By: Zilan Sarmami
Kurdistan due to its rich land and heroic people has always been the target of power-hungry rulers and countries. Kurdistan has been divided into many parts due to wars for its land. For instance, in 1415, Kurdistan was first divided between the Ottoman and Safavid Empires. This war has been called War of Chalderan.
The first time in 1514, Kurdistan was divided into two parts between the Safavid Empire which were in today’s Iran and the Ottoman Empire that were in today’s Turkey. After that, in the past century the powerful rulers drew the artificial map of the region. In the form of partition, in 1916, they divided Kurdistan into four parts. They linked North Kurdistan with Turkey, South with Iraq, East with Iran, and linked the West with Syria. This division was without native Kurdish permission, Kurds did not agree with this division at all, which is why they kept on fighting in the wars and revolting against their adopter nations for the liberation of their populations.
In this history of the Kurdish wars and revolutions there have been many militants. One of them is Shekh Mahmoudi Namir. In 1919, he started a war against Britain. In the North Kurdistan another militant, whose name was Shekh Saeedi Piran, in the year of 1925 started a war against Turkey, but the Turkish people were much more powerful than him so the Turkish military captured him and hanged him. Also in North Said Razay Dersim, who was another militant, in 1937, he started another war against Turkey and the Turkish overlords did the same as they did for Sheikh Mahmoudi Namir.
In East Kurdistan Qazi Muhammadi Namir started a war too and in a corollary in 1st January of 1946 he employed the government of Kurdistan in Muhabad, Iran. The life of this government was very short. In 23rd, January of 1947 the Iranian authorities of that time assaulted Namir’s government and ended it. They captured Qazi Muhammad and many others in the government. After capturing them they executed them. In west Kurdistan, many Kurdish people participated in the wars and revolutions of Kurdistan. The main supervisor was Ibrahim Pashay Milli. Those were some examples of the Kurdish wars and revolutions against colonialists and exploitation. The Kurds kept on sacrificing their selves for freedom.
The greatest Kurdish supervisor and president was Mala Mustafa Barzani. In 11/9/1961 he started the September war, and we can say that it was his longest war in Kurdish history. He liberated the Kurdish people in many ways. As a result of the September war, the Kurdish people gained many rights in Iraq.
The tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein from 1987-1988 did the greatest damage against the Kurds. It was a very horrible attack; this attack was known as Anfal, since a lot of Kurdish people got killed and some of them were buried while they were still alive, and there is a subject in the Quran talking about this and its name is Anfal so they named the war as Anfal since of that. More than 182,000 Kurds with males and females got buried alive, and Saddam destroyed 4,500 towns and villages in Kurdistan. In 16/3/1988 there was a Chemical Attack attacked on Halabja, in few minutes more than 5,000 died and thousands of people were injured. There were other assaults against Kurdistan, who made the Kurdish people to revolt again in all of the places of south Kurdistan, and to rescue the parts of Kurdistan that were taken by the Arabs. This revolution began on 5th March, 1991, and was supervised by (Berey Kurdistani). Berey Kurdistani was a group of Kurdish people who were always asking for freedom and there was nothing which could possibly stop them, and at the end all the Kurdish people joined the group.
The first Kurdish free election was on 19/5/1992 and the Kurdish parliament in 4th June, 1992. In the same year in the first meeting of the parliament 105 MPs were sworn in with the jural oath. However, nowadays Kurdistan’s Parliament seats consists of 111 members, 100 of them are Kurds, 5 of the members are from the Christian Cota, the other 5 members are from the Turkmen Cota, and lastly 1 member is from the Armenian Cota, which the concept of co-existence in Kurdistan. Later, in #05-07-1992# the Kurdish government formed for working on the South Kurdistan’s destroyed parts and renewing them. This government until now had passed eight cabinets and the Kurdish people are now waiting for the 9th cabinet of the Kurdistan Government. In this way the Kurdish people in south took back some of their rights. The Kurds are still fighting and revolting in the other parts of greater Kurdistan for getting back Kurdish rights. Of course, these wars and revolutions will not end until the Kurdish population are given all of their rights, and specifically the formation of a Kurdish state. Every Kurd wishes to become independent and it’s something necessary. For sure the day will come and the Kurds will gain their rights, freedom, and their own state as any other nations.