The speakers to the conference were: Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance; Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Vice President of the European Parliament; Struan Stevenson, President of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq in the European Parliament (presenter of European proposal for Ashraf crisis); Ruth N. Wedgwood , jurist; Sid Ahmed Ghozali, former prime minister of Algeria; Nontombi Tutu, human rights activist and the daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Madeleine Rees, Secretary General of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; Christiane Perregaux, co-President of the Legislative Council in Geneva; Gianfranco Fattorini, Co-Chair of Movement against Racism and for Friendship among the Peoples (MRAP); Marc Falquet, Member of Geneva Parliament; and Daniel Neeser, pastor. The conference was presided over by Michel Joli, Secretary General of Mitterrand Foundation (France Libertés).
Below is speech by Madeleine Rees, Secretary General of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom:
Thank you very much for giving me the floor and another thanks for seeing so many people here coming to listen, so many people speaking on this very important issue.
I will be brief because Women International League for Peace and Freedom has given support to camp Ashraf over the years.
The more passive way rather than direct engagement, and I say that because we are like many of the NGOs that work in Geneva, we want to see the systems work. And I have to say that after listening to the conversations and the interventions around camp Ashraf, particularly the powerful presentations from the panel, it is as if we were sitting in some surreal environment here.
What is it?
Camp Ashraf actually seems to represent the schizophrenia of the UN and its member states. But what do we have on our hand? We are sitting here at the home of human rights, where human rights have been protected, where we have come up with doctrines of the responsibility to protect, of international protection.
And we are seeing 3400 people who have laid down, have surrendered their arms and demanded international protection and have been told they would have this protection, sitting there waiting for the next massacre which will happen as soon as the deadline is up for them to be removed from the camp.
And what is the solution to that? It is not the rhetoric that we are hearing from those over the corridors who are talking in Human rights council, I think that is the rhetoric from the security council who are not engaging themselves sufficiently.
Those who think more clearly know how the system should work, and how we as NGOs working in Geneva can help to make the system work.
Quite clearly all the issues raised by today’s panellists in terms of human rights violations need to be addressed and there must be accountability for those who have violated them.
The system is in place for that to happen, where is it? Why is it not working? It is the triumph of the political will over international law and we cannot allow that to happen otherwise international law will be denigrated.
As a personal comment, many times that I have walked by the demonstrators defending camp Ashraf, they are very well organized, fabulously organized. I get emails every day, saying we will sign this statement, we will do something else. Yes we will do it now for sure. But one of the things we come across all the time is the prejudice that there exists and the misinformation that goes on. From the highest diplomats, those who work in various Civil Rights organizations I am told that they are terrorists, that they committed war crimes, that they treat their women badly and so on and so forth. As if that even mattered when it comes to human rights, because the universality of human rights incorporates everyone and if there were any truth in these claims, they have been investigated and there is no doubt that they should have been prosecuted if the evidence existed but there has been none.
So let’s put one matter aside and dismiss those arguments and move on to what must happen as a matter of human rights law obligation and international humanitarian law obligation, that has been set up by UNHCR. They will and have committed to actually ensuring the security. They can not do it alone, that is to invoke the responsibility to protect and say to the United States, another government that has direct influence on Iraq that they must use that influence as a matter of international legal obligation to prevent massacres. Not to go and bomb Iraq afterwards, that’s not how the responsibility to protect should work. Because we know that this will not happen.
What we are looking for is a peaceful solution based on international law, invoking the doctrines that are already being put in place and putting political and moral prejudice aside so that it can actually be realized. It is difficult, it seems, it should not be but it is. But we need that clarity.
And I would invite all of us in this room who are engaging with the Council and with the Human rights mechanisms to put an additional pressure on the Human Rights Council to demand that there be a monitoring mission by the UNCHR or/and by the European Union and also to get involved – the special representatives, the secretary general on the prevention of genocide because it is not only of the prevention of genocide, it is on the prevention of mass violation of international humanitarian law. If we are serious about prevention, so let us use the mechanisms to make sure it does not happen.
Bon courage.