Tahar Boumedra branded the UN’s promises to Iranian dissidents that Camp Liberty was a ‘safe and secure’ as a ‘complete lie’.
In a speech in Zurich on April 19, Mr Boumedra – the UN’s former chief of human rights in Iraq – said: “It was my responsibility to promote and protect human rights in Iraq, and also to monitor the situation of the residents of camp Ashraf.
“I worked with the Iraqi officials and advised them on how to handle the human rights and humanitarian situation of the Ashrafis.
“I came to a point where I could no longer perform my responsibility for the protection of human rights. I was actually working in an environment that is completely biased against the residents of Ashraf.”
In a damning indictment of the UN’s actions, Mr Boumedra went on: “I was in a situation where we misinformed the international community. We in the UN misled the organization of the UN, we misled the diplomatic community, and we misled the Ashrafis themselves at a very high cost to the integrity of the UN on one hand and very high cost to Ashrafis themselves that cost their lives.
“The UN in Iraq decided together with the Iraqi government to close down camp Ashraf, and to do so we had to produce documents and reports literally lying to Ashrafis.
“We told them that camp Liberty where they have been transferred met international humanitarian standards and this was a complete lie. We said to Ashrafis that Liberty, would be safer. That was a complete lie.”
“The UN hired a Swiss expert. He acted according to his conscience and said he could not certify Liberty because it did not meet humanitarian standards. So the special representative of the UN Secretary General dismissed this report and issued his own report to say that Camp Liberty actually met the standards.”
“I decided to resign because I am a human rights officer and not a politician that works to satisfy the government of Iraq at the cost of lives of Ashrafis and their fundamental rights.
“The UN is there to protect, not to expose people to danger. The events of 9 February 2013 when 8 people were killed was predictable and also preventable.
“But unfortunately the UN kept quiet until this happened, and the UN must now stop this kind of deviation from their fundamental mission, to depoliticize their role on Iraq, and to stand for the fundamental principles of the UN which is to protect.”
Camp Liberty located near Baghdad currently houses some 3,100 members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).