Ekrem Cemilpasha

Ekrem Cemilpascha (back right), with Kadri Cemilpascha, Mükslü Hamza, Haco Agha (front)

Ekrem Cemilpaşa or Ekrem Cemil Paşa (Burc) or Cemilpaşazade Ekrem (اکرم جهمیل پاشا, Ekrem Cemîl Paşa; * February 22, 1891 in Diyarbakır ; † December 31, 1974 in Damascus ) was a Kurdish politician and officer.

He was born in 1891 as the son of Cemil Paşazade Kasım Bey, who was one of the more important families in Diyarbekir, and the Circassian Hayriye Hanım. He received his primary school lessons at home and in 1901 began the military school in Diyarbekir (tr: Askerî Rüştiyesi), which he graduated in 1908.

Kurt Talebe Hêvî Cemiyeti

He was sent to Istanbul to go to high school and graduated from the Istanbul Sultanisi in 1912. In the same year he became a member of the first legal Kurdish student association of the Kürt Talebe Hêvî Cemiyeti. In his memoirs he wrote that the Hêvî had 200 members within a short period of time. The association published the magazine Hetaw Kurd (German: Sun of the Kurds). During his stay abroad, he and other branches of the Hêvî founded in Lausanne , Geneva and Munich .

Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti

His family sent him to Lausanne to study mathematics, from where he went to Geneva in Belgium after a year. But with the outbreak of World War I , like all Ottoman students, he had to return to Istanbul. As a gunner he fought at Çanakkale and was sent to the Caucasus Front, where he was injured.

After his treatment he served in Diyarbakir as Adjutant Mustafa Kemal and as deputy commander of the second Ottoman army. He was later sent to the Palestine Front. When his unit was destroyed in the battle of Palestine , he returned to Diyarbakir via Aleppo and Mardin . In 1918 he founded the Kürt Teâli Cemiyeti in Diyarbakir and was its chairman. In 1919 he moved to Istanbul and became a member of the Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti .

The Ali Galip Incident

In 1919 he came to Malatya with Major Edward William Charles Noel , Celadet Ali Bedirxan and Kamuran Bedirxan . There they met with the Wali Ali Galip, who had the order to arrest Mustafa Kemal on behalf of the government in Istanbul and thus prevent the Sivas Congress. When they found out that Mustafa Kemal was going to arrest them, they left the city and fled. In 1920 he founded the Kürt Teşkilat-ı İçtimaiye Cemiyeti, whose goal was the independence of Kurdistan.

In 1921 he returned to Anatolia and stayed in the Diyarbakir and Mardin region for more than five months. When he was about to leave, he was reported to the government by Abdülkerim from the tribe of the Hevêrkan. Ekrem was arrested and sent to Ankara, where he was acquitted by the Independence Court. He was arrested again as part of the Sheikh Said uprising in 1925 and this time convicted by the Independence Court. After three years in prison in Kastamonu , three months of house arrest also followed in Kastamonu. After his release in 1928, he was exiled to Istanbul. After six months in exile, he returned to Diyarbakir. A little later, on March 19, 1929, he and other family members sought asylum in Syria .

Xoybun

In Syria he joined the Xoybûn . At the time, the Xoybun was planning an offensive in Northern Kurdistan and Ekrem was to take over the leadership of one of the groups, but the French administration gathered the Xoybun leaders from the Kurdish areas and sent them to Damascus. So he couldn't take part in the offensive.

In 1932 he became a member of the Civata Arîkariyê Jibo Belengazên Kurd Li Cizîrê (Aid Association for the Poor Kurds of the Jezira), which was founded in Syria. In 1933 he was released from his Turkish citizenship. In 1937 he and the other family members were deported to Tadmur prison by the French mandate government . In 1937 he and Kadri Cemilpascha were responsible for the Civata Azadî û Yekîtiya Kurdan (Association for Independence and Unity of the Kurds). Between 1939 and 1946 he was the political representative of the Xoybun.

Since 1967 he lived in Damascus and wrote a book about Kurdish history there in 1972, the Dîroka Kurdistan Bi Kurtebirî-I . At the time he provided help and shelter to many Kurdish political refugees from Turkey such as Necmettin Büyükkaya and Ömer Çetin.

He died on December 31, 1974 in Damascus and was buried in the cemetery in the Heyy'ul Ekrad (Rukneddin) district.

He spoke Kurdish, Turkish, French, Persian and Arabic. With his wife Cavidan Hanım of Circassian origin, he had five children named Xeyrîye, Jale, Xenden, Pervin and Newzad.

Works

• Hînkerê Zimanê Kurdî, Rehberê Ziman ê Her Du Kurdî: Kurmancî, Babanî , Ji neşriyatê Hêvî-Civata Telebeyê Kurdan, jimar: 1, Çapxaneyê Necmê Îstîqbal, İstanbul, 1921/1337.
• CPC: Dîrok a Kurdistan Bi Kurteliri - I . Beirut 1972.
• Ekrem Cemil Paşa: Muhtasar Hayatım . 1989.
• Ekrem Cemil Paşa: Kürdistan Kısa Tarihi (Brief History of Kurdistan), Doz Verlag, İstanbul, 1998.

literature

• Malmîsanij : Diyarberkirli Cemilpaşazadeler ve Kürt Milliyetçiliği . Avesta Verlag, İstanbul 2004, ISBN 975-8637-79-7 , pp. 237-273.
• Mehmet Kemal Işık (Torî): Ekrem Cemil Paşa . In: Ünlü Kürt Bilgin ve Birinci Kuşak Aydınlar . Sorun Yayınları, İstanbul, October 2000, ISBN 975-431-111-0 , pp. 160–161.