The sixth group of residents will move to Camp Liberty only after their eight minimum humanitarian needs are fulfilled. Residents have informed the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Iraq (SRSG) that they would provide the needs at their own costs and resources within a month but Iraq obstructs it.
Iraqi media, reported that, Faleh Fayaz, Maliki’s national security advisor, has invited a number of foreign ambassadors and representatives of international organizations for today, July 31 ” to announce the position of the Government of Iraq (GoI) on determining the issue of the presence of the members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization (PMOI) in Iraq”.
On Monday evening, July 30, Representative of Ashraf residents informed diplomats in Baghdad of the position of the residents in Ashraf and Liberty in separate letters, explaining that by holding this conference without the presence of any representative or lawyer of the residents in Ashraf and Liberty, the GoI intends to justify its suppressive conduct against both camps and set the stage for a third massacre. Given the absence of the residents’ representatives and as lawyers, parliamentarians and international human rights organizations have testified to the fact that Mr Kobler, the SRSG, is not impartial in this issue and stands on the side of the Iranian regime and Maliki’s Government, decisions made in this conference against the residents are devoid of any credibility.
Concurrent with the rise in Syrian uprising, Khamenei has asked the GoI to put its ultimatum into action. He has stressed that the GoI should “invade” Ashraf now that the camp population has decreased to one third as “It will not be so difficult to remove the current number and with a simple plan it will be possible to break their resistance and to arrest them”.
Prior to this, in its statements of July 20 on Mr Kobler’s remarks at the UN Security Council and on July 25 on Mr. Kobler’s roadmap, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) had warned on setting the stage for third massacre. The NCRI had declared that the objective was to forcefully relocate and evict the residents and put the Iranian opposition under fetters in Liberty prison.
The minimum humanitarian needs of residents at Liberty have already been announced a number of times in the letters of the residents and their representatives to the UN Secretary General, officials of the UN, the US, and EU and have also been stated in the statements of the Secretariat of the NCRI on July 15 and 25. The representatives of the residents informed Mr. Kobler of the needs in eight items in Paris on July 26.
Two thirds of Ashraf residents (2000 persons) moved to Liberty in five convoys without their minimum humanitarian needs being provided and while the infrastructure of Liberty is extremely inadequate and humanitarian and human rights standards are constantly violated there. On every turn, Kobler and the GoI postponed the fulfillment of the humanitarian needs to the next convoy. Thus, after transfer of 2,000 residents, which has demonstrated the utmost good will of the residents, any deadline, attack, and intimidation solely reveals the ominous intention of the GoI and Mr. Kobler’s functioning in the framework of the setting by the Iranian regime and the GoI.
The representatives of the residents provided a specific practical plan for implementation of the eight items of humanitarian needs to Mr. Kobler in the July 26 meeting. These needs are: Connection of Liberty to the city water network or pumping water from a river adjacent to the camp, transfer of the main generators of 1.5 Mega Watt, allowing the sale of the movable and immovable properties, minimum constructions particularly of special facilities for disabled and ill people, transfer of the six utility vehicles, 6 trailers for the disabled, transfer of 5 forklifts and 50 passenger cars.
According to this plan, the residents expressed their readiness to implement the above 8 items at their own cost and energy and by utilizing Iraqi contractors in a month after the approval by the GoI; and subsequently the sixth convoy will be transferred to Liberty. But the GoI that receives all of its orders on Ashraf from the Iranian regime, refrains from implementing this simple and practical plan and its planning for the third massacre at Ashraf.
In its statement of July 25 on Mr Kobler’s roadmap, the NCRI stated, “Irrespective of the inaccuracies in this roadmap, it is full of shocking deceptions, fallacies and inverted claims. The roadmap that should have indeed looked to future steps, begins by boasting the transfer of 300 of the residents own air conditioners and 10 of their own generators, which does not include the main ones, and what was left from convoys 4 and 5, which should have been transferred over two and a half months ago, in order to conclude that a major part of the residents’ demands have been met.
It is made to sound as if the “generous” Government of Iraq, which has so far plundered tens of millions of MeK properties and crushed 22 Ashraf residents under their Humvee armored vehicles, has made a donation of the 382 generators and thousands of air conditioners that in fact belong entirely to the residents. If Mr. Kobler had not expected even this much from the Government of Iraq and considers this to be the GOI’s “generosity,” then before all, he must acknowledge that there is no rule of law in the country and that it is rather run by the law of the jungle and banditry.
– Instead of emphasizing the right of constructing necessary camp facilities and green area that was agreed to in the MOU and the letters of the SRSG, it is stated: “Housing is ready… Hotels are ready…”
– Regarding the issue of water, the roadmap makes it look as if the Government of Iraq is now providing 200 liters of water per day per person and states:
“The GOI continues to guarantee 200 liters per day per person in CH. UN monitors will report daily on water provision.”
“It deliberately ignores the fact that the residents are forced to transport water to Liberty by accepting huge expenses and by waiting hours in a long queue at 55 degrees Celsius from 12 kilometer away and face tremendous problems to this effect”.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 31, 2012