While there is broad consensus that Camp Liberty still faces deadly, criminal threats from the Iranian regime with the cooperation of Iraqi government, Martin Kobler, in a speech on March 21 made up of lies and falsification, attempted to overlook the serious and blatant security risks being faced by Camp Liberty residents.
1. He grandly repeated the same false promise, stating: “The government has assured me that it will spare no efforts in preventing further attacks.” He himself had no doubt that this was completely false. Prior to this, the residents’ representatives wrote to Kobler’s deputy: “If you intend to raise the level of security through the GOI, this will mean nothing but to leave the birds’ nest to the jackals and then await their fourth killing. Instead of pretending that the situation is normal and overlooking the real threats, try to transfer all the residents with no exception to the United States in a concrete and short period of time, and if this is not feasible then the only practical way is to transfer them all to Ashraf to be taken to third countries from there. It is only in this way that Mr. Kobler’s fault and that of the UNAMI could be reduced to a certain extent.”
2. In the March 21, 2013, Security Council session, Kobler intentionally covered up the fact that the security condition at Camp Liberty had changed, and that the residents are now as vulnerable as they were before the February 9 missile attack. Forty days after the criminal assault, not even one T-wall has been returned to the camp out of the 17,500 removed T-walls that were formerly shielding the Liberty trailers. The residents have not been allowed to take their protective helmets and vests from Ashraf to Liberty. Neither was basic medical equipments allowed to be transferred from Ashraf to Liberty. The residents were prevented from doing construction work and in spite of the repeated demands of the residents for increasing the camp area in order to reduce its vulnerability and their casualties, this has not been done.
3. Kobler misused the humanitarian act of the Albanian government in accepting 210 of the residents for his own propaganda purposes in order to avoid the urgent security crisis and to divert attention from his own destructive role in forcefully evicting the residents and transferring them from Ashraf to the Liberty killing field. This is while the issue of residents’ transfer to Albania has been on the table for more than a year, and the government of Albania had agreed on the transfer of 210 residents in November 2012. At that time, the residents gave the government, the UNHCR and the United States a number 1 priority list of patients and residents who should be transferred first, and have been waiting and are still waiting for their rapid transfer. On March 21, on yet another occasion, the residents’ representative sent the same number 1 priority list to the UNHCR for transfer to Albania. In January, envoys of the Iranian resistance met with senior officials of Albania in Tirana, accepted all the expenses and urged their government to increase the number of residents going to Albania. However, by publicizing this issue, Kobler practically opened the way for the Iranian regime’s interference, making it impossible or very difficult to increase the number of residents for transfer. Officials of the Iranian Resistance were last year discouraged by the Albanian and US governments from making this issue public.
4. Kobler is playing a very destructive role by interfering in relations between the residents and the UNHCR. Prior to this, residents and their representatives wrote on a number of occasions, including in their letters of February 22, 23 and 24, 2013, to warn Kobler’s deputy on this matter. They wrote: “We are in contact with the UNHCR at Liberty and Geneva and in order to prevent a further massacre, we severely warn Mr. Kobler to beware and not to intervene and present obstacles in this matter. Pressurizing the residents to continue with the interviews instead of resolving the urgent issue of security is only a mask to cover up the essential dilemma of security and it will increase the dangers which a great majority of the residents who will be remaining in Camp Liberty for a long time would face. I strongly recommend the residents and you not to fall into such a bloody trap. It is indeed a despicable act to endanger others’ lives”.
5) Struan Stevenson, President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq, on February 28 wrote to the UN Secretary General: “At this point, protection and security of the Liberty residents must be given total priority. A repeat of the February 9 disaster should be prevented at any cost. Obviously there is no guarantee that the 3,100 residents crammed into Camp Liberty can be properly protected and indeed the government of Iraq has clearly stated that it cannot prevent further rocket attacks against the camp.
“Accordingly, there are only two solutions conceivable. Either all of the residents, without any exceptions, should be temporarily transferred to a location in the United States or Europe, or be returned to Camp Ashraf so they can be resettled from there.
“There are two main elements involved in considering both solutions. First, as already stated, is that either solution should include everyone, without any exceptions. Secondly, the urgency of the matter, as we should not waste more time in useless talks and continue the past processes, giving an opportunity for the next catastrophe to take place”.
6) Bringing up the issue of property and the 100 remaining residents in Ashraf is another suspicious act by Kobler in order to evade the issue of the residents’ security and could at any moment lead to another attack similar to that of February 9. Kobler is also facilitating the Iraqi government’s efforts to steal the residents’ property. Following the February 9 massacre, on several occasions he claimed that the Iraqi government had agreed to the residents’ conditions to sell their property. The residents and their representatives have on numerous occasions announced that they will not fall into the deadly trap of Kobler’s property games until the urgent issue of security is resolved.
7) Kobler’s mission is to dismantle the opposition and he has promised the Iranian regime’s ambassador in Iraq that half of the PMOI members would return to Iran once transfer to Liberty has failed. Therefore, he is repeating the bogus claim of the camp leadership ‘that residents who wish to leave are not being prevented’. He makes this absurd claim even though since February 2012 until today, more than 2,000 of the residents have been interviewed by the UNHCR outside the camp and in private, sometimes as many as 17 times, and UNAMI monitors have had access to everyone and all sites and interviewed them privately. On many occasions they even encouraged the residents to leave the camp and hand themselves over to the Iraqi forces.
8) The lack of basic medical supplies in the Iraqi medical clinic in Liberty has led to the death of several patients; however, Kobler seeks the camp leadership’s cooperation with Iraqi officials regarding medical issues. This is a ludicrous and disgraceful act that lays the foundations for another massacre in Liberty. In a statement on March 14, the NCRI explained the grim consequences of the inhumane medical siege and stated: “On the one hand, Liberty residents are denied minimum medical facilities which they had in their own clinic at Ashraf and the GOI prevents their transfer to Liberty, and on the other, the Iraqi clinic at Liberty lacks minimum necessities and preliminary equipment needed to take care of emergency cases, and the residents have no free access to medical services.
“This clinic does not have suction apparatus, airway tubes, a laryngoscope set and endotracheal tube, D.C shock device, Adrenalin and Zantac injection, IVG-tube, CV Linen set and many other requirements that could be found in any small clinic.
“Through his lies and deceit, Martin Kobler tried tens of times to represent the Iraqi clinic as a well-equipped medical center.”
9) In his report to the Security Council, Kobler asked the residents ‘to abstain from aggressive behavior against our UN monitors. UN monitors must be able to freely interact with the residents of Camp Hurriya’. Kobler is apparently referring to a case involving an individual named Massoud Durrani. On Kobler’s instructions, on March 14, after the martyrdom of Hamid Rabi, the eighth resident who died due to the February 9 missile attack, this individual went to Camp Liberty and in order to provoke the residents regarding his death, he said sarcastically: “No worries. He will go to heaven!”
In a letter on March 14 to the UN Secretary-General, the residents’ representative wrote regarding this: “Does such behavior represent the conduct of a UN observer or a personal staff member of Kobler serving the mullahs’ Gestapo? This insulting behavior exposes the role of Kobler, the Ambassador to Iraq, in the one-month delay in sending Mr. Rabi to Germany that resulted in his life being lost.” The residents announced that they will no longer talk to this person.
10) From day one, UNAMI observers had full access to all the residents. Furthermore, the residents’ representative on March 8, 2013, wrote to the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs: “Representatives in Liberty and Ashraf have asked him repeatedly, both orally and in writing (including in 18 August and 12 November 2012 letters to Kobler and in 14 November 2012 letter to Kobler’s deputy), when, where, and who has prevented which monitor or UNAMI official from having free access or from having a private interview. He had no response and he never answered our request to clarify this allegation. Today there is no doubt about Kobler’s incitement. In this way, he intends to prepare the ground for and to justify the probable assault by Iraqi forces against Ashraf or Liberty.”
On August 18, 2012, the residents’ representative wrote to Kobler: “Opening the doors of Liberty to lawyers, journalists, parliamentarians, and human rights defenders that we have been calling for from the outset is the only viable way to put an end to these allegations. We insist that in line with the February 1, March 1, and March 28 statements of the UNHCR, in official statements defending the freedom of movement of the residents and opening the doors of this detention center so that everyone, except the religious fascism ruling Iran, would have free access to Liberty and its residents.”
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
March 22, 2013