By Abdullah bin Ali
Aljazeera.net
March 27, 2009
Paris – The largest exiled Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), criticized Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s call to displace its members in Camp Ashraf, located 60 miles north of the country’s capital Baghdad.
The organization’s political relations chairman, Mohammad Mohaddessin, called Baghdad’s attempts to expel members of the group, who number up to 3,418 people, “in reality tantamount to succumbing to the dictates of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran and a violation of humanitarian laws, Islamic values, and Arabic customs.”
In an exclusive interview with Aljazeera.net at the PMOI headquarters in the town of Auvers-sur-Oise, near the French capital Paris, the Iranian dissident rejected Maliki’s likening of his organization to the Kurdish Workers’ Party of Turkey.
Refugees
He described people currently at Camp Ashraf as political refugees who have resided in Iraq for the past 23 years with the official consent of Iraq’s legal authorities. They have no weapons, he said, since the consolidation of their weaponry by American forces following the invasion of Iraq.
Mohaddessin criticized what he described as pressures imposed on Ashraf residents ever since the transfer of supervision on Ashraf from American forces to the Iraqi military in January. He pointed to attacks by Iraqi forces against a building of the organization located at the entrance of the camp which has been virtually closed to visitors, and said that Iraqi authorities have issued orders banning the transfer of all materials and goods to Camp Ashraf except for water, food, and medicine.
Reacting to published reports about the Iraqi government’s intention to relocate Ashraf residents to the desert region of al-Salman near the border with Saudi Arabia, Mohaddessin said that this would be “absolutely unacceptable” by his organization. He said it would also be rejected by legal and human rights organizations which vehemently oppose the forced displacement of the camp’s residents inside or outside Iraq.
The Iranian dissident noted that the Iraqi people, “from all ethnicities and political orientations,” would oppose “any violation of Ashraf residents’ rights.” He praised the positions expressed by former Iraqi Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, and leader of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, Saleh Mutlak, and Shiite cleric, Ayad Jamaluddin, all of whom have demanded from the Maliki government to stop its attempts to evacuate the camp.
An Alternative
At the same time, Mohaddessin stressed that the PMOI has not and will not consider any other alternatives to Ashraf. He noted that the organization’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, has written a letter in this regard to the UN Secretary General, reminding him that the organization considers the solution to be the returning of the camp’s protection to American forces in Iraq.
The PMOI spokesman rejected the claim that Iraq would benefit in any way by expelling the organization’s members, and said that the ultimate goal “is the consolidation of the mullahs’ domination over Iraq and the expansion of their influence in the entire region.”
He said that the movement, which was set up in 1965, will continue its political opposition to the principle of ‘velayat-e faqih’ [absolute rule of the clergy] as well as its call for the establishment of a democratic and pluralist system of government in Iran.
He also vehemently rejected the possibility of relations or a coalition with Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s former shah, who is also calling for the overthrow of the current ruling regime in Iran. The member of the PMOI’s leadership pointed to the key role of his movement in the revolution of 1979, which he said, freed the country from a fascist monarchy.