Aadel Collection
Iran's Kurds: Autonomy or Else
THE ECONOMIST APRIL 28, 1979
69
THE WORLD International
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Iran's Kurds: autonomy or else
4:
FROM OUR TEHERAN CORRESPONDENT
/
A Kurd in Iran has been, since time
immemorial, a second class citizen: a
ridiculed, ill-educated figure in baggy
pants, with a pistol in his cummerbund,
as likely as not employed on a building
site in Teheran and all but ignored by the
central government.
Little has changed with the revolution.
If anything, the arrogance of the Shia
Moslem leadership towards this largely
Sunni minority is resented even more
than the tight-reined neglect of the Shah.
Despite some 500 dead in last month's
clashes in Sanandaj and at least 200
more in and around the town of Naqa-
deh over the past week, it is a remark-
able fact that neither Mr Bazargan's gov-
ernme t nor the Islamic Revolutionary
Council is yet giying serious thought to
the question of regional autonomy for
Iran's 3 m Kurds.
The government's contrasting reaction
to Arab demands is instructive. At the
height of the latest flare-up in Kurdistan,
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the religious leader of the small Arab
community in the south-west threatened
to leave Iran if Arab demands for equal
rights were not met. Both Ayatollah
Khomeini and Ayatollah Taleghani
immediately sent reassuring messages.
Teheran seems to have a mental blank
when it comes to rethinking old attitudes
towards the Kurds. But if it is confirmed
that the assassination on April 22nd of
the republic's first armed forces' chief,
General Qarani, was the work of militant
Kurds, the Kurdish question will take on
a new dimension. Leaflets have claimed
that the Kurds killed Qarani to punish the
army for its heavy-handed repression of
the Sanandaj trouble.
The effect of the latest fighting will be
to harden attitudes on both sides. It
should also strengthen support for the
Kurdistan Democratic party, the longest
established and best organised political
group in the region. The KDP, led by an
intellectual socialist, Abdurrahman Qas-
Copyright 1979, The Economist Newspaper Limited
News
semlou, has come out into the open after
a 30-year ban under the Shah, and is now
busy recruiting and, strengthening its
position.
Its main rivals are the supporters in
Iran of the late Iraqi Kurdish leader,
Mullah Mustapha Barzani. These mostly
conservative, rural and tribal groups in-
clude followers of the moderate Sunni
leader from Sanandaj, Ahmad Muftiza-
deh, and the less numerous Shia Kurds
from farther south. Left-wing guerrilla
groups, the Fedayin and the Mujahaddin,
have their adherents among urban Kur-
dish youngsters but they count for little in
Kurdish politics.
The Kurdish Democratic party is both
a political and military organisation.
When its meeting in Naqadeh on April
20th was attacked by Turkish-speakers
(who share the region with the Kurds), it
was quickly able to round up thousands
of armed supporters. What began as an
urban battle rapidly developed into sev-
eral days' communal strife, in which vil-
lages were burnt and atrocities commit-
ted on both sides. Attempts to impose a
ceasefire succeeded only when the army
was sent in against the Kurds, who then
withdrew back into their heartland to
nurse their wounds. On Wednesday, the
KDP claimed that the army was ignoring
the ceasefire agreement and that tanks
and helicopters had again attacked Kur-
dish villages. The party put the number of
Kurdish dead over the past six days at
500.
The fighting will have hardened the
resolve of all Kurds to capitalise on their
exclusive control of the guns and the
municipal councils in the regions where
they are in the majority. In the aftermath
of the February revolution, the Kurdish
Democrats demanded self-rule as the
price for their support for the anti-Shah
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Don't laugh at us
Document Reference: ECON-1 979-0428 Date: 28-04-1979
(Page 1 of 2).
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INTERNATIONAL
THE ECONOMIST APRIL2n, 1979
movement. They were prepared then to
be flexible and to trust in the good faith
of the provisional government. Much of
that trust has n w been dissipated.
Today their minimum demands are a
geographically defined Kurdish region,
embracing much of the western border-
land, taking in the present provinces of
11am, Kermanshahan, Kordestan and
parts of Lorestan and eastern Azerbai-
jan; a popularly elected regional assem-
bly; and some voice in the composition of
the military units stationed in their region
along the sensitive Iraqi border.
Kurdish leaders recognise that what is
granted to them will also have to be
offered to the Turkomans in the north-
east, the Baluchis in the south-east, the
Arabs in the south-west and, probably
(the biggest and administratively most
difficult group of all) the urn Turkish-
speaking Azerbaijanis of the north-west.
Still, the Kurdish leaders insist, there is
no other way to preserve the Iranian
patchwork as a single piece.
The government's first response was to
promote Ahmad Muftizadeh as the “sin-
gle recognised leader” of the Kurds,
rather than the more radical and more
representative Sheikh Ezzedin Hosseini
of Mahabad. Then, after the Sanandaj
riots it promised to set up local councils
and to consider wider constitutional is-
sues in the, now indefinitely postponed,
constituent assembly.
For years the Shah played on the
argument that it was the monarchy alone
which could transcend Iran's all too obvi-
ous differences. Buttressed by rigid cen-
tral control and a basic antipathy to
decentralisation, the country was held
together by force, not consent. Anything
that replaced such a system would, in the
short term, have to face powerful centri-
fugal tendencies. The spring is now un-
coiling fast.
The Kurds' dilemma is that, unlike the
Azerbaijanis, they have up to now had
very little political weight in Teheran.
Muzzled by Savak, the Shah's secret
police, and deprived of their guns, they
were unable even to use their strategic
location as leverage for better treatment.
Those few Kurds who have achieved high
political office had long before lost their
tribal ties. Teheran governments have
always found it easy to play on internal
divisions among the Kurds in Iran and
also in the wider pan-Kurdish movement.
involving 12m people in Iran, Iraq and
Turkey. Unless a more enlightened ap-
proach is adopted in Teheran, the pros-
pect is for ever more bitter outbreaks of
violence. It may take a joining of forces
by the Kurds of Iraq and Turkey before
the government of Iran begins to treat the
Kurdish issue as a political not a military
problem.
Rhodesia
Bishop sweeps
board
FROM OUR SALISBURY CORRESPONDENT
Rhodesia's black electors left no doubt
about who it was they wanted as head of
Zimbabwe-Rhodesia's first black-led
government. They gave Bishop Abel Mu-
zorewas party, the United African Nat-
ional Council, 1.2m votes, 67% of those
cast. This gives the UANC 51 of the 72
black seats in the 100-seat assembly, a
slender overall majority.
In the cabinet, however, Bishop Mu-
zorewa will command a majority only if
he, as prime minister, is allowed a casting
vote. Under the coalition agreement
signed last year, each party winning five
or more seats in the assembly is to get
cabinet posts in proportion to its assem-
bly seats. So the bishop's party will have
10 posts, Mr Ian Smith's white Rhodesian
Front six, and Mr Sithole's Zanu and
Chief Ndiweni's United National Federal
party two each. Chief Chirau's party
failed to win a single assembly seat.
The UANC swept the board in the
urban and rural constituencies in
Mashonaland, where it got 80% of the
votes. In Matabeleland it was pushed into
second place by Chief Ndiweni's party.
The chief, a Ndebele, apparently attract-
ed support there as a surrogate for the
popular Ndebele leader, Mr Joshua
Nkomo. He also got votes from the
whites and tribal minorities who support
his party's idea of a federal system that
would avert Shona domination. But there
was a low turnout in that region, 97ith
only 45% of the electorate voting and, in
one province, nearly 10% of the ballots
being spoiled.
There were also relatively low turnouts
in Manicaland, the Midlands and Vic-
toria, where the Patriotic Front guerrillas
were more successful than in Mashona.
land in keeping voters away from the
poll. The average turnout in these three
provinces was 47%, but the bishop came
out on top in each. An analysis of the
voting by regions shows that his UANC
won twice as many votes in MashOnaland
as it did outside it, partly because of tribal
loyalties but also because guerrilla mimi.
dation was more effective outside Ma.
shonaland and the largest urban areas.
Bishop Muzorewa will not be sworn in
as prime minister until the endof May,as
the electoral process goes on until May23
when the 30 senators are to be elected: 10
black chiefs by the council of chiefs, 10
whites by the 28 white MPs and 10 blacks
by the 72 black MPs. The bishop would
not be drawn this week on the size of his
cabinet or on what post he will offer to
the present prime minister, Mr Ian
Smith. Putting Mr Smith into a sensitive
slot such as defence (known as combined
operations) or law and order would not
enhance the prospects of recognition by
foreign governments, but Mr Smith, who
remains unrepentantly proud of his past
record, will certainly bargain hard for a
powerful cabinet job.
The future of Mr Sithole also promises
to cast a shadow. Last week he had
praised the poll, but this week he claimed
that there had been “gross irregulari-
ties”. He alleged that officials had “stage-
managed” the election to the advantage
Copyright 1979, The Economist Newspaper Limited
