Komala
The Komala in Iraq ( Sorani : Komeļe î Marksîstî-Lênînîstî , German: “Marxist-Leninist League”, later Komeļe-î Rencderan , German “League of the Working People ”) was a left-wing political group in Iraq. It is not part of the Iranian Komalah .
It was founded in 1970 by left-wing critics of Mustafa Barzani's leadership style, initially as a circle within the Democratic Party of Kurdistan , which was based on personal acquaintance. After the “ March Manifesto ”, the guarantee of regional autonomy for the Kurds by the Baath Party , the “Party of Revolutionaries” around Jalal Talabani and Ibrahim Ahmad decided to re- join the DPK. A member of the circle, Šehab Šêx Nûrî, recommended retaining a double structure from which the Komala developed. After the agreement of Algiers and the resulting devastating defeat of the Peshmerga , together with the “Socialist Movement” Ali Askaris and other small groups, she founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan , which was initially conceived as a “front organization”, i.e. an amalgamation of other groups. In 1976, the Iraqi secret service uncovered its network of organizations by arresting an Arab opposition activist, which led to mass arrests and numerous executions. As a result, many activists, initially more urban-oriented, fled to the mountains and resumed the armed struggle against the Baathists, which had initially been discontinued in 1975. Older peshmerga and young people joined them. Its first general secretary, Šaswar Celal , originally a city dweller, was active in the rural Qaradagh area in 1977 , where he started an irrigation project for farmers. Celal always argued for a " Marxist-Leninist combat union in Iraq" that transcended ethnic borders . He also advocated learning from the mistakes of one-party dogma, competition between various small parties and authoritarian leadership style and therefore preserving the PUK's front-line character with internal pluralism. On January 31, 1978, he was shot by Kurdish mercenaries. Later activists, for whom the line of the PUK was too nationalistic and Talabani's authority too great, invoked him. Because the mostly very young Komala cadres were dependent on managers with experience and reputation, Navschirwan Mustafa was his successor. He and Talabani ensured that the Marxist orientation of the Komala was suppressed by the supposedly more mass-effective Kurdayetî concept.
The group published a newspaper called Aļa - î Šoŗš , which was discontinued after Celal's death. In 1982 a group of the same name was formed within the PUK around Mela Bextiyar , which campaigned for democracy within the PUK, but was suppressed by Talabani and Mustafa.
Under the leadership of Nawschirwan Mustafa, the Komala continued to exist as part of the PUK with its own structures. It adhered to its Marxist-Leninist orientation and held its own conferences in 1981 and 1982, but participated in the political, journalistic and military structures of the PUK. At her first conference in 1981 she refrained from her goal of a socialist revolution and territorial independence for Kurdistan in favor of the demand for autonomy in Iraq. After the Raperîn uprising in 1991, it was formally dissolved by Mustafa.
The official historiography of the PUK remained silent about the Marxist orientation and the membership of founding personalities in the Komala.
The Iraqi Kurdish politicians Omer Said Ali and Kosrat Rasul Ali were temporarily members of the Komala.
supporting documents
- Andrea Fischer-Tahir: "We gave many martyrs". Resistance and collective identity building in Iraqi Kurdistan. Münster 2003, ISBN 978-3-89771-015-3 , pp. 66, 70 - 72
- Îsmet Şerîf Wanlî , Kurdistan and the Kurds, Volume 2, Göttingen 1986, ISBN 3-922197-17-5 , pp. 182, 187-188