Aadel Collection
Troubles Erupt in Iran's Border Areas
Troubles Erupt in Iran's Border Areas: Disorders in Border Regions Challenge Iran's New Rulers By Ronald Koven Washington Post Foreign Service The Washington Post (J974 Currentfi1e,p Mai 20 1979' PioQuest Historical Newspapeis. The Washington Post (1877 1994) pg. Al Troubles Erupt in Iran ‘s BoMër Areas By Ronald Koven Wa hthRto Post Poreim Servi TERRAN, March 19—Major diffi cu ties have erupted for the Iranian revolutionary government in eastern and western frontier regions. The troubles underscored the disor gani at ion- of the monthialth ;Isl imc r'evolutidn an'd the extent to which the central government .risks los ug con trol in various sepãthtist-inehned re glens, In the we t, up o 150 persons were reported killed in fighting between Kurds and the military, In the east, Iran closed the border with Afghani stan in a dispute over the movement of refugees and armed tribesmen across the frontier With a national referendum sehe& uled for March 30 on the establish m nt of an Islamic republic, the coun try's many regional ethnic groups have maximum leverage now to get pledges of strong autonomy from Teh Turkomans, Azerbaijanis and the Arabs of the,southwest could be tempt ed to vote “no ” in the referendum Foi this and other reasons, not least the apparently complete lack of lo”is tical preparation for the vote, there is widespread speculation that the refer endum may be postponed In the west, there was heavy fight lug in on of the ain Kurdish towns 8 n ' “ ‘ ‘ — bet* en abtonorpist anthaJaca1 mi l i tary gai rison7. The figlitiñg, which the i e wbh, a nu b eE. of ,casua1ties, ' al? parently ended er more , than ‘24 hours ith bffiCial cease4iré fol lowing the p r o naY intervCntion of revolut onary leader Ayatollah ‘RuhoI in the east Iraui 'closed jts borders with Afghamstan ' to pre ant an influx of refugees, only to be accUsed by the pro Soviet government in Kabul of do lag so to cover up for the infilfratiqn 01 4,000 Iranian trbbps withuni a group of 7 ,000'refugees turned back at the border by the Afghans Informed sources dismissed the idea that t1ze demoraIize Iraniali. Army could . mount such an operation ;but tt noted th t heavily arthed tllaluchi trth s ih .have been taking a ivantage of t ie anarchy in the region to in±ii trate from Iran into Afghanistan to help fellow tribesmen in revolt against Kabul, The re ugees , turned aek byjra i. were prestiniably fleeing fighting be tween Afghan forces and Shinte Mos lems in. Afghanistan, who are coreh- gionists of the majority of iranians led by Ith '6 meinn The accusations by t e Afghan gov ernm nt ere, backed np by an edito nat in the Soviet Chr iñuiii t ‘Party S d IRAN; A12CoI, 1 Reproduced w th perm ss on of the copynght owner Further reproduct on prohth ted w thout perm ss on
B rd;:er Regions ChaIIeiige iran s New Rulers IRAN, From Al n*spaper Pravda warning Iran to k p hands off Afghaiiistan. Iran ian government denied for. th second day in a row that it has desire to mix in Afghan affairs.' Tehran governin exit apparently fe1b the need to réiteràte its denial be- c e of a strong statement by one of tfieileading figures in the Iranian rev- o ion, Ayatollah Kazeni Shariatina- där of Qoin, áccusilg the' Afghans of ma8s acring thousa d of Shiites in- cl ing .17O religious figures. He OaJJ d on Moslems throughout the ‘c 1d to rally to the cause of the Af- gI an Shiites. Shar1atmadarI- is senior to Kiio- x i,ni in protocol, and his statement was widely seen as a bid to reassert h .. standing as leader of the Iral1ian Shijtès. eports 1rom Kurdisthn in the west sketchy, buC the Tehran govern- x ent's strong reaction made it clear that it was taking very seriously the s tuation in the region, which has a 1 ' istory of separatism. The troubles appeared to be largely confined to Sanandaj one of the 1 ger Kurdish towns near the border with Iraq, which also has a large re- b 11ious Kurdish minority. Kurds ap- parently loyal to the most separatist- ii c1ined of the major political tribes iñ' Iranian Kurdistan took over a p0- 1i e barracks, the police headquarters and the radio station before surround- ijig the military garrison and kidnap- ii its com mander. Reports of deaths in the fighting ra ged from 4 to- 150. This followed e en sketchier reports of fighting in another, smaller Kurdish locality, orveh, near the large center of Ha- madan, with numerous deaths and w unded. Reports of that fighting were backed up by a British doctor, who runs a hospital there, who said his staff had treated a large number of wounded. It seems established that the fight- ing in Sanandaj started after both the local Revolutionary Committee and the military refused requests to dis- tribute arms and ammunition to the local Kurds to defend themselves against the large Iranian minority in the town. The Iranians were report- edly heavily armed by the Revolution- ary Committee, led by local Ir inian religious leaders. More fundamentally, however, there seems to have been growing unrest in the region since Khomeini issued a statement dubbing a moderate Kurd- ish leader, Ahmad Moftizadeh, as the “Kurds' sole religious and. political leader.” This was an obvious attempt to un- dercut the much stronger autonomy demands voiced in Kurdistan by a leading religious figure, Sheik Sayed Ezze din Husseini, elected after the Is- lamic revolution by kft.of.center Kurds as the spokesman for their de- mands. The 1oca1i ed nature of the fighting seemed to be confirmed by a broad- cast statement bY a leading Icjiidish leftist that the other Kurdish towns are quiet. Sanandaj has a population of 80,000 and none of the other Ira- nian Kurdish towns is much larger. The Kurdish population of Iran is es- tiniated.at 1.5 million to 2 million, out of a national total of about 34 nuUion The Tehran government was clearly worried that the troubles could spread to all of Kurdistan. The government announced that it was rushing revolu- tionary militia to Sanandaj to enforce the cease-fire that was to have gone into effect at 6 p.m.. local time. It'w s not specified e, act1y what was meant by revolutionary militia. The regular army is clearly in no condition to re- inforce its local garrison in a remote area. Mifitary garrisons in other remote regions where the troops are over- wlielmingly Iranians stationed among other ethnic groups are thought to be among the few army units to have remained intact since the revolution. Shllte MQslem leader Khomeini ap- pealed today to the Kurds, who are Sijnni Moslems, as “being part of the same nation and the same Koran,” the Moslem holy book. “We do not have any differences with our Sunni brothers,” Khomeini said. He decried any attacks on the police or the army, wflich, lie said, has “returned to the people.” Gen. Mohammed Vali Qarani, the new armed forces chief of staff, called. the Sanandaj rebels “counterrevolu ,- tionaries” who will be “severely pun- ished.' By. Dave Cook—The Washington Post Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.