Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) 1
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Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) 1 Kurdish political leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-IRAN) Abroad Committee Media Centre www.kdppress.org Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-IRAN) Abroad Committee Media Centre www.kdppress.org Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou 2 (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou ,عەبدولڕەحامن قاسملوو :Kurdish) Ebdurehman Qasimlú) (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) was a Kurdish political leader. Ghassemlou was the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Partiya/حیزبی دیموکڕاتی کوردستان - حدک) Demokrata Kurdistana - PDK) from 1973 to 1989, when he was killed by individuals thought to be agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Arly and private life Born in Urmia, West Azarbaijan, Iran, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was instructed in a Quranic school. He was the son of Mohammad Vesugh, a wealthy landowning Kurdish Ahga. Ghassemlou started his university studies in France, and pursued them in Czechoslovakia, where he met his wife Helen Krulich. They had two daughters together, Mina (1953) and Hewa (1955). He was fluent in 8 languages including his mother tongue. He could read and write and speak and understand Kurdish, Kurmanji Kurdish, Persian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, French, English, Czech, Russian, and was familiar with German andSlovakian. Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-IRAN) Abroad Committee Media Centre www.kdppress.org Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) 3 Political life Ghassemlou went back to Kurdistan in 1952, after completing his studies. He then spent several years as an active militant in the Kurdish political field. In 1973, during the Third Congress of the PDKI, he was elected to the position of Secretary General of the party, a position to which he was re-elected several times until his assassination. In 1979, his party supported the revolution which ended in the fall of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. However, the party boycotted the referendum for the new constitution. This was the start of confrontation of the party and the new regime, which ended in a military suppression of the party by the central government. Shortly, after the beginning of the armed Kurdish rebellion, Ayatollah Khomeini declared a «holy war» on the separationist Kurds. Thousands of executions followed in Kurdistan, which were continued up to 1984 in the middle of Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988). Assassination and funerals In 1988, after the war had ended, the Iranian government decided to meet with him. Several meetings followed in Vienna, on December 28, December 30 and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-IRAN) Abroad Committee Media Centre www.kdppress.org Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou 4 (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) January 20. Another meeting was set up for July 13, again in Vienna. The Tehran delegation was as before, namely Mohammed Jafar Sahraroudi and Hadji Moustafawi, except that this time there was also a third member: Amir Mansur Bozorgian whose function was that of bodyguard. The Kurds also had a three-man delegation: Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, his aide Abdullah Ghaderi- Azar (member of the PDKI Central Committee) and Fadhil Rassoul, an Iraqi university professor who had acted as a mediator. The next day, 13 July 1989, in the very room where the negotiation took place, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was killed by three bullets fired at very close range. His assistant Abdullah Ghaderi-Azar was hit by eleven bullets and Fadhil Rassoul by five. Hadji Moustafawi succeeded in escaping. Mohammad Jafar Sahraroudi received minor injuries and was taken to hospital, questioned and allowed to go. Amir Mansur Bozorgian was released after 24 hours in police custody and took refuge in the Iranian Embassy. The PDKI Deputy Secretary General, Sadegh Sharafkandi, succeeded Ghassemlou as Secretary General (he was assassinated on September 17, 1992). Abdullah Ghaderi Azar and Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou were buried on July 20 inParis at Père Lachaise Cemetery. Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-IRAN) Abroad Committee Media Centre www.kdppress.org Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) 5 Investigation According to the pdki.org website In late November 1989 the Austrian courts issued a warrant for the arrest of the three Iranian representatives and the Austrian Government expressly accused the Iranian Government as having instigated the attack on Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and the two other Kurds. The three Iranian representatives in the negotiations with the Kurdish leaders could return to Iran as free people, one of them had never been in custody, one was escorted to the Vienna airport nine days after the crime by Austrian police and the third, after one night of arrest, spent a few months in the Iranian embassy in Vienna before he disappeared from Austria. Warrants for their arrest were not issued before November 1989. 20 years after the triple assessination they have not been executed, still. Contrary to the German Mykonos-trial after the murder of Ghassemlou›s successor Dr. Sadegh Sharafkandi in Berlin the crime in Vienna was never clarified by any court. The Mykonos verdict of April 10, 1997 clearly states the responsibility of the then Iranian government for the murders in Berlin and in Vienna Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-IRAN) Abroad Committee Media Centre www.kdppress.org Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou 6 (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou charming, and charismatic Middle Eastern leader of millions of Kurds in Iran. Ghassemlou spoke eight languagesKurdistan Democratic Party with (KDP-IRAN) ease. Abroad Committee Media Centre www.kdppress.org—from The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) 7 several years. In the next decade he split his time between Europe and Kurdistan working in double harness : his université career and his repeated missions to Kurdistan. In 1959, the regional context appeared to He went to université in Paris and later be more hopeful : in neighbouring Iraq, the Czechoslovakia, had a Doctorate in monarchy had been overthrown and Molla économics and was an associate professor, Mostafa Barzani (leader of the Democratic having taught in Prague and Paris. In 1941, Party of Iraqi Kurdistan) had returned to the Allies invaded Iran in a ‹bridge of his country after eleven years of exile in victory» opération that inevitably brought USSR. In 196869- armed conflict was rife about the downfall of Reza Shah because in Iranian Kurdistan and the period ended of his relations with the Axis powers. A in a bath of blood with the massacre of major political change was to take shape the Kurdish leaders - and yet, even then, in the country. In Iranian Kurdistan the Kurdish résistance managed to raise its national movement came back to life and head again. the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, CIle government in Bagdad accepted founded on 16 August 1945, attracted the principle of autonomy for the Kurdish young people in their masses. One of them population of Iraq. Was the Kurdish identity was Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou - not yet at last to be recognised ? On the other side 15 years old. of the frontier, the Kurdistan Democratic party steeled itself to renew the struggle. On 22 January 1946 the Kurdish Republic The vice-like grip in which the Shah›s armies of Mahabad came into existence by were trying to hold it had to be broken. proclamation, but in December the same At the third Congress of the Kurdistan year the imperial army with the help of Democratic party (1973), Abdul Rahman the Anglo-American forces entered the city Ghassemlou was elected Secretary- and the kflling and arrests that followed General and at those that followed he was were as cruel as they were indiscriminate. invariably returned to office. The Republic had fallen. Its President, Qazi During the years that followed, the prestige Mohammad, and his close followers were of the Pahlavi monarchy continued to wane. taken prisoner and then put to death on The White Revolution was questioned by 30 March 1947.Little by little the Kurdish experts in international affairs, the greedy people re-gathered its strength : the demands and extravagant behaviour of Republic of Mahabad may have been the court were criticised in the press and the short-lived but in the collective memory SAVAK was active throughout the country, it did not die. Running unlimited risks, the no social class being spared its baneful Kurdish leaders set about the vast task of attentions. Clearly - and sooner rather than protecting, educating and organising the later - the regime was doomed. If that population. Back from Europe in 1952, happened, what should be the position of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou devoted his the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan ? energies to these clandestine activities for In view of the complex nature of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-IRAN) Abroad Committee Media Centre —from The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd www.kdppress.org Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou 8 (December 22, 1930 – July 13, 1989) problems in the region that position had it is necessary to establish a system to be clearcut. The Party had to reply providing free éducation of uniform quality unambiguously to a number of questions throughout the country. A special effort about its identity, its allegiances, its should be made in the peripheral areas aspirations and its options. Abdul Rahman (Kurdistan, for example) that are clearly a Ghassemlou and his aides drew up as long way behind. coherent and realistic a programme as they - No attempt to leave poverty behind will could which may be summarised, in essence, succeed without the active participation of as follows : the people themselves. To feel concerned - so we believe - they have to feel free. - We are Kurds, we belong to a people Freedom of movement for goods and that the vicissitudes of history have persons, freedom of association and scattered over five states.