The fight of the Kurdish people in Iran
Interview with Sheikh Ezzedin Husseni
The following interview was Gerry Foley in Paris on October 26 by Sheikh Ezzedin Husseini, a leader of the Kurdish people of Iran. The sheikh is a religious leader of the Sunni sect of Islam, the religion of the majority of the Iranian Kurds, and has been the symbol of naQuestion: Armed conflicts between the Kurdish organizations and the forces of the Khomeini regime have been going on since March 1979. What is the situation
Answer: The government launched a major new offensive against us this September, obviously aimed at occupying militarily all of the territory in which the Kurds are the majority.
They have been throwing everything at us, attacking the civilian population of our towns and villages. Nonetheless, the peshmergas (the nationalistic guerrillas, literally 'those who face death') have not on the defensive but have started counterattacks. And so in the last weeks, we have seen very large battles waged by the pesmergas against the force of the regime.
We do not deny that the governmental forces have captured some areast at the ally near the Iraqi border. same time, the peshmergas have inflicted heavy losses on them.
There has been fierce fighting near the towns of Mahabad, Sandandaj, Bowkan, and Divandareh. In each of these battles, the government forces have lost more
The peshmergas have captured major quantities of heavy armament and large amounts of ammunition.
October 26, we had information that a helicopter was shot down in the area of Divandareh, and that one tank was destroyed near the city of
Fortunately, the major Kurdish military forces, those of the Komala and the Kurdish Democratic Party, have signed a military cooperation pact. And, for the first time in our history, these two organizations now have a common general staff, which is based in the area between Piranshahr and Sardasht.
Q: In recent weeks, the Persian papers of Kurdish 'cleansed of counterrevolutionary filth.' That was the headline a few days ago in
Khomeini's paper 'Jumhuriye Eslami' that so many villages were 'purified from corruption. What does that mean in
A: It means that the forces of the regime surround a village, they enter, they gather all the people. They ask who has arms and say that anyone who has weapons must turn them in. If the arms are not handed over, they look in the
But in most cases, the young people the regime forces arrest some people, claiming that they are sympathizers of one or another organization. In some cases, they open fire on the people. And then they go back to the town where they are based and announce a 'purifica-
After some time, the peshmergas come back. There are some villages which have been 'purified' many times.
Q: Could you cite some examples?
A: This happens usually with the villages around the towns. I can give the names of some villages around Mahabad, such as Inderqash, and around Bowkan, such as Rahim Khan.
Q: Ever since August of 1979, the government has tried to maintain an economic blockage of the Kurdish villages and towns. What are the results of this?
A: The people are the peshmergas, and the peshmergas are the people. Because of this very close cooperation, we are able to survive the economic blockade, although it causes many problems.
The army and the pasdaran cannot control all the roads. The people manage to take things from the towns into the villages. And in the villages that are being subjected to the 'purification' campaign, the people live in a largely self-sufficient
Q: What about fuel? It gets bitterly cold in the Kurdish mountains.
A: Last year, we had a very hard winter, and that made it very difficult, especially for the peshmergas. But they were able to survive with the help of the we expect the Iranian government to apply an austerity policy throughout the country, and that will tighten the squeeze on us.
But what we need most is medicine, doctors, surgeons. There have been many cases when for lack of medicines and doctors, wounded peshmergas have been martyred for their people.
The issue in Kurdistan is very simple. There is a war going on. One side represents injustice, the other side represents
We ask all humanitarian individuals and organizations people in their just fight.
What is going on now in Kurdistan is a life or death struggle. The government has launched a very large offensive against us, and our people are fighting desperately to keep from being strangled, to be able to live in democracy.
We do not think that this government is an Islamic regime. Islam means mercy and good works, not massacring whole communities of innocent people. That is why we are against this regime. I am here in France to explain this to international public opinion. I will go back to Kurdistan shortly to work harder to consolidate the unity of the Kurdish people.
Q: What has been the position of the Kurdish organizations toward the Iran-
A: Our position was clear. We said that if the government accepted our national rights, if it gave autonomy to the Kurdish people, we were ready to defend the Iranian border, and the government could
I have said repeatedly that if they stop the war against us in Kurdistan and give us our rights, we will defend the Iranian border. But not only has the government not stopped the war against us, it has
Q: How did the Iraqui invasion change the conditions of your confrontation the Iranian forces in Kurdistan?
A: There is no relation between these two wars. Before the war with Iraq, the government was already fighting us, so it was not because of the Iraqi invasion that they have waged war on us. We are just continuing our fight to defend ourselves. So, in that sense nothing
Q: But what do you do concretely in an area such as Qasr Shirin, which is a Kurdish town, and was held by the Iraqis from early in the war until their withdrawal after the liberation of Khorram-
A: In that area, our forces were so weak, that when the Iraqis came in, we
Kurdish, their organization was city was not controlled by the govern-
But in the area of Marivan, on the other hand, where there has been fighting between Iran and Iraq, and where the Iranian forces have attacked Kurdish civilians, the Kurds fight back against the Iranian forces. But they do not hit the Khomeini forces on the front where they are fighting with the Iraqi army.
These are two separate wars; they have nothing to do with each other. There is a people fighting for their national rights, and then there is a war between two governments.
Q: What do you think about accepting military aid from the Iraqis, since, as you by the Iranian army?
JU VW the Iran-Iraq war itself?
A: We think that this war goes against the interests of both the Iranian and Iraqi peoples, and so we want to see it
Q: What role did the Khomeini-led forces play in the revolution in Kurdistan and in the organization of the masses fol-
A: In Kurdistan itself, they played little or no role, although the insurection in Teheran was the signal for the insurrections here, as in other areas of Iran.
Q: How did the revolution develop in Kurdistan, how was it organized?
A: It arose out of our own experience and the conclusions that the political elements drew from that.
Our struggle for our national rights is a very old one; in Iran it goes back at least a hundred years.
In the past our struggle was led by the local lords and religious leaders. But such leadership was never able to achieve any
During and after the second world war because of the weakness of the central government in Tehran, the rulers of the country were obliged to permit a measure of liberty and democracy in Kurdistan.
In this situation, the Kurdish people mobilized once national rights. In those years, an organization was created by the Kurdish intelsmall landowners in the rural areas and the town petty bourgeoisie.
Kurdish militants of the Komala group (DR). called the Komala i Jianaway Kurd, the Society for the Renaissance of the Kurds. It was founded in 1942. Three years later, in 1945, with a change in the program and in the leadership, this organization became the Kurdish Democratic
Phe martyre resent of the med
In 1946, the first autonomous Kurdish republic was declared in Mahabad. It was suppressed after only eleven months.
Under the shah's regime, there was another movement in 1967-68. It was an armed movement in the mountains of Kurdistan. But the shah's forces mounted massive attacks against it and crushed it.
It was a movement of the new intellectuals who were creating a new way in the national struggle. It was organized by
Komiteh Enqelabi Committee ) of the KDP. This did not represent all of the DKP, but included objective, which was shared by the forces coming from the KDP, was to create a
The struggle against the shah's regime in the last years was a continuation of this long struggle. That is why another color in Kurdistan. There was real democracy and liberty. While the revolution was led in other parts of the country by one person, in Kurdistan it was led by the city councils.
Of course, we had to fight to keep the reactionary elements from restrieting this sort of democratic organization. I opposed those who said that the religious people should dominate everything. I fought for freedom of speech for every-
I said that our problem was not that we did not have Islam. We had Islam. What we did not have was liberty, and the problem was to achieve that.
Q: What were these city councils you say organized the
A: When we reached the point where a ment's agents, we were obliged to create city councils to run the towns. In order to form these bodies, there was an election among the different categories of the people, the administrative staffs; the merchants; the workers; the peasants; the students; and, in some places, even the women.
Each of these categories had one repre. sentative. The councils included seven to eleven represenatives.
Q: How did you reach a point when the cities were no longer controlled by the government's agents?
A: In May or June 1978, the body of a veteran KDP leader, Aziz Yusafi, who spent 25 years in the shah's jails, was returned to Kurdistan. He was buried in Mahabad.
People came from all over Kurdistan to the funeral. I spoke, explaining that Aziz Yusafi was a martyr of the revolution, a martyr for his people and his country. This speech was distributed all over Kurdistan.
This began a series of mass demonsrations throughout Kurdistan. At a point two or three months before the shah's regime collapsed, it was no longer in control in Kurdistan. Then we could call people together in the big mosques and have them elect representatives to the city shoras.
Q: So, who controlled Kurdistan after the shah fell?
A: The cities were controlled by the masses of the people. At that time all the people participated in the revolution. Everyone came to me and asked what they could do for the revolution. The young men kept guard on all the important buildings, on the roads, especially during the night.
During the winter of 1978-79, we had a shortage of fuel for domestic use. At that time, the young people doled out what there was in the tanks. Every family got 30 liters, and the young men took it to the most remote places.
It was only after some time that the political organizations began to demonstrate their existence.
Q: But there must have been someone organizing all this.
A: It was the expolitical prisoners. There were so many Kurdish political prisoners under the shah. All of them were released this time.
In Mahabad, we were organizing the movement. But in the other towns, it was the revolutionary elements.
Q: Who is 'we"?
A: The city shora; I was chairman of it at the time.
There was very close coopartion among the cities at the time. This is something that did not exist outside of Kurdistan. To give you an example, in Bowkan when someone was shot by the government forces, I would go there, and people would come from all of the Kurdish cities. This transferred the experience of one town to the others. So, if a council was created in one city, it was imitated in
Q: Were there any organized forces in Kurdistan that followed the leadership of Khomeini in the period right before and after the revolution?
A: There were no mass organizations or political groups as such that followed Khomeini. There were some religious figures with a certain clientele who were attached to Khomeini. The most important of these was Ahmedi Muftizadeh, a Sunni clergyman in Sanandaj.
What were the reasons, in your opinion, that you found conflict with the Khomeini forces from almost the very beginning?
A: From the very beginning, we demanded autonomy. Since we did not want any fighting with the government we tried to talk to the new rulers of Iran to obtain our national rights.
tive peace following the overthrow of the shah?
A: The most important election was held in Sanandaj, just after the fighting in March. It was held on the insistence of Ayatollah Teleghani (the liberal ayatollah that the Mujahedeen of the People regard as their spiritual father; he led the team sent from Tehran to find a solution to the fighting in Sanandaj.). The fighting had developed as the result of conflict be tween the Muftizadeh faction and the Jamiat. The vote was to determine which group had the support of the people. The council elected represented the people of Sanandaj as a whole, with a majority of Jamiat representatives.
Q: What was the response of the Kurdish organizations to the government's offensive in the summer of 1979?
United Secretariat statement
The intellectuals were always travelling around between the various towns. They on Kurdish struggle had friends everywhere. The political elements had gotten to know one another in prison and in the underground.
Within a few days after the collapse of the shah's regime, associations had sprung up. They were called by such names as the Association for the Defense of the and Liberty, in Jamiate Defa az Azadi Along with this, the KDP built up branches. Of course, the associations were supported by the Komala.
Q: Was the KDP in these associations?
A: No. The Komala was the main political organization backing them, and they included other Kurdish nationalist groups outside of the KDP. tended to be the dominant groups in the south of Kurdistan - Sanandaj, Bowkan, and places like that. The KDP branches were dominant in the northern part of the Kurdish territory, such as Mahabad and further north. I am talking, of course, about the real Kurdistan and not Kurdistan province. Officially, Mahabad is in the province of West Azerbaijan.
Q: Where did the Komaleh come from?
A: These associations had different names in different towns. The one I mentioned was the one used in Sanandaj. In it was the Jamiate Rahe Rehaiye Zehmetkeshan (Association for the Liberation of the Toilers). In Saqqez, it was the Jamiate Defa az Zehmetkeshan va Halge Kord (Society for the Defense of the Toilers and of the Kurdish People. But one word was common everywhere. It was jamiat and the Kurdish translation tion of jamiat is komala. know, the Komala was an underground the time of the shah. Some of the leaders had relations with met them secretly, as I did the other active revolutionary elements.
On October 10, the United Secretariat of the Fourth International adopted the following resolution of support for the struggle of the Kurdish people:
Once again the Kurdish people are suffering the blows of savage repres-
In Turkey, the military regime is jailing and torturing hundreds
Kurdish activists, operations against villages, and sealing off the Kurdish areas from the rest of the world.
In Iraq, the Kurds are still being deprived of their most elementary demo-
So, in February 1979, a delegation from Tehran to Mahabad, and we proposed the Eight-Point Declaration of Mahabad, the seventh point of which was that any negotiations between the government and the Kurdish leaders should be presided over by me.
Then fighting broke out in Sanandaj in March, about the time of the Persian New Year (March 21). I proposed a second plan, also consisting of eight points, which also confirmed the eight in the Plan of Mahabad. It was trying to solve our problem politically.
After than I went to Tehran and to Qom. I saw the leaders of the government including Khomeini, but they would not agree to grant any sort of national rights to the Kurdish people.
Relations continued to deteriorate..
was the massacre of Naghadeh. Then the launching of a full scale offen-
August 19, 1979, Khomeini declared a Holy War against us. Ironically, this was the same date on the against Mossadegh, the 28 of Mordad.
Q: Wasn't there a major free election in Kurdistan in the brief weeks of relacratic rights.
In Iran, in recent months a massive offensive has been launched against the Kurdish fighters. It has already claimed thousands of victims, the great majority of whom are civilians.
The Fourth International supports the struggle of the Kurdish people for self-determination. It condemns all the forms of repression against the Kurdish people being practiced by the states in the region, and supports the campaign in defense of the basic democratic rights of the Kurdish
A: At the time, the people were not prepared for such a big war. So, at first they retreated. Then they started to attack the army bases and the pasdaran.
The pasdaran were not able to fight. At the same time, the government was weak, and we took advantage of the situation. At that time, in our declaration, we said that our movement had two arms. One was the armed peshergas in the mountains; the second was the masses of the people in the towns.
On the fete of Eide Kurban, Ist November 1979, I called on the people to demonstrate. Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in all the towns of Kurdistan. This shocked the government. In the town of Mahabad itself, three or four tanks were destroyed. Bowkan was recaptured after heavy fighting.
The government was forced to offer to negotiate with us, but then it tried a divisive maneuvre. It wanted to negotiate with one party only. But everywhere the representatives went, the people shouted: "You have to talk to all of our leaders, who are in the mountains." And so the Kurdish representative delegation was created. I headed it. It inthe Komala, the KDP, and the People's Fedayan.
Peshmergas — Kurdish guerrilla fighters (DR).
Q: The occupation of the American
Q: was the occupation of the US
So, in order to achieve a democratic Iran in which all Iranians can live in peace, we need to cooperate with all the Iranian forces.
We have three principles, which you could consider a platform to gather those who are prepared to do something.
The first is overthrowing the present regime.
The second is establishing a democratie regime, a democratic republic of Iran.
The third is the acceptance of the right of the Kurdish people to autonomy.
We are ready to collaborate with all those oppositional forces that accept these three points, regardless of their ideology.
Q: What is your attitude to the National Resistance Council?
A: We have some points of agreement, and we have some differences, which do embassy in Tehran by the Students Who embassy an important factor in the not prevent us from collaborating with Follow the Imam's Line came roughly in this period, shortly after the defeat of the launch the second war against the Kurds? the National Resistance Council. Khomeini forces in the first Kurdish war. What was your attitude to it?
A: We regarded it as a theatrical stunt, Q: What was the character of the council?
no positive political whatsoever. It was staged as a means of stabilizing Khomeini's regime by giving the people a meaningless safety valve for their feelings.
It was a diversion, and we said so at
Weren't there some statements from forces in the United Front of Kurdistan that expressed support for the sentiments expressed in the mobilizations around the occupation, if not the motives
A: No. We considered it purely a diversion. At that time, the government was very weak, and if they proposed negotiations, it was because of this weakness. That is why there was only 45 minutes of official negotiations - just time enough to present each person in our delegation..
They stopped the negotiations offi cially. But then they started going round to the various leaders individually, to me and to the KDP for example.
We knew in that period that they were trying to gain time to rebuild their forces, to prepare for another attack. It came five months later, on April 19, 1980.
Q: How do you think that they were able to strengthen themselves sufficiently to launch a second and much larger operation against Kurdistan?
A: For one thing, the Bazargan government had fallen. Even now when they condemn the Bazargan government, one of the proofs of its rottenness they also cite is that it negotiated with the Kurds.
They had time to carry out their operation to set up their Assembly of Experts. Then they held presidential elections, in which Bani Sadr was elected. So, they had a recognized governmental structure, and they were ready to start up government getting into position to
A: Yes, it was. second offensive?
A: It was a very large-scale operation. This time the army was very active, along with the Pasdaran. They systematically bombarded the towns. Sanandaj was bombarded for 24 days. Of course, there was big popular resistance there. But even in Mahabad, where the people were not prepared to stage major resistance, the town was bombarded by cannon and mortars.
This time, the attacks were directed at whole populations, including women, and not just at armed peshmergas. There were even cases where they executed doctors and nurses, who had only been wounded people, wounded pasdaran and soldiers.
Some towns, such as Baneh, were virtually levelled.
Q: On what political program are you fighting now?
A: What we ask for is self-determination for the Kurdish people. For us, that means autonomy. We do not ask for separation because we do not think that separating from Iran is in our interest.
Q: Whydo you want to remain part of a country whose government has waged atrocious war against you for two and a
A: If we can achieve a democratic and independent Iran, that will mean that we will be able to benefit from all the resources of Iran, along with the other peoples of Iran. We will be able to live together with them for our mutual benefit if we are regarded as a nation.
Q: How do you propose to get that
A: To achieve our national rights, we need the support of all progressive Iranian forces. We cannot, by ourselves, topple some of the elements that participate in
Q: But that doesn't mean joining the
A; No. One difference I have with the National Resistance Council is on nomy for Kurdistan. The statements it has made on this question are very vague. They can be interpreted any way you
Q: Would the fact that one of the Council is Bani Sadr, who commanded a phase of the war against the Kurdish people, justify your taking a stand-offish position toward it?
A: Yes, I have said this before.
Q: There are a number of peoples in the world who know what it is to be left to fight almost alone against a powerful and cruel oppressor. That is true in the British occupied areas of Ireland for example, where during the second Kurdish war ten of the Irish equivalent of the peshmergas had to starve themselves to death one after the other to draw the attention of the world to the massive repression that exists in Northern Ireland, Do you feel an identity with the struggles of such peoples?
A: We followed the events in Ireland closely and our hearts were with the Irish
I think that there are points of convergence between the struggles of all oppressed peoples who are fighting for their national rights, especially when they have reached a decisive stage of their revolu-
The Kurdish people are the real friends of the Irish people, not the Khomeini regime, although it claims in words to be their friend. It is impossible for a regime to oppress its own people, and at the same time to sincerely defend the rights of other peoples. That lesson has been deeply impressed on the minds of the Kurdish people by our difficult struggles and our suffering.