Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Feb. 11th, 2014

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you. I'm the rookie to the team and there's no better way to get into a situation than by just hitting the ground running.

It's my pleasure to meet you both and from, temporarily anyway, an outsider's position I guess the first question I would ask, and it falls on the heels of Dr. Cotler and Mr. Sweet's questions, is on the suggested or alleged complicity of the United Nations and the international community in this situation. What is to be gained by them in doing this? What is at stake from their perspective or in your opinion by not allowing these individuals to be taken out of this camp and relocated to safer pastures, so to speak?

[Jared Genser]

I'll have one cut at it and I'm sure Colonel Martin will have his views as well.

In essence the UN has a whole series of challenges as well as personnel inside Iraq trying to help rebuild Iraq after the U.S. invasion there. Ambassador Kobler's predecessor, who for many years was responsible for this whole situation for UNAMI, was a gentlemen who got into very hot water with the Iraqis because he called out the Iraqi election as not being free and fair. He got forcibly removed from his position as a result of that.

The instructions that were given to Martin Kobler were to go make nice with the Iraqis. It was clear to Ambassador Kobler...and we know this information, by the way. I'm not sure if your committee has heard from this individual, but you might want to. The information I'm about to share with you comes from a UN whistleblower, a guy named Tahar Boumedra, an international human rights lawyer who only worked in the UN system for the latter five to ten years of his career. Before that he was involved as an Algerian in staffing the Algerian judge to the International Court of Justice and running some of the law journals with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on human rights law in Africa. He was Kobler's right hand through all of this and he has come out and said in essence that it was the top priority of the Iraqis, on behalf of their masters in Tehran, to go after the residents of Camp Ashraf at the time.

Therefore a plan was developed in collaboration with the Iraqis to put the pressure on them. The exchange would be, in essence, that the UN would get some of the other things that it wanted out of the Iraqis on a range of other important issues. So Kobler made a political calculation, according to Tahar Boumedra. He was following orders from New York to make nice with al-Maliki by giving him something that to the UN, while it is an issue of some concern and it obviously is a major human rights issue, was not as high a priority as a range of other issues that the UN had in Iraq.

So what was to gain politically was favour with al-Maliki, buying favour with al-Maliki by repressing the residents of Camp Ashraf. Even the whole move from Ashraf to Liberty was political, it had nothing to do with humanitarian exigencies. The claims of the Government of Iraq were that these people couldn't be interviewed because it wouldn't be viewed as an independent interview by UNHCR if they were interviewed in Camp Ashraf, even though it was held by the Iraqis, and even though FOB Grizzly, which is one of the U.S. operating bases there, was walled off separately and interviews could have been conducted there a mile or two away and otherwise.

Let me just mention very briefly that in essence al-Maliki insisted they be moved because Tehran was saying that because of the symbolism of Ashraf—which has been there for 30 years—to the Iranian resistance, it has to be shut down. So therefore, based on these kinds of arbitrary determinations, all of them had to be moved to Camp Liberty.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you.

Colonel, if you'd like to chime in with your thoughts.

[Col Wesley Martin]

I totally agree with what Jared has said. Also, I'm holding here an investigation I did on one UN monitor, Massoud Durrani. Tahar Boumedra made a statement. Massoud Durrani was going around under Kobler's orders to instigate problems with the MeK and also filing a bunch of false reports back.

Tahar's statement in this document echoes what you just heard. There's also another problem with Kobler. Kobler was also working German businesses as was his wife who was the German ambassador to Iraq. They were trying really hard to get German business to come into the country. So there were two different problems there: one, appeasing Maliki, and two, trying to set up German industry and business.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you.

[Jared Genser]

I'll get you a sworn affidavit from Tahar Boumedra that lays it out in a dozen pages. It's a good summary of his point of view and what he witnessed in Iraq working with Kobler. It's pretty chilling. It reminds me of what we've seen recently in Haiti with the UN engagement with the contamination, the cholera disease epidemic.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Genser and Col Martin, both of you have offered to submit additional documents to the committee. If you could either send it to my office or to the clerk, we'll make sure to get it distributed. Our rules require that it's translated into both English and French. We'll make sure that happens and that it gets to all the members.

Colleagues, we are out of time. In fact, we've gone a little over time. Thank you for your generosity in this regard.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Can we just see if we have agreement, since that meeting time of Tuesday when we get back is empty, to bring Paul Bhatti here before the committee if he's able to fly himself from Italy?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Is there agreement?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

There is agreement. We'll try to make that happen.

Thank you, colleagues. Thank you very much to our witnesses.

We are adjourned.