On April 4, 2025, the National Conference for Resistance of Iran (NCRI) U.S. office in Washington, D.C., hosted a vibrant Nowruz celebration, marking the Persian New Year with a gathering of distinguished guests, Iranian-Americans, and bipartisan American dignitaries. The event underscored the NCRI’s ongoing efforts to promote freedom, democracy, and human rights in Iran, as highlighted in a speech by a representative of the NCRI U.S. office. The celebration reflected hope and solidarity, with warm wishes for joy, hope, and prosperity extended to the people of Iran and advocates of democracy in the U.S., emphasizing the shared vision for a free and democratic Iran.
Remarks by Col. Wesley Martin
Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the opportunity to speak here tonight.
And it is bipartisan. To give you an example, I remember one time when the residents were at Camp Liberty and I was asked in one of our conference calls if there is water available near where the residents live. I said there is, because I used to live on Camp Liberty. I said the channels coming up from the Al-Faw Palace Lake, but those channels look like a Louisiana swamp. And Rudy speaks up and he mentions the East River. And then he and Bob Terruselli get into a debate as which is more polluted, the East River or the Jersey Shore.
And one other thing, people mention Rudy, his hero, as mayor of New York City. Rudy, you were my hero before you became mayor of New York City. You took down the mob. And as a law enforcement officer, when you’ve got a prosecutor willing to take on the legacy of Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese and Maya Lansky, you were my hero way back then, Rudy.
People often ask me why I’ve been so involved with the NCRI, the MEK, and the former National Liberation Army. There’s a couple of reasons. One, I lived with them, as did Tom Cantwell. And we got to know them, and I made a promise that I would fight for them, and fight for their lives, and fight for their future.
And you make a promise in combat, that promise is in concrete. It’s not locked in jello, it’s locked in concrete.
There’s another reason. I’ve got 608 vendettas to settle with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, because in 2019, the Department of Defense released the report. That is the number of American soldiers that were killed directly attributed to the IRGC. As a former anti-terrorism officer for all coalition forces in Iraq, I have 608 scores to settle.
I also have another 50 scores to settle from the September 1, 2013 massacre at Camp Ashraf. Hussein Modani, Commander Zohreh, they were my personal friends, and also the seven kidnapped.
And I also have the score of 141 that were killed in a combination of Ashraf and the rocket attacks, the ground assaults and everything else. The puppet regime of Nouri al-Maliki was exercising against the residents.
The real heroes to me, the ones I dealt with personally were the residents of Camp Ashraf. I worked with them daily. I saw them in what they did on the desert of Diyala province. They took a strip of desert and they turned it into a beautiful city. They showed what could happen in all of Iran with that kind of determination, that kind of leadership, that kind of dedication to democracy.
Then, broken promises from US State Department. They were consolidated. They were sent to Camp Liberty. Rudy, you used to call it a concentration camp. I used to call it an extermination camp in waiting. And unfortunately, it was becoming an extermination camp in waiting.
Unfortunately, Jonathan Wyner departed before I could see him. He was another hero. He was the one who worked out the arrangements, that we could get him out. And we did. And it was interesting. We knew the regime, through the Nuri el-Maliki government, was going to try to arrest the last group of people going out on the last plane. In working with the Paris leadership of NCRI, we developed a scheme. We started sending messages back and forth. We started talking on the phone about the last plane coming out in October. We wanted– it was military deception at its finest. We set it up so that we would be intercepted and the regime would get ready to jump on that last group.
Except what Jonathan Wynne worked out is the last plane wasn’t the last plane. Two planes came in, grabbed all the residents, and they were at the Baghdad International Airport under American military security before even Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi government found out what was going on. They just quickly cleaned out the camp. And then once those planes were in the air, then we came out and we announced that they’re safe.
Anybody seen pictures of Ashraf-33 outside Toronto? Out of the desert, correction, out of the hills in the Balkans, there is now a beautiful city, state of the art everything. And again, that is an example of what awaits all of Iran. Once they throw out the fundamentalists have terrorized that country ever since 1979.
Now, there’s one thing I would like to call on. First, I would like to recognize President Trump for taking out Qasem Soleimani. That was a good day’s work.
Now, I call on President Trump to support the Iranian people in their taking out the entire Iranian government.
Thank you