Again our cries of protest were ignored. Our repeated request for the return of the concrete T-Walls, helmets and protective vests fell on deaf ears, despite the fact that these were the minimum protective requirements that could help to reduce future casualties from further rocket attacks. On 15 June 2013, Liberty was attacked once again by rockets, a day after the fraudulent presidential elections in Iran. It came as no surprise to us that Khamenei was keen to divert international attention from these elections. In this attack, two people were killed and many wounded. This time the residents were better prepared and sought cover after the first missiles exploded, so the number of casualties was not as high as the Iraqis and their Iranian puppet-masters had no doubt hoped.
But a further deadly rocket attack occurred on 26 December 2013, killing four of the residents and wounding about seventy. After each attack, of course, the Iraqi authorities repeatedly denied any involvement and said that they would hunt down the perpetrators.
However, in a rare claim of responsibility for attacks on the PMOI, Wathiq al-Batat, the commander of the al-Mukhtar Army militia, admitted his group had fired the rockets at the camp. This relatively new Shiite militia was supported and funded by Iran and tolerated, if not actively encouraged, by the Iraqi authorities, particularly when its objective was to kill members of the PMOI. The UNHCR called on the government of Iraq urgently to scale up security measures in the camp to ensure the safety and security of its residents. Maliki probably chuckled with delight every time he received such a plea. He knew that Kobler and UNAMI would do his bidding and he knew that he could murder the PMOI residents with impunity, as the West would do nothing.
I now felt a deep sense of guilt over the fact that, having crammed over 3,000 people into this death camp, the US and EU promptly washed their hands of the whole affair and abandoned these innocent men and women to their fate at the hands of the Iraqis. The great liar and sociopath Maliki, having signed an MOU accepting responsibility for the safety and protection of the refugees in Camp Liberty, was now happily engaged in their serial murder with the full encouragement and assistance of his backers in Tehran. Kobler, in a breathtaking and shameless show of concern, even publicly thanked the Iraqi Government for their pledge to investigate the murders! He was joined in this charade by his wife, Britta Wagner, the German Ambassador to Iraq, who not only publicly thanked the Iraqi government for their pledge to uncover the perpetrators of the bloody attacks on Camp Liberty, but even congratulated her husband and UNAMI for their sterling efforts to resolve the Ashraf crisis by transferring everyone to the new camp!
For the residents of Liberty, enough was enough. They now began a protest of deliberate non-cooperation, refusing to be interviewed by the UNHCR and refusing to speak to UNAMI and Kobler.
Behind the scenes, Mrs Rajavi had been negotiating at the highest level through European friends with the Albanian government in Tirana, from early 2012, to see if they would accept a significant number of refugees from Camp Liberty. They had arrived at a breakthrough agreement, with the Albanians willing to accept all or most of the residents as refugees. Their humanitarian initiative was supported by UNHCR and the US. In November 2012, Ambassador Dan Fried, the special Ashraf Envoy appointed by Hillary Clinton, after returning from Tirana, wrote to Mohammad Mohaddessin:
As you may have heard, the Government of Albania has confirmed privately that it is prepared to accept for resettlement up to 210 former Ashraf residents. I urge you and the MEK not to make this offer public, but to work quietly with UNHCR to help your people leave Iraq in safety for a better future.
The PMOI were meanwhile negotiating with Albania to accept a much larger number of refugees. In January 2013, a senior delegation from the PMOI had gone to Tirana and met the Prime Minister Sali Berisha, who was sympathetic to the idea of increasing the number of PMOI members taking refuge in his country, but he insisted that the issue must not be made public. The Albanian government was particularly keen to do everything quietly, beneath the radar, so as not to stir up international controversy and cause a diplomatic split with the Iranians.
When news of this highly sensitive and confidential negotiation reached Kobler, oblivious to such niceties, he promptly issued a press release on 15 March 2013, taking full credit for the breakthrough, announcing that he had negotiated this amazing deal with Albania; he then turned his fire on the PMOI, arguing that the non-cooperation protest by the refugees was putting the whole operation in jeopardy. This in fact spooked the Albanians, who became much more cautious about accepting additional refugees.
On a subsequent visit to Camp Liberty, Kobler was surrounded by a group of angry PMOI women shouting that he had betrayed them. Displaying all of the typical traits of a bully confronted by his crimes, he came near to nervous collapse, rendered speechless and terrified by a handful of unarmed women. He retreated quickly from the camp to jeers of derision.
In an attempt to defend his controversial record, on 29 May 2013 Kobler came to the European Parliament to address a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He got a hostile reception, although some German MEPs felt it was their duty to defend him. But many MEPs accused the UN Special Representative in Iraq of deceit and demanded his resignation or dismissal, protesting that he had attempted to deceive parliament in the past, had presided over a disastrous decline in the domestic situation in Iraq while doing little to criticise the Iraqi government and had brought progress on the re-settlement of 3,400 refugees in Camps Ashraf and Liberty to a virtual standstill through his incompetence.
During the meeting Kobler reiterated his usual litany of misinformation, complaining that UN monitors had difficulty in accessing residents of Camp Liberty and that there was a general lack of cooperation from the Camp management and the PMOI leadership in Paris. At the same time he tried to ignore the most pressing and immediate issue, namely the safety and security of the residents facing rocket and missile attacks in that tiny, prison-like compound. He was challenged three times by MEPs to explain why hard hats and protective vests that were left behind in Camp Ashraf had not been returned to the residents of Liberty to provide them with even rudimentary protection. His feeble reply was that this was a matter for the Iraqis. Kobler’s remarks were so contradictory that even the chairman of the committee, Elmar Brok MEP, stated: ‘I find what you have said today almost unbelievable. Accurate information should be provided to us through impartial channels.’
I pointed out the lack of any proper response by Kobler to the massive increase in executions and human rights abuses in Iraq and the lack of proper attention by Kobler regarding the ongoing popular uprisings in cities across Iraq. I also reminded Kobler that he had signed the Memorandum of Understanding regarding the transfer of the residents of Camp Ashraf to the prison of Camp Liberty with the government of Iraq without the consent of the residents of Camp Ashraf. I accused Kobler of deceiving members of parliament on the conditions in Camp Liberty by showing us doctored photographs. I said that he had guaranteed that the 3,400 residents would enjoy safety and security at Camp Liberty and they would be rapidly transferred to third countries, both of which were lies. I pointed out that Tahar Boumedra had resigned from UNAMI in protest at the behaviour of Kobler and had testified to the US Congress under oath that Kobler had doctored photographs of Camp Liberty with the sole intention of deceiving MEPs and other decision-makers.
Jim Higgins, MEP from Ireland, said to Kobler, ‘You say the government of Iraq considers the Ashraf and Liberty residents as terrorists. But they have been removed from the US and EU terror lists and you, representing the UN, should state that they are not terrorists. Why do you not take a correct position on this? What you are doing is very hypocritical. Can you tell us what you have achieved in view of all the money that you receive? You should be fired. The UN Security Council should fire you’.
Vytautas Landsbergis, a former President of Lithuania, pointed out: ‘Scores of Iraqi politicians condemn you. Why do you involve Iran, a foreign country, into this i
ssue in Iraq? Why do you bring Iran into the issue of the status of Camp Liberty and refugees that the Iranian regime hates so much? Eighteen political dignitaries [who had visited Ashraf before] have issued a statement and have called on your conduct to be examined in a court. They have stated their readiness to testify before this court and have called for an investigation into your conduct.’
Tunne Kelam, MEP from Estonia, said: ‘Mr Kobler, you have become a controversial figure in Iraq. It is said that you are too close to the government of Iraq. You provide no reasonable explanation regarding the safety of the Liberty residents. You signed the MOU with the government of Iraq but there is no guarantee for the safety and security of the residents. You put 80 percent of the blame on the inhabitants of Camp Liberty. This is very hypocritical and unacceptable.’
Ryszard Czarnecki, a Polish MEP, said: ‘You showed us pictures that you claimed demonstrated that Camp Liberty would be an excellent place. But none of these promises were true. The residents do not trust you. You are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Don’t you think it is about time that you should resign and leave?’
Kobler, becoming increasingly agitated in the face of such relentless disapproval, turned his fire on the PMOI. He said, ‘As Europeans, MEPs should look at the internal structure of the PMOI. You should not support structures that do not provide individual freedoms.’
Following the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, I told the media, ‘This once again underscores the need for Kobler’s immediate dismissal by the UN Secretary General.’
We did not have to wait long for the UN Secretary General’s response. In July 2013, only eight weeks after his final shambolic appearance before the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Kobler was dismissed from his post in Iraq and sent to the Congo. His cosy sinecure with his wife, the German ambassador to Iraq, had been ended. Such was the public outrage at Kobler’s appalling record in Iraq that Ban Ki-moon had no choice but to remove him! In his place, on 2 August 2013, the UN Secretary General appointed Nikolay Mladenov as his Special Representative in Iraq. Mladenov was a former Bulgarian Foreign Minister, and until 2009 had been a member of the European Parliament. I knew him from his time as a member of the EPP-ED majority group, when I had been Vice President. He was also a close friend of the Czech diplomat and former MEP Jana Hybášková, who was known for her hostility towards the Iranian PMOI and who was now the EU’s Ambassador to Iraq.
1. Fars News Agency, 22 and 24 January 2012.
2. Before going to Iraq, Kobler had been the Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Afghanistan.
30
Interviews with PMOI Refugees in Camp Liberty, September 2014
Mahmoud Royai
‘My name is Mahmoud Royai. I was born in Tehran in 1963 and I have a diploma. In 1979, after the anti-monarchy revolution, I became disillusioned with the new government due to the discriminatory and deceptive atmosphere and the reactionary and intolerant ideals of Khomeini. I was, by contrast, inspired by the honesty and righteousness of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. I trusted their programme and became a supporter.
I was part of a middle-class family and all the educational and recreational opportunities at hand left me with no shortage in this regard. Yet while continuing my studies, I continued my support of the PMOI and assisted in selling their books and newspapers and participated in their meetings and gatherings.
On 30 August 1981, when I was 18 years old, I was arrested on charges of supporting the PMOI and sentenced to ten years in prison for selling PMOI newspapers, taking part in meetings and completely legal demonstrations staged by the PMOI. From that time forward, either in the harsh times of interrogation when I wished I would die just to get relief from the pain of torture, or when I entered Ghezel Hesar Prison and before I entered the ward when they shaved my head and eyebrows and forced me to eat them, I didn’t think I could survive one year of all these hideous conditions in the notorious prisons of Evin and Ghezel Hesar. Despite all that, thanks to the unprecedented resistance shown by PMOI inmates and our presence as a group, we shared each other’s pain and fate, which kept me alert and alive for 10 years in Evin, Ghezel Hesar and Gohardasht prisons under various physical and psychological pressures, while up close I witnessed torture, group executions and the 1988 massacre of political prisoners.
Despite the fact that according to the regime’s own laws I had not committed any crime and my activities were completely public and legal, in September of 1981 I was on death row and if it wasn’t for my father’s efforts and those of my friends and relatives, one of those very nights when PMOI supporters were being executed in groups every few minutes, I too would have been gunned down and executed. During those nights we could hear the sounds of the final bullets being fired into the heads of those being executed, and often we counted more than 300 shots in a single night. In the ten years that I was in Evin Prison my father had used nearly all of his assets and belongings to secure my release, and my family was constantly under pressure, facing threats and humiliation by the IRGC.
In 1991, I was released from prison on the condition of a guarantee provided by an official government employee, virtually a signed blank cheque, providing official property papers worth around $80,000 to the prosecutor’s office. My mother and father also had to give their pledges and guarantees to this kind of bail bond. The goal of these guarantees was to prevent me from getting anywhere close to the resistance or opposing the bloodthirsty monsters of the Mullahs’ regime. As an IRGC member said very clearly to my parents, ‘If he does anything, rest assured that he will be executed. Of course first his home will be confiscated, then his guarantors will be arrested and the blank cheque will be used.’
After being released from prison I was faced with a huge paradox. On one hand I couldn’t deny all the crimes, torture and executions and keep my pride and conscience silent and yet on the other hand there were my mother and father who had lost their health while I was held in Evin and Gohardasht Prison and they couldn’t tolerate me not being close to them any more. I was their only hope and they didn’t want me to leave. They had literally used up all their assets to have me freed, and all they had in life was their home and family. If I continued the struggle they would lose everything. It was a very difficult decision. Once I tried to discuss it very vaguely with my father so that maybe my conscience would be a little bit relaxed, so that after I left Iran they wouldn’t be caught off guard. I said I should continue my education abroad and not be forced to see the IRGC members that had killed my friends for no reason at all, which makes me very upset.
My father said: “I have lived a long and proud life, but in the past ten years because of my love for you, I tolerated all kinds of humiliation, hardship and difficulties and I stayed alive with this only hope. If you go I won’t survive another month.” I didn’t say anything any more, but I had made my decision and I knew that, despite all the threats to the path ahead that I had chosen, I saw that joining the ranks of the PMOI was the only way to repay my people and continue the path of the martyrs. In 1995, after months of effort, I was able to reach Dubai through a passport that I had obtained, and four days later, with the help of my friends, I arrived in Baghdad. I learned later on that my father passed away exactly one month after I left the country and my mother remains ill.’
31
The Final Ashraf Atrocity
Under the agreement of the UN and US, 101 residents had remained behind in Camp Ashraf to negotiate the safe disposal of their movable and fixed properties, valued at many millions of dollars. Lawyers employed by the Ashraf residents to negotiate the sale of their properties were threatened by the Iraqi regime and scared off, while Prime Minister al-Maliki, acting on the instructions of his sponsors in Tehran, cut off supplies of water, food and electricity to the camp in late August in an attempt to oust the remaining residents and loot their belongings.
Around midnight on
Saturday 31 August 2013, several battalions of the Iraqi military and special SWAT forces, acting on orders directly from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, stormed the camp under cover of darkness. The attack began at 6am on 1 September. Anti-tank rocket-propelled grenades and mortars were fired into the sleeping quarters of the refugee camp, and the fleeing residents were then machine-gunned. 52 deaths and dozens of severe injuries resulted. Many of the residents were handcuffed and then summarily executed by being shot in the back of the head. Nine seriously injured residents were carried to the camp clinic by their colleagues, but were then executed by Iraqi military personnel on their hospital beds. Seven injured residents, six women and one man, were kidnapped.
Their mission was clearly to take a few hostages and kill all of the rest. The 42 survivors were the ones who the killers could not find, which explains why General Jamil Shemeri, commander of Diyala police, who had personally taken part in this operation, hearing that there were some survivors, demanded to know how the hell they were still alive?
The systematic massacre continued into Sunday 1 September for some hours, and despite repeated pleas for the UN or US to intervene, there was complete silence and inactivity from both. While under attack, the Ashraf residents directly telephoned UNAMI, the American Embassy and the NCRI headquarters in Paris. Indeed some of the bodies found later were still clutching phones. The Second Secretary in the US Embassy in Baghdad, who was informed 30 minutes after the start of the massacre, replied that he would urgently follow this case. But it was only after 12 hours that a local UN official finally went to the scene, by which time the massacre was over. By then the Iraqi government was already denying that any of their military had entered the camp. The international media, focused on the unfolding civil war in Syria, studiously ignored this new atrocity at Ashraf and there was little or no coverage. I watched horrifying films of the atrocity taken by some of the Ashrafis. In one film, Iraqi soldiers can be seen shooting dead unarmed civilians and then, spotting the cameraman, running towards him firing their weapons. The soldiers can be seen bursting through a door where the cameraman had taken refuge and the final footage shows them raising their Kalashnikovs and firing a burst directly at the camera, which then tumbles to the ground. This brave Ashrafi died filming his own murderers.
Self-Sacrifice Page 19
