NCRI – In an international conference held in Geneva on Thursday, September 22 by the Swiss Committee in Defense of Ashraf, prominent European and American dignitaries and personalities expressed their deep concerns about intentions of the Iranian regime and the Iraqi government against residents of Ashraf and especially the illegally set deadline of December 2011 for closing the camp. The conference called on the UN Secretary General, the UN High Commission for Refugees and UN High Commission for Human Rights as well as the United States to take immediate measures to provide protection for Camp Ashraf and prevent repeat of similar massacres of the past and also press the Iraqi government to cancel the 2011 deadline until the resettlement to third countries of all residents is finalized.
Below is speech by Günter Verheugen. He was recently serving as European Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry and was also one of five vice-presidents of the 27-member European Commission.
Madam President Radjavi, colleagues from the United States and Europe, dear friends. Since I am campaigning for the protection of Camp Ashraf and for the freedom of Iran, people ask me very often: “why are you doing this? It’s none of your business, it’s not a European business, and it’s not a German business.” And I am telling them yearlong: “It is our responsibility to care, no question of the credibility of our own barriers”, then I try to explain.
There are humanitarian tragedies, catastrophes that we cannot prevent, that come unexpectedly like natural disasters, there is no much we can do. But there are also humanitarian catastrophes, which are announced, you see them coming, you know that it will happen, like Camp Ashraf. And if you do nothing to prevent it, you become guilty yourself. We as European we cannot claim that we have invented human rights, we cannot claim that democracy, minority rights and protection of minorities so our most important export article, and simply do not look at the situation in Camp Ashraf. We cannot be neutral. We have to take sights and we need to be aware of it. If we do not help people in Camp Ashraf, we support in fact the mullahs regime in Iraq, that is the consequence of it. And I am afraid that time is running out.
The situation is critical. There is a deadline that is not yet removed; I don’t see any system of guaranteed protection.
And therefore, it is time for Europeans to act. No more lips service, I have seen enough. No more nice words. Action is now required: action in the height of United Nations, action in our relationship with Iraq, and action in our relationship with the United States.
Exactly two months ago, we were in Brussels and had a press conference there, where we presented a catalogue of requests that the European Union should and could do. John Bruton told us this afternoon that one of these requests is now fulfilled, special envoy of the European Union is appointed. I am very glad, grateful for this but I have to say it is not enough. We want to see more, we want to see the European Union active in the United Nations and make a big up call, here in Geneva and in New York, there is a responsibility of the United Nations to guarantee the protection of the people in Camp Ashraf as long as no final solution is found, and the first things to do, and I ask my good old friend Antonio Gutterez in Geneva to take care of this.
The first thing to do is to send a permanent monitoring mission to Camp Ashraf to make sure that nobody can attack the people there without being criminalized after that. So we need a monitoring. And I think it is now time for Europeans to tell the government of Iraq that this government cannot expect the European taxpayers to pay for the reconstruction of this country and get nothing in return.
What we want in return is that the government of this country respects the democratic rules, minority rights and human rights.
And I expect the European institutions and the member States of the European Union to make it absolutely clear that the government in Bagdad cannot expect further support from the European Union as long as they threaten the people in Camp Ashraf. We want a binding commitment from the government in Bagdad that it stops once and forever.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is also the problem how to discuss it with USA.
We have so prominent outstanding personalities from USA, who are on behalf of that allocations, I really wonder how many so outstanding people who serve that country in so important offices, how many so outstanding people in Ashraf, how many witnesses must still show up to testify that putting the MEK on the terrorist list was part of the political manoeuvre that went terribly wrong?
I really must ask Hilary Clinton, Madame Secretary, how much time do you need to recognize that this was a fatal error and it must be corrected as soon as possible? I am deeply disappointed to why I could not see action against the American special envoy in Camp Ashraf last December. He went there and that’s it. To the media, a solution for Camp Ashraf is dissolve Camp Ashraf and to settle people individually at difficult places in Iraq.
My friends, if you do that, you can as well pull the people on the spot because this is a death sentence, this is what the American envoy said.
Then we conclude the Europeans think that Camp Ashraf, of course, is part of a much bigger problem. Perhaps one of the biggest problems of our time: the future of Iran, and the future of the relationship between western democracies and the Muslim world. I want to make it very clear this is not a problem of religion. The mullahs in Iran claimed falsely that religion requires them to do what they do. There is no religion in the world that requests that, that requires us to torture people and to suppress people, such a religion does not exist. It is not about religion it is about the power base.
