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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.
        

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