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The Iranian Democrats in Iraqi Kurdistan
13.6.2007
PJM Tel Aviv. By Richard Miniter, PJM Washington
editor, reporting from Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan region
(Iraq)
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June 13, 2007
SULAIMANIYAH, Kurdistan region (Iraq), -- From
his secret base Abdullah Mohtadi commands a small
armed force inside Iraq and a vast
clandestine network inside Iran.
“I didn’t believe in the so-called critical dialogue
with Iran. We are for regime change, no matter what
the Europeans or even the United States says,”
Mohtadi tells me.
It is not an ambition for the faint-hearted. Mohtadi,
who is Secretary General of the
Democratic Kormala party,
an Kurdish political party banned by the Islamic
Republic, has survived several attempts on his life.
This charming former communist wants to topple the
mullahs of Tehran and replace their dictatorial rule
with a federal democracy.
“In a sense we have some things in common with the
neocons. We believe in the democratization of the
whole Middle East and recognize the danger of
political Islam.” |
Abdullah Mohtadi dreams of toppling the mullahs of
Tehran and replace their dictatorial rule with an
Iranian federal democracy. And he doesn’t
necessarily want to stop there.PJM |
Still the former
communist does not call himself a neo-conservative.
He prefers the term “revolutionary liberal.” He is
one of the “free rangers” of Iran.
The day I first met him, he was trying to stay in
the background. I had come to visit his older
brother, a famous Kurdish novelist, and the younger
Mohtadi was serving as a translator. He didn’t even
let on that he was related to the novelist, let
alone venture a detail about his history, until I
asked him about himself.
He was traveling incognito; dressed in a striped
shirt and trousers.
Today he is dressed in an olive-drab kawapatour, a
traditional Kurdish man’s pants suit that flares
from waist to knee; it makes him looks like both a
1940s military commander and Kurdish nationalist. It
looks like a suit for a special occasion.
His words are measured and soft. He drinks his tea
without sugar.
Iran’s Kurds
There are 12 million Kurds spread across four
provinces in Northwestern Iran and another one
million Kurds in a far-eastern province. Iran’s
total population is estimated at more than 60
million.
As with Kurds in neighboring states, the Iranian
Kurds have a series of discrimination complaints. He
ticks them off.
Kurds are deprived of education in their mother
tongue and denied money for schools and roads, even
though they pay heavy taxes to the central
government, according to Mohtadi. Generally, Iran’s
Kurdistan is run not by Kurds, but by people
appointed by Tehran. Not a single police chief is a
Kurd, he said. Indeed, none of the top jobs in the
four Kurdish provinces are held by a Kurd. “It is a
cultural occupation, a case of clear
discrimination.”
Congress of Nationalities
Mohtadi, with a wide array of allies, is building
consensus among the democratic opposition among
ethnic minorities inside Iran. It is a minority
within a string of minorities. The five main ethnic
minorities inside Iran are the Azerbaijanis, the
Azeris, the Beluch (in southeast Iran), the Arabs of
Ahwaz (in southwest Iran) and the Kurds (in
northwest Iran and northeast Iran). These minorities
call themselves “nationalities,” because they are
peoples without a nation.
Nonetheless, Mohtadi (and presumably his allies)
acknowledge that seceding from Iran is not a
realistic option.
Instead, Mohtadi and others have united the
democratic elements with the “nationalities” to form
“Congress of Nationalities for Federal Iran.” They
do not seek breakaway republics or ethnic fiefdoms,
but regional autonomy within a federal, democratic
Iran. They envision that this new Iran will be like
the Federal Republic of Germany or the United States
before the civil war extinguished the autonomy of
states.
Iraq serves as a model for what is possible in Iran.
“The Iranian Kurds are celebrating the presidency of
Talabani in Iraq,” he said. The new Iraq is a viable
democracy, with regional autonomy for the Kurds,
that can elect an ethnic minority (a Kurd even!) to
the presidency to a large, united nation.
Can Iran really evolve in this direction? Yes, it is
a faraway dream, Mohtadi admits. But progress to the
promised land is quietly being made.
When Iranian police arrested a Kurdish teenaged boy,
named Shwana Kadini, and tortured and killed him, in
July 2005, it was not hard to stoke public outrage.
Across Iran’s Kurdish region, the public fury was
overwhelming.
Democracy activists were quick to capitalize on
public sentiment. Kormala and others in their
coalition mounted demonstrations in nine cities. The
carried signs saying “Bring the killers to justice.”
Read one way, the signs seem to be about bringing
the rogue cops to trial. Read another, it is a call
for regime change in Tehran.
Kormala and its supporters put some 100,000 people
on the streets to demonstrate against the regime in
July 2005, he said.
The Iranian writer’s union supported Kurds, as did
many other Iranian groups.
“For the first time since 1979, all of Iranian
Kurdistan erupted with demonstrations,” he said.
Tehran’s reaction was instructive. “The government
became cautious,” he said. It made some attempts to
placate the public. It suggests that the mullahs
realize how tenuous their hold on power really is.
A Secret Network
Still, support is growing among Kurds in Iran, he
said. “A decade ago, it is very difficult to get
cooperation. Now people complain that you don’t give
them missions. Why am I not a member? they ask me.”
You have to earn the right to be a voting party
member, he explains.
“We have had 4,000 martyrs in past 28 years, now new
recruits are strengthening the party.”
Azerbaijanis came late to liberation movement but
their democratic management is growing fast. “This
is one of the biggest political changes is that we
have managed to win over the Shiite Kurds of
southern [Iranian] Kurdistan,” he said.
The internal organization for leading and organizing
clandestine staff has doubled twice in the past
year, according to Abu Baker Modarrisi, who is a
member of the collective that runs the clandestine
service.
“We send people into Iran every day,” he tells me.
“We sent an organizer yesterday to a Kurdish city to
set up a cell.”
Kormala reaches Iranian Kurds through phones,
e-mails and satellite television.
“Our satellite broadcasts station both Kurdish and
Farsi, using an uplink in Sudan and a studio in
Iraq. Rojhelat TV - sunrise and east, broadcast from
Sweden, studio here. Iranian Kurd is eastern
Kurdistan
But the jamming backfires. “People are angry about
health effects of Iranian jammers,” he said. Many
Iranians believe they are being poisoned by the
intense electro-magnetic fields generated by jamming
devices, he said. When I tell him that I can see the
moral outrage of being denied free speech, but that
the health effects of the jamming are probably nil
(the electro-magnetic fields fall off by the square
of the distance), he looks nonplussed. He does not
want to surrender such an effective propaganda
point. But he is an educated man and knows, as a
matter of science, that I am right. So he moves back
on the better terrain: the regime’s use of torture.
Armed Struggle?
For now, Kormala will confine itself to mass
protests and civil disobedience. “When the time is
right,” the former communist said, “armed struggle
will resume.”
Mohtadi strongly denies that Kormala does not
coordinate with Pjak, a Kurdish terror group known
to attack Iranian police stations and other targets
inside Iran. He believes that violence at this stage
would alienate supporters inside Iran and is morally
opposed to senseless taking of life.
But Kormala does have its international
affiliations. It is affiliated with Socialist
International through the Kurdish branch.
The party recently applied for full membership on
its own.
It would seem to be the perfect group for the Left
to embrace: it is democratic, represents an ethnic
minority, fights an evil regime run by Islamist
fanatics, uses non-violent techniques to demand
social justice and is a bona fide member of the
global socialist movement.
And yet it has shockingly few friends on the Left. A
few Europeans will listen, he said. But most in
Europe and North America ignore Kormala. They have
moved on. Some seek to accommodate or understand the
Iranian regime. Many more are consumed by Bush
hatred. Kormala is a oxbow lake, left behind by a
Mississippi that has changed course.
Little Help from Washington
The Bush Administration seems to have little
interest in Kormala or the other members of the
Congress of Nationalities.
Has he met with representatives of the State
department or the CIA? He only nods.
He is grateful that the State Department and the
European Union have condemned Iran’s use of torture,
censorship, false imprisonment, police brutality and
sharia law. But he said he does not understand
America’s goals vis-a-vis Iran.
“We don’t know what strategy U.S. is following. They
show sympathy [for us], they condemn violations of
human rights, nationalities, women. This is said.
But there is no strategy. We still don’t know what
the U.S. want to do with this regime.”
“It is better for the strategy to be publicly
announced. There is no shame in it.”
I ask him if he would favor a “No-fly zone” over the
Kurdish region of Iran, similar to the umbrella that
once shielded the Kurds in Iraq?
He seems surprised and delighted by the suggestion.
But he responds cautiously. “That would greatly
help,” he said.
He receives no aid from America or any Western
government. Sometimes, the local Kurdish government
will give the party a little money “for water,
electricity and so on. It isn’t much.”
Kormala’s support comes solely from supporters
inside Iran and among the Kurdish diaspora -
desperately poor people providing what they can.
“We are surprised why the Americans are so
sensitive. The Iranian regime is confronting the
U.S. very openly and still the U.S. is doing nothing
to help the Kurds and other nationalities.”
The regime is weak, he believes. “It is corrupt, has
no self-belief, just self-interest. In the ruling
circles, there is no solidarity.” With a hard shove,
the regime would crumble, he said. “I am
optimistic.”
pajamasmedia com
**
Iranian Kurdistan (Kurdish: Kurdistana Îranę or
Kurdistana Rojhilat (Eastern Kurdistan) or Rojhilatę
Kurdistan (East of Kurdistan) is an unofficial name
for the parts of Iran inhabited by Kurds and has
borders with Iraq and Turkey.
It includes the
greater parts of West Azerbaijan province, Kurdistan
Province, Kermanshah Province, and Ilam Province.
Kurds form the majority of the population of this
region with an estimated population of 4 million.
The region is the eastern part of the greater
cultural-geographical area called Kurdistan.
More about Iranian Kurdistan
Komala: In 1967, Komalah was founded and struggled
against the government and policies of Shah for 12
years until 1979. In 1983 Komalah formed a political
organization with other Iranian Marxist and
socialist groups called the Communist Party of Iran.
In Iranian Kurdistan, Komalah is trying to create
the conditions favourable for bringing about radical
changes in peoples’ lives, and to end the national
oppression of the Kurds. For this purpose, it has
developed a special programme which asks for
self-determination rights for the people of Iranian
Kurdistan.
More about Komala from
Wikipedia
KDPI
The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran in Kurdish
(Hîzbî Dęmokiratî Kurdistanî Ęran) is a Kurdish
opposition group in Iranian Kurdistan which seeks
the attainment of Kurdish national rights within a
democratic federal republic of Iran.
The current
General Secretary of the Democratic Party of Iranian
Kurdistan is Mustafa Hijri
More about KDPI- Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran
** The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
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