Camp Liberty -51
This morning, around 11 AM, George Bakoos, a political adviser to Nouri-al Maliki, Mohammad Kazem Sadeq (one of those who was implicated in two massacres at Ashraf) and Gyorgy Busztin, the Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Iraq, went to Camp Liberty to Camp Liberty without any prior notice. They were accompanied with a number of diplomats and Baghdad based journalists.
By organizing the propaganda show, the Government of Iraq attempted to conceal the reality of Camp Liberty that is a prison by any standards, and to cover up the forcible eviction of 3200 Ashraf residents, their expulsion from their home and town that built in 26 years.
This was a desperate attempt in response to shocking revelations by a senior UNAMI official regarding the suppressive measures of the Government of Iraq against Ashraf residents in collaboration with UNAMI and to the report by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that Liberty is a prison.
The tour was organized in a way to catch the residents off guard and fewer number of them would be able to point out to realities at Liberty. When a limited number of residents urged the diplomats to provide them with some time so that they could express their points, George Bakoos said they had to leave. Upon orders of Sadeq, police vehicles were lined up before a number of residents who had gathered in the street and in the exit route of the delegation so that the diplomats would not be able to see the residents on their way out from the camp.
In the limited time that the residents were able to talk to the delegation, they underscored that throughout the past seven months stay in Liberty, humanitarian and human rights standards are systematically violated. There is no freedom of movement, no access to lawyers, families, parliamentarians, human rights activists, and journalists are barred from entering the camp.
The meager improvements on humanitarian conditions at Liberty are due to time and resources that the residents have devoted. In one case, the residents have spent 6 million dollars for setting up running water system and providing fuel for Liberty. The receipts of all of these expenditures are available.
The residents also underscored that the Government of Iraq in practice has deprived them from the right to ownership and neither has allowed them to transfer their properties from Ashraf to Liberty, nor to sell them freely. Only a fictitious merchant who is affiliated to security organs has been given permission to go to Ashraf, whose objective is to blockade the property and to prevent their sale.
The Government of Iraq prevents transfer of personal and utility vehicles, forklifts, medical equipments, bicycles, and power generators that belong to the residents. These are necessities for daily living of the residents and all of them belong to the residents and the documents are available. The prevention of transferring of 1.5 mega watts generators from Ashraf to Liberty has resulted that the electricity supply for Liberty residents not being reliable and due to the worn-out status of the current generators, the fuel cost of the current generators have been several fold of what it should be. In the meantime, given the fact that more than 1,100 of the residents have been wounded in the criminal attacks of Iraqi forces, the medical equipment are very vital.
The Government of Iraq even prevents flowers and plants that are more than 10 or 15 centimeters tall to be brought into the camp and does not permit constructing asphalt or cement roads that are particularly very essential for disabled residents.
Mr. Busztin, the Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Iraq, told the residents that today’s delegation is a fact finding mission and they have 20 minutes to talk to delegation. The residents replied that this is ridiculing an internationally known concept. If this is a fact finding mission, who has appointed it and what is its composition? What is its mandate and what is the subject of its research and inquiry? If it is a fact finding mission, it should hear the victims. i.e. the Liberty residents who have been subjects of a forced eviction. The fact finding mission should visit Ashraf, home of these people for 26 years and see the degrading of their living conditions from Ashraf to Liberty and should have free latitude to go to Liberty without monitoring of the Government of Iraq and talk to anyone it desires without any restriction and with ample time.
The residents reiterated that if Liberty in reality is not a prison, the UN should declare it as a refugee camp with open gates and should the properties of the residents, in particular the generators, medical equipment, personal and utility vehicles, lift trucks, etc. be permitted to be transferred from Ashraf to Liberty.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 11, 2012
