Family

Although they are suffering under the hot and scorching winds of the Iraqi deserts, a dozen or so of family members of the residents to Camp Ashraf are settled in front of the main gate of the Camp in a hope to see their children and relatives enslaved by a terrorist cult. Obviously, the only way to overpower the resistance of the organization in refusing to let them meet with their relatives is what they are doing. And it has proved to be since the organization is doing its best, by arranging scattered rallies of trifle numbers in a variety of European countries and as well as the aid of some advocates, to disperses the gathering of the families accusing them to be the agents of the regime and branding them with other names. However, the letters of the families addressed to a variety of humanitarian and peace-seeker organization has left no doubt that they are really families concerned about the destiny of their children.

The families’ persistence appears to have had its effects on the residents as well. What the organization and its advocates call a Psychological warfare employed against MKO sounds to have acted as a waking bell that has already frustrated the overriding cult influences that has developed a family-phobia in members. The increased number of escapes since the settlement of the families indicates that the victimized are being convinced that the best and most secure opportunity to be freed from their chain of slavery is provided and set before them by the families in front of the camp.

Nothing is known about what is just happening inside of the camp, but the leaders’ desperate reaction and their calls to be supported against the peaceful picketing of the families that has blockaded the easy access and traffic to Ashraf presumes a widespread dissatisfaction among the insiders and a possible revolt. The power achieved over the minds of the insiders through inducing them to accept without question is fading away and replaced by the encouragement of the families many of whom they have come to know by name. When they remind themselves whom the people at the gate are and what has brought them from their cool and secure homes to such a dry and scorching desert with the least essential accommodations, for sure something moves within them even if the families have been demonized by the organization. Although MKO has succeeded, to some degrees, to demonstrate as the only embodiment of reason and reality and a legitimate freedom-fighter to bring about the mind-set in the insiders that their highest value has been to become its members, the long years of living under coercive measures and cult-like procedures has proved different and they are being persuaded that the real angels of salvation are the parents bravely withstanding round-the-clock.

So far, MKO has deprived the insiders of their rights to visit the families and has refused the same demand by the families. It has even announced, by providing forged signatures, that the members whose families are at the gate are not willing to see their parents. This is in turn another evidence that indirectly affirms the identity of the families as who they really are and disapproves the made accusations against them. Of course, if the relevant organizations and bodies the families have appealed to intervene and press to have an interview with the members in a milieu uncontrolled by the organization’s rankings, they will assist not only the families but also the enslaved. Will they take any pain to relieve them both? We hope so.