According to international law and mutual agreement, the United States is responsible
for the protection of Ashraf residents
The Iranian resistance considers the remarks by Spokesperson of the State Department on the “quality of life” in camp Liberty and “The continued intransigence of the residents’ leadership in placing preconditions and making demands prior to any agreement to relocate further Ashraf residents” and “the road map of the UNAMI” unreal and derived from false reports. These remarks will never help towards a peaceful process in resolving the issue of Ashraf and will only encourage the Iranian regime and its satellite government in Iraq to impose violence against residents and to commit the third massacre.
Remarks of Maliki’s security advisor on July 31 once again disclose the ominous intentions of the GoI to commit the third massacre at the order of the mullahs regime. The Iranian regime’s objective is to destroy its best organized opposition by its satellite government in Iraq. With rising possibility of Bashar Al-Assad’s downfall as well as the volatile situation in Iraq and the crisis inside the Iranian regime, the necessity for annihilation of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) or at least making a serious damage to it has at present become the highest priority for the mullahs regime.
According to international law and based on the mutual agreement signed by every single resident of Ashraf and the US government, and also based on accepting their protection in return for disarmament, the US government is responsible for the protection of Ashraf and Liberty residents. Therefore, the Iranian resistance urges the US President and Secretary of State to fulfill their responsibility and prevent a humanitarian tragedy that the GoI has already threatened to.
Contrary to the remarks of the spokesperson, it is not the residents or their leadership that are showing intransigence, but it is the GoI that is not only refusing to provide the minimum humanitarian needs of the residents, but it is also preventing the residents from providing them by themselves. In spite of continuous violation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by the GoI and the unacceptable condition of Liberty and the lack of minimum humanitarian needs, Ashraf residents have illustrated their maximum cooperation and good will by relocation of 2000 people. These 5 groups have moved to Liberty one after the other upon the recommendations of the United States and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General (SRSG) without their minimum humanitarian needs being provided.
Before the fifth move, on April 27, while none of these minimums were fulfilled the residents’ representative wrote to Secretary Clinton’s advisor, “due to your recommendations, Mrs. Rajavi postponed the unsettled issues until later in order to expedite departure of the fifth convoy so that they could be discussed and agreed upon without any pressure or rush. Please ask Ambassador Jeffrey and Ambassador Kobler to implicitly explain to the Iraqis that departure of the fifth convoy will be carried out only based on your recommendation and in order to prove that this was done due to the maximum cooperation of the residents who have foregone their minimum legal rights.”
After the fifth move, the residents reduced the requirements for the sixth move step by step ultimately to eight items which include: 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 Watts, allowing the sale of the movable and immovable properties, minimum constructions particularly of special facilities for the disabled and ill people, transfer of the six utility vehicles, six trailers for the disabled, 5 forklifts, and 50 passenger cars.
Based on the plan presented by Mrs. Rajavi to Mr. Kobler on July 26, the residents will fulfill the above eight articles at their own expenses and energy, and by hiring Iraqi contractors within one month from the day of approval by the Iraqi government, and subsequently the sixth convoy will move to Liberty. But the government of Iraq that receives all of its orders on Ashraf from the Iranian regime, refrains from implementing this simple and practical plan, and it is planning for the third massacre in Ashraf. If the Government of Iraq had agreed to these simple demands which have been raised several months ago, all Ashraf residents would have been relocated to Liberty by now.
There is nothing further from the truth that the deadlock in completing the relocation of residents from Ashraf to Liberty is due to the intransigence of the residents or their leadership. Quite on the contrary, it is the result of the GoI’s obstruction and repeated violations of its written commitments that were stipulated in the MoU it signed with the UN.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
August 01, 2012
