SOUTHERN KURDISTAN: Conclusion
KURDISH2000PLUS
ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN 1979 IN “KURDS AND KURDISTAN, PEOPLE WITHOUT A
COUNTRY” BY ZED PRESS.
THIS LAST PART IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT FOR MR. VANLY WAS ONCE THE K.D.P.
REPRESENTATIVE ABROAD. IT IS MORE IMPORTANT BECAUSE MR. VANLY’S LATER
RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LEADERSHIP OF PKK, HIS ROLE IN “KURDISTAN
PARLIAMENT ABROAD” AND HIS ROLE AS THE HEAD OF “KURDISTAN NATIONAL
CONGRESS.”
IN THE ARTICLE NOTE WORDS SUCH AS “GUARANTEE” AND “WORLD PROGRESSIVE
OPINION” THEN COMPARE THE SITUATION IN 1975 WHEN MR. BARZANI RETREATED
TO IRAN TO THAT WHICH OCCURRED AFTER THE KIDNAPPING OF MR. OCALAN. AS
MR. VANLY WAS INVOLVED WITH KDP THEN AND PKK NOW, IT WOULD BE
INTERESTING IF HE WOULD BE READY TO WRITE AN ARTICLE AND ANALYZE THE
PERIOD FROM PKK’S ARMED STRUGGLE IN 1984 TO THE TIME WHEN THE PARTY
ADOPTED ITS PRESENT STRATEGY. Now to Mr. Vanly’s article:
“KURDISTAN IN IRAQ”
By I. S. Vanly / Edited by G. Chaliand – First published in 1979 -
Part 27:
Why did General Barzani change his position between 11 and 18 March?
Was it just that when he heard that the Baath had refused to re-open
negotiations he could not face the prospect of a hopeless war? Perhaps
the U.S. disengagement also played some part in changing General
Barzani’s attitude. On 10 March he had sent an SOS to Kissinger,
reminding him of his promises. Kissinger did not reply, which caused a
certain anxiety amongst the American secret service. Not that they were
concerned that their Kurdish 'ally' might lose. They were simply
worried that the Kurds might reveal President Nixon’s promises. On 22
March Colby, the head of the C.I.A. in Washington, who had been
informed by his men that 'as yet Barzani had received no answer to his
message from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’, questioned Kissinger
about it, and was told that 'secret service operations are not
missionary work’
There were other considerations which must have influenced the Kurdish
High Command to opt for retreat to Iran. How were they to feed the
displaced, pauperized masses piled on top of one another in the Shuman
Valley and in certain areas of Badinan? How to protect them? Finally,
on the military level, how could they get hold of the ammunition and
equipment necessary for a long guerrilla war against a large and modern
Iraqi Army? But this way of looking at the matter ignores the fact that
the Kurds helped to create their own problems. It would be
irresponsible to skip over the major errors committed by the Kurdish
leadership, two stand out particularly. The fundamental error in
political strategy was made in 1972 before the beginning of the fifth
Kurdistan war: relying on American imperialism and its main agent in
the area, the Shah, to supply and finance a popular war of national
liberation. The second crucial error was one of political judgement:
the revolution was liquidated by its own leadership and the result was
the retreat to Iran and the end of the war.
These two political errors were committed in 1972 and 1975
respectively, when international constraints were particularly
pressing; in fact the Soviet Iraqi Treaty on the one hand and the Iraqi-
Iranian Treaty on the other almost amount to extenuating circumstances.
They explain the leaderships mistakes, but cannot be taken as a
justification.
Responsibility for the errors should not be laid entirely upon General
Barzani and his family but on the whole leadership. Naturally this
includes Mustafa Barzani, his children and his family, but it also
refers to the K.D.P. Political Bureau and the Kurdish secret services,
known asParastin, who played an efficient and increasingly important
part in the revolution following 11 March 1970. No doubt it was thanks
to Parastin that the Political Bureau learnt of the dealings between
Tehran and Baghdad just before the Algiers Agreement was signed.
With his patrician background, Mustafa Barzani’s role in the revolution
was much more than that of a party president. He was the national hero,
the supreme and unchallenged chief to whom all non-K.D.P. elements
could turn. It was he who authorized the Communists to bear arms within
the revolution shortly after the Baath began massacring them in 1963.
This was a significant change in policy. Later, in 1964, the
composition of the Political Bureau was extensively modified, again on
Barzani’s authority, during the Party’s Sixth Congress.
The principle of collective decision-making was effectively disregarded
by the revolutionary leadership. Important decisions were taken by a
small handful of people, and especially by Barzani himself. Nonetheless
the mistake in political strategy made in 1972 must be laid at the door
of the entire leadership. Certain members of the Political Bureau took
the sleps which eventually led to the alliance with the Shah and the
U.S. In the end, the whole Bureau was let in on the secret. No one
except Saleh Yassefi protested. The leadership was certainly wary of
the Shah, but it had great faith in the American guarantee given by
Nixon and Kissinger. This bogus guarantee was effective only for a
short while, and it was not long before the Kurds were simply just
another 'card to be played’. The situation was quite absurd:
the Kurds, an oppressed people fighting a war of national liberation,
were drawing support from imperialism and its agents whilst their
oppressors enjoyed the moral and material backing of the socialist camp
and the progressive forces in the world.
Did the leadership at least do everything it could to avoid the break
with the Baath and the re-opening of the war? We can probably say that
they did, but perhaps we do not know the whole story. The leadership
rightly rejected the 'autonomy' unilaterally promulgated by the Baath
on 11 March 1974. But if they had not felt bolstered by the American
guarantee and the Shah’s promises of aid, they would surely have used a
thousand little tricks to draw out Ihe negotiations for as long as
possible, building up their strength all the time.
Did the leadership do everything in its power to win the war?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. There were many serious errors in this
respect. A popular war against an established government is not won
only on the battlefield. It must also be an economic, political,
psychological and publicity offensive. It demands a rational and
efficient mobilization of every energy, rigorous execution, combined
with exemplary austerity. This is particularly true for the Kurdish
people, whose geopolitical situation makes them specially vulnerable.
The U.S. guarantee bred a dangerous and excessive self-assurance in the
movement, which did nothing to win the solidarity of the Iraqi Arab
left, the friendship of the Arab world or the support of its
Governments. True, the Iraqi Communist Party had aligned itself with
the Baath. But even the Kurdish communists fighting members of his
family. No proof of his treason was ever presented before a
revolutionary tribunal.alongside the national movement were alienated.
The Parastin secret services killed Fakher Mergasori, a Kurdish
communist accused of spying for the Baath, even though he had been the
hero of Hendrin in May 1966, when he won the revolution’s greatest
victory. He was executed without trial, along with the members of his
family. No proof of his treason was ever presented before a
revolutionary tribunal.
The Baath were allowed to monopolize world progressive opinion and they
made good use of it both at home and abroad. No effort was made to
explain the Kurdish cause in the Third World. Nothing was done to
promote friendship and understanding among socialist and progressive
forces in Europe: the Kurds in Europe who tried to bridge this gulf had
ridiculously inadequate means at their disposal.
Within the Kurdish camp itself, both in terms of socio-economic
strategy and in terms of human relations, the excessive self-assurance
of the leaders was to prove disastrous.
Cockily secure in the knowledge of the U.S. guarantee, the leadership
took itself for an already established state and acted accordingly.
Entire little Ministries were set up. Administrative offices multiplied
to the point of bureaucratic time-wasting and conflict. The
Revolutionary Army’s ranks were swollen with troops, at the expense of
efficiency. Communications between the front and the supply centres and
hospitals were particularly badly organized.
Nor was there any thought of the economic autarchy which would have
been so salutary. Nobody saw the point of carrying out the agrarian
reform the Party programme had promised, now that everybody was in the
middle of a war. And what was the point of organizing wheat and rice
production when the Shah was sending in truckloads of supplies? There
was not even any move to buy up the peasants’ tobacco crop when the
coffers were full. No doubt this was thought unnecessary since there
were plenty of American cigarettes to be had: as a result, the crop
rotted in the fields and the peasants were deprived of the income they
were entitled to.
(…)
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