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Kurds’ Autonomy Cries Rekindle Ethnic Flashpoint in Iran
Kurds' Autonomy Cries Rekindle Ethnic Flashpoint in Iran: Kurds' Autonomy Cries Rekindle Ethnic F...
By Jon ath an C. R.an dal. Wash i.n gton Post F orei.gn Servi.ce
The W ashington Post (1974 Currentfii ); Mar 2, 1979;
ProQu.est Histori.cal Newspapers: The Washin.gton Post (1. 877 1994)
pg A13
Kurds'
By Jonathan C. Randal
Washin L n Pcst Foreign Service
MAHABAD, Iran, March 1- The
single-story elementary school here
houses the nearest thing to sc1f gov-
ernment that Iran's traditionally na-
tionalistic Kurds have known for
more than 30 years. With the collapse
of the centralizing and ethnically re-
pressive Pahiavi rule, and with the
weak Tehran revolutionary govern-
rhent's writ far from universally re-
spected, the Kurds in western Iran
are pressing their claims for auton-
omy with new vigor.
“Democracy for Iran, autonomy for
Kurdistan” is their slogan, A federal
Iran is their professed goal. Threat of
armed secessionist uprising is their of-
ficially discouraged but nonetheless
real threat if negotiations with Teh-
ran fail,
However commonplace that combi-
nation may appear, in Middle East
terms it is a potential prescription for
long-term violence and fighting that
could tear apart Iran, Iraq, Turkey,
Pakistan and involve the Soviet Union
and perhaps the West. At stake are
not just the ethnically artificial bor-
ders of these states, but policy deci-
sions for the Soviets and the West if
fighting in Iranian Kurdistan kindled
wider violence.
When Shah Moham mad Reza Pah-
lavi was still in power, the Kurds'
separatist yearnings were a constant
nightmare. For Iran's minorities—
Arabs, Azerbaijanis, Turkomans and
Baluchis as well as the Kurds—proba-
bly come close to equaling the Per-
sian-speaking population of the
Iranian heartland.
Iran's Arabs wei-e the original i.nliab-
itants of Khuzestan, the center of the
oil industry bordering on Iraq and
long claimed by the Baghdad govern-
ment. Azerhaijanis, ethnic Turks in
northern Iran, also have grievances,
especially demands for cultural auton-
omy.
Iranian Baluchistan, in the south-
east, borders on a similarly named
province of Pakistan, where secession-
isis have long threatened the wobb.ly
central government of Mohammed Zia
u l-Haq.
The perhaps 16 million Kurds—
spread out in unequal, but descending
order in contiguous communities in
Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and the So-
viet Union—have a history of fighting,
-losing and fighting again for their
freedom, Iran's 2 million Kurcis are
no exception,
Thirty three years ago, this city of
60,000 Inhabitants was the capital of
the so-called Mahabad Republic, an
ill-fated, Soviet-backed seccessionist
state crushed by the young shah's
army after just 11 months.
Mulla Mustafa Barzãni, now over 80
and living in exile in the United
States, made his first major appear-
ance in that endeavor. The swash-
buckling Kurdish leader dominated
two more serious but eventually
disastrous secessionist efforts—guer-
rilla wars against Iraq's governments
from 1950 to 1965 and then again
f.rom 1970 to 1975.
But given Iran's troubles, almost as
inevitable as Kurdish men's baggy
trousers, the women's bright dresses
and the spectacular mountain scen-
ery has been the Kurds' inclination to
try their luck again.
Once again, Mahabad is the political
center of Iranian Kurdistan, the only
area in the country not controlled by
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's other
wise all-pervasive committees-
Except in the city of Kermanshah in
southern urdistan, Kurdish national-
ists are running their own show politi-
eallyThey have flexed their muscles
enough to: have taken over the local
brigade-sized army camp, threatened
three others nearer the Iraqi border
and effectively prevented the army
command from sending in reinforce-
m ents.
it was the takeover of the Mahabad
garrison early last week — and the
wounding of its commanding general,
I hsan Pezeshpour—that prompted
Khomeini and his government to dis-
patch Labor Minister Dariush Forou-
bar at the h . ad of.a mission to investi-
gate the situation.
The envoys were confronted with a
hastily chosen delegation representing
all Kurdish towns. It swore that separ
atism was taboo but noted that the
government mission had not been in-
vited into its territory.
Mostl.y members of the long-banned
Kurdisli Democratic Party, the nation-
alists presented Forouhar with an
eight-point programS that pledged sup-
port for Khomeini's revolution, but
otherwise was a list of demands in-
volving the Kurds' “basic rights,”
They demanded Kurdish “self-deter-
min tion within the framework” of
Iran, joint control of military installa-
tions in Kurdistan, a government boy-
cott of the remnants of Barzani's ill-
fated organization and sole represent-
ation in any negotiations for Sheik Ez-
zedine Hosseini,
It was Hosseini who negotiated with
the Forouhar mission that stayed here
two days early last week, ft listened,
pleaded that the government had
higher priorities, promised redress on
some points, but basically stalled.
The tougher demands—especially
self-determination—would be dis-
cussed, Forouhar has said, by the con-
sti.tuent assembly. That assembly,
which is to appi-ove a new constitm
tion, is not expected to meet for sev-
eral months,
The nationali ts are in a hurry to
extract maximum concessions now.
Hosseini, a clergyman of the Sunni
sect of Islam, which most Kurcis pro-
fess, said he hopes informal contacts
with Tehran will prove fruitful and 1-
low him to head a large delegation to
negotiate soon with the goveimment
or Khomeini himself.
“%%TC are not separatists,” the 57-
year-old bearded cleric said in his
school headquarters. “But the Balu-
chis, Arabs, Azerbaijanis and Kurcis
aIl want a certain autonomy,”
In .Kurdish nationalist terms a fed-
eration, possibly along /Vest German,
Swiss, Yugoslav or American lines,
See KiJR .DS, A14, Ccl. 2
By Dove Cook—The Washington Poob
Kurds' Autonomy Cries Rekindle Ethnic Flashpoint
KURDS, From A13
would empower the central govern-
ment to handle defense, banking, all
but lo.cal taxes and big economic proj-
ects. Local Kurdish authorities would
be responsible for schools, the now
suppressed teaching of the Kurdish
language and cultural life.
But as Abdul Rahman Ghassexnlou,
a leftist nationalist who has recently
returned from 20 years of exile in
Czechoslovakia and France, put it: “It
is important for us not only to have
Kurdish schools and economic devel-
opment, but most important, Kurdish
people must feel they govern them-
selves.”
Hosseini, however, expressed doubt
that the government would agree to
federate. -
Reflecting the nationalists' desire to
avoid being tarred with the separatist
brush, Hosseini, Ghasseinlou and
other officials denied contacts with
other minorities in Iran or with Kurds
in Iraq and Turkey.
Young Kurdish nationalists, how-
ever, openly offered to take visiting
newsmen across the snow-covered
Ghandil Mountains into nearby Iraq
to meet with leftist leader Jalal
Talabani, an Iraqi Kurd said to head
as many as 3,000 soldiers.
And Hosselni acknowledged, “We
support any revolutionary movement
in Kurdistan or anywhere else.” He
dismissed Iraq's program for cultural
autonomy for Kurds as ‘verbal prom-
ises.”
The Mahabad leadership is deter-
mined to flatter the Tehran govern-
ment into being generous and thus it
shies away from any open advocacy of
armed struggle. If the Tehran authori-
ties reject the Kurd's demands, 1-los-
semi said, “We will find some other
way to obtain our rights with the
other peoples of Iran.”
“As far as possible we will not take
up arms,” he said. “We will seek
peaceful means.”
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