Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou: Man of Peace and Dialogue

Homme de paix Homme de diaioghe 1930-1989 [Français, Paris, 1989]

Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou: Man Van Vrede en Dialoog [Nederlands, Brussel, 1997]

Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou: Man of Peace and Dialogue

AFK

Compte d’auteur

The life of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou is one with the life of his Kurdish people. He was only fifteen when he joined the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan which he was to become the Secretary-General in 1973.
He was brutally murdered in Vienna on 13 July 1989.

Contents

I. The life and death of A.R. Ghassemlou / 9-26
I. Tributes / 27-48
III. Kurdistan, 1979-1989 / 49-55
IV. & V. The PDKI after the Gulf War / 57-74
VI. Condition in Iranian Kurdistan, legal experts’ Report / 75-83
VII. A French doctor looks back / 85-89

INTRODUCTION

Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, was born on 22 December 1930 at Ourmiah, Kurdistan.
He went to university in Paris and later Czechoslovakia, had a Doctorate in economics and was an associate professor, having taught in Prague and Paris.

In 1941, the Allies invaded Iran in a "bridge of victory" operation that inevitably brought about the downfall of Reza Shah because of his relations with the Axis powers. A major political change was to take shape in the country.

In Iranian Kurdistan the national movement came back to life and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, founded on 16 August 1945, attracted young people in their masses. One of them was Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou - not yet 15 years old.

On 22 January 1946 the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad came into existence by proclamation, but in December the same year the imperial army with the help of the Anglo-American forces entered the city and the killing and arrests that followed were as cruel as they were indiscriminate.

The Republic had fallen. Its President, Qazi Mohammad, and his close followers were taken prisoner and then put to death on 30 March 1947.
Little by little the Kurdish people regathered its strength: the Republic of Mahabad may have been short-lived but in the collective memory it did not die.

Running unlimited risks, the Kurdish leaders set about the vast task of protecting, educating and organising the population. Back from Europe in 1952, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou devoted his energies to these clandestine activities for several years. In the next decade he split his time between Europe and Kurdistan working in double harness: his university career and his repeated missions to Kurdistan.

In 1959, the regional context appeared to be more hopeful: in neighbouring Iraq, the monarchy had been overthrown and Molla Mostafa Barzani (leader of the Democratic Party of Iraqi Kurdistan) had returned to his country after eleven years of exile in USSR.

In 1968-69 armed conflict was rife in Iranian Kurdistan and the period ended in a bath of blood with the massacre of the Kurdish leaders - and yet, even then, Kurdish resistance managed to raise its head again.
The government in Bagdad accepted the principle of autonomy for the Kurdish population of Iraq. Was the Kurdish identity at last to be recognised?

On the other side of the frontier, the DPIK steeled itself to renew the struggle. The vice-like grip in which the Shah’s armies were trying to hold it had to be broken.
At the third Congress of the DPIK (1973), Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was elected Secretary-General and at those that followed he was invariably returned to office.

During the years that followed, the prestige of the Pahlavi monarchy continued to wane. The White Revolution was questioned by experts in international affairs, the greedy demands and extravagant behaviour of the court were criticised in the press and the SAVAK was active throughout the country, no social class being spared its baneful attentions. Clearly - and sooner rather than later - the regime was doomed.

If that happened, what should be the position of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan?
In view of the complex nature of the problems in the region that position had to be clear-cut. The Party had to reply unambiguously to a number of questions about its identity, its allegiances, its aspirations and its options.
Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and his aides drew up as coherent and realistic a programme as they could which may be summarised, in essence, as follows:

- We are Kurds, we belong to a people that the vicissitudes of history have scattered over five states. A bond of brotherhood binds us, and will continue to bind us, to all other Kurds, wherever they live.
- We are the descendants of one of the oldest Indo- European civilisations. Our identity is defined by the fact that we have our own language and our own culture.
- We are the citizens of a country called Iran - on the same basis of the other peoples living on Iranian territory: the Baluchs, Persians, Azeris, Lors, Arabs, Armenians, Turkmens, Assyrians and so on.
- We are ardent defenders of the Declaration of Human Rights and the right of peoples as defined by the United Nations.
…..

AFK

Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou
Man of Peace and Dialogue

Compte d’auteur

Compte d’auteur
Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou
Man of Peace and Dialogue
Association France Kurdistan

A.R. Ghassemlou, Man of Peace and Dialogue

The life and death of
Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou
(1930 -1989)

AFK, Po Box 102
75623 Paris Cedex 13, France

Copyright J.J.M. 1989
English translation Finjan
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