Iranian Kurds revolt in response to state murder of a youth

The Islamic-military dictatorship in Iran has yet again shown its true colours. This unique form of bourgeoisie rule, which claims to be ‘anti-imperialist’ and ‘revolutionary’, has consistently followed the policies of the reactionary Shah’s regime vis-à-vis the national minorities: brutal repression and the denial of basic national rights. In many cases, particularly when dealing with the Kurds, it has even surpassed the violence and barbarism of the monarchy! Even though for eight years the whole world has been subjected to endless rhetoric about ‘reforms’ and ‘civil society’ the behaviour of the regime’s thugs in Iran’s Kurdish areas has consistently unmasked the true nature of the system.

Yet again we are witnessing the barbarity and bankruptcy of this system in the Kurdish areas. On Saturday 9 July, in Mahabad, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish republic of 1946-47, the Iranian regime’s security forces fired live rounds at a number of youth. Two were injured and Shwaneh Ghaderi, a politically active 30-year-old, was killed. At night his body was tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged through the town before being released to his family.

News of this state murder enraged the crowds in Mahabad’s Independence Square and people protested against the treatment of Ghaderi and the brutal way he was killed by the dictatorship’s forces. They attacked government offices, breaking windows, and killed a member of the security forces. There were also protests in Sardasht and other Kurdish towns. The regime’s selected local MP, who initially had the temerity to describe Shwaneh as a drug dealer to justify his treatment, later had to deny he had made this comment.

Three other developments point to a new dynamic in this ongoing stand-off between the forces of bourgeois-Islamic reaction and the desire of the Kurdish masses for their basic national rights and self-determination:

1- The Office for Consolidating Unity (OCU), the ‘student’ body responsible for seizing the US embassy staff in 1979 and holding them hostage for 444 days, has officially asked the Human Rights Centre to take up the case of Shwaneh Ghaderi.

It is important to remember that the OCU has always been a pillar of the regime and twenty years ago its members would have been sent into Kurdistan and other Kurdish areas to crush any dissent. Although the OCU’s request is not going to mean that the perpetrators of this heinous crime are going to be brought to justice, it does point to further cracks within the regime which the masses may be able to exploit to further change the balance of forces in their favour.

2- Guerrillas from the HPG, a Kurdish group based in Turkey, crossed the border to attack the Iranian regime’s security forces. In two operations on 20 and 21 July they dealt the regime’s mercenaries a severe blow - killing 16 and injuring 12 ‘revolutionary guards’!

Although we do not agree with the political viewpoint and some of the tactics of HPG we consider this a positive development. With these two operations they have shown their disregard for the borders that Anglo-French imperialism imposed on the region when they carved up the Ottoman Empire and their contempt for the dictatorships that have maintained this division of the Kurdish people with the help of imperialism (primarily US imperialism). They have also posed an important question: where are the peshmerga of the Iranian Kurdish groups? Why are they not defending the Kurdish masses? Why are they not teaching the regime’s mercenaries a lesson?

3- Every day since the attack in Mahabad, which now officially lies in Iran’s W. Azerbaijan province, the masses in more and more Kurdish towns are joining the protests against Shwaneh’s murder and expressing their solidarity with the people of Mahabad. The latest news from the Kurdish areas is that the protests have spread to Sanandaj, Baneh, Ashnavieh and other towns. Gunfire has been heard in many towns. There is said to have been a “general strike” in Mahabad and the town is now under martial law.

What does Kurdistan represent?
Iranian Kurdistan was the last bastion of the 1979 revolution. Long after the new Islamic-military dictatorship had managed to drown the revolutionary masses in blood in the rest of Iran, the Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas kept the regime’s uniformed and paramilitary thugs out. Kurdistan became a refuge for those fleeing the counter-revolutionary wave of the mollahs and the bourgeoisie. Many left-wing groups sought sanctuary there and set up their camps, bases, radio stations and publishing presses in order to continue the struggle against the regime.

And once the most reactionary form of bourgeois dictatorship of the second half of the twentieth century managed to occupy Kurdistan, it exacted brutal revenge for the defiance of the Kurdish people. It did not, however, manage to break the revolutionary and radical will of the Kurdish masses. The regime therefore, even at the height of the power of the ‘reformers’, has been forced to show its true face in Kurdistan. It has been periodically killing ordinary Kurds for simply expressing their wish to have their national rights.

Developments in Iraqi Kurdistan
Since the Baathist regime in Iraq was overthrown by US imperialism Iranian Kurds have been following the developments there enviously. The close collaboration of Talabani and Barzani with the US has meant that the Kurds of Iraq have gained immense influence in the post-Saddam Iraq - with Talabani becoming the so-called president of Iraq.

There were clashes between Iranian Kurds and the regime’s official (uniformed) and unofficial thugs around the time the Iraqi Kurds went to the polls that ‘elected’ America’s puppet regime. There were also clashes when they celebrated Jalal Talabani’s confirmation as ‘president’ of Iraq and Massoud Barzani becoming the ‘president’ of the ‘Autonomous Kurdish Government’ (in northern Iraq).

The developments in Iraq, and the consequent rightward and more pro-American shift in the leadership of Iranian Kurdish groups, have meant that the Iranian regime more than ever sees the Kurds as the internal enemy. It is now time for the Kurds in Iran:

To set up their own clandestine intelligence units to track the regime’s thugs and agents in their midst and to neutralise them.
To build their own armed self-defence units for combating the attacks of a government that kills and maims them with impunity.
To demand that their leaders make up their mind about whether they want to fight this regime or to sign yet another ignominious deal with it.

History shows that the Kurdish masses can only rely on themselves and the revolutionary proletariat of the region to prevent even more barbaric atrocities.

Morad Shirin
1 August 2005

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