Self-Sacrifice

by Struan Stevenson

  But there are signs of a fresh start. A rash of new schools and universities are opening their doors across Kurdistan, offering hope of a better future to the next generation of Kurds. Meanwhile Kurdistan has become a magnet for refugees fleeing from the insurgency in the rest of Iraq, and from the civil war in neighbouring Syria. The West owes a debt of gratitude to President Massoud Barzani for the protection he has offered to these refugees. Kurdistan is a shining example of how peace and stability can in turn create economic growth and how economic growth has created jobs and prosperity for the Kurdish people and a sense of responsibility for persecuted minorities from neighbouring conflicts. It is of grave concern that the steady advance of the terrorist Islamic State (formerly ISIS) now threatens Kurdistan with a return to the days of genocidal war. Western intervention to back the Kurdish Peshmerga in their battle against the jihadists is essential, and is fair reward for Kurdistan’s hospitality and protection for hundreds of thousands of refugees over the past decade.

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  Interviews with PMOI Refugees in Camp Liberty, September 2014

  Mohammad Shafaei

  ‘My name is Mohammad Shafaei. I was born in 1973 in Isfahan, Iran. I was studying medicine at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, US. I was a sophomore student when I left the school to join the PMOI. All my family members were either PMOI members or supporters. In 1981, when I was 8 years old, the Mullahs’ regime executed my father, Dr Morteza Shafaei, along with my mother, Efat Khalifeh Soltani, and my 16-year-old brother, Majid Shafaei. One year later, in 1982, my 27-year-old brother was tortured to death in the notorious Evin Prison. That same year, my 24-year-old sister, Maryam Shafaei and her husband, Hossein Jalil Parvane, were shot dead by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) in the streets of Tehran. My only surviving family member, my sister Zohreh Shafaei, was jailed in 1981 and released several years later.

  With this background, I knew the PMOI from my childhood. I didn’t know much about them at that time and I was not of an age to judge what is good and what is bad. I didn’t know really why I’d lost all my family members. Why were they killed? I just loved my family and I knew that they were good people.

  When I was 18 years old, I decided to leave Iran in order to escape the suppression of the Mullahs’ dictatorship. When I went to the US, I had a better environment to investigate what is right and wrong. So, alongside my studies at the university, I researched about the PMOI; its goals, position, plans for Iran, its motivations and ideology and so on. I tried to get more engaged with the organization to identify it better. I started reading their publications, talking with their supporters, taking part in their gatherings and so on. I was very curious to find out if they were either on a right path or a wrong one. When I was in Iran, some people warned me not to engage in politics in order to enjoy life’s beauties. Some supporters of the Mullahs, who knew my family background, warned me not to join the Mojahedin simply because my family members were PMOI supporters. They tried their hardest to demolish the reputation of the Mojahedin. So, with all these things happening, I wanted to decide my future with open eyes.

  In 1981, Khomeini’s regime closed down all the PMOI official headquarters in different cities and arrested members. So the PMOI had to hold its meetings in its supporters’ houses. In the city of Isfahan, our home was the place for running such meetings and activities. On 2 May 1981 there was a meeting held in our home. At the end of the meeting, a crowd started demonstrating on nearby streets. The IRGC attacked the demonstrators and raided our home, which led to the arrest of my Mum and some others who were still inside the house. That was the first time that my Mum was arrested. They released her after a few days.

  About two months later, when my Mum, Dad and I were at home, some Pasdars – agents of the IRGC – knocked on our door and asked for my Dad. They told us they had several questions, and they would bring him back within 30 minutes. He never came back and that was last time I ever saw my Dad. A few days later, the same thing happened to my Mum; Pasdars came and asked my Mum to accompany them. I began weeping. My Mum kissed me and told me: “I will never return. They didn’t bring your Dad back and they won’t bring me back.” For a kid at the age of eight, there is nothing more precious than his Mum. So, I lost my control. I was hysterical. I attacked the IRGC agent by kicking and punching him. The Pasdar laughed at me and humiliated me. I could not see any mercy in his face but only hate and brutality.

  Because there was no one left at our home to take care of me, my Mum asked our neighbour if she would look after me. The IRGC agents took my Mum and left me with a deep pain in my heart. A few days later, my uncle (my father’s brother) who was living in the city of Shiraz, came and adopted me.

  On one occasion I was taken to a prison to see my Mum. I passed through a huge gate. There was a jungle-like yard with large trees. I couldn’t see any buildings there. They took me in and I was waiting beside a tree. They brought my Mum. She tightly embraced me. I was kissing her. I was desperate for her love. I was so happy to see my Mum again, but my cheer turned to sorrow very soon. They told me in front of her that I wouldn’t be allowed to see my Mum again. They obviously wanted to use me as a tool to pressure my Mum into denouncing the PMOI. They started to insult her. They were telling her to go back to her ordinary life and have a good life with her little boy. They told her if she didn’t care about herself, she should care about her poor son. They continued by telling her that there was nobody to raise this kid. With no good guardian, he would become a criminal very soon . . . My Mum never paid any attention to them. She kissed me, and told me that she would never get back home and I would have to be strong. My Dad, Mum and Majid, my 16-year-old brother, were executed along with 50 other Mojahedin supporters in Isfahan on 27 September 1981.

  While I was studying in the US, the more I researched about Mojahedin, the more I tried to engage in their activities. So I decided to move to Washington D.C. and enrol at George Mason University, to have the opportunity to get more involved in the PMOI movement which had a headquarters in Washington. In that period, I had the opportunity to meet some of the PMOI members. Most of them were former university students. One of them had quit school while he was working on his Ph.D. thesis. Another one was about to get his Master’s degree, and so on. When I was looking at these people, I could see my dreams come to reality. These were clearly very good people with great morals and human values. Associating with them made me think about my own life more deeply. I could not continue my normal life any more. I could not think only about my own ambitions any longer. I was faced with a series of questions in my mind. These people I had met, like me, wanted to continue their studies. But if they didn’t quit their schools, who would remain to fight in the front line against the Mullahs? Why should I remain idle and ask others to free my country?

  On the other hand I was telling myself: “Why not finish your studies and become a good physician? In this case, you can benefit your people more. You have suffered too much already. It is enough. Why not enjoy your life? Get your Ph.D. in Harvard or Johns Hopkins University and become a well-respected person with a voice who can better represent your people and your country.” This was a real dilemma. There was a growing fight inside me – many questions and answers. One night, that struggle reached its peak. It was the hardest moment in my life. I had reached the point where a decision had to be made. I could not escape from that decision, since I had enough knowledge of what was right and what was wrong. I didn’t have any doubt about the rightness of the PMOI.

  During my engagement with the organisation for more than a year, I realised that the PMOI had dedicated itself to the Iranian people and to free my beloved country. I made sure that the organisation was not fighting for its own benefit or simply for gaining power in Iran. I had reached a decision. I decided to become a Mojahed and devote my life to a free Iran. I decided to go to the front line and be a real freedom fighter. The National Liberation Army of Iran’s base was in Iraq, so I decided to go to Iraq via
Jordan. I quit my school. I packed up my belongings and left the US. I arrived in Baghdad on 7 April 1996.

  In Ashraf I started to learn so many things, from how to drive and fire a Chieftain tank to computer science technology and the Arabic language. Now, I am a computer programmer. Before the Second Gulf War, I was a Chieftain tank gunner. I was also teaching computer science in Iran University at Ashraf. After the war, I mostly concentrated on developing required computer applications to computerise our workflows and systems in Ashraf.

  I also learned many things from other Mojahedin in Ashraf. I learned how to sacrifice more and more for others. I learned how this sacrifice unites people and makes them love each other. I learned how to ignore others’ faults and help them fill their gaps and fix their mistakes. In my whole life, I was dreaming of studying in top universities in the US. Finally, I ended up at Ashraf, which gave me more than a university education. It was a fabulous community of humanity, a utopia for any freedom fighter.

  When I was in the US, I discovered that the Mojahedin never married. They dedicate all their energy to their cause. Men and women work closely together as brothers and sisters. I lived in Iran for some years. I could see how cruel the Mullahs are and how difficult it is to overthrow them. When I was in the process of making a decision to join the PMOI, I could guess that I would face many ups and downs, many pains and gains. I knew that it was not easy to be a warrior. I knew that I would have to sacrifice many things. I may get arrested like my family, or be executed like my Dad and Mum or be tortured like my brother. I was thinking about my Mum in that period. I may find myself in a situation where I have to make a tough decision, as my mother did. She had to choose between having a quiet life with her son having surrendered to the Mullahs, or to leave her son with no guardian and to stand firm on her position against the Mullahs.

  Over many years, the Mullahs have plumbed the depths of atrocities and brutality. Some days I think about the street children in Iran; they are a Mullah-created phenomenon. I think about the innocent girls who are being trafficked under the Mullahs’ misogynistic regime. They are my sisters and brothers. They are my sons and daughters. So although as a Mojahed I never married, I have a family. I am proud to have such a large family. I have all of them in my heart. I love them all. I dream of a day in a free Iran that every Iranian child can have a prosperous and safe future; so although I decided not to marry and shape my own family, my family now is the most populated family that anyone can imagine.

  In Ashraf and Liberty, I was in a position to go to Iraqi hospitals as a companion and interpreter for our patients. I faced many attempts by mercenaries of the Iranian regime inside the Iraqi forces to sabotage those hospital visits and to interrupt the PMOI patients’ therapy. I recall one badly wounded person who had been run over by an Iraqi armoured vehicle during Maliki’s 2009 attack on Ashraf. He needed immediate surgery in one of Baghdad’s private hospitals, but the Iraqi forces prevented him from going, using the lame excuse that he could be cured in a public hospital. Finally, I took him to that private hospital where he was operated on by a professional surgeon. He told me that the patient would never return to his normal life because of the long delay between the onset of his injury and the date of his operation.

  Any time I accompanied a patient to a hospital we were watched by an agent from the Iraqi intelligence service, who stayed with us in the hospital 24 hours a day. His job was to intimidate doctors into denying treatment for the PMOI patient. He lay on a bed beside the PMOI patient all day and night. He did not allow me to communicate with the patient or the doctors. When I wanted to speak English to the doctors or nurses about my patient, he would yell at me, saying, “Speak Arabic.” He told me, “You want to speak English with people to pass on propaganda about the Mojahedin instead of following the medical process.”

  One night, at 2 o’clock in the morning, one of my colleagues had a heart attack. I called the hospital in Camp Liberty. There was just one doctor on duty, and there was no oxygen available there to let my patient breathe. It took about two hours before the Iraqi police allowed us to go to Yarmuk Hospital in Baghdad, and my patient was having continuous heart attacks. On our way to the hospital, the police commander stopped us at a gas station. I told him that my patient was at the point of death and that we shouldn’t stop on the way to the hospital. But he refused to listen. His orders were to cause us maximum pain. We finally reached the hospital with only minutes to spare and managed to save my friend. But we face such harassment on a daily basis.’

  27

  The Stevenson Plan

  It was clear from all the discussions I’d had in Iraq that an urgent agreement, acceptable to the Iraqi government, the PMOI and the international community, had to be found to resolve the ongoing crisis in Camp Ashraf. Ad Melkert, the UN Secretary General’s representative in Iraq, had specifically asked me to make contact with the leadership of the Ashraf refugees at their headquarters in Paris, to explore possible avenues for a long-term resolution. So, on my return to the EU from Iraq, I travelled immediately to Paris and engaged in intense discussions with Mrs Maryam Rajavi, Mohammad Mohaddessin, the foreign affairs spokesman for the PMOI, and other members of the leadership of the Iranian opposition movement. We made frequent conference calls to Ashraf to consult the PMOI leadership there. Together, we thrashed out a plan that provided the only viable alternative to violence and further bloodshed.

  I realised that, without their agreement, there was little hope of a just, long-term solution. But there was considerable reluctance from the Ashrafis. They justifiably argued that Ashraf had been their home for almost three decades. Their friends and colleagues who had died were buried there. They had invested tens of millions of dollars on the development of the camp. They didn’t want to move.

  The proposal required the active involvement of the UN, the US and the EU. It recognised the Iraqi government’s right of sovereignty over its own territory. But it also encompassed the rights of the 3,400 unarmed residents of Ashraf to protection under the Fourth Geneva Convention. The scheme laid the groundwork for negotiations involving the Iraqi government and set out a proposal to re-settle all of the refugees to countries of safety like the US, Canada, Australia, Norway, Switzerland and the 27 EU Member States, depending on where they had previous associations, connections or family contacts.

  The proposal, known as ‘The Stevenson Plan’ contained the following important pre-conditions:

  Pre-conditions for any negotiation

  In order to begin the negotiation for a long-term solution, the following conditions need to be met:

  • Removal of Iraqi forces from the perimeter of Ashraf.

  • An end to the siege of Ashraf (including lifting the ban on access to journalists, parliamentary groups, lawyers and family members of the residents).

  • Immediate access of the residents, in particular those wounded, to medical services of public hospitals and private clinics in Iraq at their own expense.

  • An independent Inquiry by a panel of jurists being launched into the incident of April 8, 2011 during which 35 residents were killed and hundreds wounded.

  • Returning all the belongings confiscated on April 8 to Ashraf residents.

  The plan envisaged groups of residents being moved from Ashraf to a new location, where they could be individually interviewed and registered as refugees by the UNHCR in a ‘revolving door’ system that would see them re-settled to countries of safety within weeks of being registered as refugees. I envisioned groups of up to 500 Ashrafis at a time being relocated to the new camp, interviewed and registered by UNHCR, then shipped out to countries of safety, almost before the next batch of 500 from Ashraf arrived. The plan also embraced the idea of UN ‘blue-helmets’ on permanent deployment at the camp to provide protection for the residents.

  We all agreed that the security situation facing the refugees at Camp Ashraf had been in a perilous state for far too long. What was needed now was for all the main parties concern
ed to show the political will to resolve the situation once and for all and to ensure that justice prevailed over brutality. I tabled my plan at the next meeting of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq in the European Parliament and it was unanimously agreed. We also got the backing of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament. I then asked for the support of Baroness Ashton. Following the April massacre, Ashton, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, had called for a strong and united EU response and an immediate inquiry into the killings. She now agreed to support the ‘Stevenson Plan’. Of equal importance was the fact that my plan also received active support from several political factions inside the Iraqi Parliament, including a letter signed by 74 Iraqi MPs.

  So we had taken a decisive step towards solving the Ashraf crisis by convincing the residents to leave Iraq, while reaching a practical solution acceptable to the camp’s residents, which would also serve the interests of the Iraqi government. This was a huge victory. But the reality was the Iranian regime had no intention of arriving at a peaceful resolution to the Ashraf crisis. The intentions of the Mullahs in Tehran were entirely destructive.

  While we in the European Parliament, together with Mrs Rajavi, the PMOI, NCRI and other friends of the Iranian resistance, had started a campaign to sort out the transfer of the residents to third countries, suddenly we heard that the American diplomat, Larry Butler, had shown up in Ashraf, urging and threatening the residents to accept his plan to move to another camp inside Iraq. In fact the US government began to put pressure on Ashraf in line with the policies of the Iranian regime and Maliki, against the interests of the residents.

  His concept, again aimed at clearing Ashraf of all of its residents within the timescale set by Maliki and before the departure of the last of the US troops from Iraq, involved re-locating groups of Ashrafis to a series of different former US bases spread across Iraq. The Ashrafis, who said that this played directly into the Iranian Mullahs’ ‘divide and rule strategy’, understandably vetoed this idea. They feared that once they were split up into smaller groups they could be annihilated at will, away from public view. They said they would rather stay within the fragile confines of Ashraf, where at least the world was watching and where it was more difficult for Maliki and his Iranian puppeteers to mount another massacre. But in any case, Larry Butler put a lot of US diplomatic effort into promoting his plan and it diverted much of our focus for at least three months, while we tried to convince people that it was a bad idea and that the Stevenson Plan was the only viable alternative. Butler had arrogantly even threatened the people in Ashraf with the prospect that if they did not move, then ‘Soon we will have to mourn at your funeral!’