By Mohammad Ali Yousef (author and expert)
Source: Elaph, Arabic language website, April 9, 2009
Reports from Ashraf City (Camp Ashraf), the main base of members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) in Iraq, are incredibly distressing and troubling.
On Friday, April 2, Iraqi forces prevented the entry of a number of medical personnel to Ashraf. These doctors were going to Ashraf to perform operations on a number of patients at the hospital, including a woman diagnosed with cancer. According to a PMOI spokesman who talked to Asharq Alawsat daily: “Agreements were previously obtained from the Iraqi government and the American forces with respect to the entry of medical personnel, but the latter were surprised to see that their entry was prevented. Iraqi forces stationed at the entrance gate of the camp informed them that they had received orders from the Iraqi national security advisor in Baghdad.”
There were also reports that on March 13, Iraqi forces placed a building in Ashraf under siege, a large part of which was being used by PMOI women, and while mistreating the residents, the forces ordered the hundreds of residents, most of whom were women, to evacuate the building. What is surprising is that the assailants said that the order comes from the Iraqi government’s National Security Advisor, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who wanted the building, used mostly by women, to be evacuated.
The situation escalated and according to international news agencies and statements made by officials at the city, such suppressive measures persisted. The building was surrounded, its residents beaten, some with electric batons, while others received various forms of threats, all of which clearly violate the Geneva Conventions and the International Humanitarian Law, and point to a massive criminal agenda, which would lead to a war crime against protected persons.
This leads us to say that the human catastrophe we were warned about has already begun to take place. 3,500 people have been placed under siege in the city. It is very clear that what al-Rubaie is doing is nothing but compliance with and implementation of the orders of Iranian officials. These suppressive acts occur on the heels of a meeting between the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with the Iraqi president a while ago, during which he ordered the Iraqi government: “The bilateral agreement regarding the expulsion of Monafeqin (referring to the PMOI) must be completely implemented.”
It appears that the crux of the matter relates to the happenings in Tehran and the shameful directives and statements issued by Iranian authorities. If anyone were to follow the issue without knowing anything about the identities and political inclinations and links of Iraqi officials, and without prior knowledge about the supreme leader in Iran, they may assume that Ayatollah Khamenei is in fact an Iraqi official and that his position is more superior than the Iraqi president, allowing him to issue directives such as: “This decision must be put into action and we are awaiting its implementation”!
There are several reasons to explain why the supreme leader decided to remove the veil and demand “putting into action the bilateral agreement.” First, we can point to the domestic situation in Iran itself and then review other major reasons:
The situation inside Iran is very turbulent. Student protests continue in Tehran and other cities, while inflation and popular protests are constantly on the rise. Everyone knows this and even the media do not try to cover it up. These are the domestic issues faced by the Iranian regime which force it to resort to daily mass executions as a fixed measure, executing the victims of its own policies one after another, and inject acid into their eyes.
The Iranian regime is also faced with the prospect of implosion threatening its political existence. But, the most significant reasons for the regime’s isolation are as follows:
The first relates to the decision of the 27 European countries to remove the PMOI from the [EU] list of terrorist organizations. The decision removed an obstacle on the path of Iran’s formidable opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is the democratic alternative to this regime, and the PMOI, which is the backbone of the NCRI. Voices were raised among European parliamentarians and American members of Congress demanding the recognition of this resistance as the legitimate and legal representative of the Iranian people. Naturally, this decision tremendously terrified the Iranian regime, because it is now witnessing the serious progress of its opposition in the international arena with its own two eyes.
The second reason, which the Iranian regime prefers to brush aside and ignore, is that the Iraqi people, during their recent elections, expelled the despised clerical regime and its proxies and agents from Karbala, Baghdad, Basra, and Diyala. They dealt such a major blow to these agents that even the clerics all the way in Tehran and Qom clearly felt it! The Iraqi people have through the past several years grasped the meaning of a hidden invasion. The results of the provincial council elections in Iraq were a firm response and a clear objection to the regime in Tehran and its proxies in Iraq.
Thus the regime reacted in the face of weakness, anxiety, trepidation, and internal chaos, by exposing its plain meddling in Iraq and pointing to Ashraf, in order to try to compensate for the strategic blow it has received and restore the former balance of power which has been transformed forever. The closure of Camp Ashraf is the demand of the Iranian regime and is a dictated policy emanating from Tehran. It is illegal to threaten Camp Ashraf with an enormous catastrophe, and it would furthermore harm a new Iraq.
The Iranian rulers see Ashraf as a dynamic force engendering hate and opposition toward the clerics by the 3 million Shiites and 5.2 million Iraqi people, including Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, Kurds, Turkmen. They assume that by imposing such pressure and painful measures against Ashraf, they would offset the hatred of the Iraqi people toward them. Repeated visits by Iranian regime officials to Iraq, including Velayati’s long trip, and those of Mottaki, the Iranian regime’s Foreign Minister, Rafsanjani, head of the Assembly of Experts, and lastly Larijani, the Iranian Parliament Spokesman, can all be analyzed in this context.
Therefore, the pressures imposed by Mr. Mowaffak al-Rubaie on Camp Ashraf resembles the word for word implementation of the directives of the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader and must be analyzed through this lens. Mr. al-Rubaie looks more to be an Iranian official than an official in the Iraqi government, and his statements are absolutely not reflective of the Iraqi people. Through these acts, and by pursuing his narrow interests, he is implementing Iran’s agenda. The Iranian regime’s objective is to close down Ashraf. Therefore, honourable people around the world must quickly rise up to save the lives of 3,500 people, one third of whom are PMOI women, and to refuse to allow an Iranian regime agent, Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, to prepare the groundwork for the occurrence of a human catastrophe, thereby realizing the Iranian regime’s thirty year dream.
It is also worth mentioning the praiseworthy position expressed by Mr. Tariq al-Hashemi, the Iraqi deputy president, on April 7, which was published on the Iraqi president’s official website. Mr. al-Hashemi said: “The presence of the PMOI in Iraqi territory is legal and lies within the bounds of international conventions.”
We must view the PMOI as the real ally of the people of the region, especially the Arabs, in order to be able to deal with the Iranian regime’s challenges. Supporting the PMOI is an obligation for all those forces committed to freedom and equality. The PMOI is a barrier against the Iranian regime’s plots, and that is why the regime wants to remove this obstacle so that it can export its terrorism easier to Arab countries.