"400 Iranian exiles move reluctantly within Iraq"by Lara Jakes | Associated Press, February 19, 2012
BAGHDAD - Lugging clothes, tables, and whatever else they were allowed to bring, about 400 members of an Iranian exile group reluctantly moved yesterday from their camp in northwestern Iraq to a deserted military base outside the capital in what they called a show of good faith that they eventually will be allowed to leave the country peacefully.
Doesn't that evoke images of the Holocaust in your mind?
Yes, the poor Mossad/CIA asset!
It was the first group to move among the more than 3,300 members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran who have lived at Camp Ashraf for three decades.
They left under pressure from the Iraqi government, whose army stormed Ashraf in April in a raid that left 34 of the exiles dead.
Related: Occupation Iraq: Camping Out
The United Nations also wants the exiles to move to the Camp Liberty military base outside Baghdad, where they can be screened for asylum eligibility and, presumably, better protected.
Related: Occupation Iraq: Camping Out
The United Nations also wants the exiles to move to the Camp Liberty military base outside Baghdad, where they can be screened for asylum eligibility and, presumably, better protected.
The process of moving the exiles to the new location has proceeded in fits and starts in recent months. Members had not left Ashraf for years and did not want to leave their home - a miniature city with parks and a university - for an abandoned military base.
Iraqi soldiers searched the exiles for almost an entire day before they left Ashraf, and they were searched again yesterday before they were allowed into Liberty.
Nazi-like tactics, no?
“This process is a humiliating and degrading treatment,’’ said Bahzad Saffari, 50, a camp resident since 2003 who was among the first group of exiles to go. “We are very frustrated and have been going through this harassment for more than 24 hours now. The camp looks horrible - it is totally different from the photos that were provided to us.’’
Try it for 60+ years like the Palestinians and then get back to me.
He said exiles were barred from bringing some of their heirlooms, including photographs, microwave ovens, satellite dishes for Internet access and, in one case, a pair of therapeutic socks. None of the exiles - three-quarters of them male, including a 70-year-old man - wanted to go but agreed to be among the first tranche when Ashraf’s leaders asked for volunteers, Saffari said.
Again, doesn't that dredge up the vision of Nazi work camps?
Iraq’s government says the exiles are in Iraq illegally, and yesterday’s move is a first step toward to sending them out of the country.
Oh, right, it is as if they are illegal immigrants.
“Iraq inherited a number of problems and legacies left by the former regime, and they hurt Iraq and represent a source of tension in Iraq’s relations with neighboring countries,’’ Iraqi National Security Adviser Faleh al-Fayadh said yesterday. “We reject the presence of this unwanted organization on Iraqi soil since it infringes on Iraq’s sovereignty.’’
They are TERRORISTS!
The People’s Mujahedeen, which seeks the overthrow of Tehran’s clerical rulers, has been labeled everything from a cult to a terrorist group - although one that has provided the United States with intelligence on Iran.
Translation: They are a U.S. INTELLIGENCE ASSET!
The group says it renounced violence in 2001, after carrying out bloody bombings and assassinations in Iran in the 1980s.
Yeah, sure.
Also known by its Farsi name, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, the group is the militant wing of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran. The Unites States considers it a terrorist organization; the European Union removed it from its terrorist list two years ago.
They were welcomed to Iraq by Saddam Hussein during the 1980s in a common fight against Iran.
WTF? Why did we get rid of this guy?
Oh, right, the whole PNAC project that has disintegrated in Iraq. We were supposed to have permanent bases and now they are talking about scaling back the embassy.
But since Saddam’s ouster they have been an irritant to the Iraqi government, which is trying to build stronger ties with Iran.
So the main beneficiary of our invasion was.... Iran?
Last year, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered Ashraf to close by the end of 2011. But the United Nations called the forced removal of Ashraf residents “ill-advised and unacceptable.’’
Ashraf is located in the desert near the Iranian border, about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Until recently, the exiles refused to go. In December, the group’s Paris-based head, Maryam Rajavi, agreed to move 400 residents to Camp Liberty in a show of goodwill as the UN tries to broker a deal between the two sides. UN chief Ban Ki-Moon said Iraq’s government has agreed to let Ashraf stay open until April 30 to give the exiles time to move.
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