#Ahwazna – Tunis conference shows Arab solidarity with Ahwaz growing steadily

Ahwazna

The leadership of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA) has lauded a one-day conference in support of Ahwazi freedom, which was held in the Tunisian capital on Saturday December 3, calling the event an important qualitative achievement in advancing the recognition of the Ahwazi cause amongst fraternal Arab nations.

In his opening address at the conference, held under the title, ‘Ending the Iranian Occupation of Ahwaz and Restoring the Ahwazi State is a Historical Right’,  ASMLA Vice-President Habib Alesewed thanked the Tunisian government and people for hosting the event, which he said was an expression of the recognition that Arab states are now giving to the cause of Ahwazi freedom. He voiced gratitude to the Bahraini delegation attending the conference for the recent declaration by a group of  Deputies in the Bahraini parliament vowing to work for official recognition of the Ahwazi cause and related issues.  

The deputy ASMLA leader explained that the conference was the latest in a series of regional events which have helped to achieve far greater official recognition of the Ahwazi cause; these events have also included a forum in support of the Ahwazi people’s struggle for freedom and dignity, which held in Kuwait in May of this year and attended by ministers and diplomats from various Arab nations, as well as by a  number of prominent Arab intellectuals.  Mr. Alesewed also lauded the solidarity of both the government and people of Mauritania in helping to raise awareness of the long-neglected cause of Ahwazi freedom and in coordinating with Ahawzi bodies. He stressed that the support of Arab nations and media has given Ahwazis greater confidence in their Arab brethren, saying “Arab media in general and Gulf media in particular have been active in addressing the issue of Ahwaz, not only in coverage and dissemination of the news, but in devoting ample numbers of newspaper pages to the plight and situation of Ahwaz, and by holding press conferences and providing analytical articles and news reports on a daily basis.  Also, satellite TV channels have devoted great amounts of work to producing special programmes about the Ahwazi cause,  as well as offering news reports and video footage.  We are delighted at the views expressed by a large number of Arab writers and intellectuals who have covered the Ahwazi issue from different angles and perspectives.”

The senior ASMLA official said that all these efforts to raise awareness of the Ahwazi issue in the Arab world have greatly upset the Iranian regime, which has retaliated with hostile and slanderous campaigns against certain journalists for their public support of the Ahwazi cause and solidarity with the Ahwazi people. 

Alesewed said that wider awareness of Iran’s brutal, decades-long injustices against the Ahwazi people could also assist in the Saudi campaign, led by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman Bin Abdul-aziz, to confront the rogue, expansionist Iranian project  by the Mullahs of Tehran, who have created massive havoc in Arab nations and spilled immeasurable quantities of innocent blood via their Shiite mercenary proxies, who are simply kindling for the fire of the regime’s monstrous expansionist ambitions.

The senior ASMLA official stressed that the Syrian revolution is a great and vital factor in the defeat of the Tehran regime’s project of sectarian and ethnic expansionism at the expense of Arab peoples.  After summarizing the most important features of the Iranian project in the Arab world, he underlined that this aggressive expansionist project must be countered by realignment and unity between all the Arab nations and the peoples, warning that the Iranian project poses a very real and critical threat to Arab national security.  This threat means that there is an imperative and urgent  need to uncover and eject all the undercover infiltrators, spies and dormant cells working for Iran across the Arab world, Alesewed continued, adding that the Iranian regime has attained new and grotesque depths of barbarism at the expense of Arab nations’ stability showing that there is no level to which it won’t stoop, meaning that the regime’s next move is unknowable for the whole region.

Alesewed further asserted in his opening speech that the results of this series of catastrophes inflicted by the Iranian regime were reversing all the previous work it had carried out covertly towards attaining its regional objective by tearing off the clerical regime’s mask to show the reality beneath, adding that its policies will ultimately backfire on the regime going by the latest developments both on the Iranian street and in the Arab world.

All of this means that fellow Arabs must invest in the fertile ground in Iran and respond in kind, said Alesewed, taking the fight to within the enemy’s borders to send a strong message that the regime should not dare to intervene in regional countries’ affairs unless they show the appropriate respect for other nations’ and peoples’ borders and act in a neighbourly fashion. He confirmed that the ASMLA is working with a number of other  groups in Iran representing other peoples there also oppressed and under occupation by the regime, including Kurds, Turks, Baluchis, Turkmen, all of which suffer similar injustices and share the same objective of attaining liberation and recognition of their rights.   All of this will ultimately lead to  a new reality, guaranteeing the rights of all peoples in Iran to lives of dignity and freedom.

At the conclusion of his speech, the ASMLA deputy leader called on the delegates to present their own findings and to help in correctly diagnosing the problems generating regional crises, which would help in providing detailed analysis indicating the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary reality in the Arab world.

Aleswed further stressed the need for guidelines and recommendations to achieve the necessary announcement of   a provisional government in exile for Al- Ahwaz, to serve as the legitimate representative of the people of Ahwaz in their struggle, as well as urging  the delegates to take more action to raise the long-neglected issue of Ahwazi freedom in international forums, and at both the popular and official levels. Domestically.  

The ASMLA has announced that the Tunis conference is only the first in a series of events and activities across the Arab Maghreb aiming to garner both official and popular support for the struggle of the Arab people of Ahwaz against Iranian occupation. A number of Tunisian and other Arab political and cultural figures have already voiced their solidarity and reaffirmed the need to galvanise support for the issue of Ahwaz issue, calling it the first front line in confronting Iranian expansionism.

Speakers at the event also praised the struggle of the people of Ahwaz and their insistence on maintaining the Arab identity and affiliation to the Arab nation, despite other Arab nations’ decades-long disregard of  the suffering of Ahwazis  throughout the 91 years of occupation to date.

One of the most important speeches delivered  by a delegate at the conference was by Jordanian MP Dr. Mohammad Qatatsheh,  who said, "The absence of an Arab strategy led to four Arab capitals currently falling under the control of the Iranians."   The Jordanian MP also asserted that he would be campaigning to have Iran’s long occupation of Ahwaz declared part of the Jordanian  education curriculum to teach the current young generation  to carry the Ahwazi case in their hearts and their minds and advocate constantly for it

Another speaker, Dr. Taher Bhumidrh, the former head of the Office of Human Rights at the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, “stressed the need to transfer  the case of  the Ahwazi Arabs from its Arab  framework, and to introduce and  impose  it on the whole world."

A delegate from Bahrain, His Excellency MP Mohsen al-Bakri, the head of the National Council bloc of  Bahraini MPs,  demanded that Ahwaz be granted a seat in the Arab League,  preceded by formal recognition of the Ahwazi Arab cause. F

 Dr. Salem Hamid, Chairman of  Almzmah Center for Studies and Research,  praised  the courage and sacrifices of Ahwazi  revolutionaries ,  lauding their determination to endure and to preserve their Arab identity  , calling on Arab institutions and centers of learning to benefit from Ahwazis’ experience and deep  knowledge of  the Iranian Persian mentality  and the risks posed by the  Iranian  project in the Arab world.  

Dr. Abdul Mohsen Al Hilal, Professor of Economics at the University of Umm Al-Qura,  also praised the great military efforts of the  ASMLA for Arab rights.

A prominent Saudi media figure attending the conference, Riad Alodaan, that  while there is no such single group by nationality as ‘Iranians’,  there are several peoples whose lands are occupied and who are oppressed by  the Iranian regime,  who comprise the majority of the population in the geographical area covered by Iran, with those of Persian ethnicity making up a minority there.

Another distinguished speaker at the event,  the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Tunisian lawyer Abdul Sattar Ben Moussa, called for the Arab people of Ahwaz to be accorded the right of self-determination, while Omar Mejri,  the Secretary-General of the Tunisian Popular  Unionist Front party said that there can be no compromise  on the issue of Ahwaz nor any further withholding the rights of these oppressed peoples. The Tunisian Writers' Union also declared its solidarity with the Arab people of Ahwaz and the ASMLA specifically.  

Malik Al-Zorroghi, the representative of the General Union of Tunisian Students, declared the union’s solidarity with the people of Ahwaz, stressing, “We do not differentiate between the land of Palestine and the land of Ahwaz.”

Amongst other distinguished delegates and speakers attending the conference were:  Abdessalam Ould Horma, the president of the Mauritanian Sawab  Party;  Dr Didi Ould Salek, the Chairman of the Maghreb Center for Strategic Studies;  Adel Srouji the Deputy Chief Editor of Massai Al-Ahram, and Dr. Khalid Mosalemeh, a professor at the University of Bochum in Germany.

At the end of the conference, the participants issued a number of recommendations, were as follows:

• First, raise the issue of Ahwaz to the same level as other Arab issues, especially the Palestinian cause as a just cause affecting the conscience of the Arab nation and a key part of its national security.
• Second, work on the internationalization of the issue of Ahwaz, through political, human rights and media organisations.   
• Third, work to provide the necessary basis for the  formal announcement of the establishment of the provisional Ahwazi government-in-exile.  
• Fourth: Establish the right to self-determination of the Arab people of Ahwaz in the framework of international legitimacy.
• Fifth: Emphasize the need to introduce the subject of the Ahwazi Arab cause into the Arab educational curricula.
• Sixth:  Provide support to ensure the representation of the Ahwazi cause in  Arab  institutions, primarily the Arab  League  and  Arab parliaments, based on the same lines as the Bahraini parliament initiative.
• Seventh:  Form popular organizations in all the Arab countries to advocate effectively on the issue of Ahwaz.