Another Srebrenica: Iraq’s New Year Gift for the World

Camp Ashraf, home to more than 3400 defenceless Iranian men and women is now facing daily threats to be closed and ruined by the Iraqi government. The camp has for 25 years been the home in Iraq of members of the main Iranian opposition movement.

The government of Iraq (The very government brought to power by the U.S.-led coalition) is about to commit an act of genocide.

Some 3,400 residents of the camp could be ignored as they await a bloody massacre in the coming of the New Year. As the clock ticks towards the menacing deadline of December 31, the whole international community is simply watching.

What has exacerbated the predicament of Ashraf residents is that the Iraqi government vowed to the mullahs in Iran to close Ashraf by the end of the year. They are to be dispersed to different locations so that they could be massacred more easily.

In the face of the Arab spring, the mullahs in Iran have found that they must take steps in two directions at the same time: They must speed up the drive to become a nuclear power, and at the same time work to destroy their principal opposition especially in Ashraf. The mullahs in Iran and the Iraqi government have thus started the countdown to a bloody massacre of Camp Ashraf.

They are trying to frame forcible relocation of the residents as a peaceful plan and obtain the approval or at least non-opposition of international community including the EU.

Iraq therefore promises to allow UN to monitor the new locations. But experience shows that Iraqi governments’ promises cannot be trusted.

Only six hours before the massacre of 8 April ,2011 began, the US Embassy officially assured that Iraq’s Prime Minister had promised the residents that he has no intention of committing violence.

The residents, who are all among Iranian intellectuals, have agreed to the European Parliament’s plan to be transferred to third countries, despite their obvious right to remain in Ashraf, where they have lived for a quarter century. It is however clear that the residents cannot allow themselves to be dispersed– and they surely cannot volunteer to be slaughtered.

If their displacement is ordered, they will have no option but to resist. Who would agree to be forced from his home to be killed in a quite dark alley?

Time is running out for the U.S., UN and EU to take a stand and reject the displacement.

Today, the decision is to be made by the U.S. administration and the good international offices.

Silence is more than unstated approval, which would work to assist the slaughter of thousands of innocent people, whose only crime is to stand up to the religious dictatorship in Iran.

The terrifying truth is out. Now, the elected officials and international players cannot pretend that they do not know. The world should be haunted by the memory of Srebrenica. Camp Ashraf is a Srebrenica in the making and the world has a duty to act.

ENDS

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