A
Note about the Controversial Kurdistan Autonomy Plan
Sam Ghandchi
Persian Version متن فارسی
"Their demolished doors and walls are breaking on my head
..." Nima Yushij
My dear friend, Abdullah Mohtadi,
following criticisms from Iran's countrywide political movement concerning the
new agreement of Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran and Komala Party of Iranian
Kurdistan, has said in a recent interview that his plan for Iran's Kurdistan is
to create a Kurdish region from several provinces where the Kurds currently live
in Iran and has described this region as part of the future federal system of
Iran. It is not important whether such a region is defined within ethnic
federalism (1)
or
provincial federalism (2) or as an autonomous region
in Iran with a centralized government. The result will be an autonomous region
for the Kurds whether we call the Kurds an ethnic group or a nation. The
discussion is neither about federalism nor the definition of ethnic groups or
nations.
Iran's countrywide movement in reaction to this accord of
Kurdish parties has pushed aside any review of plans for federalism for Iran's
future (3).
The basis
of the proposed joint communiqué of the two Kurdish parties is to have the
Kurdish people live in the autonomous region rather than in provinces that would
be home to people of various ethnic backgrounds willing to work for democracy
and progress regardless of ethnicity, race or nationality. In other words, this
is a retrogressive plan to return to the autonomous rule of the Ardalans of
feudal Iran before the time of Nasereddin Shah of Qajar (4).
It is true that the Kurdistan Regional Government
of Iraq today has such a status and may even become an independent republic. But
this has been the result of the particular situation of US attack of Iraq and US
support of the Kurdish parties that believed in autonomous Kurdistan during that
war. Separation of Northern Azerbaijan from Iran also
occurred following the war between Iran and Russia during the reign of Fat′h-Ali
Shah Qajar, and after the fall of Soviet Union, it became an independent
republic.
One cannot view such historical events as a
reason to justify plans for autonomous regions in Iran or in any other country.
The result of such plans is to prevent people with diverse racial, ethnic and
national backgrounds from growing together (5). Examples in many African, Asian
and European countries can be seen where the outcome has been nothing but local
retrogressive dictatorships, and this is the reason why Iran's pro-democracy
movement condemns separatism (6).
About 65 years ago, the
Mahabad Republic proposed this same program of autonomy for Kurdistan and a
group of the most educated elite of Kurdistan participated in it; Abdollah
Mohtadi's father was one of the cabinet ministers of Ghazi Mohammad's
government. The Mahabad government, which came to power with the support of
Stalin's USSR , was smashed by Iran's army following an agreement between Truman
and Stalin, and the government was not supported by nationalist forces and even
leftist groups of other parts of Iran. A similar event with a similar mistake
happened at the same time in Azerbaijan, and the result was the confrontation of
two parts of Iran's political and civil movement at that time.
During 1979 Revolution the same mistake was repeated and some
of the opinion leaders of Kurdistan, such as the respected Abdolrahman
Ghassemlou, again came forward with the slogan of "Democracy for Iran, Autonomy
for Kurdistan." Although in the first anniversary of the revolution, Kurdistan
Democratic Party and Komala Party were able to take over the power in Mahabad
and Sanandaj but their negotiations with Iran's provisional government of Mehdi
Bazargan, to continue as an autonomous government based on the 26 point proposal
of the Kurdish delegation, did not succeed. With the fall of the semi-liberal
government in Tehran the plans of attacking Kurdistan became more serious and at
the end with the start of Iran-Iraq War, the civil and political movement of
Kurdistan was practically wiped off even though it was supported by the movement
from other parts of Iran.
Neither at the time of Ghazi Mohammad nor at the time of the 1979 Revolution nor
at the present time has the choosing of the path of retrogressive autonomy by
some of the political elite of Kurdistan been because of foreign powers,
although depending on their interests at each historical turn, they may have
supported such plans. This does not go back to the Mahabad Republic but goes
back further to the time of Ismaiil Agha Simku, who at the time of Iran's
Constitutional Movement fought against the Iranian constitutionalists and also
worked for the British to secure their oil wells in Kirkuk of Iraq.
Kurdish leaders from the time of Ghazi Mohammad until the present time basically
were neither dependent on foreign powers like Ismaiil Agha Simku nor were they
anti-constitutionalist like him, but their mistake was to choose an erroneous
and retrogressive program of autonomy for Kurdistan. Isn't it time to work
together with the rest of the pro-democracy movement encompassing all of Iran
for the prosperity and happiness of Iran in a society formed by a rainbow of
ethnic and national backgrounds?
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