UN rights chief urges probe of deaths at Iraqi camp

Destroyed structures are seen at Camp Ashraf, in Khalis, north of Baghdad, Iraq. Iraq security forces raided the settlement of an Iranian exile group that the Shia-led government has for years tried to oust. –Photo by AP  

UNITED NATIONS: The UN human rights chief called on Friday for an independent investigation into the deaths of 34 people at an Iranian dissident camp in Iraq after Iraqi security forces moved against it last week.

“It now seems certain that at least 34 people were killed in Camp Ashraf, including seven or more women,” UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said. “Most were shot, and some appear to have been crushed to death, presumably by vehicles.”
A UN spokesman said UN officials had visited the camp and viewed the 34 bodies.
The number of deaths was the same that residents of Camp Ashraf had reported. Their death toll was disputed by Iraqi authorities, who said only three people had been killed in the operation and others were dead before troops moved in.
Iraqi authorities say the three were killed when security forces responded to rock-throwing and threats by residents during an operation to reclaim land from the camp and return it to farmers. The Iraqi Defense Ministry has said it will launch an investigation into the operation.
Pillay said in a statement the Iraqi military was aware of the risks of launching a military operation at the camp. A similar operation by Iraqi security forces in 2009 left 11 people dead and dozens wounded at Ashraf, she added.
“There is no possible excuse for this number of casualties,” she said. “There must be a full, independent and transparent inquiry, and any person found responsible for use of excessive force should be prosecuted.”
A group of 19 US lawmakers asked President Barack Obama’s administration to inform Congress of what American military and embassy personnel had observed at the camp during an investigation after the attacks.
“Gross violations of human rights thrive in the darkness — we simply ask that you shed a little bit of light on this awful attack,” the legislators said in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Ashraf is the base of the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran, which the United States, Iraq and Iran consider a terrorist organization, although the European Union removed it from its terrorism blacklist in 2009.
The group, seeking the overthrow of Iran’s Islamic government, mounted attacks on Iran from Iraq before Saddam Hussein’s 2003 downfall. In the 1970s, it led a guerrilla campaign against the US-backed Shah of Iran, including attacks on US targets.
Saddam gave it refuge in Iraq in the 1980s and some of its fighters joined him in the 1980-1988 war against Iran. The group surrendered its weapons to US forces after the 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam.