Page 614 – Nejat Society

Iraqis ask British MPs to take Mojahedin Khalq to London

Letter of the Committee Supporting the Picketing Families to UK parliamentarians

The Iraqi Committee supporting the Iranian families picketing outside Camp Ashraf wrote a letter to the UK parliamentarians who have apparently backed the MKO (Rajavi cult) to stay in Iraq without knowing the truth.

A copy of the letter – which follows below – has been sent to the Iraqi government and international bodies.
Baghdad

We as a support committee, in respect of our humanitarian duty, asked the MKO to allow the picketing Iranian families to visit their loved ones in Camp New Iraq (aka Camp Ashraf). This request has been made as a humanitarian plea.

These families, who are mostly elderly people, have been staying in poor conditions for more than ten months. The MKO’s refusal to allow these visits is against any international values and principals and also against the UN charter of human rights. No religion accepts this either.

When some civil organizations and tribe leaders gathered outside Camp Ashraf to demonstrate, members of the cult threw stones at the participants and consequently some were injured. Further, the cult leaders accused them of being mercenaries.

Witnessing such an immoral act, which goes against every human value, convinced us to be more persistent in supporting the just and rightful demand of the families, and to arrange for more demonstrations.

Honorable MPs,
We have to inform you that the presence of this organization in our territory is highly undesirable since this organization has committed grave atrocities against the Iraqi people.
After this latest wicked act by the MKO, the civil organizations and tribe leaders demanded that the Iraqi government, parliament and also the Iraqi Criminal Court should prosecute the leaders of the organization for the crimes they committed against the Iraqi people in the past.

There are several documents showing that members of the MKO have been involved in terrorist activities inside Iraq. As a support committee we have handed over these documents to international organizations and the UN and we hereby inform world public opinion of the secrets behind the presence of this organization in our country.

The question is, ‘would the countries which back this organization wish to allow them to stay in their own country as refugees’?

The answer would be that every country as a sovereign state has its own rules and regulations. So, yes, we also have rules and regulations which do not allow them to stay in our country. Anyone willing to back them should welcome them in their own country.

We seek peace and we will not tolerate a terrorist organization in our beloved country.

On behalf of the Iraqi committee to support the Iranian families picketing outside Camp Ashraf

Sami Azzeidi – Baghdad, 30 January 2011

February 7, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

MKO challenges following protests in Arab world

The Iraqi Baath regime under the rule of Saddam Hussein and Jordan kingdom were both supporters of Mujahedin-e-Khalq cult for more than three decades. After the collapse of Saddam’s dictatorship, MKO cult lost its primary sponsor. Then Jordan monarchy tried to maintain its support for MKO either covertly or in diplomatic or political flattering language. The reason of such support lays in undemocratic and autocratic political structure of Jordan.

However, the contradictory fact which is not excusable about MKO is that the group’s leftist slogans and democratic gesture never suit its resorting to regimes like those of Jordan or Egypt. Doubtlessly, warm relations with the most notorious regimes of the region never go with freedom fighters’ mask.

According to Jordanian newspaper "Alarab Alyowm", Nariman alRusan, a member of Jordan parliament addressed Maryam Rajavi as, "Dear sister, President elect of Iranian Resistance, We declare our solidarity with your struggle and with anyone who sacrifices himself for his people…”
But, during the crucial recent protests in the Middle East including Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, Jordan authorities have realized that they have to accept the responsibility for their un-democratic behavior. For years, they tried to guard imperialists’ interests in the region; they supported terrorists like Mujahedin-e-Khalq who have served Western powers in recent years. Now they face the protest movement of their people. It is worth to remind MKO’s ideological leader, Massoud Rajavi of the true nature of his old sponsor, Jordan government:

Daily Telegraph writes of the recent protests in the region, "Leaders of a lot of Arab countries concern over the events in Egypt; previously they observed the fall of Zin El Abidin Ben Ali in Tunisia". The editor of Daily Telegraph added," a increasing concern is forming in the Middle East; Jordan is one of those countries. Jordan is now ruled by a very autocratic government which is largely corrupt."

A glance at popular movements in Arabic nations and the recent events signifies the depth of corruption and power abuse by the authorities and their undemocratic, inhumane substance.
Mujahedin are now losing their supporters who are demolished by people protests one after anther.

MKO leaders and his gang are in a terrible situation. They have resorted to US and the West but the recent events have caused a dilemma to western authorities. Their vague position toward the issue notifies their tangled situation. Needless to say that following the uprisings of Arabic nations, the west will definitely lose into hope to use terrorists.

By Arash Rezaiee

February 6, 2011 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

State Dept: Mojahedin Khalq backers claims not true

State Dept. Refutes Ridge Claim That MEK Has Special Protection Under Geneva Convention

When a who’s who of Washington heavyweights spoke at a panel two weeks ago on behalf of the MEK, an Iranian opposition group currently considered a terrorist organization by the State Department, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge made a claim that the members of the group who currently reside in Iraq enjoy special protection under the Geneva Convention. But the State Department tells TPM that’s not true.

During his remarks, after reading aloud portions of the MEK’s ten-point plan for the future of Iran, which includes calls for a "pluralist system," "separation of church and state," and an Iran "devoid of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction," Ridge made a plea:

That’s the Iran that the resistance, the People’s Mojahedin, MEK, have fought for, believe in. Remember they relinquished their arms. They’re protected under the Geneva Convention. We have to send a message to Al-Maliki and to the Iraqi government. The United States troops handed responsibility of protecting these individuals, who are protected under the Geneva Convention, to you. How can you tolerate those loudspeakers, and what about these incursions that precipitated some problems inside Camp Ashraf? You must heed the admonition. You promised to protect them under the Geneva Convention. Right now, one wonders the sincerity of that initial promise

Ridge was referring to the 3,400 or so MEK members who currently live at Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, and who were recently attacked. But the State Department says the Geneva Convention claim is wrong.

"MEK members are not ‘protected persons’ under the Fourth Geneva Convention," a State Department official in the Counterterrorism Office told TPM in an email. "After the end of the occupation of Iraq, the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) continued to treat the MEK as ‘protected persons’ as a matter of policy, not as a matter of legal obligation, until MNF-I’s UN mandate expired at the end of 2008."

In 2007, the department’s terror list included a sentence that the Camp Ashraf residents "have been designated as ‘protected persons’ under Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention." But in 2008, the list stated that Camp Ashraf residents "have been treated as ‘protected persons’ consistent with provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention." And the 2009 list makes no mention of the Geneva Convention.

As State Department official explains it, "With the expiration of MNF-I’s UNSCR mandate, the Government of Iraq assumed security responsibility for Ashraf on January 1, 2009. The Government of Iraq assured the USG in writing that it will treat the MEK humanely and will not forcibly transfer them to any country where they will be tortured or be persecuted based on religious or political beliefs."

MEK members went to Iraq in 1986, after they were forced to leave France. They were offered safe haven by Saddam Hussein, who armed them and deployed them against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. According to the State Department, Hussein also used MEK forces to crack down on Iraqi Shia and Kurds in the early 1990s, and the group received millions of dollars in Oil-for-Food program subsidies from Hussein. Earlier this month, MEK supporters accused Iraqi special forces and Iranian agents of orchestrating an attack on Camp Ashraf and injuring 175 people.
At the D.C. event, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey also mentioned the Geneva Convention in regard to the residents of Camp Ashraf, but his take was more nuanced.

"In 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq, the residents of Camp Ashraf surrendered their weapons, the weapons they had to defend themselves, and accepted written confirmation from the then deputy Commander of allied forces in Iraq, General Jeffrey Miller, on behalf of the United States, that they were protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention," Mukasey said. "From 2003 until 2009, the United States protected the residents of Ashraf and fulfilled the solemn obligation that we had undertaken in 2003. But in January 2009, as some of you may know, the United States turned over responsibility for safety and security to Iraqi security forces."
And Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson mentioned "protecting the rights of those at the camp," though he added it was "something that I was not aware of until this morning."

By Eric Lach

February 3, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Mujahedin Khalq Partners Must Watch Out!

It seems as if the West has plans for Iran and it looks like the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MKO) terrorists will be useful tools, as long as neo-con bullies get a buy-in from the American public. The MKO seems to be OK with being used in such a fashion—because, for them, it means more free and more misleading publicity. The MKO raised eyebrows in 2002, when they first revealed the alleged Iranian nuclear facilities in Natanz. Their Washington-based press conference was more like a massive political advertisement. They managed to gain a lot of airtime by major TV networks, while cunningly and quietly raising credit for terrorism. The press conference that year propelled the MKO to collaborate with the conservative media; in time, their chief propaganda artist, Alireza Jafarzadeh, became an analyst for Fox News and then produced an anti-Iran themed book. Since the first press conference in 2002, the group has deliberately hastened anti-Iran sentiment and fueled neocons of the Bush administration who consider the MKO a useful arm in advancing their warmonger policies in the Middle East. The MKO leaders are professional charlatans and they know how to raise money by using “human rights” poster children in order to gain sympathy. They are disgustingly slick. And now they have partners—Israel’s Mossad intelligence, the United State’s CIA, and Britain’s MI6.

In November 2010, two top Iranian scientists, who were also university professors, were assassinated in Tehran. The incident occurred following a seemingly unrelated event in which European Union parliament members asked their foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, to pressure the United States to remove the MKO from its list of foreign terrorist organizations. In addition, two other events occurred. Yossi Melman of Israel’s Haaretz reports that one was “the leaking of State Department documents, many of which deal with the world’s concern about Iran’s nuclear program,” and the other was “the appointment of Tamil Pardo as the new head of Mossad, Israel’s foreign espionage agency.” [1] Melman, an Israeli intelligence expert, asserts that these events have an obvious link and that “they are part of endless efforts by the Israeli intelligence community, together with its Western counterparts including Britain’s MI6 and America’s CIA, to sabotage, delay and if possible, to stop Iran from reaching its goal of having its first nuclear bomb."[2].

The allegations of Yossi Melman can be confirmed by MI6 chief, John Sawers, who has publically recommended a solution on the Iranian Nuclear Program. In his first public speech as chief, he said that “intelligence activities were responsible for Iran’s admission last year of a second enrichment plant, which in turn led to tougher diplomatic pressure.” He also said that “stopping nuclear proliferation cannot be addressed purely by conventional diplomacy,” and that “we need intelligence-led operations to make it more difficult for countries like Iran to develop nuclear weapons.” [3] These words are like a green light for the MKO, who have worked with the CIA in the past, and received CIA money. [4] But more recently, the documents which allegedly proved an intention to build nuclear weapons by the Iranian government were actually composed and released by Israel’s Mossad. According to Gareth Porter, an investigative reporter, “Israeli intelligence was the source of the collection of intelligence documents which have been used to accuse Iran of hiding nuclear weapons research” and once the documents were released, they were laundered through the MKO. [5] Other journalists, both Connie Bruck and Seymour Hersh, have exposed the true source of the MKO’s so called revelation on Iranian sites—that they actually come from the Mossad. [6]

As far as the plot to assassinate the two scientists, those same intelligence agencies were involved. Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said that the US, Israel and British spy agencies and the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization are conducting joint terrorist operations to assassinate Iranian university professors and scientists. He said, that "this inauspicious act was sponsored by the Zionist regime and in coordination with the western intelligence agencies, the US and Britain in particular, and was carried out by MKO hirelings.” [7]

The attack on Iranian scientists preceded the two talks between Iran and the 5+1 group in Geneva and Istanbul. In Geneva, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili slammed his Western counterparts for the assassinations. "Terrorists targeted two Iranian scientists and one of them was martyred," Jalili announced. [8] Iran has been the biggest victim of MKO terrorist attacks—attacks which are well documented in the West, and actually go back decades.

Perhaps the Geneva talks were a small step forward for Iran if only because Iran had the opportunity to finally be heard. Kaveh Afrasiabi who reports from the Asia Times writes that “the two-day multilateral talks on Iran’s nuclear program in Geneva were branded by Iran as ‘positive and constructive’ and by Western diplomats as ‘difficult and candid.’” According to the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, discussions in Geneva, the first for more than a year, were "detailed and substantive," Covering nuclear as well as non-nuclear issues. [9] In January of this year, the new rounds of discussions in Istanbul made no real progress, but both sides think that future talks could happen. No date has been set. [10]

The response to the January talks is alarming. On the last day of the Istanbul discussions, a recent article on CNN’s website quoted former State Department official Mitchell Reiss saying that "there is no reason to be shy about doing more to support the Iranian opposition," and that "a good step would be delisting the MEK." [11] Even though it has been established that the MKO has been laundering Israel’s information, the US neocons are still pushing the message that the MKO is a good intelligence source. They are banking on the fact most Westerners just don’t know the whole story. Reiss and his comrades believe that the public can be easily sold—as they were sold on the “axis of evil.” It’s clear that Reiss believes the public will buy in to the whole “human rights” message the MKO pushes, which is a façade. Michael Mukasey, who served as attorney general under former President George W. Bush, was quoted in the same article as saying, “it is certainly helpful that MEK remain a bone in the throat of Iran. … It has provided valuable intelligence and information on the Iranian nuclear program to the U.S." And then furthered that "it would be fair to say the U.S. would not know a great deal about Iran’s nuclear program without the information obtained by MEK." [12] With comments like this, it’s apparent that very influential players are preparing the way for military interference, and the MKO is their puppet of choice.

As Yossi Melman suggests, "what US and Israel fail to understand is that sabotage and even military assaults isn’t a substitute for a policy– it’s a stop gap and more a signal of a failure of policy. Engaging and negotiation, no matter how imperfect and frustrating they may be, are the only way forward."[13] No diplomatic or intelligence force should be engaging with the MKO terrorists. What the MKO says they stand for now is irrelevant. What the MKO has done to the Iranian people is unforgivable and—puppet or no puppet—they simply have no place in the equation.

By Mazda Parsi

References
[1] Melman, Yossi. "Yossi Melman: Mossad, MI6, the CIA and the case of the
assassinated scientist." Independent 30 NOV 2010: Web. 2 Feb 2011. <
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ middle-east/yossi-melman-mossad-mi6-the
-cia-and-the-case-of-the-assassinated-scientist-2146995.html>.
[2] Ibid
[3] Roberts, Laura. "Sir John Sawers: MI6 chief says intelligence is key to
curbing Iran’s nuclear power." Telegraph 28 October 2010: Web. 2 Feb 2011. <
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/
terrorism-in-the-uk/8092419/
Sir-John-Sawers-MI6-chief-says-intelligence-is-key
-to-curbing-Irans-nuclear-power.html>.
[4] Woodward, Bob. "US, UK Roles in Iran’s Mass Executions." Washington Post
1986, and republished in August 2010 on PBS’ program, “Frontline”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ tehranbureau/2010/08/sources-say
-cia-gave-regime-list-of-kgb-agents.html
[5] Porter, Gareth. "Report Ties Dubious Iran Nuclear Docs to Israel." IPS
(Interpress Service News Agency (3 JUNE 2009): Web. 2 Feb 2011. <
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47081>.
[6] Bruck, Connie. "A Reporter at Large: Exiles." New Yorker 6 March 2006: 48.
Also see:
Hersh, Seymour. “Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up
its secret moves against Iran.” New Yorker. 07 July 2008:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh.
[7] "US, Israel, Britain, MKO Collaborating in Assassination of Iranian
Scientists, Says Iranian Defense Minister." Al-Jazeerah: Cross-Cultural
Understanding 30 November 2010: Web. 2 Feb 2011. <
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News/2010/November/30%20nUS,%20Israel,%20Britain,%20MKO%20
Collaborating%20in%20Assassination%20of%20
Iranian%20Scientists,%20Says%20Iranian%20Defense%20Minister.htm>.
[8] "Iran questions West silence on terror hit." Press TV 07 December 2010:
Web. 2 Feb 2011. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/154318.html.
[9] Afrasiabi, Kaveh L. "Iran talks take small step forward." Asia Times 09
December 2010, http://www.atimes.com/ atimes/Middle_East/LL09Ak02.html
[10] "NO PROGRESS IN IRANIAN NUKE TALKS." Turkish Radio Television
Corporation: Posted 22.01.2011 12:30:06 UTC. Web. 2 Feb 2011.
<http://www.trtturkmence.com/trtworld/en/ newsDetail.aspx?HaberKodu=1f087b7c-1031-480d-94ff-7cb3d4d0916b>.
[11] Benson, Pam. "U.S. tempering expectations for multinational talks with
Iran." CNN United States 20 January 2010: Web. 2 Feb 2011. <
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-20/us/
iran.nuclear.talks_1_uranium-enrichment-
program-nuclear-program-iran-and-six-world?_s=PM:US>.
[12] Ibid
[13] Melman, Yossi. "Yossi Melman: Mossad, MI6, the CIA and the case of the
assassinated scientist." Independent 30 NOV 2010: Web. 2 Feb 2011.
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/
world/middle-east/yossi-melman-mossad-mi6-the
-cia-and-the-case-of-the-assassinated-scientist-2146995.html>.

February 3, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Beeman– Mojaheddin-e Khalq Can Never Rule Iran

Foreign Policy Analysts Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett reported in a recent blog post:

. . .one of the more noteworthy developments is an accelerating campaign to remove the mojahedin-e khalq, or MEK, from the U.S. Government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Over the last few months, a number of prominent Republicans-including John Bolton, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former White House homeland security and counterterrorism coordinator Fran Townsend, and new House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen-have been publicly agitating to delist the MEK. But this effort has now gone bipartisan and big time, including engaging the services of a Washington, DC consulting firm.
To document this last point, we link here to the video of an event held in Washington last week, clearly designed to build public support for delisting the MEK as part of a U.S.-led campaign for regime change in Tehran. The event was organized by Executive Action, LLC, which describes itself as "a McKinsey & Company with muscle, a private CIA and Defense Department available to address your most intractable problems and difficult challenges". (Exactly who engaged Executive Action’s services for this event is not clear.) Featured speakers included not only Republican figures like Mukasey, but also retired U.S. Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni; former New Mexico Governor, Clinton Administration cabinet officer, and Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson; former Democratic New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli; and retired Marine Corps General James Jones-who just stepped down, in November 2010, as President Obama’s first national security adviser. All of the speakers argued for bringing down the Islamic Republic and forging a new political order in Iran-and for embracing the MEK as the foundation of a new Iranian "opposition" capable of bringing about both of these objectives.

I really don’t know what to say to the fans of the MEK in Washington. They apparently have no ability to look at this situation from the viewpoint of the Iranian people. The MEK was a rival for power during and after the Iranian Revolution. They fully expected to take over the government from the "mullahs" and the secular nationalists. They were ousted and purged during the hostage crisis. They went to Iraq where Saddam Hussein gave them support, and a place to mount their attacks against the Islamic Republic. The fact that they stayed in Iraq under Saddam’s protection during the Iran-Iraq war caused widespread expressions of hate for them in Iran. Of course they are completely guilty of terrorist operations in the pre-Revolutionary days, and they continue to take credit for bombings and civil unrest in Iran–which I guess doesn’t count as terrorism since it is directed at Iranian citizens.

But the most important fact that Bolton, Ros-Lehtinin and others fail to comprehend is that the MEK could never, never in a million years form an alternative government in Iran. The Iranian people mistrust them at best, and most thoroughly despise them and think them to be traitors. Their supporters are largely cynical "get rid of the Mullahs at any price" types who also don’t believe in their "cause" whatever that is.

Not only that, but they are aging, and not recruiting new supporters. This is a bankrupt group that is not going to do what the Right Wing neo-con dead-enders in Washington hope they will do. It is sad and pitiful for anyone to be hitching their horse to this group. I only wonder who is paying the lobbyists and others trying to gin up their empty cause.

It is also sad that Washington politicians waste their energy on cockamamie schemes such as getting this group off the terrorist list so that we can throw millions of taxpayer dollars down their rat hole in the utterly vain hope that they will bring about regime change in Iran rather than seriously trying to engage Iran ourselves.

Culture and International Affairs – Bill Beeman – University of Minnesota

January 30, 2011 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

Rajavi deploys his Special Guard to attack families with catapults

After one year families of MKO hostages in Camp Ashraf refuse to go away

Zionist-backed Mojahedin-e Khalq revert to type. The families of MEK cult members held hostage in Camp Ashraf are subjected to violent attacks by Massoud Rajavi’s Special Guard. The cult enclave is surrounded by the families of the people inside who are asking to have contact with their loved ones. The worst fear of Rajavi is for his cult members to have contact with the outside world.

Rajavi deploys his Special Guard to attack families with catapults

Over the past few months the families have begun approaching the fence all around the camp perimeter trying to engage with the members inside and talk with them.

Now, in order to prevent them from contacting the ordinary members, Rajavi has introduced an extra security system to try to force them back. Undaunted the families continue to approach the fence and engage with the MEK’s security force.

Rajavi has introduced an extra security system to try to force families back

The systematic nature of the security patrol is clear. The MEK have introduced extra lookout posts around the perimeter mounted on trucks. There are also mobile patrols which travel the perimeter road watching for the families. When the patrols discover the families approaching, the MEK security forces are mobilised. These forces are organised. They do not engage with the families but are immediately hostile. They quickly escalate the encounter from aggressively shouting at the families to go away and swearing at them, to throwing stones and using catapults to launch missiles (some of them made of metal scraps). This is not a spontaneous reaction but is a deliberate action to prevent the families getting close to the perimeter.

It is notable that the perimeter fence has been added to with the extension facing inward and the barbed wire all on the inside. This is clearly designed to keep people in rather than prevent anyone outside from entering the camp. It should be plain from this that Camp Ashraf has become a prison for the ordinary members.Download Rajavi deploys his Special Guard to attack families with catapults

January 30, 2011 0 comments

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Iraqi Council discusses MKO camp Ashraf

These people have come together to discuss the legality of the presence of the terrorist group of Mujahedin Khalgh Organization on their soil.

In this gathering organized by the Iraqi Tribal Council, many Iraqi officials, tribal leaders and ordinary people voiced their support for the tribes that are calling for expulsion of the organization from their country.

They also reminded the Iraqi policy makers of what they called the crimes committed by MKO against the Iraqi citizens under Saddam regime.

After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, American troops disarmed MKO members based at the training base of the terrorist group at Camp Ashraf — about 60km north of Baghdad. There are many in Iraq saying that despite the disbarment, the US and its allies delay evacuation of the camp.

The United States, Canada, Iraq and Iran have all designated the MKO as a terrorist organization.
The group is especially notorious in Iran for siding with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Iraqi security forces took control of the camp, housing 3,500 people, on July 28.

Wisam al-Bayati, BaghdadDownload Iraqi Council discusses MKO camp Ashraf

January 30, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Nejat Families of Fars Province At Camp Ashraf Gate

A forty-people of family members of Ashraf residents who are representatives of Nejat NGO Office in Shiraz, Fars, traveled to Camp Ashraf Iraq to join other families awaiting there. They are hopeful to visit their loved ones who are captives of MKO terrorist Cult.

Families at Ashraf Camp Gate

January 29, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Big Time Dems Join GOPers In Support Of Iranian Terror Group

Along with usual efforts of MKO propaganda campaign, the group held another gathering in Washington DC last Thursday. According to Eric Lach article posted on TPM Muckraker Website,

"a prominent group of former government officials gathered for a panel on Iran. Richardson and Tom Ridge Among them were a former National Security Adviser, a former CENTCOM Commander, a former Democratic Senator, a former Democratic Presidential candidate, a former Republican Attorney General, a former Republican Homeland Security Secretary, a former CIA Director and a former FBI Director.

Almost to a man — and they were all men — they expressed support for a group considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

The panel, organized by a consulting firm called Executive Action, LLC, was called “Iran’s Nuclear, Terrorist Threats and Rights Abuses: After Engagement and Sanctions, What?” and the group in question is the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, also known as the MEK."

Eric Lach reveals that the agenda of panelists was the removal of MKO from United States’ list of FTOs describing the true nature of MKO as a cult-like organization, according to US State Department documents:

"So what is the MEK? The State Department website states that the group “advocates the violent overthrow of the Iranian regime and was responsible for the assassination of several U.S. military personnel and civilians in the 1970’s.” When it was founded by students in the 1960s, the group’s philosophy blended Marxism and Islam, and it later developed a strong feminist bent. In fact, according to The New York Times, the MEK became for a time the “only army in the world with a commander corps composed mostly of women.” Membership is in the several thousands, with large pockets in several European capitals. About 3,400 live at Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, where they have been declared “protected persons” under the Geneva Convention — a status that does not apply to members living outside the camp.

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the group fell out of favor with Ayatollah Khomeini. In 1981, the MEK attempted to overthrow the regime, which responded by arresting and targeting group members. In a subsequent bombing campaign, the MEK managed to kill Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. One bomb cost current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei the use of his right arm. Popular sentiment in Iran turned against the MEK, and the group fled, first to France, and then, in 1986, to Iraq, where they were offered safe haven by Saddam Hussein.

Hussein armed the MEK with tanks and other heavy military equipment, and deployed “thousands of MEK fighters in suicidal, mass wave attacks against Iranian forces” during the Iran-Iraq war, according to the State Department. In 1991, Hussein used the MEK to crack down on Iraqi Shia and Kurds. ”Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” MEK leader Maryam Rajavi commanded her troops at the time, according to The New York Times. During the rest of the 1990s, and through 2001, the MEK was engaged in various anti-Iranian attacks and operations, and it received millions of dollars in Oil-for-Food program subsidies from Hussein. None of the speakers at last week’s panel mentioned the MEK’s prior ties with Hussein.

The State Department states that the MEK maintains “the capacity and will” to commit terrorist acts across the world. But the members living at Camp Ashraf agreed to be disarmed in 2003, and surrendered two thousand tanks, armored personnel carriers, and heavy artillery pieces. And the group’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which maintains offices in several capitals, says its goal is to establish a “pluralist democracy” in Iran. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the MEK “has had little success luring new recruits and is composed mostly of its founding members.”

Several of the speakers at last week’s panel said it’s widely known that the MEK was put on the terrorist list in 1997 as a nod to Iran’s then-new reformist president, Mohammad Khatami. None of the speakers, however, said that the State Department considers the group to have “cult-like characteristics,” and that Maryam Rajavi has established a cult of personality. MEK members are not allowed to marry, attend weekly “ideological cleansings” and children are separated from parents. When Elizabeth Rubin, a New York Times Magazine reporter, toured Camp Ashraf in 2003, she found Rajavi’s image displayed “almost as ubiquitously as the image of Saddam in Iraq or Khomeini in Iran.”

”Every morning and night, the kids, beginning as young as 1 and 2, had to stand before a poster of Massoud and Maryam, salute them and shout praises to them,” Nadereh Afshari, a former MEK member, told Rubin. And inside Iran? Rubin reported that, at the time, “the street protesters risking their lives and disappearing inside the regime’s prisons consider the Mujahedeen a plague — as toxic, if not more so, than the ruling clerics.”

So what brought Washington heavyweights to the MEK cause? It remains unclear. The group’s political arm is known to have a global support network and active lobbying efforts in major Western capitals. Being delisted would allow the group to fundraise and operate freely in the U.S. The State Department claims that since the fall of Hussein, the group has had to rely on front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities. Meanwhile, the group that has been organizing the panels, Executive Action, LLC, bills itself as “a McKinsey & Company with muscle.” From the group’s website:

If you are under attack by political or business adversaries, unsure of how to do business in emerging markets, or being treated unfairly in the media, then you need ExecutiveAction.

This week, The Wall Street Journal reports, Jones and Richardson were in Brussels, for yet another pro-MEK panel, this one alongside former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton."

January 29, 2011 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

Ex member encounters a MKO security unit in camp Ashraf

The film shows an Iraqi soldier going to investigate an encounter at one of the boundaries of the camp. The two men on this side of the fence are, an MEK member (in buff jacket) who managed to escape the camp only several months ago, and an Iraqi Farsi translator (in black jacket and holding walkie talkie). The MEK member inside the camp is angrily gesticulating and shouting at the two outside telling them to go away and starts throwing stones.

Ex member encounters a MKO security unit in camp Ashraf

Over the past few months the families have begun approaching the fence all around the camp perimeter trying to engage with the members inside and talk with them. In order to prevent them from contacting the ordinary members, Rajavi has introduced an extra security system to try to force them back. Undaunted the families continue to approach the fence and engage with the MEK’s security force.

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January 29, 2011 0 comments

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