Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The Government of Venezuela withdrew a number of years ago from the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, which means that technically we could go only to the commission, which is part of the OAS charter, but we could not go to the court, which has the ability to issue binding decisions.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I'll just mention, with one sentence, that in response to us meeting with the high commissioner and him taking a photograph with her holding the Venezuelan flag, there was a lengthy diatribe presented publicly by the Venezuelan government against the high commissioner, against Lilian, just completely and utterly rejecting everything as fabricated, irrelevant, and flagrant interference with their sovereignty.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thanks so much, Chairman Reid, members of the distinguished subcommittee, ladies and gentlemen. It's great to be here with you again today. As you will recall, I spent five years as Aung San Suu Kyi's international lawyer. I currently represent Liu Xiaobo and prisoner of conscience cases are really my specialty.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  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.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  They don't ever come inside Camp Liberty. They come to the border. This is one of the things that the residents have been promised, 24-7 monitoring at Camp Liberty, which hasn't existed. It's now being interpreted by the UN to say that you could reach somebody on a telephone 24-7, but of course they can't.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  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.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, that was surrounding Camp Ashraf originally, which had also been winnowed back in size. But, yes, there were 1,300 around Camp Ashraf at the time the massacre took place.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  But it's also worth noting—and, again, Colonel Martin, feel free to jump in because this is your expertise, I'm speaking a little out of my depth, but I know these facts to be accurate. There are five security checkpoints—this is in the Red Zone in Iraq, right outside of Baghdad—to get, ultimately, to Camp Liberty right now.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you, Professor Cotler, for the very pointed question, because we looked at the September massacre in great detail, but one can't forget that seven people were disappeared by Iraqi security forces and that they may well be in Tehran. The intelligence is very spotty. The UN itself had publicly said that it was believed they were being held in security facilities near Baghdad.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, indeed. Look, the U.S. shouldn't have turned over responsibility for Camp Ashraf to the Iraqis in the first place. In fact, I wrote a memo back in late 2008 that I provided to the state department quoting public statements by the Iraqi Prime Minister and the national security adviser, and a range of statements from Tehran, about how they were going to crush, destroy, kill, and otherwise imprison the residents.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  If I might just add, one of the challenges is created by the way the Iraqi government is handling this. The residents are denied all visitors. There are no people who can visit them except for a rare U.S. government official and a rare UN official. They're able to communicate by telephone, via Skype, but basically that's about it.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There's an irony here. Based on the conversations I've had, particularly with the survivors of the recent Camp Ashraf attack, the residents themselves desperately want to get out of Iraq because they know they're doomed in the current situation, and yet.... You would think that if Iraq actually wants them gone, the Government of Iraq itself would go to the UNHCR and say, “Grant these people refugee status or we ourselves are going to grant them refugee status so they can depart as quickly as humanly possible.”

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I will just briefly add to that. I agree, of course, with Colonel Martin's testimony, as well as his answer. I would only say that for me this isn't about politics, although the situation is intensely political. This is about saving human lives, and as an international human rights lawyer, I have one standard that I apply when I look at the facts of the situation.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much for the actually critical question that you're asking. I do want to clarify that while I previously represented the residents for about a year and a half in relation to the arbitrary detention, for the last year and a half I have not represented them directly.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I'm sorry about that.