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Police State, Mr El-Choufi Said That He Hoped Appointed RCC Secretary

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Police State, Mr El-Choufi Said That He Hoped Appointed RCC Secretary police state, Mr el-Choufi said that he hoped appointed RCC Secretary-General in succession to Mr Muhdi the formation of a new opposition front in Abdul Hussein Mashhadi, who had been dismissed on July 12 nd the democratic aspirations of the Syrian [see below]. ew cabinet *Dr Ahmed Abdul Sattar - al-Juwari . .1 k&s and Religious Affairs On *Mr Khaled ~bibmm . Minister of State for Kurdish Affairs , Mr Abdul Fattah Mohammad -I Amin. Local Pid&iinisiration* ' *Mr MzRasheed . * No change. t Changed or additional responsibilities. New portfolio. Mr Ramadhan, a member of the RCC, had hitherto been Minister , formerly known changes (i)Dr Ali was, as reported by the official Iraqi News Agency INA on Aug. 12, succeeded as Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research by Mr Jassim Muhammad al-Khalaf and (ii) under a presidential decree of Nov. 13 Dr al- Juwari was succeeded as Minister of Wads and Religious Affairs by Mr Nouri Faisal Shaher. I KEESING'S CONTEMPORARY ARCHIVES February 22, 1980 February 2 death sentenc victed of ' quarters", ar against the pa to the Kurdis both within ar they had com~ [see 255 13 A]. ( Iraqi and o latter part of were being 1 result, many first secretary, Trial and Execution of Accused others moved ICP announcl its membershi] Front [see 26 barely particir missal in April Cabinet, see al During this had arrested I some detainees torture, and although the C nevertheless cc Furth a Deputy prim; that after the exc communist cells new prisoners [v fate" (political 5. death for non-B for the office of the RCC Deputy Chairman [see 28240 A]. had not been arr political activity According to the July 28 communiquC the "party and revolution" Relations with Syria planning a coup ad "triumphed over a vile and treacherous leadership, along with a independent revc natural ties with The organ of temporarily suspc although the rea newspaper's atta~ National Progres atement issued 1 its foundation in "methods of dec to have forced 1 alleged links with The ICP recei~ parti.es, and in Ja manifesto denour In response to thi a statement whici Syrian unificatior had published an being thought that President Bakr might have been reluctant in the Financial ; to deal as harshly with the opponents as Mr Hussein had entire communist Jews from Palesti 18 members of ti The opponents of the regime were thought to have been motivated present form in l! by (i) their resentment of the dominance of Mr Hussein's family in senior government posts; (ii) desire for unity with Syria, on which In view of the discussions had been under way since October 1978 [see page 29659; munists Iraq's re 30100 A] but certain aspects of which were opposed by Mr Hussein; throughout 1975 and (iii) rejection of the suppression of dissident members of Iraq's between Iraq an1 majority Shia Moslem sect by the Sunni minority which dominated I conflict developc the leadership of the country [see below]. The Iraqi leadership had of 1979 over the moreover been divided by its campaign against Communists and 1 (some of whom Kurds, both of which groups had still been officially represented in the National Progressive Front, and its consequent poor relations I murder of an Ira with the Soviet Union [see below]. j its ambassador i II with Bulgaria an While further details of the alleged conspiracy could not be clearly numerous Iraqi r ascertained, it was generally believed that the trouble had begun at an emergency meeting of the RCC in early July, which had been i Earlier. howev of an official vis 10-13, 1978, ref Iraq, the Soviet capacity of Irac October [see pa idiscussions had :rs9', and it the party t Kurdish I within --A lad co li and part c being , man ecreta i mov KEESING'S CONTE! 'ORARY ARCHIVES February 22, 1980 Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s Mullah Barzani was under- Two British bu stood to have received aid from Iran and the United States, and the 1978 following tht Kurds succeeded in establishing control of a large area of Iraq (esti- mated at some 35,000 square kilometres) on the borders of Turkey of 11 Iraqis in co~ and Iran. In 1970 he concluded a ceasefie agreement with the Iraqi other violent atta Government providing for the establishment of full autonomy for were brought to b Iraqi Kurds within four years [see 23916 A; 26531 A; page 292401, One of the two but the fulfilment of this accord largely fell short of Kurdish expecta- ing to the same spokesmen the security forces had been determined working for an A tions. Moreover, in 1975 the Kurdish rebellion virtually collapsed to prevent all references being made by the crowd to the continued arrested in the sol when Iran reached border agreements with Iraq which inter alia detention of Ayatollah al Sadr. meant the end of supplies reaching Iraqi Kurds via Iran, while the was in the latter United States also withdrew its support. Le Monde of Jan. 28, 1979, published a report which had imprisonment for been issued by the French section of Amnesty International on subversive activit In 1975 Mullah Barzani, together with many of his supporters, Jan. 26 and which asked President Bakr for "precise informa- Sparkes (52), whc left Iraq for Iran [see page 270541 but he later settled in the United States where he sought medical treatment for lung cancer. He died tion" about 600 Christians (including a number of foreigners) Wimpey construcl on March 1 in Washington of a heart attack, and was buried in the who had been arrested in November 1978 for "participation in "economic espior mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, near the Iranian border, on March 5. religious meetings considered illegal by the Iraqi Government, sentenced to life i~ for preaching the Gospel, and for having had contacts with Mullah Barzani had been opposed by other Kurds both during The UK Foreign 4 and after his period of leadership for his anti-communist stance and foreigners"; an unspecified number of those detained were made strong protest his ties with the United States, in particular (it was maintained) with understood to have subsequently been accused of espionage. the two men, on k the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [see also page 292411. Le Monde of March 4-5, 1979, later gave details of a state- trial which was said interpretation being Shortly after his return to Iraq Mr Masoud Barzani was ment made to that newspaper by the Iraqi ambassador to Foreign and Comrn quoted by The New York Tima of July 17 as having pledged France in which he claimed that all religions in Iraq were free by British MPs ove~ that he and his supporters would intensify fighting in the north to practise and that the foreigners referred to by the Amnesty his early release and of the country in order to "rescue the Kurdish people from International communiqut had been imprisoned not for their relations between tl persecution . and to gain real autonomy for the Kurdish religious beliefs but for their "illegal activity in Iraq" and their tracts with British f people within a democratic and prosperous Iraq". By August ties with an organization considered by the Baath party to London in July 1971 Mr Barzani estimated there to be 5,000 Pesh Mergas in northern have "suspicious intentions", and had in fact since been The Iraqi ambas Iraq facing some six Iraqi Army divisions. released from prison after an inquiry had been made. ''- Hassan, on Aug. The DPK in late 1979 held a congress to reorganize its leader- Tdal of Irnqis in London Detention of Britons in Irnq 4 when a grenade ar. - - in Beirut. Mr Hass ship and to discuss its future strategy; this meeting was, how- Assnssinetion Attempt on Iraqi Ambassador to Lebanon .i { ever, thought to have been largely inconclusive and underlined The trial of two Iraqis arrested after the killing in London to hospital for tre differences between the "traditionalists", who tended to sup- on July 9, 1978, of a former Iraqi Prime Minister, Col. Abdul seriously injured. port Mr Barzani's elder brother, Mr Idris Barzani, and the Razzak al Nayef [see page 293031 opened at the Old Bailey on P day of violence i "intellectual" wing of the DPK, headed by Mr M. M. "Sami" Feb. 28, 1979. On March 16 one of the defendants, Mr Salem after a verbal atta Abdulrahman. Ahmad Hassan (27) was sentenced to life imprisonment, while senior official of tl Moreover, notwithstanding the broadly similar aims of the the other, Mr Ammadi Rahman al-Shukri (39, and given as hlork Times - Intel DPK and the PUK, led by Mr Jalal Talabani, rivalry between Mr Saadi Abdul Rahman al-Shukri on page 29303) was acquitted the two main Kurdish movements in Iraq continued, in par- of the charges brought against him. ticular as a result of Mr Talabani's desire to assume overall Both men had initially pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring leadership of the Kurdish rebellion-his PUK having launched to murder Col. al Nayef but Mr Hassan-who was accused of firiM a number of raids against government troops since mid-1976 the shot which killed the Colonel and who had been caught at the Isee page 29241, where earlier conflicts between rival Kurdish scene of the crime-on March 2 changed his plea to guilty. (Mr groups are described]. Hassan was moreover quoted as having admitted to police that he In a communiqu&published in Stockholm on Oct. 26, 1979, the was a "soldier" of the Iraqi-supported and "rejectionist" Popular PUK claimed that the DPK had executed three of its members the Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and as A.
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