Counting the cost of Op Moshtarek

Joya Condemns 'ridiculous' military strategy - by Glyn Strong

The Independent - 15 January 2010.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/joya-condemns-ridiculous-military-strategy-1899547.html

"It is ridiculous," said Malalai Joya, an elected member of the Afghan parliament. "On the one hand they call on Mullah Omar to join the puppet regime. On another hand they launch this attack in which defenceless and poor people will be the prime victims. Like before, they will be killed in the Nato bombings and used as human shields by the Taliban. Helmand's people have suffered for years and thousands of innocent people have been killed so far." Her fears were confirmed when Nato reported yesterday that a rocket that missed its target had killed 12 civilians at a house in Marjah.

Dismissing Allied claims that Nato forces won't abandon Afghan civilians after the surge, she said: "They have launched such offensives a number of times in the past, but each time after clearing the area, they leave it and [the] Taliban retake it. This is just a military manoeuvre and removal of Taliban is not the prime objective."

Ms Joya believes that corruption is endemic, citing uranium deposits and opium as incentives for Nato and Afghan officials to retain a presence in Helmand. Operation Moshtarak is described as an inclusive offensive, depending for its longer-term success on involvement of Afghan forces. But Ms Joya said: "The Afghan police force is the most corrupt institution in Afghanistan. Bribery is common and if you have money, by bribing police from top to bottom you can do almost anything. In many parts of Afghanistan, people hate the police more than the Taliban. In Helmand, for instance, people are afraid of police who commit violence against people and make trouble. The majority of the police force in this province are addicted to opium and cannabis."

The suspended MP was not invited to the recent London Conference that discussed her country's future, but she is pessimistic about its outcome. Politicians regard Joya as a loose cannon: quick to criticise but slow to suggest solutions.

Her uncompromising position has, however, earned her legions of supporters. It has also gained her enemies and, after allegedly insulting her fellow parliamentarians in 2007, she was suspended from operating as an MP.

Reflecting on the London Conference, Joya said: "Ordinary Afghan people say it was like a meeting of vultures coming together to discuss how to deal with the prey which is Afghanistan." Joya sees moves towards any reconciliation with the Taliban ' an exclusively male and cruelly anti-female group ' as a betrayal.

The Female Face of Afghanistan - Edited by Glyn Strong and Fiona Hodgson

http://www.glynstrong.co.uk/files/The%20Female%20Face%20of%20Afghanistanf.pdf

(*Please be patient - this 60 page booklet may take a while to download)

Launched at the House of Commons on Human Rights Day - 10 December 2009.

“Discrimination lies at the root of many of the world’s most pressing human rights problems. No country is immune from this scourge. Eliminating discrimination is a duty of the highest order.”

Navi PillayUnited Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights


“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. These first few famous words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights established 60 years ago the basic premise of international human rights law. Yet today the fight against discrimination remains a daily struggle for millions around the globe. Nowhere is this more evident than in Afghanistan where the international community is actively and publicly involved.

Ashraf: A stay of execution?

Yesterday (15.12.09) Khalil Abadi, 44, stood in the December chill of London’s Whitehall, just 100 yards or so from the Ministry of Defence, not far from Downing Street and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

It was a bleak day; the day Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki had declared that Khalil’s relatives in Iraq’s Ashraf refugee camp, along with the other 3,400 men women and children who had lived there for nearly 24 years, would be forcibly relocated to a grim former prison camp in the desert.

Khalil is one of many Iranian exiles, and British supporters, who staged a hunger strike outside the US Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square at the end of July, in protest at the brutal assault on Ashraf by Iraqi security forces. Weak ,after more than 70 days without food, he and his companions were eventually rewarded by news that the 37 hostages taken in that attack had been released.

Yesterday the thoughts of Khalil and his companions were once again focused on Ashraf as Lord Robin Corbett (pictured) waved a statement from the Iranian Embassy - attributed to ‘The Closure Committee of the New Iraq Camp’ - and berated those politicians ‘across the road’ whose failure to act had allowed the parlous situation to develop.



Ironically the year long media ban on entering Ashraf was lifted by Baghdad just days before the scheduled eviction and an escorted tour of the closure preparations hastily arranged. A reported bomb blast near an area where reporters were gathered was quickly blamed on the PMOI (People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran) to which Ashraf’s refugee resident’s belong.

Spokeswoman Laila Jazayeri, in London supporting the rally, said “It’s pathetic to try to blame the PMOI. We have wanted media to have access to the camp for months. This is just a government attempt to crudely spin publicity and frighten them away.”

In Iraq, police with loud hailers drove around Ashraf reminding residents of the deadline set by Prime Minister Al-Maliki for their removal - but PMOI representative Mehdi Farahi told Iraqi officials that residents would not leave the land they had bought and lived on for so long.

He said "Any attempt to expel us forcibly will lead to the same clashes and confrontations as those of July 28 and 29. The manner in which the Iraqi Government is acting is contrary to international law."
As Khalil and others started to assemble in London, later to be joined by Lord’s Robin Corbett and Brian Cotter, and lawyers David Vaughan and Nigel Pleming, 37 police vehicles had already entered the camp with officials from the Iraqi Committee for Closing Ashraf (CCA). Journalists and photographers were allowed in with them.

Ashraf’s residents offered no resistance and left all doors and buildings open for visits by the police, Iraqi officials and reporters.

After a meeting between CCA officials and PMOI representatives Iraqi forces took to the streets distributing pamphlets and announcing through loudspeakers that “the Iraqi Government is determined to relocate the residents of this camp to another location” and “willing individuals can refer to the police station or any one of the patrolling vehicles.”

Residents were invited to leave Ashraf and move to ‘luxury hotels in Baghdad’. According to the NCRI not one of the 3,400 residents responded to the offer and the minibuses which had come to displace them returned empty.

By mid afternoon all Iraqi forces had left Ashraf, taking with them all the journalists they had brought.
With nothing resolved, but a growing awareness that the eyes of the world are now on Ashraf both sides are uneasy. Back in London Jazayeri said: “The threat of violence is still very real as the Iraqis could attack the camp and do what they did last time at any moment. There are no guarantees, no written assurances about this. These people are all 'Protected Persons' under the terms of the Geneva Convention and all they are asking for is their basic international and humanitarian rights to be respected by the Iraqi Government. ”

In a ‘relocation’ as questionable as that which saw Germany’s Jews transported to concentration camps in WW2, Ashraf’s population of men, women and children have been told that their new home will be Neqrat al-Salman, a desolate military prison that has been compared to the notorious Abu Ghraib.

A grim fortress in the as-Salman desert region of Al-Muthanna it was used by US forces until last year. Neqrat as-Salman has housed many political prisoners over the years and thousands have died there. It is several days walk from the nearest oasis and the closest location with drinking water is approximately 90 miles away. Hellishly hot in summer it inhabits a landscape replete with snakes, scorpions and no vegetation.

Iraqi army Colonel Bassel told journalists "Camp residents have been aware since October 19 that they are to be cleared out and moved elsewhere while respecting international human rights standards. If they refuse, a high committee will decide what measures to take and we will resolve the problem in a peaceful manner," he added.

The statement from the Iraqi Prime Minister announcing the camp's closure was released on 10 December ; it said “We have taken the decision to get them (the PMOI) out of Iraq . . . and the process of their moving to Neqrat al-Salman is a step on the way of taking them out of the country.

"Their presence in Ashraf represents a danger because of their historical relations with certain political groups, notably with the remains of the former (Iraqi) regime and members of Al-Qaeda."

The United States said last week that it expected the Baghdad government to act legally and humanely when it relocates the camp residents. "The Government of Iraq has assured us that they would not deport any of these citizens to any country where they would be having a well-grounded fear of being treated inhumanely," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly. But he did not question Iraq’s right to move the refugees.

As Tuesday’s protestors in Whitehall dispersed Khalil’s thoughts were with his relatives. Curious pedestrians attracted by flags and impassioned speeches began to drift away as the speeches ended. “What was that all about then?” a passing photographer asked me.

Laila shrugged. “People should know what is happening. Why is the UN Secretary General silent. Why are the media silent? Why is the UK Government silent?”Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into events between 2001 and 2009, covering the decision to invade Iraq, is headline news – a retrospective scrutiny of a conflict that is already becoming part of history. Ashraf’s parlous future, and Iran’s hold over the Iraqi regime, is part of its legacy.

Ashraf: Countdown to genocide . . .

“We’ve got to do all we can to raise awareness of this so that people will know what is going on – but more importantly, so that the Iraqi Government knows that the world is watching and that if what they did in July is repeated there’s going to be, again, a huge question mark about why British troops, men and women, gave their lives to give a new chance for Iraq to build a society that’s free and democratic.” – Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, 10 December 2009


Ten days before Christmas more than 3,000 people face eviction from their home of 20 years in what Labour peer and civil liberties champion Lord Robin Corbett has described as ‘a pact with the devil’.
The men, women and children facing forcible displacement are Iranian refugees, members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), a pro-democracy group granted safe haven under the Geneva Convention. They live in Ashraf, an isolated desert encampment 60km north of Baghdad, dependent on deliveries by road for its survival. Their forced removal comes with the endorsement of Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki whose website publicised a 15th December ‘deadline’ for the evacuation.
While the Iraqi Government now claims that ‘agreement’ has been reached with Ashraf residents the message from those inside is that this is untrue and they are under siege. For days deliveries of meat, vegetables, medicine, fuel and hygiene products have been blocked. Food rots outside the gates. Doctors and journalists are denied access.

To some Iraq’s fixation with a refugee camp in the middle of nowhere is perplexing and dismissed as a domestic issue. But as Iran’s nuclear capability comes under increasing scrutiny and Iraq’s internal stability is shaken by bomb attacks on the capital a bigger picture becomes clearer.

During Iran’s sham elections Ayatollah Khamenei officially demanded that the Iraqi President and Prime Minister agree to expel the PMOI from their country as soon as possible.

President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, in a message to British supporters, explained “Ashraf is the frontline bastion in defending democracy and human rights in Iran. If the regime is defeated in its bid to destroy Ashraf, it cannot contain the people’s uprising.”

Ashraf has achieved iconic status among freedom-loving Iranians, exerting an influence well beyond its geographical boundaries. Paradoxically, this was enhanced by the Iraqi assault on its inhabitants in July.

Mrs. Rajavi told British peers and MPs “The UN High Commission for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN Assistance Mission Iraq has warned repeatedly against forced displacement of Ashraf residents in violation of international human rights law.

“The mullahs are horrified at the rising protests. They insist on distancing Ashraf as far from the (Iranian) border as possible in order to eliminate the dedicated women and men who act as inspiration to the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom. The inhuman siege on Ashraf is the prelude to this plot.”

Speaking only hours ahead of the publicised eviction deadline Lord Corbett asked why the Iraqi president was so exercised about removal of refugees when the country’s capital, Baghdad, was being wrecked by explosions.
“Is this all President Al-Maliki has on his mind? The young, struggling democracy that people are trying to build in his country is still under threat from extremists and one finger we know is in that pie, determined to make life difficult for the new Iraq, belongs to those across the border (in Iran) who, in this pact with the devil, have demanded that whatever force is needed will be used against Camp Ashraf.”
Addressing a cross party assembly of MPs, peers and guests Lord Corbett expressed his disgust at the British Government’s inertia and lambasted Ivan Lewis, Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who still regards the refugees as members of a terrorist organisation.
(In fact the “terror-tag” was formerly lifted from the PMOI last year by the POAC (Proscribed Organisation Appeal Commission). The then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s appeal against the POAC decision was not only thrown out but branded by the Appeal Court as “capricious and speculative”).
Lord Corbett said “I wrote to Ivan Lewis at the end of last month (November), to make sure he knew about the threat to Camp Ashraf made on the 29th of October. He treated with contempt the decision of the POAC and the Court of Appeal and the Council of Ministers of the European Union . . . . The FCO hangs on to stale allegations about the PMOI that have no current relevance. And in many cases the source of the allegations cannot be confirmed.
“When Ivan Lewis wrote back to me, on December 2nd, his letter didn’t even mention the threat to use force against Ashraf in 120 hours time. I find this shaming and I have written to tell him so.”
“I said please do not waste time repeating the many undertakings Iraq has given about its responsibility in ensuring the safety and security of Iranian dissident refugees in Ashraf. Its government violently breached those in a brutal attack on defenceless residents on the 28th of July; residents who offered only passive resistance against thugs in security uniforms who attacked with chains, axes, poles and live ammunition, killing 11 and wounding 500.”
To suggestions that there was no evidence Lord Corbett said “He has had – as have others in the FCO – a DVD of those events. And the Embassy in Baghdad has had copies of the DVD because I gave it to someone in the FCO who said his colleague was going out there the next day.”
Quoting from his latest letter to Ivan Lewis at the FCO he read “We will not support Iraq dancing to Iran’s tune. The UK is part of the coalition still in Iraq and silence on the issue of proper respect for human rights and international law is no adequate response. Your silence at this looming outrage will shame our Government.”
Frustration about FCO inaction and seeming lack of interest by the British media has baffled many people including Lord Corbett. His response to FCO appeals to ‘trust Iraqi undertakings’ is scathing: “They are not worth the paper they are written on. While the (Iraqi) Minister for Human Rights is giving these assurances to our Embassy Staff, the Prime Minister is making it clear that come December 15th, whatever force is needed to remove people from Ashraf and to raze it to the ground, they are prepared to use.”
And the consequence of further non-intervention is something he is clear about.
“If this attack takes place there will be murder in the desert. The only real way to stop this massacre happening – and that’s what it’s going to be – we really must see a UN force of some kind stationed at Ashraf.
“We’ve got to do all we can to raise awareness of this so that people will know what is going on – but more importantly, so that the Iraqi Government knows that the world is watching and that if what they did in July is repeated, there’s going to be, once again, a huge question mark about why British troops, men and women, gave their lives to give a new chance for Iraq to build a society that’s free and democratic.”
The PMOI opposed both the Shah and the equally undemocratic fundamentalist clerical regime that replaced him. In the 1980s they were accused of orchestrating a bombing campaign against new Islamist leadership in which many senior officials were killed. As exiles the PMOI were welcomed by former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, who was at war with Iran at the time. He funded and armed the PMOI's military wing, the National Liberation Army of Iran, which fought alongside Iraqi troops.
But in 2003, following the invasion of Iraq, the PMOI disarmed and, following an investigation by the UN in which every resident was individually interrogated, the people of Ashraf were duly accorded “protected person” status under Article 4 of Geneva Convention.

A US force was tasked with overseeing this, but its protection was withdrawn in January 2009 and six months later 36 Ashraf residents were detained by the Iraqi authorities after a violent assault on the camp. The attack was captured on video that showed Iraqi police and soldiers shooting and beating camp residents with clubs and chains. The film, shot by residents using mobile phones, recorded the violence that resulted in 11 deaths and many injuries. It also showed US troops looking on passively before driving away in their humvees.

The July assault provoked a worldwide protest and, in the UK, a 72-day hunger strike outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and multi faith leaders from across London.

Although it resulted in release of the Ashraf hostages the victory was short-lived. Pressure to isolate the residents continued.

Members of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom see the threatened transfer of the refugees to Murat al-Salman, near the Saudi border, as appeasement of the Iranian regime, the prelude to slaughter and the first step in exile or destruction of the group seen as a beacon of hope to dissenters in Teheran.
Former Home Secretary Baron David Waddington QC, a former Conservative MP, said “The Iranian regime continues to defy United Nations and world opinion as, hand-in-hand with the expression of dissent in the country . . . it carries on with its programme of uranium enrichment. How much longer can our government afford to tolerate this defiance which, if allowed to continue, will allow Iran and the mullah’s to become a nuclear power with weapons threatening the peace of the Middle East and far beyond?
“As to Ashraf; Britain and America have a special responsibility here and it is to restrain the Iraqi authorities from illegal action against the residents. There is no doubt that the people of Ashraf are entitled to protection under international law, as has recently been recognised by the National Court of Spain. What is clear is that if America and Britain do not act to bring home to Iraq its responsibilities under international law, they themselves risk having to accept responsibility in the court of public opinion for what may well turn out to be a terrible tragedy.”
“Already the people of Ashraf are being denied medical supplies and assistance – assistance even to those who suffered under the attack in July. Already there have been further cuts in the supplies of fuel, with tanker drivers attempting to get in being arrested and put in jail.”
Laila Jazayeri, spokeswoman for the National Council of Resistance, later issued a statement: “While the international community has been enraged by plans to forcibly displace Ashraf residents and Amnesty International has strongly denounced such an act, some international media have told the Iranian Resistance that the spokesman of the Iraqi government had told their correspondents based in Baghdad that the government had reached an agreement with the residents of Ashraf on their displacement, planned for December 15, and had obtained their consent. This claim is totally unfounded and untrue.

“It is only intended to deceive the public opinion.”



END

Remember, remember . . . .

Photograph: Glyn Strong

Guy Fawkes for some, poppies for others. Remembrance Sunday approaches and the familiar blood-red blooms appear on the streets . . . . later tonight fireworks will illuminate the London sky. To the uninitiated it sounds like gunfire, but if you've heard the real thing it's a benign parody.


The man pictured above, on the left of the crowds, is a volunteer from Veterans Aid ( http://www.veterans-aid.net/ ) a Victoria-based homelessness charity that does exactly what it says on the tin. From 6.30am he and ex-Servicemen like him have been 'tin-rattling'. Or rather, they haven't. For the most part they stand quietly, waiting for people to approach them. Nigel (above) speaks Italian and is able to satisfy the curiosity of a visitor who asks what the poppies mean. He explains patiently and simply. She is young but nods and buys one.


An older man, wearing a Veterans badge, also stops to speak. He doesn't need to buy a poppy - but pauses to acknowledge a fellow veteran. Something unspoken passes btween them. They have never met before, but for that moment they share something. A recognition.

Many people simply pass by in a blur - heading for their offices, looking for hotels or taxis, ears glued to Blackberries or blocked by earphones that plug them into private worlds.

Many of the commuters who pass Nigel will go home this evening to bonfires celebrating a failed attempt to send a message to Parliament. Nigel, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease, will go home to his 'family'. They are ex-Servicemen men like him who live in VA's Limehouse hostel.

The military mantra 'man down' is something that veterans understand.

Nigel's story, like that of every former homeless veteran, is unique. This is it:

http://www.rewritetomorrow.eu.com/reflections/personal-stories/my-unwanted-friend/

Hungry for justice - dying to tell

Watch film on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDEeufl-aQA

Lord Brian Cotter who described himself as 'dumfounded' at the lack of

action over Ashraf speaks to the Foreign Office from outside the US Embassy.

Picture and film: Glyn Strong

CAMP ASHRAF PROTEST – DAY 68

Dear Mr Obama . . .

Twenty hunger strikers outside the US Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square will be joined by hundreds of supporters tonight (Saturday, 3rd October) between 6.00pm and 8.00pm. Some of those fasting have not eaten for 68 days and are seriously unwell.

Since the original 12 friends and relatives of those living in beleagured Camp Ashraf started their vigil many non-Iranians have joined them, for short or extended periods, including British barrister Margaret Owen and activist Leon Menzies Racionzer. Similar protests are taking place around the world.

Appeals by Amnesty, Reporters Without Borders, the Chartered Institute of Journalists, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carlile, Lord Cotter, Lord Clarke and many MPs and MEPs neither the British, nor the US governments have engaged with the protestors.

An open letter to Mr Obama, signed by hundreds of concerned supporters people and all hunger strikers, will be presented at the event this evening. There will also be a performance showing how the 36 hostages have been forcefully removed from prison by Iraqi security forces and taken to an unknown location in Baghdad. Many were injured in the original assault on Ashraf - all are weak. Fears are mounting that they will be tortured and deported to Iran.

On Tuesday, 29 September 2009 AFP reported: “Iraqi authorities have refused to allow 36 Iranian dissidents seized in a July raid to return to their base despite a court ruling they must be released, a judicial official said today.The members of the People's Mujahedeen, an exiled opposition group, were arrested by Iraqi police during a raid on Camp Ashraf, in Diyala province north of Baghdad, which left 11 camp residents dead. "I released them; I said that they should go back to Camp Ashraf," Judge Ali al-Timimi told AFP, referring to a decision he delivered on Sunday.

A judicial official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iraqi authorities had refused to release the group because they considered them having illegally infiltrated Iraq. "It ... became clear that the allegations were unfounded from the start and were meant for covering up the crimes against humanity that took place in Ashraf," People's Mujahedeen spokesman Shahriar Kia said in an e-mailed statement. Earlier this month, US Ambassador Christopher Hill vowed to press the Iraqi government, which the Mujahedeen say answers to Tehran, to live up to assurances to treat the residents humanely and make sure they are not repatriated to Iran.

The group was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah of Iran. It has subsequently fought to oust the clerical regime which took power in the 1979 Islamic revolution. The group set up Camp Ashraf in the 1980s - when former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was at war with Iran - as a base to operate against the Tehran government.”

British barrister joins London hunger strike

A British barrister and activist has joined Iranian hunger strikers protesting in London about the savage attack on Iranian refugees in Iraq. Seventy seven-year-old Margaret Owen, (left) Director of Widows for Peace through Democracy, started a fast of her own two days ago when it became apparent that neither the British Government nor mainstream media were interested in the fact that 12 men and women were starving themselves to death on the steps of the US Embassy. This is a shortened version of her appeal which will appear in full on the Open Democracy site:

"I too have started a (short) hunger strike on behalf of the people of Ashraf and the Iranian hunger strikers now into their 62nd day. Answer the following questions and we will all stop.

- What is the real reason for the ominous blanket of silence in the UK media about the brutal “pogrom” at Camp Ashraf on the 28th and 29th July?


- Why has there been no reference to these atrocities, perpetrated in flagrant breach of humanitarian law, clearly orchestrated by Iran in collusion with Iraq, even when every day now the iniquities of the Teheran regime are making front page news and generating a mass of comments?


We and the US are physically still there – in Iraq –and our governments are well aware of what occurred and what may yet happen any time now in the following days. How can we wash our hands of responsibility as if, to misquote Neville Chamberlain “ this is happening in a far-away country of which we know nothing”

(Fuller accounts of the background to these events, and the statements of Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Chartered Institute of Jornalists etc appear on their respective websites)

3, 400 Iranian refugees (including 1,000 women), members of the PMOI (People’s Mujahadeen of Iran), who oppose the fundamentalist regime in Teheran, have lived in Ashraf for the last 20 years. In a desert area some 60 km north of Baghdad, they built themselves a city where equal rights, justice and democracy flourished, and where the excellent health and education services were made also available to the surrounding Iraqi population. When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, the PMOI disarmed, and, following an investigation by the UN in which every single resident was individually interrogated, the people of Ashraf were accorded “protected person” status under Geneva Convention IV.

In the meantime, PMOI members in Iran have been systematically hunted down, tortured and killed although there is ample evidence that as a body, the PMOI have renounced violence, so there are well-grounded fears that if anyone in Ashraf was forced to return, his or her fate would be sealed.

The “terror-tag” was formerly lifted from the PMOI last year, the ruling of the POAC (Proscribed Organisation Appeal Commission) confirmed by the Court of Appeal throwing out our Home Secretary's appeal against their verdict as “capricious and speculative”. But do David Miliband and Barak Obama still want to regard the PMOI as terrorists in order to “appease” Iran?

Built into the January 2009 agreement that the US would withdraw from its occupation role in Iraq and release sovereignty to the Iraqi government, was a guarantee that the Iraqis would respect the Geneva Convention and continue to protect the people of Ashraf.
Alas, in June of this year, Iraq, in a bilateral treaty with Teheran, undertook to deport the 3,400 refugees back Iran. In the meantime, the Iraqi Foreign Minister assured Teheran, “we will make their life intolerable”.

And so they did, obstructing the delivery of food and medicines into the city – so that people began to fall sick and die, and refusing to allow either relatives or journalists into Ashraf.


From the moment that the US released responsibility for Iraq, the fears of the Ashraf people grew, terrified each day of a massive Nazi-like forced deportation, although such acts would be contrary to the principle of “defoulement”, which prohibits deporting people to where they are likely to be tortured or killed.

Then on July 28th the inevitable happened, but more brutally than anyone could possibly imagine. The BADR (Iraqi Security Forces who are thought to be under the direct orders of Iran and actually were heard speaking farsi) stormed the camp with bulldozers, and, armed with guns, axes, chains, ropes, and wooden planks, set about to cause maximum suffering to the residents.

Women who linked arms peacefully, carrying white flags, bravely attempting to protect their men, their houses, their possessions were brutally beaten. The videos from mobile phone pictures are shocking as they show the bleeding heads, and beaten bodies, the shattered houses, the horror like a sort of Kristalnacht. Worse still, the BADR seized, at random, 38 hostages, capturing them by lassoing them with ropes used to tether animals. Several of these men had been shot.


On July 28th they were taken away and kept in detention in a police station in Al-Khallas, some 30 km away from Ashraf. In spite of three rulings by the Iraqi Criminal Court in Al-Khallas – the last only last week - that the detentions are unlawful as there were no grounds for the arrest, and the men should be immediately released and returned to their homes, they remain captive, and, reports say, are on hunger strike, many with untended gunshot wounds. All this some 60 days since the day of the invasion.

It is quite clear that the US remains responsible Article 45 of the Geneva Convention IV for ensuring that these Iranian refugees remain “Protected Persons” in international law. The UK is also responsible and it is bitterly shameful that both governments have sought to shift their responsibility on to the government of the pro-Iran Shia government of Maliki.

There is now not another moment to lose. The people in Ashraf, wounded, without food or medicine, are living in terror, fearful that any day the BADR will be back and they will be thrown into the living hell of torture followed by agonising death.

But if the press will not cover events in Iraq, they should surely be reporting on what is taking place on the streets of London.

Every day, for the last 62 days since the attack on Ashraf many Iranians have been on hunger strike, rallying outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, as the NRI (National Resistance of Iran) calls for the immediate release of the hostages, for the UNAMI (UN Mission in Iran) to enter Ashraf as a monitoring force, and for the US to fulfil its obligations under international law by formerly taking back responsibility for Ashraf since Iraq has broken its guarantees. As in the other 25 countries around the world where Iranian émigrés are on hunger strike, a further humanitarian tragedy is waiting to happen. The London hunger strikers are weak; several already have organ failure. A young woman had a heart attack and another is going blind and some have been hospitalised

Yet while people are risking death through voluntary starvation on a fashionable square in London’s Mayfair, our political leaders – Tory, Labour and Lib Deems – and our media remain silent. Even when distinguished lawyers have clearly set out the legal obligations of both the US and the UK governments. (By contrast the German press has been following the story in some detail)

On Thursday, the 24th September, again outside the US Embassy, a press conference was called to hear members of the Church of England Clergy adding their voices to the protests, endorsed also by a statement from Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Inside the tent, prone on camp beds and covered with blankets, lay those among the hunger strikers who were still j able to make it to the press conference. But when the priest from St James Church Piccadilly asked those who were press to raise their hands, it was clear that not a single journalist had turned up.

It was at that point that I decided I would start my “short” hunger strike, hoping that by so doing others would follow suit and in this way we could persuade those already so ill to cease their strike, take food, recover and find other ways to express their protests.

I am only on to my 2nd day, taking tea and water, and hoping and praying that someone from the BBC, or from the press will think it worthwhile to write about why I am doing this, and so finally break through the conspiracy of silence and get the action now urgently needed.
Our newspapers fully covered the breaches of humanitarian law in Burma, on the streets of Teheran – even in Sri Lanka. But about this, not a word.

Born of Jewish parents, whose own parents fled “pogroms” in Eastern Europe in over a hundred years ago, I don’t need to be told what the word means. And as the Jewish Fast Day of Yom Kippur approaches on Monday, the 28th September I am hoping that Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, might join the Catholic and the Church of England Clergy in pleading with the UN and our government to take action. Is the real truth that both Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, Gordon Brown and David Miliband still, on this issue, need to “appease” Iran for the sake of oil and the nuclear energy negotiations? Shame on them!

Margaret Owen Director Widows for Peace through Democracy


Footnote: Despite warnings by British parliamentarians such as Lord Corbett, who have kept closely in touch with the situation in Camp Ashraf, that the complete withdrawal of the US and Britain would place the residents in mortal danger, the handover to the Iraqis was allowed to proceed. Even if the occupying powers accepted Iraqi assurances in good faith, they were cynically and culpably deceived, as the tragic outcome makes only too evident.

This is a desperate human crisis. There is no time to lose. The US and British governments must now urgently implement Article 45 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to protect the Camp Ashraf residents from further violence and from eviction. They must enlist the assistance of the United Nations and in particular the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) to establish a full-time protective presence within the camp.

Pictures by Glyn Strong (c) 2009.

See also: http://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/hungry-for-justice-–-dying-to-tell/article6223.html