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.
