Kurds pull back from armed conflict in Iran, but tension remains

          
          A M ICHAEL K. BURNS
          Sun Staff Conespondena
          Marivan. Iran—The order for Kurdish
          militiamen to witbdra this eerIe
          ghost town in northwes came before
          sunrise yesterday as the irregulars in their
          traditional turbans and baggy trousers
          loaded ammunition and grenades into ve-
          hicles and pulled out after 12 days of hold-
          ing the city against central government
          forces.
          Dogs barked and sheep bleated in the
          moonlight as the Pesh Max-ga (Cominited
          to Death) forces with their vintage assort-
          ment of Soviet. Israeli and U.S. rifles
          scrambled through this city 12 miles from
          the Iraq border.
          The sudden mo e came alter women,
          children and other noncombatants evacu-
          ated Marivan last week in expectation of a
          pitched battle with government forces;
          Max-ivan is the latest flashpoint in the
          showdown between the Kurdish autonomy
          movement and the Tehran government.
          Though his several hundred men had
          vowed to hold t to the death, the
          young, bearded commander said
          that the pullout ould avoid bloodshed
          and destruction and provide a chance for a
          peaceful settlement.
          The government troops had just
          released 16 hostages grabbed 10 days ngu
          but refused to meet Kurdish demands that
          the Tehran-commanded Revolutionary
          Guards be relieved of security duties in
          the city. Eleven persons were killed and
          30 inj o weeks ago in clashes be-
          tween K protesters demonstrating
          against distorted radio-television report-
          ing of the events here and against these
          Revolutionary Guards.
          The hostilities led to the Kurdish take-
          over and evacuation of noncombatants as
          the Army troops assembled in a post just
          over the bill from Marivan.
          Meanwhile, several thousand persons
          marching from Sanandaj to Marivan in
          support of Kurdish demands for autonomy
          ended their fifth day with plans to con-
          tinue to the hillside camp where women,
          children and the Kurdish militia were
          staying outside Max-ivan. March organIz-
          ers said the demonstrators would march
          into Iraq if the government did not yield
          by tomorrow.
          The marchers appeared in good spirits
          as they set out yesterday morning from
          their overnight camp site along a stream
          surrounded by barren brown hila, just 16
          miles east of Marivan.
          Sunstroke in 130-degree heat. feet blis-
          ters and stomach problems forced a num-
          ber to retire from the billy, unshaded
          route over 94 miles of stony washboard
          road.
          About 60 ,000 persons had started from
          Sanandaj, capital of Kurdestan province.
          but most soon turned back after a few
          miles. Other Kurdish villagers along the
          well-planned journey provided food and
          water as well as new marchers, lining the
          roadside to cheer the travellers and to toss
          candies to them.
          The Kurdish protest symbolized by
          Max-ivan and by the march is aimed at se-
          curing sell-rule for the four million Kurds
          in northwestern denying central Is-
          lamic rule in the and objecting to
          what they call biased reports against
          Kurds in government media.
          On a dusty hillside along the route or-
          ganizers explained their purposes. They
          blamed the Tehran government, and the
          Islamic leadership in Qom, for sending in
          Revolutionary Guards to terrorize Marl-
          van and to enforce rule by feudal land-
          lords over Kurdish peasants.
          The Tehran government has also em-
          ployed remnants of the old Iraqi Kurdish
          separatists of the late Musta.fa Barzani to
          put down Iranian Kurdish autonomists,
          they claim. Mr. Barzani's two sons have
          been paid to lead these forces, with a
          camp at Dezly, just inside the Iraq border,
          and a liaison office in a palace near
          Tebran built by the shah for the older TsIr.
          Barzani, the march spokesman said.
          The shah backed Mr. Barsani in his
          feud against Iraq until 1975.
          “These people may call themselves
          Kurds but they are not Iranian Kurds, they
          are not our people but are fighting against
          our people,” the young org j Ira-
          nianKurdswantselfrulein tinde-
          pendence or union with the ci million
          kurds in neighboring countries, the march-
          ers emphasized.
          “We are not separatists and we are not
          Communists,” said Mubeb Balban. who
          studied computer science at the Univer-
          sity of Maryland five years ago.
          Like a number of the march officials,
          he was armed for potential troubles with a
          small-caliber automatic strapped over his
          black and white laced sash.
          Communist is a commo ciation
          exchanged by opponents in - But the
          rhetoric of some marchers was spiced
          with such telling phrases as “class strug-
          gle:' forces that are “progressive and
          anti-bourgeois,” and so on. A banner
          erected over the route proclaimed the
          soviet of the farmers as the route to mc-
          cess.
          Most of the marchers were young pee-
          pie, many of them reportedly students and
          civil servants, rather than the peasant
          farmers who watched them as they har-
          vested their wheat crops with hand
          scythes or tended their sheep flocks.
          The march was organized by the Soci-
          ety for the Defense of Freedom and Revo-
          lution.
          The improvement of these peasant
          farmers' lot necessarily involves a strug-
          gle with the feudal landlords, who ironi-
          cally profited most from the sbah's land
          redistribution program, Mr. Balban ex-
          plained. “There is a socialistic aim,” you
          could say, he added.
          But the struggle in Iran's Kurdestan—
          an area 100 by 400 miles—is as much over
          recognition of national identity and cul-
          tural difference as over economic -
          lion. Other national groups in
          Arabs, Azarbaijanis, Baluchis and Turko-
          mans—have taken advantage of a weak
          revolutionary government in Tehran to
          agitate for regional autonomy. The gov-
          ernment and Ayatollah Ruhollab
          Khomeini have promised recognition of
          the ethnic groups but have failed to
          deliver in the recently published draft
          constitution for the Islamic republic.
          Though they are among the poorest of
          Iranians in th mountainous northwest-
          ern corner of the Kurt supported
          the shah, who deftly let them run their
          own affairs while he financed Mr. Barza-
          ni's separatist campaign in Iraq. Forgot-
          ten was the Soviet-backed Federated Re-
          public of Kurdestan that lasted less than a
          yeas- until 1947, when the shah recovered
          the territory with western assistance.
          Since the Islamic republic of Ayatollah
          Khomeini came into being this spring,
          stressing Persian nationalism and Shia
          Muslim orthodoxy, the Kurt have re-
          belled. Their Sunni Muslim religion is less
          strict—one source of current friction is
          the open sale of forbidden liquor smuggled
          in from Iraq on the streets of Kurdish
          cities.
          The resentment of the Islamic Revolu-
          tionary Guards is also keen. Kurds want
          sell-rule in their territory and use of their
          language in schools and local government,
          which is not a tall order because of Its
          great similarity to Persian.
          Sensitivity to distorted reporting of
          their goals led to the violence and confron-
          tation in Marivan. Kurt and government
          troops battled each other in Sanandaj in
          March after a dispute about grain deliv-
          eries. Dozens were killed a month ago in
          Naghadeh when Revolutionary Guards
          broke up a Kurdish autonomy meeting.
          The Kurds then left the town and have not
          returned.
          Similarly, the Kurt abandoned Marl-
          van to prevent destruction of the city. Ma-
          chine gun and rocket attacks by,g ern-
          ment forces had killed one It*1S and
          wounded several others oveCthe past
          week, city defenders said.
          Army tanks sent toward Marivan were
          reported still stalled miles away yester-
          day as Kurds continued to lie in the roads
          to stop their advance. With the pullout by
          Kurdish militia forces the armor is un-
          likely to be needed but road scrapers were
          busy levelling the gravel track toward the
          city, a sign that tanks could be soon rolling
          in that direction.
          Kurds pull back from armed conflict in Iran, but tension remains
          Bums, Michael K
          The Sun (183 7-1985); Aug 1, 1979; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Baltimore Sun, The (1837-1986)
          pg. A4
          Kurds pull hack from armed conflict in Iranj hut tension remains
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