Mustafa Barzani
Mustafa Barzani ( Kurdish مستەفا بارزانی Mistefa Barzanî ; Arabic مصطفى البارزاني, DMG Muṣṭafā al-Bārizānī ; * March 14, 1903 in Barzan , then Ottoman Empire ; † March 3, 1979 in Washington, DC ) was a Kurdish politician. From 1946 until his death he was the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party (PDK) in the Iraqi part of Kurdistan . His son and successor is Masud Barzani .
Childhood and youth
At the age of a few months, the hometown of Barzan was attacked by the Hamidiye riders, an Ottoman army consisting of Kurdish tribal warriors and commanders, and he and his family were deported to Diyarbakır , where he spent a long time in prison. At the age of 12 he saw his older brother Abdulselaam, who had rebelled against the Ottoman governor, being hanged in Mosul . In 1919 he participated as a boy in the uprising of Mahmud Barzanji against the British . As the envoy of his brother Sheikh Ahmed Barzani , he was in contact with Sheikh Said . After an unsuccessful uprising by his brother Ahmed Barzani in 1931, he had to go into exile in southern Iraq.
Political career
His political career began in 1939 when he came into contact with the Kurdish national Hiwa party, which in turn was interested in working with Barzani to gain influence on the traditional tribal milieu. In 1943 Barzani, who was now the official leader of his esiret , rose against the Iraqi central government. When the KDP was founded in 1946, he was elected president of the party.
Mustafa Barzani went into exile in Iran that same year . There he participated in the establishment of the short-lived Republic of Mahabad and was a commander in the Mahabad army. After the crackdown, he fled to Iraq. From there he fled with 500 of his followers to the Soviet Union , where he lived for eleven years until the Iraqi revolution of 1958 . There he lived as a simple worker and was able to persuade the Soviet government under Stalin to give him and many of his people military training. He achieved the rank of general at the academy. In 1958 the monarchy in Iraq was overthrown and the new ruler Abd al-Karim Qasim called Barzani back to Iraq. Barzani left Moscow on July 21, 1958 and returned to Iraq via Romania , Czechoslovakia and Egypt . He landed in Baghdad on October 6, 1958 . Barzani enjoyed privileges from Qasim, was given a villa in Baghdad and a limousine. Qasim tried to win the Kurdish tribes against pro-monarchist tribal leaders, Arab nationalists and Ba'ath supporters .
The crisis in the relations between the Barzanis and Qasim came when Barzani demanded that the Kurdish language should be the first official language in the Kurdish regions and that police and army units in these areas should consist exclusively of Kurds. The crisis turned into enmity and culminated when Iraqi air forces attacked Barzan in September and October 1961 and burned 1,270 Kurdish villages.
Barzani took the lead in the civil war-like uprisings between 1961 and 1970.
On his return, power struggles broke out within the KDP. Although Barzani was initially able to prevail, the internal party disputes as well as the collapse of the Kurdish resistance as a result of the Algiers Agreement in 1975 led to the split of the KDP, from which the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by the later Iraqi President Jalal Talabani , a pro-Iraqi KDP Wing under Haschim Aqrawi and Barzani's eldest son Ubaidullah Barzani as well as the Kurdish Revolutionary Party under Abd as-Sattar Sharif emerged .
Molla Mustafa Barzani has been accused from various quarters, not least by Talabani, of having linked the Iraqi-Kurdistan national movement too closely with tribal structures and merely acting to gain power. Due to his charisma and his inflexibility, however, many Kurds consider him an outstanding figure in the Kurdish independence movement.
Last years
In 1975 he was diagnosed with lung cancer . He flew to the USA for his treatment . The Americans did not see him as a welcome guest because they feared he would tell the public about the role of the CIA and the government. Because before the Algiers Agreement , the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi persuaded the Americans to support the Kurds. With the agreement, the Americans withdrew.
After his treatment, Barzani flew to Iran in 1975, where he was under house arrest. However, he soon returned to the USA. He died in March 1979. His sons Masud and Idris Barzani then took over the leadership of the KDP. His body was buried on March 5th near Mahabad , Iran. In 1993 he was then transferred to his village (Barzan), where he is buried next to his son Idris Barzani.
literature
- Ferhad Ibrahim : Between Tribal Tradition and Nationalism. In: Bahman Nirumand : The Kurdish Tragedy. Rowohlt, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-499-13075-0 .
- David McDowall: A Modern History of the Kurds. Tauris, London 1996, ISBN 1-85043-653-3 .
Web links
- Portrait of Mustafa Barzani in the NZZ Folio magazine
supporting documents
- ↑ a b Masoud Barzani Biography. Accessed August 29, 2018 .
- ^ Mustafa al-Barzani | Kurdish military leader . In: Encyclopedia Britannica . ( britannica.com [accessed August 29, 2018]).
- ↑ Ali Fuat Borovalı Kurdish Insurgencies, the Gulf War, and Turkey's Changing Role , p 32f.
- ↑ Timeline: Iraqi Kurds . April 19, 2011 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed August 29, 2018]).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Barzani, Mustafa |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Iraqi leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 14, 1903 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Barzan , Ottoman Empire |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 3, 1979 |
| Place of death | Washington, DC |