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Mustafa Barzani– The legacy of his
leadership and his last meeting with the Shah of
Iran
15.5.2009
By Rauf Naqishbendi
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May 15, 2009
Early in 1975, at an OPEC meeting in Alger, a
landmark agreement between Saddam Hussein and
Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was signed. Accordingly,
Saddam ceded the historical Iraqi rights to the
disputed waterway of Shatt al-Arab, to Iran. In
return, the former Shah of Iran withdrew support for
the Kurdish revolution initiated in 1961. Saddam
believed it would be a death sentence for the
Kurdish revolution to be cut off from the Shah’s
support. He proved to be right. Once Iran and the
CIA stopped sponsoring Mustafa Barzani, the Kurdish
revolution’s fate was sealed.
After the Alger conference the Kurds were all
anxiously awaiting Barzani’s decision, as was I. (At
the time, I was student in Tehran.) Would he give up or
continue fighting? I knew my mother’s cousin,
Muhammed Harseney, was spending a great deal of time
with Barzani in those days. Harseny would leave home
each morning to accompany Barzani throughout the
day. Barzani had not seen the Shah of Iran since his
return from Alger. |
Rauf Naqishbendi |
Harseney had served as secretary to Barzani for
years, and was then a high-ranking member of the
Kurdish revolution. Later he served as secretary of
the treasury. He was Barzani’s long-time confidante.
Barzani understood that Tehran was behind his
defeat. According to Harseny, Barzani called upon
Harseney and Dr. Muhmood Osman, soliciting their
views. He asked Harseny , should the revolution
continue, how would he feed his Peshmargas? Harseney
replied, knowing how much money they had, that he
could guarantee that no Peshmargas would go hungry.
Barzani then asked Harseny what to do with the more
than one hundred thousand Peshmargas. Harseney
responded that the size of their army needed to be
trimmed. He suggested to Barzani that they reduce
the armed force to about 5,000 men divided into
small units. Harseny also recommended that these
units not engage in face to face battle with the
Iraqi army, but rather be deployed
in guerilla-type warfare. The goal was to make it
possible to attack the enemy anywhere and at the
same time make it impossible for the enemy to find
them. Barzani then asked Dr. Osman how to care for
wounded Peshmargas. Dr. Osman responded that, with
their resources, he would guarantee that no wounded
Peshmarga would go untreated. These were the only
two people Barzani consulted with, and both men were
ready to fight to end.
In the end, Barzani decided to end the Kurdish
revolution. When we heard the news in Tehran, my
friends amd I were stunned and disappointed like the
rest of the people. First, we wondered and asked
about the fate of the more than one hundred thousand
Kurdish refugees in Iran. In addition, we heard that
many Peshmargas kept on fighting purposely,www.ekurd.netpreferring death with dignity in a battlefield
rather than submission to Saddam’s regime. We
thought Barzani must have gone insane, for he
enjoyed the support of all Kurds. People were ready
to fight and die. Barzani may have been the only one
who wanted to stop fighting. But because he was the
King, and lacking a forum for a democratic open
debate, his was the only opinion that mattered. It
was imperative to us that the revolution continue
for it had consumed tens of thousands of lives, and
people had been struggling for nearly fifteen years.
It was, in our opinion, a betrayal to end a
revolution that had grown as powerful as ours was.
To abruptly stop and submit to the will of two
powerful Kurdish enemies - the Shah of Iran and
Saddam Hussein.
According to Harseney, Barzani’s decision to stop
fighting Saddam was made in a meeting with the Shah
of Iran. He told me that General Sayaddian, the head
of Iranian intelligence agency known as Savak, was
honoring Barzani in scheduling a one-on-one meeting
with the Shah after his (the Shah's) return from
Alger. A day later, Sayaddian returned to Barzani
and told him that the Shah had changed his mind.
Instead of meeting with Barzani alone, he wanted him
to bring to the meeting as many people as he
trusted. The Shah wanted to be heard by as many
people as possible.
The schedule was set and Barzani selected about a
half-dozen people to accompany him to the meeting
with the Shah of Iran. I recall the name of a few
attendees besides Harseny. Dr. Muhmood Osman was
among the group. The Shah received them and he
started the meeting by saying, as he pointed to
Barzani: “Mr. Barzani you have told me on more than
one occasion that your revolution will have no
result. Because of that I have decided to stop
futile fighting that can come to no good end, if for
no other reason than to avoid further bloodshed.
That is my decision, tell me what you think?“
Barzani responded, “Sir, I agree with what you
said.” The Shah then looked at the rest of the
participants in the meeting. “Now, gentlemen you may
ask whatever questions you have." There was only one
question, proposed by Dr. Osman, who asked what
would be the fate of the Kurdish refugees should the
Kurds decide to continue fighting. The Shah
responded that his government would provide for
them.
It should be said that Barzani at the time had the
custody of the Kurdish revolution’s fund which,
according to Harseney ,was close to $150 million at
the time - the equivalent to over a billion dollars
in today’s money. Barzani treated that money as his
and his family’s. From that date to the present,
there has been no public record or accounting of
that money, just as with all the money his son,
Massoud Barzani, has been receiving from Iraq since
the start of the US occupation, and the funds he
received from the food-for-oil program as a tax on
oil pipelines crossing Kurdistan’s border to Turkey.
Readers must be reminded Barzani has said he would
fight anyone who attempts to continue a Kurdish
revolution. That needs to be said about Mustafa
Barzani and the legacy of his leadership.
Rauf Naqishbendi is a contributing columnist for
Kurdish Websites, American Chronicle ,
americanchronicle com and has written
Op/Ed pages for the Los Angeles Times. He has just
completed his memoirs entitled "The Garden Of The
Poets" which reads as a novel depicting his
experience and the subsequent 1988 bombing of his
hometown with chemical and biological weapons by
Saddam Hussein. It is the story of his people's
suffering. Rauf Naqishbendi is a software engineer
in San Francisco Bay Area.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
Americanchronicle.com
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