Authors: Struan Stevenson
13
Amman
Following my election to the European Parliament in June 2009, I had been appointed as President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq. This was a new delegation, and when the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group approached me initially, he offered me the choice of chairing either the Iraq Delegation or the Canada Delegation. I told him that Canada was a lovely country that I had enjoyed visiting previously, but chairing such a delegation would be less challenging and less rewarding than taking on the more onerous task of Iraq. I duly found myself presiding over the first meeting of the new delegation, to which the Iraqi Ambassador to the EU had also been invited. Pleasantries were exchanged all round, and I pledged to do my best to improve relations between the EU and Iraq.
On Monday 26 October 2009 I set off to Jordan, where I had arranged a series of high-level meetings in Amman with the Foreign Minister, the Director for European Affairs in the Foreign Ministry, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Minister for Media and Communications. I had also arranged for key political leaders from Iraq to travel to Amman to brief me on the current escalating insurgency inside Iraq.
My first meeting in Amman was with a group of Iraqis representing the National Dialogue Front, a secular parliamentary group. There had been a horrific bomb outrage just on the edge of the Green Zone in Baghdad the previous day, killing 150 people and wounding over 500. They told me that this outrage was certainly politically motivated and a reaction to the formation of the new coalitions in readiness for the forthcoming general election in January 2010. Although it was quickly blamed on Sunni insurgents, such sophisticated explosive devices as were used in the attack could only have been smuggled into this high security zone with the knowledge and connivance
of the Iranian Qods Force that roamed throughout Baghdad with impunity, as they told me. The massacre was almost certainly motivated by Iran and aimed at sending a warning to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he should re-join the pro-Iranian Shiite coalition with Hakim, Badr and Muqtada al-Sadr, in order to secure power again following the election.
They told me that current tactics used by the pro-Iranian factions were to threaten people not to vote in the elections and, through fear and intimidation, dramatically to reduce the number of people who would participate. This would then leave hundreds of thousands of blank ballot papers that could be falsified. All civil servants and police and military personnel were being ordered to vote for the governing Shiite parties, they informed me.
On the question of Iranian meddling in Iraq, they were adamant that Iranian infiltration to the very top of government had taken place to an unprecedented extent. Two of Prime Minister al-Maliki’s senior staff were Iranian. His private jet and the entire crew were supplied by Iran. They also pointed out that many government ministers in Iraq had dual nationality with other countries, in order that if any were accused of corruption they could quickly escape arrest and flee from Iraq.
Later that morning I met with Dr Nabil al-Sharif, Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications, and Ahmad S. al-Hassan, Director of European Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr Sharif said that Jordan had gone out of its way to support Iraq. King Abdullah was the only Arab leader so far to have visited Iraq since the war. As far as the forthcoming Iraqi elections were concerned, Dr Sharif said that it was essential that all of the political factions were included in the political process. No one must feel left out.
I raised the question of Camp Ashraf with the ministers and referred to the July 2009 massacre (see
Chapter 15
). I said that there was a new threat from Maliki to displace the 3,400 refugees to the desert in southern Iraq, and that this would create the conditions for another massacre. Mr Hassan suggested that perhaps I could resolve the situation by offering all 3,400 PMOI refugees visas to come to live in Scotland! I answered that I would if I could.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abdel Hadi al-Majali, said a new, moderate, nationalist coalition in Iraq, following the general election, could outvote and isolate the extremist parties. But he said it was the US which supported the pro-Iranian parties in Iraq. He said that if the ‘militia’ won the forthcoming elections, it would point to a dangerous future. He felt that a Sunni could conceivably become the next Prime Minister of Iraq and that this would help to bring peace.
Later that evening, I had arranged to meet with Sattar Albayber, a member of the political bureau of the Iraqi National Accord movement and a candidate in the forthcoming elections. I had suggested meeting for coffee in the lounge of my hotel, the Intercontinental. As we began our discussion I noticed a man sitting opposite us, wearing jeans and a tee-shirt, who seemed intent on fiddling with his mobile phone. He momentarily met my gaze and quickly looked away. Seconds later I heard the characteristic click of his camera shutter and glanced up in time to see him quickly lower the phone to his lap, pretending to be reading a text message. I whispered to our Iraqi colleagues that I was sure we were being spied upon, and they laughed and confirmed that Jordan is awash with spies who photograph and report back to the Ministry of Intelligence on all meetings and goings-on within their territory. I later discovered that this information was also passed on to the Iraqi government, who had expressed an interest in keeping track of what I was up to in Jordan and who I was meeting.
I returned to Brussels and instructed my officials to issue invitations to the leaders of the main political parties in Iraq to come to the European Parliament to address the Delegation for Relations with Iraq, before the general election. I wanted to test the water for the likelihood of a non-sectarian, inclusive government being formed following the general election. A delegation of six members of the Iraqi Council of Representatives duly arrived in Brussels, led by Sadiq al-Rikabi, political advisor to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. I met them at the VIP entrance, and as I shook hands warmly with al-Rikabi, he whispered loudly in my ear, ‘We know whom you’ve been meeting in Jordan, Mr Stevenson, and we don’t like it.’
As an opening remark, this was certainly blunt. OK, I figured, if the gloves are off it suits me. When we took our seats for the opening
session of dialogue, I launched into a bitter condemnation of their treatment of the Ashraf residents, the massacre, the looting, the hostage-taking, the psychological torture and the siege of Ashraf. I said this was a breach of humanitarian law and a breach of trust, and it rendered my job as Delegation Chair almost impossible. I insisted on an end to the siege and the full cooperation of the Iraqi government in the re-settlement of the 3,400 Ashrafis to countries of safety. It became a sour and argumentative encounter, and afterwards my officials gently chided me about the need to maintain good diplomatic relations with the Iraqi parliamentarians. ‘I am not going to take any lessons in diplomacy from these bastards,’ I replied angrily.
14
Interviews with PMOI Refugees Camp Liberty, August 2014
The Medical Siege of Camp Ashraf
Fatimah Alizadeh
‘My name is Fatimah Alizadeh. In the second half of 2008, I was diagnosed with cancer. Prior to the US handing responsibility for the protection of Camp Ashraf to the Iraqis, I had three major surgeries performed on me. On 3 April 2009 I was getting ready for my fourth surgery when the Iraqi forces, under the direction of Movafagh Rubaiei, prevented the physician from entering Ashraf. On the same day three other female residents were also scheduled for surgery, but all the operations were delayed. After a week due to international pressure and a press conference about medical restrictions, the Iraqi Prime Minister – Nouri al-Maliki – was forced to allow the Iraqi doctors to perform the surgeries, and as a result, they started pressuring the residents.
For the fifth operation I was supposed to go to Madineh Al Taleb. Seven or eight fully armed soldiers accompanied me to the operating room. When I regained consciousness, all of the soldiers were around my bed. When I asked to see my doctor, the soldiers said, “You are a prisoner and you have to go to back to Ashraf.” My doctor intervened, so I was allowed to rest for a couple of hours, after which the soldiers entered my room and said, “The ambulance is ready and we have to leave immediately.” I was brought down several flights of stairs to the entrance of the hospital, but there was no ambulance waiting.
I waited nearly two hours in the sun for the ambulance to arrive. When the ambulance arrived there were eight people already in it. When we climbed on board there were a total of ten people inside the ambulance. One of the patients in the ambulance was Fathollah, who was suffering from stomach cancer and unable to sit down. Ten
critically-ill patients in one ambulance set out towards Ashraf. The driver was driving very fast, disregarding all the speed bumps on the road. Upon reaching Ashraf everyone was in a bad shape and in a serious condition.
At Ashraf, we were received by Dr Omar, who was actually an Iraqi officer who had been responsible for systematic mistreatment and torture of the patients, posing as a doctor. When we told him of our ordeal, he said, “At least you have it better than the Iraqi citizens!” We were then placed at the New Iraq Hospital where the Ministry of Information agents were using loudspeakers to yell profanities all night long, making rest and peace of mind for patients impossible. This was the psychological torture. Three months later, when I went to see my doctor for my next operation I found another person sitting next to the specialist. I asked him, “Who are you?” He responded: “I have orders from Dr Omar to supervise your visit so you don’t talk about politics.” Even the doctor didn’t have the authority to make him leave the room.
Another time when I went for chemotherapy to Baghdad, my doctor gave me a series of medication for my chemo treatment so I could follow up my treatment in Ashraf. When we reached the checkpoint they confiscated my medication. It took a long time to be able to get my medication back. Another time, coming back from surgery in Baghdad, twelve people were placed in the same ambulance, one of whom was a patient with stomach cancer who had just undergone a gastroscopy procedure. He had a severe case of diarrhoea and was throwing up all the way to Ashraf. The atmosphere in the ambulance was unsanitary and intolerable. On that day Dr Omar was riding with us in the front of the ambulance, laughing all the way to Ashraf. We asked him to check the patient and he kept saying, “It is normal,” and continued to laugh at the situation.
On several occasions when our brothers and sisters succeeded in getting an appointment through the New Iraq Hospital the guards at the checkpoint would not allow them to leave the camp to make their appointments. After months of pressure, they were allowed to leave for their appointments, but their actual departure from the camp was delayed in such a way that when they arrived in Baghdad after business hours, they had missed their appointments. I was supposed to
visit my doctor every three months; I tried to see my doctor for two and a half years but I was not allowed to visit him even once. After two and a half years I was transferred to Camp Liberty and was able to finally see my doctor. My doctor, who was very concerned, informed me that the cancer had spread and my condition had now become critical.’
15
Camp Ashraf and the July 2009 Massacre
When the PMOI freedom fighters fled to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein gave them a large piece of desert in Diyala Province. Saddam was following the age-old tradition of ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend,’ rather than rewarding the PMOI for military services rendered, as has been alleged by the Mullahs. It was here, on this barren wasteland, that they built Camp Ashraf. Over the years it became a thriving small city, but when the US invaded Iraq in 2003, it was bombed and then surrounded by American forces. Indeed, in classified documents disclosed later at court hearings in the UK, it was shown that the Iranian Mullahs had demanded the bombing of Camp Ashraf, and other PMOI camps in Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The British Government had subsequently assured Tehran it would oblige, and had urged the US military to carry out the bombing. The completely unjustified aerial bombardment of Camp Ashraf that then took place led to the loss of many innocent lives.
Despite this attack and despite the fact that the PMOI in Ashraf were heavily armed and well-trained, the residents bore no malice against the Americans and they agreed voluntarily to hand over their weapons in return for guaranteed protection. The American army and intelligence services carried out exhaustive interviews with every individual in Ashraf. Following 16 months of review and screening of each and every Ashraf resident, the US Government on 2 July 2004 recognised all of them as ‘protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention’ and ‘Senior American officials said extensive interviews by officials of the State Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had not come up with any basis to bring charges against any members of the group’ (
New York Times
, 27 July 2004). This meant that not a single person was engaged in any kind of terrorist or criminal activity, and that they posed no threat to the US
military; each person in Ashraf was then issued with a photo-identity card on which the US Government guaranteed their personal safety.
Under this shield of American military security, Ashraf continued to thrive during the insurgency that raged elsewhere in Iraq. The residents of Ashraf were popular with their Iraqi neighbours in Diyala Province. They were industrious and produced numerous goods to sell locally, earning their keep and financing the gradual expansion of the camp’s facilities. Foreign parliamentarians, lawyers and family members were allowed to visit Camp Ashraf, and glowing reports of the camp’s well-ordered society were fed back to the West.
Of course the camp was regarded by the Iranian regime as a ‘viper’s nest’ of PMOI opposition activity, and they made repeated demands on the Iraqi government to close the camp and deport all of the residents back to Iran, where they would face certain torture and execution. The Iraqi government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a puppet of the Iranian Mullahs, was more than happy to comply with this request, but could not do so while the Americans provided protection to Ashraf. The Iranians, meanwhile, routinely arrested family members who were returning to Iran after visiting their sons and daughters in Ashraf. Many of these innocent mothers and fathers were subsequently executed simply for the crime of having visited Camp Ashraf. Indeed the Iranian Islamic Penal Code, articles 186-189, states that support for or membership of the PMOI amounts to the crime of
‘mohareb’
– waging war against God – the penalty for which is death.