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Kurds fight for freedom on Iran-Iraqi
Kurdistan border
17.9.2007
By Betsy Hiel
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September 17, 2007
QANDIL RANGE, Kurdistan region (Iraq), -- Off
a rocky mountain road meandering through creek beds,
a small, stone military outpost is hidden near the
(Iraqi Kurdistan)-Iran border.
Peach, pomegranate and fig trees tremble in the hot
breeze. Under a thatched-roof awning, leafy vines
cover the outer walls and offer a little relief from
the intense sun. A young Iranian guerrilla listens
to music on an iPod as his comrades hang Kalashnikov
assault rifles, ammunition belts and walkie-talkies
on a beam behind the vines.
Amin Karimi, 34, a soft-spoken, bespectacled man,
drinks sweet tea and describes his battle against
the Islamic Republic of Iran.
"If they attack us, we will fight," says Karimi, one
of nine leaders of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan,
or PEJAK, an Iranian-Kurdish guerrilla group
fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Iran.
That fight has turned more intense in the past
month, with almost daily clashes. Except for the
rare car-bombing, it is the only warfare in
Kurdistan, Iraq's one largely peaceful region, and
the only sustained fighting reported inside Iran.
PEJAK claims to have destroyed an Iranian helicopter
trying to land in Iraq and killed a dozen or more
Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers in battles.
Iran has shelled the area, forcing villagers to flee
and prompting protests by Iraq's foreign minister. |
PEJAK Kurdish woman fighter, (PEJAK - Party for a
Free Life in Kurdistan), PEJAK fights against the
Iran regime for self-rule in the country's
mainly Kurdistan province northwestern of Iran AP |
Iran denies launching any attacks. Yet interviews of
villagers -- and landscapes littered with twisted
metal from artillery or rocket attacks - suggest
otherwise.
In nearby Soreguli, a stone-house village of 10
families, Abubakir Khokoresh, 58, stands on ground
charred, he says, by Iranian shells and rockets.
"We are afraid," he says. "Some of our livestock
were killed and our grain supply for the winter was
burned." Asked where the shelling came from, he
points toward the border and says, "Iran."
Villagers here and elsewhere accuse Iran and Turkey
of coordinating artillery attacks on northern Iraq.
Iranian leaflets distributed in border villages warn
of more.
"Some enemies led by America want to disturb the
security on the borders by sending American agents
and spies to the Qandil and Khenera areas," read one
leaflet obtained by the Tribune-Review. "They are
working on plans and conspiracies against us. ...
The place where these American agents and spies are
settled will be attacked."
Meanwhile, Turkey is pressuring Iraq -- including
frequent threats to invade -- to rid the mountains
of the PKK, a Turkish-Kurdish separatist group. The
PKK draws its troops from the 27 million to 35
million Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.
PEJAK's Karimi is not worried.
"These areas are under our control and there is
stability," he says. "They can't make stability and
security even in Baghdad, how can you control these
areas in the mountains? ... No government can
control it -- Saddam couldn't control this area.
"We help the people here."
Most villagers agree, crediting the PKK and PEJAK
with keeping them safe.
Before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Islamic groups
such as Ansar Al Islam, with links to al-Qaida and
Iran, controlled areas along this mountainous
border; brutally enforcing its rule on villages.
Karimi says his fighters are essential to preventing
the Islamists' return, because "if an Islamic group
comes to these mountains, nobody can take them out."
PEJAK's origins are nebulous.
Many analysts claim it is an extension of the PKK,
which the United States classifies as a terrorist
group because of its bombing campaign in Turkey. But
Karimi says it grew from a 1990s Iranian student
movement formed "to fill the political and social
vacuum in Iranian Kurdistan and ... to obtain our
national and social rights."
As in Arab-dominated Iraq, the Kurds are an ethnic
minority in Persian-run Iran.
Iran's stifling political atmosphere, grown even
more oppressive under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime,
led to PEJAK's militarization in 2004. While some of
its members moved into Iraqi Kurdistan, Karimi
insists most remain in Iran and are growing
"vastly."
"People want hope," he says. "There is no hope in
Iranian Kurdistan."
Yet some Iranian Kurdish opposition figures
criticize PEJAK.
"If PEJAK can be an independent Kurdish party, we
welcome them," says Abdullah Mohtadi,
secretary-general of the Komala Party of Iranian
Kurdistan, now exiled in Iraq. "But they are just
taking their orders from somewhere else -- they are
just PKK.
... It does not help the Kurdish movement in Iran,
and it doesn't help the Iraqi Kurds."
Karimi dismisses Komala and other Iranian-Kurdish
opposition parties
"Until now, we fight against Iran and they fight
each other," he says. "It's terrible."
While denying that PEJAK is a PKK offshoot, he
admits that "our ideas are the same." Like PKK
leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned in Turkey,
Karimi hopes for a confederation of all Kurds within
their national borders instead of a single Kurdish
state.
He likens it to the states' rights of America's
federal system.
"They have their own rules and they have contacts
with foreign countries, but they are American, all
of them," he says.
He stresses that PEJAK is secular, unlike the
ever-growing number of Islamic movements across the
Middle East.
Analysts say PEJAK has 3,000 guerrillas fighting in
northern Iraq. Karimi won't give a number but
proudly says nearly half are women, including three
women on the group's leadership council.
"Kurdish women have the biggest dynamism ... to make
a better life, for democracy and a new system," he
says. "They really fight better than us and make
politics better than us."
In 2006, Ohio congressman and Democratic
presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, who accuses
President Bush of exaggerating Iran's threat to U.S.
security, and journalist Seymour Hersh claimed the
United States and Israel support and train PEJAK.
Karimi calls that Iranian propaganda and flatly
denies receiving U.S. support.
"We had some contacts because the Americans are here
in Iraq and they are our neighbors now," he says.
"Sometimes they want to know who is PEJAK and what
we are doing here ... but we have no cooperation. We
don't need it."
Instead, he says, his force is politically
independent and "self-reliant. Our people give us
everything. Also, we don't know about American
priorities and politics (toward) Iran. ... The
American government never speaks about Iranian
Kurds."
Still, he won't disclose how PEJAK is armed.
"Our weapons are the Kalashnikov," he says,
shrugging and holding both hands palms-up. "The
Middle East is full of weapons. If you have money,
you can buy them.
"Everyone has guns in the Middle East."
pittsburghlive com
Iranian Kurdistan
**
Iranian Kurdistan (Kurdish: Kurdistana Īranź or
Kurdistana Rojhilat (Eastern Kurdistan) or Rojhilatź
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
The present leader of the organisation is Haji
Ahmadi. According to the Washington Times, half the
members of PEJAK are women, many of them still in
their teens, and one of the female members of the
leadership council is Gulistan Dugan, a psychology
graduate from the University of Tehran. This is due
primarily to the fact that PEJAK is strongly
supportive of women's rights. PEJAK believes that
women must have a strong role in government and must
be on an equal level with men in leadership
positions.
More about PEJAK- Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan
KDPI
The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran in Kurdish
(Hīzbī Dźmokiratī Kurdistanī Źran) 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.
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.
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.
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"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan ( Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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