with their loved ones.

(Ms. Sanjabi)

Ms Sanjabi is an ex-member of the MEK’s women only Leadership Council. She managed to escape from Camp Ashraf very recently, and explained the dire situation of the women inside the camp, detailing disturbing and shocking human rights abuses which are currently being carried out against the residents by the MEK leaders.

(Ms Mahdian)

Ms Mahdian, whose husband is a hostage inside the camp, explained how Saddam’s Intelligence services gave her husband to the MEK as a slave, even though he had been and is still a registered POW, captured at the start of the Iran-Iraq war. Ms Mahdian explained that her son has not seen his father for the past 25 years and the MEK would not allow this visit even after two years of picketing.

(Mr. Sadeghi)

Mr Sadeghi from Germany, who is one of the few members who managed to run away from the camp successfully during the time of Saddam Hussein, presented and explained evidence of recent MEK interference in the internal affairs of Iraq, their collaboration with Saddamists and other terrorist groups, and the MEK’s active role in intensifying the insurgency.

(Mr. Ghashghavi)

Mr Ghashghavi also from Germany, served eight years without trial in Saddam’s prisons including Abu Ghraib for refusing to carry out Massoud Rajavi’s orders to commit criminal acts. Mr Ghashghavi explained how Rajavi and Saddam would force people to either kill others or be sent to the torture chambers themselves and be killed.

(Mr. Ezati and Ms. Sanjabi)

Another ex-MEK member, Mr Ezati who now lives in the Netherlands, gave interviews to the media explaining the situation inside the camp and the constant abuse of human rights of the victims. Mr Ezati strongly criticized the unfortunate media silence over these human rights abuses which he ascribed to the pervasive influence of the MEK’s powerful backers who regard the MEK as “good terrorists”.

(Nejat delegation)

Tens of ex-MEK members who work with Nejat Association in Iran, also attended the Conference and were interviewed by the media. They explained that Nejat Association, which works closely with the families of the hostages, now has the capacity to help those survivors who wish to do so, to go back to their country under the amnesty which was granted by the Iranian authorities in 2003 (which is based on the understanding that the MEK members have been subjected to the coercion and control of cult leaders) and which to date has been upheld under the supervision of the ICRC.
Conference attendees were particularly interested in the testimony of three recently escaped camp residents who gave full and detailed explanations to the media about the harsh reality of being a captive inside Camp Ashraf. They spoke about the total information blackout and social and emotional isolation they experienced there. They emphasized that the leaders and the hostage takers lie constantly to the residents so that the captives have no idea about the outside world. They are made to believe that the MEK leaders are directly supported by the Americans and that if they tried to escape the camp they would be immediately shot, or now, after being tortured by the Iraqis they would be handed over to Iran to be executed without trial. They said that if they were given the true facts and information, there is not one person in the camp who would still want to stay in the desert of Iraq nearly nine years after disarmament. They urged international organizations, especially the US representatives and UNAMI, who are the only organizations with close relations with the hostage takers, to take advantage of their weekly meetings inside Camp Ashraf with the hostage takers, to persuade them to open up the flow of information and convince them to give people the right to family visits as well as normal means of communication such as writing and telephones, etc.
These recently escaped hostages also urged UNAMI not to present the hostage takers as the representatives of the hostages in the media outputs. Instead they should be clear that Rajavi is no one’s representative and as long as the negotiators have not met with the hostages without the presence of the MEK commanders – the hostage takers – outside the camp, they have no right to claim anything on their behalf. They said they believe that UNAMI and the American backers of the cult are in breach of international law for siding with the terrorists as these are people who have abused the human rights of over 3000 people for decades. The survivors of Camp Ashraf are now taking legal advice to claim compensation for their suffering and losses from the MEK leaders.

November 29, 2011 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S.

At a time of partisan gridlock in the capital, one obscure cause has drawn a stellar list of supporters from both parties and the last two administrations, including a dozen former top national security officials. For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S.

That alone would be unusual. What makes it astonishing is the object of their attention: a fringe Iranian opposition group, long an ally of Saddam Hussein, that is designated as a terrorist organization under United States law and described by State Department officials as a repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis.

The extraordinary lobbying effort to reverse the terrorist designation of the group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen, has won the support of two former C.I.A. directors, R. James Woolsey and Porter J. Goss; a former F.B.I. director, Louis J. Freeh; a former attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey; President George W. Bush’s first homeland security chief, Tom Ridge; President Obama’s first national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones; big-name Republicans like the former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Democrats like the former Vermont governor Howard Dean; and even the former top counterterrorism official of the State Department, Dell L. Dailey, who argued unsuccessfully for ending the terrorist label while in office.

The American advocates have been well paid, hired through their speaking agencies and collecting fees of $10,000 to $50,000 for speeches on behalf of the Iranian group. Some have been flown to Paris, Berlin and Brussels for appearances.

But they insist that their motive is humanitarian — to protect and resettle about 3,400 members of the group, known as the M.E.K., now confined in a camp in Iraq. They say the terrorist label, which dates to 1997 and then reflected decades of violence that included the killing of some Americans in the 1970s, is now outdated, unjustified and dangerous.

Emotions are running high as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton completes a review of the terrorist designation. The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq has said it plans to close the camp, Camp Ashraf, by Dec. 31 and move the people elsewhere in Iraq in order to reassert Iraqi sovereignty over the land where it is located, 40 miles north of Baghdad.

Two earlier incursions by Iraqi troops into Camp Ashraf led to bloody confrontations, with 11 residents killed in July 2009 and at least 34 in April of this year. The M.E.K. and its American supporters say that they believe the Maliki government, with close ties to Iran, may soon carry out a mass slaughter on the pretext of regaining control of the camp.

If that happens, the supporters say, the United States — which disarmed the M.E.K. and guaranteed the security of the camp after the invasion of Iraq — will bear responsibility.

“We made a promise,” said Mr. Ridge, a former congressman and governor of Pennsylvania. “Our credibility is on the line. They’ve been attacked twice. How can we possibly accept assurances from the Maliki government?”

Mr. Ridge suggested that the M.E.K.’s implacable hostility to the rulers of Iran should be a point in their favor.

“In my view, if you’re a threat to Ahmadinejad,” — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president — “well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Mr. Ridge said. He noted that the M.E.K. had provided information on Iran’s nuclear program during the Bush administration.

The M.E.K. advocacy campaign has included full-page newspaper advertisements identifying the group as “Iran’s Main Opposition” — an absurd distortion in the view of most Iran specialists. The M.E.K. has hired high-priced lobbyists like the Washington firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Its lawyers in Europe won a long fight to persuade the European Union to drop its own listing of the M.E.K. as a terrorist group in 2009.

The group’s spending, certainly in the millions of dollars, has inevitably raised questions about funding sources.

Ali Safavi, who runs a pro-M.E.K. group in Washington called Near East Policy Research, says the money comes from wealthy Iranian expatriates in the United States and Europe. Because “material support” to a designated terrorist group is a crime, advocates insist that the money goes only to sympathizers and not to the M.E.K. itself.

Congress has taken note of the campaign. A House resolution for dropping the terrorist listing has 97 co-sponsors, including the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan. At a hearing this month, senators pressed the defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, about the threat to Camp Ashraf.

A State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, said officials there were “working as quickly as possible” to complete a review of the M.E.K.’s terrorist designation. American officials are supporting an effort by the United Nations to resettle Camp Ashraf residents voluntarily to other countries, a process that is making slow progress.

Other State Department officials, addressing the issue on the condition of anonymity because it is still under deliberation, said that they did believe the 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf were in danger as the Dec. 31 deadline approaches.

“We’re in constant talks with the Iraqis and the Ashraf leadership to show maximum flexibility on the closure of the camp,” one official said.

But the officials expressed frustration at what they described as the American supporters’ credulous acceptance of the M.E.K.’s claims of representing the Iranian opposition and of embracing democratic values.

In years of observation, the official said, Americans have seen that the camp’s leaders “exert total control over the lives of Ashraf’s residents, much like we would see in a totalitarian cult,” requiring fawning devotion to the M.E.K.’s leaders, Maryam Rajavi, who lives in France, and her husband, Massoud, whose whereabouts are unknown.

Moreover, the official said, the group is “hated almost universally by the Iranian population,” in part for siding with Mr. Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. A State Department cable this year concluded that any indication of United States support for the M.E.K. “would fuel anti-American sentiment” in Iran and would “likely empower Iranian hardliners.”

In Iraq, the M.E.K. is also widely despised, especially by the country’s Shiite majority, because it is accused of helping the Iraqi dictator crush a Shiite revolt in 1991 — a charge the group denies. Because of deep Iraqi hostility, American officials argue that merely dropping the terrorist designation would not end the danger of attacks on the group.

While the M.E.K. carried out a campaign of attacks from the 1970s to the 1990s, mostly targeting Iranian officials, supporters say it has renounced violence and has not engaged in terrorist acts for a decade. The designation law, however, allows Mrs. Clinton to keep the label for a group that “retains the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism.”

Such a decision would outrage the American advocates of reversing the terrorist label.

Mr. Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009, said the administration’s failure to act decisively threatened a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Mr. Mukasey said he did not believe the claim that the M.E.K. was a cult, but even if true, it was no reason to keep the terrorist listing. “These people are sitting in the camp, completely harmless,” he said.

Like other advocates, Mr. Mukasey said he had been paid his standard speaking fee — $15,000 to $20,000, according to the Web site of his speakers’ agency — to talk at M.E.K.-related events. But he insisted that the money was not a factor for him or other former officials who had taken up the cause. “There’s no way I would compromise my standing by expressing views I don’t believe in,” he said.

Artin Afkhami contributed reporting from Boston.

By SCOTT SHANE

November 27, 2011 0 comment

European Union

EU to urge members to accept MEK Terrorists

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will urge EU states next week to accept as many residents as they can of a camp of Iranian dissidents in Iraq that Baghdad plans to close by the end of the year, EU officials said on Thursday.

Ashton will make the call as part of efforts to resolve the issue of Camp Ashraf, a base of the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, which mounted attacks on Iran before the U.S.-led removal of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been trying to arrange to interview the more than 3,000 residents to determine who among them qualifies for refugee status and thus resettlement, but Iraq has yet to allow this.

A senior EU official said the United Nations and Iraq were working to resolve "a logistical problem" caused by Iraq’s refusal to allow the interviews to take place at the camp.

Hundreds have links to third countries, including EU states, while another 1,000 were thought to want to return to Iran.

He said Iraq had proposed that the interviews take place at a Baghdad hotel. Talks were also under way on the possibility of housing those not immediately relocated to third countries at a former U.S. base near Baghdad for up to six months.

The official said the United Nations had estimated in the past that about 800-900 of the residents had sufficient links to third countries to allow their resettlement, while another 1,000 were thought to want to return to Iran.

Another EU official said Ashton would call on EU states at a meeting of EU foreign ministers next week to take responsibility for those entitled to resettle in their countries.

"We have a deadline coming up," he said. "We are doing all we can to make sure member states take their responsibility."

The senior EU official was unable to estimate how many residents might be entitled to resettlement in EU countries. He said many claimed links to France and Germany but both countries showed a reluctance to accept them.

The EU removed the PMOI from its terrorism list in 2009, but it is still considered a terrorist organistion by other countries, including the United States.

The senior EU official said Iraq had issued arrest warrants for up to 120 of the residents, some of whom had helped Saddam in his campaigns against Iran and Iraq’s Kurdish minority.

"I guess the Iraqis will want to put them on trial," he said, adding that he did not think any EU country would want to give this group asylum.

The official said that while some EU countries were willing to take in limited numbers, the best hope for the others was for resettlement in countries such as Australia and Canada.

"The International community will do its best to relocate them, but it won’t be easy because many people consider them (the PMOI) terrorists."

The future of Ashraf’s residents became uncertain in 2009 after the United States turned the camp over to the Iraqi government, which considers its residents a threat to security.

Amnesty International says they are subject to harassment by the government and denied access to basic medicine. More than 30 were killed in a clash with Iraqi security forces in April.

On Tuesday, members of the European Parliament called on Ashton to step up pressure on Iraq to extend the deadline for closing the camp.

Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Jon Hemming

November 27, 2011 0 comment

Iraq

Iraqi officials, tribal leaders call for MKO expulsion

The presence of the terrorist Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) in Iraq and its consequences still remain among the main topics discussed in the country’s political spectrum.

A number of Iraqi officials, tribal leaders and some foreign agencies attended a conference, calling for the expulsion of MKO

To vew the video file click here

A number of Iraqi officials, tribal leaders and some foreign agencies attended a conference, calling for the expulsion of members of the terrorist group from the country.

Baghdad has said it is determined to shut the camp down by the end of this year. The decision came in response to the people’s repeated calls, urging the authorities to expel the MKO from their country.

The officials said the brutality of the MKO members against the Iraqis have left dark memories, stressing that no country in the world will accept such terrorist organization on its soil.

The head of the Middle East strategic delegation said US forces have failed to dismantle the MKO camp and left the issue to the Iraqi government.

Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization sided with the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and carried out numerous terrorist acts against both Iranians and Iraqis.

The group fled to Iraq in the 1980s, where it enjoyed the support Saddam Hussein, and set up the camp in Diyala near the Iranian border.

It is also listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community.

Wisam al-Bayati,
To vew the video file click here

November 26, 2011 0 comment

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Iraqis call for expulsion of MKO

The presence of the MKO/ Mojahidin Khalq Organization in Iraq and its consequences still remain among the main topics discussed in the country’s political circles.

In a conference organized by the Iraqi Center for Media Development, a number of Iraqi officials and ordinary people came together in capital Baghdad to talk about the issue.

The expulsion of the MKO members as scheduled was the main point the attendees agreed on. According to the latest statement of the government, Iraq will not host them and the expulsion will be completed by the end of 2011.

The head of the Iraqi Center for Media Development said the withdrawal is a must to prevent security deterioration across the country.

In the mean time, analysts say the US is now making every effort to keep MKO in Iraq.

Many Iraqis also complain that over the past eight years, the organization has committed a range of crimes against humanity in the country.

a number of Iraqi officials and ordinary people came together in capital Baghdad

Mojahidin Khalq Organization is especially notorious in Iran for having sided with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and carrying out numerous terrorist acts against both Iranians and Iraqis. It is also listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community.

November 22, 2011 0 comment

Iraq

Iraqis want Camp Ashraf closed

Iraqis have staged a protest rally in the eastern province of Diyala to urge the authorities to close down Camp Ashraf, which hosts members of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

Protesters demand the expulsion of MKO members from Iraq and that the camp be dismantled, a Press TV correspondent reported on Friday.

The relatives of some MKO members also joined the gathering near Camp Ashraf, calling on their loved ones to abandon the notorious group.

A number of defected MKO members, who were among the protesters, described living conditions at the camp as dire, adding that those residing there are deprived of their basic rights.

Iraqi government officials have repeatedly said that Baghdad is determined to close down Camp Ashraf by the end of 2011.

"We have already made it clear about closing … Camp Ashraf before. The decision will be The relatives of some MKO members also joined the gathering implemented by the end of this year," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in October.
"The government insists on completing this mission … There is no government that would agree to an organization staying against its (authorities’) will, laws and sovereignty," he added.

Meanwhile, there are reports suggesting that UN-brokered talks are underway on moving several thousand MKO members to another location in Iraq rather than expelling them from the country.
The MKO has carried out numerous acts of terror and violence against Iranian civilians and government officials.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up Camp Ashraf in Diyala Province, near the Iranian border. Iraqi government officials have repeatedly said that Baghdad is determined to close down Camp Ashraf by the end of 2011.

The organization is also known to have cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprising in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.

Iran has repeatedly called on the Iraqi government to expel the group, but the US has been blocking the expulsion by mounting pressure on the Iraqi government.

November 19, 2011 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Strange bedfellows: Romney and the MEK militias

Romney campaign refuses to clarify position on working with Iranian terrorist …

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said Saturday during a GOP primary debate that he would work with insurgent groups opposed to the Iranian regime if he were elected president. But while several such groups of rebels are known to exist, the best-known is a shadowy militant organization that has received public support from at least one of Romney’s advisers.

The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, is “the largest and most militant group opposed to the Islamic

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Former Governor of Massachusetts,

Republic of Iran,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The MEK has been implicated in numerous attacks against civilians. It also said to have took part in Saddam Hussein’s genocidal campaign against Iraq’s Kurdish population.

While there is no direct connection between Romney and the MEK, normally responsive aides to the Republican front-runner are staying mum on whether he believes the U.S. should work with the group.

In response to a question about Iran’s ambitious nuclear program during the GOP primary debate hosted Saturday by CBS News and the National Journal, Romney proposed a multi-pronged approach to destabilizing that country’s regime.

In addition to “crippling sanctions” and diplomatic pressure, Romney said the U.S. should begin “working with” and “support[ing] …insurgents within the country.”
Romney aides wouldn’t answer The Daily Caller’s numerous requests to clarify whether he was referring to the MEK, and what his position is on the organization. At least one of his advisers, however, has said the State Department should remove the MEK from its list of foreign terrorist groups.

Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, who served in the State Department under President George W. Bush and is now advising Romney on foreign policy issues, co-signed an open letter to that effect in October. The letter also bore the signatures of a number of prominent Republicans and Democrats, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

Reiss would not tell TheDC if he had discussed the MEK with Romney, or whether the insurgent group was implied during Saturday’s debate, instead directing all questions to campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul.

Saul did not reply to several messages asking her to clarify Romney’s position on the organization. Another foreign policy adviser for the campaign, former Sen. Norm Coleman, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Romney’s answer mentioning insurgent groups was vague enough to leave open the possibility that he was referring to the “Green Movement,”. [..] But either way, his answer troubled Iran expert Michael Rubin.
“It kind of showed Mitt Romney doesn’t understand the issues behind the rhetoric,” Rubin, a scholar at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told TheDC. [..]
Rubin also believes that an embrace of the MEK, which he calls a terrorist organization, would backfire. .. “If you want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when it comes to winning Iranians’ hearts and minds, you embrace the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq.”
“Iranians look at them the same way Americans look at [captured American Taliban fighter] John Walker Lindh,” he continued.
The MEK was founded in the 1960s, and is led by husband-and-wife duo Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. The Council on Foreign Relations calls its ideology “a mixture of Marxism, feminism, and Islamism.”

“Initially, at the time of the Islamic Revolution, they were accepted” by the new government, Rubin explained. “They sort of combined Islamism with Marxism, but it kind of just evolved into a freaky personality cult.”

After exile from Iran and a move to Iraq in the 1980s, the MEK allied itself with Saddam Hussein, who in turn provided the group with weapons to attack both the government in Tehran and his own enemies at home.

A damning 2007 RAND Corporation report determined that the MEK would subject deserting members to a show trial, “forced confessions of disloyalty, and even torture.” The report found that up to 70 percent of the occupants of Camp Ashraf, the MEK’s headquarters in Iraq, were being held against their will, and that all Mujahedeen wore cyanide tablets around their necks until American forces demobilized the group in 2003. They were all, in the words of Massoud Rajavi, “living martyrs.”

The group has targeted Americans in the past, and was responsible for the deaths of three American contractors and three American army officers in the 1970s.
Despite its long and well-documented history of violence, the MEK does have a network of American supporters, including Reiss and Howard Dean, a phenomenon explored by journalist and foreign policy expert Elizabeth Rubin (no relation to Michael) in a New York Times piece last August.

The MEK, she wrote, is “spending millions in an attempt to persuade the Obama administration, and in particular Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to take them off the national list of terrorist groups, where the group was listed in 1997. Delisting the group would enable it to lobby Congress for support in the same way that the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 allowed the Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi to do.”

“Mrs. Clinton should ignore their P.R. campaign,” Ms. Rubin continued. “Mujahedeen Khalq is not only irrelevant to the cause of Iran’s democratic activists, but a totalitarian cult that will come back to haunt us.”

“What is most disturbing is how the group treats its members,” Ms. Rubin wrote. “After the Iran-Iraq war, Mr. Rajavi orchestrated an ill-planned offensive, deploying thousands of young men and women into Iran on a mass martyrdom operation. Instead of capturing Iran, as they believed they would, thousands of them were slaughtered, including parents, husbands and wives of those I met in Iraq in 2003.”

When confronted by Ms. Rubin about the MEK’s history, several supporters of the group, including retired Gen. Wesley Clark and former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, pleaded ignorance about its activities. “I don’t know a lot about the group,” Hamilton, who like Clark had received speaking fees from MEK front groups, said Ms. Rubin.

There are serious arguments for removing the MEK from the State Department’s list of terrorist groups. The Washington Institute for Near-East Policy’s Patrick Clawson, for one, believes the group should be de-listed.

“Let me be clear: I think the MEK is a weird cult with no future in Iran’s politics,” Clawson told theDC. “That, however, is no reason to keep it on the terror list.”
According to Clawson, the State Department has acknowledged to the MEK’s lawyers that they believe the group hasn’t engaged in terrorism for years. He also notes that courts in Europe and the United Kingdom have ruled that the MEK should not be listed as terror group.

Critics like the AEI’s Michael Rubin, however, remain unconvinced that the group should be removed. He also believes that much of the MEK’s support in Washington comes from public officials who have been compromised by the group’s largesse.

“It’s basically a simple cult,” Rubin told TheDC. “Every week it seems like there’s another front organization. I know that when I spurned a few of their approaches, I kept getting approached by new Iranian organizations, and now the rule of thumb is if you’ve never heard of the organization before it’s a Mujahedeen-e-Khalq front, and if they offer you more money than you’ve ever gotten before, it’s a Mujahedeen-e-Khalq front.”

“Frankly, who knows what their total budget is?” he continued. “But it seems to have paid off, because they’ve found a number of corrupt officials in Washington. Whether it’s Republicans or Democrats, it may be legal to pay such inflated individual speaking fees, but it shows a fundamental weakness and a fundamental corruption that doesn’t belong in any of the presidential campaigns.”

Jordan Bloom contributed to this report.

By Will Rahn – The Daily Caller

November 17, 2011 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Israeli Backed MEK terrorists and Washington War Party

The Armageddon Network, How the war party is ginning up war with Iran

The War Party is bound and determined to drag us, kicking and screaming, into a military conflict with Iran – and they have constructed a vast network of agents inside both parties, and inside the government, to accomplish exactly that.

The nexus of this network is the government of Israel and its intelligence services, which is coordinating an increasingly frantic campaign to bring the Iran issue to a head. From all indications, it appears as if the goal is to ignite the conflict before the 2012 presidential elections.

This is not a covert conspiracy, but rather an open one: the Israelis have threatened, time and again, to take military action against Iran. They claim the Jewish state faces “another Holocaust,” and that Iran poses an “existential threat” to Israel’s very existence. The latest wrinkle is that officials in Tel Aviv reportedly told Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, on a recent visit to Israel, that they wouldn’t necessarily be informing the White House until after the Israelis had launched their fighter jets and missiles.

Perfectly understandable: After all, why should the Israelis – who drain us of $3.5 billion a year in “foreign aid” – give us a few minutes warning of Armageddon? Why should they care that the price of oil would immediately skyrocket to $200 a barrel, and make driving to work an economic impossibility? Such considerations are irrelevant, since every single major politician in America is pledged to maintain the one-sided “special relationship” at all costs. Yes, even at the cost of America’s economic demise, for the oil shock would send our already reeling economy into a tailspin – and it would be a long time before we hit bottom.

Of course, the Israelis may not want to pursue this course to the end: a parasite that kills its host is essentially committing suicide. So while this may be a subject of debate within the Israeli national security establishment, with senior military and intelligence officials disdaining Netanyahu’s attack plans as “the stupidest idea I ever heard,” in America no such discussion is allowed. Listening to the Republican frontrunner last Saturday night, at a “debate” devoted to foreign policy, Mitt Romney sounded as if he were running for President of Israel rather than US commander-in-chief:

“Well, let’s– let’s start back from there and let’s talk about where we are. This is, of course, President Obama’s greatest failing, from a foreign policy standpoint, which is he recognized the gravest threat that America and the world faces – and faced was a nuclear Iran and he did not do what was necessary to get Iran to be dissuaded from their nuclear folly. What he should have done is speak out when dissidents took the streets and say, ‘America is with you.’ And work on a covert basis to encourage the dissidents.”

What “dissidents” is Mitt Romney talking about? Surely not the Green movement, led by figures who have praised Iran’s pursuit of nuclear energy and oppose attempts by the West to stop it. Does Romney even know what he’s talking about? Probably not, but his advisers surely do, and indeed one in particular seems to have a very specific idea of which “dissidents” the Romney administration will be funding and otherwise encouraging.

Mitchell Reiss, president of Washington College in Maryland, and one of Romney’s top foreign policy advisers, has emerged as a spokesman for the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq (MEK), the so-called People’s Mujaheddin of Iran, a weird cult-like group [.pdf] of Iranian exiles generally despised by ordinary Iranians. MEK originated in the early days of the revolution that overthrew the Shah, and its cadres not only participated in the taking of the US embassy, which led to the hostage crisis of 1979, but also carried out assassinations against US diplomats and agents throughout the region. After losing out in the post-revolutionary struggle for power in Tehran, the group fled to Iraq, where they were succored for years by Saddam Hussein, who allowed them to set up military camps from which they conducted terrorist raids on Iran. MEK troops fought alongside the Iraqis in their war with Iran, and were used to ruthlessly suppress rebellions by Shi’ites in southern Iraq. After the US invasion, they were confined to their camp, where they remained a military “asset” in Washington’s ongoing campaign to destabilize Iran.

The group is led by Maryam Rajavi, who has already proclaimed herself “president” of Iran, and is worshiped by her followers. Although her husband, Massoud Rajavi, is the titular commander-in-chief of the “National Liberation Army,” a large percentage of the officers in their Camp Ashraf compound are women, and females constitute a majority of the fighters. A 2004 FBI report [.pdf] concludes:

“The MEK practices daily ‘cult-like’ activity to include daily confessions in front of their peers…dissolution of marriages, and removal of children from parents… fighters are separated from their children who are sent to Europe and brought up by the MEK Support Network. Investigation has learned that these children are then further indoctrinated into the organization and are often used for various social benefit fraud such as was revealed during joint FBI/Cologne Police Department investigation in Germany.”

Shipped off to the welfare states of Europe, the unfortunate children of these fanatics are used as cogs in the MEK money machine, producing a steady flow of welfare checks flowing into the group’s coffers. Members are indoctrinated from birth to worship Maryam, who claims her edicts come from God, and are kept in conditions that included, in one case in Germany, of a child being chained to her bed. As the FBI reported:

“In one case one of the children was chained to a bed and only after her escape and report to local police was the fraud scheme discovered. Interviews of some of these MEK children found children fully indoctrinated into a ‘cult-like’ organization with no regard to the welfare of the child. These children are then returned to the NLA to be used as fighters upon coming of age. Interviews also revealed that some of these children were told that their parents would be harmed if the children did not cooperate with the MEK. Open source reporting from defecting MEK members has revealed that MEK fighters are often told the same story about their children should they take issue with MEK leadership and desire to leave the organization.”

MEK claims it has foresworn terrorism, but a 2004 FBI report states that a “Los Angeles investigation has determined that the MEK is currently actively involved in planning and executing acts of terrorism.” US diplomatic and intelligence officials maintain the MEK “trained females at Camp Ashraf in Iraq to perform suicide attacks in Karbala.”

For these reasons, and more, the MEK and its numerous front organizations have remained on the US list of terrorist organizations, whose activities are proscribed in the United States. Romney aide Reiss is part of a campaign to get MEK delisted – an effort that is so lavishly funded one wonders where all the money is coming from. There’s no doubt where it’s going to, however: a long list of leading “experts” and prominent politicians in both parties and on both sides of the political spectrum have pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in “speaking fees” handed out by an organization apparently flush with cash. A 2002 FBI report notes what the agency found when it raided the Falls Church, Virginia headquarters of the group:

“The indoor swimming pool had been drained and a floor placed over the drained pool. The area above the pool was divided into offices. In each of these offices, a hatch in the floor led into the drained swimming pool. This area was used for storage of materials…”

Among the materials discovered were “signed, blank checks,” and the report states, “Confidential sources have reported to the FBI and that the NCRI and the PMOI use the signed, blank checks to pay their expenses and fund their activities.”

From its Paris headquarters, where technical legal maneuvers have allowed the MEK to operate openly, and its base at Camp Ashraf, in Iraq, where the “military wing,” called the “National Liberation Army,” is based, the cult’s very well-funded tentacles reach into the very halls of Congress, where a bipartisan caucus loudly calls for delisting the group. Those signed blank checks sure come in handy. As one US diplomat told the Christian Science Monitor:

“Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes. They will send a private jet, you get $25,000 more when you are done, and they will send a team to brief you on what to say.”

The Monitor reports:

“The contracts can range up to $100,000 and include several appearances…. The speaking events have created some extraordinary spectacles, including that of US heavyweights sharing the stage with the MEK’s self-declared ‘president-elect’ Maryam Rajavi. At a mid-June MEK rally in Paris, for example, Mrs. Rajavi was flanked by five rows of former top US and European officials.”

Dozens of prominent figures have been paid huge sums to shill for these former hostage-taking anti-American terrorists, including:

•Michael Mukasey
•Ed Rendell
•Andrew Card (another Romney adviser)
•Gen. James Conway
•Tom Ridge
•Gen. Hugh Shelton
•James Woolsey
•Howard Dean
•Rudy Giuliani
•Porter Goss
•Lee Hamilton
•Michael Hayden
•Bill Richardson
•Louis Freeh
•Gen. Peter Pace
•Gen. Wesley Clark
•Gen. Anthony Zinni
And, of course, John Bolton. Even P.J. Crowley, who opposed the delisting campaign while at State – and who claims his speaking fee didn’t influence his speech – was lured by the smell of cold hard cash. “We’ve never seen this kind of money,” says Trita Parsi, of the National Iranian American Council. “At one conference with 10 speakers, if they average $50k a pop, that is half a million dollars just in speaker fees.”

Where is this largesse coming from – and why is it being allowed to influence the American political process if it comes from overseas?

The major coup claimed by the MEK is the revelation of Iran’s previously unknown nuclear facilities at Natanz, but it is widely known that this information was passed on to them by Israel’s intelligence agency: the Mossad and the MEK have a longstanding history of cooperation. The recent bombing at an Iranian missile base, which killed 21 Iranian soldiers, is being attributed to the MEK, and the Iranians charge the mysterious “terrorist” plot targeting the Saudi ambassador in Washington and supposedly planned by Iran was actually set up by the Rajavi cultists.

The Israel lobby is an octopus with many tentacles, of which MEK is merely one: they are all attached to the same body, however, and that is the government of Israel, and its intelligence services. If, in some alternative universe where Congress isn’t “Israeli-occupied territory” our lawmakers followed the money, I have no doubt the cash flow could be traced back to its source.

The results of such an investigation would hardly be shocking. Israel is waging an intense campaign to drag us into war on their behalf, and they aren’t trying to hide it. What they are intent on hiding, however, is the way in which our Congress, our public officials, and our political culture are being bought off by their proxies. We ship billions to Tel Aviv, and they ship it back to us in the form of propaganda and relentless pressure to bend the White House and Congress to their will.

That’s what’s so “special” about the “special relationship” – the same relationship a tapeworm has to a stomach.

The Israelis have a trump card, one they’ll only play if they have a reasonable expectation of success, and that is to launch an attack on their own that would inevitably bring in the US. This would happen because Israeli fighter jets on their way to bomb Iranian targets would have to pass over Iraqi territory: however, what assurances do they have the Americans won’t interfere? As Zbigniew Brzezinski put it in an interview:

“We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? … We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a ‘Liberty’ in reverse.”

However, it looks like we just may be “impotent little babies,” at least if we take Joint Chiefs chairman Mike Mullen’s comments as indicative. Wired.com reports:

“In a town hall on the campus of the University of West Virginia, a young Air Force ROTC cadet asked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen to respond to a “rumor.” If Israel decided to attack Iran, the speculation went, those jet would need to fly through Iraqi airspace to reach their targets. That airspace is considered a ‘no-fly’ zone by the American military. So might U.S. troops shoot down the Israeli jets, the airmen asked the chairman, if they breached that airspace?

“Mullen tried to sidestep the question. ‘We have an exceptionally strong relationship with Israel. I’ve spent a lot of time with my counterpart in Israel. So we also have a very clear understanding of where we are. And beyond that, I just wouldn’t get into the speculation of what might happen and who might do what. I don’t think it serves a purpose, frankly,’ he said. ‘I am hopeful that this will be resolved in a way where we never have to answer a question like that.’

“The cadet followed-up: ‘Would an airmen like me ever be ordered to fire on an Israeli – aircraft or personnel?’

“Mullen’s second answer was much the same as his first. ‘Again, I wouldn’t move out into the future very far from here. They’re an extraordinarily close ally, have been for a long time, and will be in the future,’ the admiral said.”

An Israeli attack on Iran would almost certainly provoke assaults on US positions in Iraq, including the huge US embassy and the thousands of mercenaries left in place after the phony US “withdrawal.” Indeed, avoiding such a scenario as described above may very well be a major motivating factor behind the US decision to pull our so-called “combat troops” from Iraq. That’s one way of ensuring that Mullen will never have to answer “a question like that.”

Millions of dollars – a great portion of them your tax dollars coming back to haunt you – are being pumped into the effort. Emboldened by greed, enabled by our avaricious political class, a network of organizations and highly-placed individuals is pushing us down the road to Armageddon. The Armageddon Network is working overtime to drag us into war with Iran, and they don’t lack the funds to do so.

They need all the cash they can get, because the War Party faces a difficult task: they must convince a war-weary American public, disheartened by economic bad news on every front, to sit passively while the elites take us to war. The overwhelming majority oppose another war, and they certainly would be more vehement in their opposition if they knew the economic consequences of such a foolhardy move. They may never know, however, until it hits them – and by then it will be too late.

That’s why we here at Antiwar.com are pushing back – hard. No, we don’t have the tremendous financial resources available to the War Party. We don’t have millions to fund a full-time staff, and sponsor lavish conferences where the bribed and the deluded appear to sing our praises. We don’t have overseas allies with bottomless budgets. We don’t have any of that – all we have is you.

We are fighting, day and night, to bring the truth to the American people, and avoid the catastrophic results of war with Iran, but the Armageddon Network has us outspent by a factor of at least 10,000-to-1. We need you, our readers and supporters, to even up the odds just a little bit.

You may have noticed that this is the first day of our seasonal fundraising drive: it’s just a coincidence that it falls at the very moment when the War Party’s efforts are reaching a frenzied crescendo and their war cries are drowning out the voices for peace. It’s time for the antiwar majority to step up and be heard – now more than ever. Your tax-deductible donation will give us the resources we need to continue debunking the War Party’s lies, and countering the all-pervasive influence of foreign lobbyists.

In short, we need your help and we need it now – because your contribution could very well make the difference between war and peace. Unlike the MEK and its front organizations, we don’t have a cache of signed blank checks hidden in the basement that we can pull out to pay the bills. We just have you. So please – give what you can as soon as you can. Stop the Armageddon network – give today.

Anti War

November 16, 2011 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

American Demons

In 2003, at the start of the Iraq War, Anne Singleton published Saddam’s Private Army, a book warning the world about the Iranian MEK (MKO, PMOI, NCRI, Rajavi Cult, or Pol Pot of Iran) terrorists at Camp Ashraf, Iraq. In 2011, as the deadline for the departure of American military forces approaches, Anne Singleton and her husband, Massoud Khodabandeh, have published The Life of Camp Ashraf, a book warning that there could be a tragic ending, similar to the Jonestown, Guyana mass suicides in 1978 or the Waco, Texas massacre in 1993, for thousands of cult members who want to leave the cult.

As former MEK members, the authors have spent years attempting to rescue the thousands of members trying to escape from Camp Ashraf, Iraq. They have visited Iraq and have helped the Nejat Society, the Sahar Family Foundation, and individuals who have escaped from Camp Ashraf.

Founded in 1965, the original purpose of the MEK was to use Marxist liberation theology to overthrow the Shah of Iran. After the Shah killed the founders, Massoud Rajavi took control of the terrorist organization. Shortly before the Shah fled from Iran, Massoud Khodabandeh met Ayatollah Khomeini in France to pledge the MEK’s support for the Iranian Revolution. During the American hostage crisis, the MEK participated and called for the executions of the Americans. Rajavi is anti-American, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist. His aim is to become the Pol Pot of Iran, even if the MEK must become a tool of the American government to achieve his aim. After Rajavi failed in a counter-revolution attempt against Ayatollah Khomeini, Rajavi fled to France. Massoud Khodabandeh attended a meeting between the CIA and Rajavi in France. The French government provided land, buildings, equipment, and approximately 200 free telephone lines for the terrorists. The MEK continues to operate a headquarters in France.

In 1983, Donald Rumsfeld, President Ronald Reagan’s envoy to Saddam Hussein arranged to move the MEK to Iraq. In the isolation of Camp Ashraf, Iraq, Rajavi turned the group into a cult. Some American feminists have promoted the MEK because Rajavi placed women in the leadership positions. The feminists fail to mention that candidates for the Leadership Council danced naked in front of Rajavi at “Freedom Dance” events and slept with Rajavi in the audition process. Feminists fail to mention also Rajavi’s cult practices of mandatory divorces, sending away children, prohibited contact with relatives, and arranged marriages.

After the Iran-Iraq War, the MEK hid more than 1,000 Iranian prisoners of war from the International Committee of the Red Cross to prevent the exchange of the Iranian prisoners.

In return for providing military camps and arms in Iraq, Saddam Hussein required the MEK to kill Iraqis. While Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard forces trained by killing and eating innocent Iraqis, the MEK trained by killing and eating wild dogs. The MEK killed large numbers of unarmed Iraqi Kurd and Shiite civilians after the 1991 Gulf War. America did not attack MEK bases in Iraq. The West offered to move the MEK to Azerbaijan or to Pakistan.

In 2001, Massoud Rajavi rejoiced at the destruction of the World Trade Center.

At the start of the Iraq War, American and coalition forces killed some of the MEK. However, neo-conservatives (neo-Trotskyites) protected the MEK claiming falsely that the Fourth Geneva Convention applied to a terrorist group. The American military has been hiding and protecting Massoud Rajavi. The American government has prevented the inspection of a mass grave at Camp Ashraf (containing perhaps large numbers of Kuwaitis).

Contrary to lies of American military officers and to the American government’s claim of a war on terrorism, the American government has been using the MEK in terrorist activities in Iraq, Iran, and in Pakistan. The Iraqi government has proof in the form of MEK identifications issued by the American government found on the bodies of killed terrorists. The MEK has worked with other terrorist organizations in the region, including PJAK (or PEJAK) and Jundallah (or Jondolla).

In June 2003, after the French government arrested Maryam Rajavi, some MEK members burned themselves to death.

The mainstream American media has promoted the MEK even though the MEK has been on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations since the administration of former President Bill Clinton. A surprising exception was Elizabeth Rubin’s “The Cult of Rajavi” in the New York Times Magazine, June 2003.

After the American government closed the office of the terrorist organization in Washington, DC, the Fox News Channel retained the head of the office as a foreign affairs analyst.

In 2005, Human Rights Watch published “No Exit”, a report warning that MEK members could not leave the cult. MEK leaders have tortured and have killed MEK members who attempted to leave Camp Ashraf, Iraq.

As of August 2009, at least 14 American soldiers have died and 60 have been wounded providing security for MEK shopping convoys to Baghdad.

The American government has funded the MEK via Saudi Arabia. The MEK has raised funds also by creating fake charities (Iran Aid and Muslim Iranian Students’ Society) by collecting donations at airports, and by telling their families that they need tens of thousands of dollars for life-saving surgeries. For example, the American Red Cross withdrew from a fake MEK charity fund raising event after the December 26, 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran after learning the truth about the MEK. The Iran Policy Committee employs former CIA and military officers to promote the MEK. Hundreds of members of Congress (Democrats and Republicans) have signed statements supporting the MEK terrorists.

The MEK terrorists could not exist without the support of the American government and the ignorance of American voters.

November 14, 2011 0 comment

New documents and testimonies from Inside Camp Ashraf

Letter from Sahar Family Foundation to the UN Secretary General

Dear Mr. Secretary General

We wish hereby to apprise you of some information and suggestions as follows:

According to information received from inside Ashraf cultic garrison in Iraq about the April 8, 2011 incident (documents and testimonies are attached), Ms. Sediqeh Hosseini, then Secretary General of the MKO, gives instructions to Ms. Fereshteh Shoja, one of commanders of the NLA

based in Ashraf garrison in Iraq, as follows:

“… The Iraqis have informed us that on April 8 they want to take back some parts of the north of Ashraf and return it to the farmers in the nearby village, which were confiscated in the time of Saddam Hussein and given to the MKO to expand Ashraf garrison. They have told us that they are informing us in advance to show that they have no other aim and they want to prevent any violent action and bloodshed on that day. But in this regard we have to arrange things in such a manner that we have some casualties. Also, there should be cameras ready to produce photos and films to record that day. The leader has instructed us that we must take political advantage as much as possible on that day. He has said that this is very important for our survival.”

Fereshteh Shoja calls her personnel and without informing them of the Iraqi’s ultimatum and their plans that they only want to peacefully take back some farm land back based on Iraqi court verdicts, and tells them:

“… There have been instructions from higher levels for a state of alert since the Iraqis are moving a unit and adding to their forces and information we received indicates that the Iranian regime’s elements are along the Iraqi forces which aim to attack our base and capture some people and take them to Iran where they would be tortured and executed. Therefore we all have to be on alert and do not let the Iraqi forces get into the garrison and fulfill their goal.”

On the day of incident (April 8, 2011), the Iraqi forces moved into the garrison from the northern part in order to divide the farmers’ lands which ended in conflict and 36 people were killed and some wounded. Beforehand Fereshteh Shoja had said to her combatants that:

“The Iraqis are using gas cartridges just to frighten you and capture you therefore you should not be afraid of anything. Move forward and stop them by any means you can even using stone and wood, and do not let them enter the garrison and arrest you and hand you over to the elements of the Iranian regime who are with them under any circumstances.”

The inhabitants of Ashraf garrison did not know that the Iraqis merely want to take a part on the north of the garrison according to the Iraqi court verdicts and return them to their rightful owners. They also did not know that the leaders were informed beforehand. The leaders of the garrison had deceived the inhabitants and let them believe that the Iraqis intended to arrest some and send them to Iran to be tortured and executed. Apparently the Iraqis’ policy to give the leaders prior knowledge of their intention in order to stop violence and bloodshed worked to the opposite and they let the leaders of the MKO arrange things for more casualties and they managed to film the incident and take pictures for their political and propaganda interests.

Accurate assessments made about the atmosphere inside Ashraf garrison show that at least 80% of the inhabitants are there against their own will and if the situation is ready and they have the freedom to make an independent decision they would definitely leave the organization. These people have no motivation to resist against the Iraqi authorities and not to disobey the verdicts of the Iraqi courts. They have been deceived and forced to do so and some have lost their lives in this way for nothing.

It is worth mentioning that the MKO did not send its higher level members for this conflict and tried to send discontented and lower level members through deception and giving false information and by using the phobia of being arrested and sent to Iran. The MKO leaders wanted to get rid of the opposing members and also to use their blood for propaganda. Of course it must be said that the majority of the members did not accept to counter the Iraqi forces entering the base.
What was mentioned above is not a secret to the American forces and the international authorities and they all know the situation well, but some international political interests are at stake which want the garrison to stay intact at any cost and for many to stay in captivity and isolation for many more years. Those who do not fulfill their international duty in this regards are surely responsible toward the confined inhabitants of the garrison and their suffering families. Sooner or later Ashraf garrison will be dissolved and the cult members will be freed and then those who kept silent against Rajavi’s crimes and supported him openly and covertly, and still consider him, despite many documents that he has held the members as hostages inside the garrison, as the representative of the captives will be ashamed of themselves.

Anyway, what we think is essential to be said in order to save the lives of the inhabitants of Ashraf inhabitants and to stop more people being sacrificed by Rajavi and to prevent a human catastrophe are mentioned briefly below:

– An overall assessment must be made of the internal situation of the garrison by making thorough interviews by international authorities of those who recently managed to escape from the garrison taking grave risks. It must be made clear whether the inhabitants of Ashraf are there voluntarily or whether Ashraf is a huge confinement camp that the individuals have to escape from at any cost.

– The asylum procedure of Ashraf inhabitants must be conducted individually and without the presence of any MKO officials. The main reason for the present deadlock is that during the past 8 years both the American forces and the international authorities and organizations, in order to keep the MKO intact, have had their contacts with the leaders and they did not approach the rank and file members at all. The MKO members based in Ashraf have no idea of the outside world and what is happening there.

– Any misleading with the cost of the blood of the hostages held by Rajavi inside the garrison must be prevented. Also Rajavi and his deeds must not be justified by treating him as the representative of the hostages inside the garrison.

– The deeds of Rajavi and other leaders of the MKO as hostage takers and those who still, after their sponsor Saddam Hussein has fallen, do not open the gates of the garrison and do not let the captives have access to the outside world must be revealed. They did not hesitate to kill and let die and put members in solitary confinement and under torture.

– In a realistic approach and solution seeking, the sovereignty of Iraq and its nation and government must be recognized. Accepting the natural right and demand of the government and parliament of Iraq and respect for the deadline which is quite seriously followed is part of the responsibility of the international community. Naturally disregarding and challenging this just and lawful demand would put the Iraqi government in a situation that has to decide exclusively and the international organizations who did not intervene and did not give assistance will bear the responsibility.