The Silent Escape Through the Nights of the Kurdish Regions: Based on a True Story

Copyright © 2013 by DANA BERZINJY.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4797-0869-7

                Ebook          978-1-4797-0870-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-800-618-969

www.Xlibris.com.au

Orders@Xlibris.com.au

501256

CONTENTS

Introduction   A Bitter Life In Kurdistan And The Other Regions Of Kurdistan

1   We Left The City Of Sulaimaniyah In 1963 And Went And Lived In The Village Of Wenderene And The Town Of Berzinje.

2   Life In The City Of Sulaimaniyah 1966-1967 & 1969

3   The Town Of Berzinje 1967-1968 & 1971-1972

4   The Agreement In March 21St 1970, Between The Kurdish Leadership And The Iraqi Government In Order To Grant Autonomy To The Kurdish Nation

5   Life In Berzinje Again In 1970-1971, In Primary School Year Six

6   Intermediate School And High School In 1971-1977, In The Province Of Sulaimaniyah

7   Life In Baghdad 1978-1979

8   Life In Sulaimaniyah While I Was Working At University And My Trip To Europe In 1980

9   Life In The Iraqi Army In The Cities Of Nejaf And Basra-September 1980-June 1981 And The University Of Sulaimaniyah Had Moved To The Province Of Erbil.

10   In June 1981-1983 Left The Province Of Sulaimaniyah And Went To The Village Of Maiyawa In Sharbajer Close To The Town Of Berzinje (Srochik).

11   After I Returned From The Village Of Maiyawa, The Life In Sulaimaniyah, And Hewler In 1983-1988, While I Was Working At University Of Salahaddin And The Harassment By The Arab Baath Socialist Party.

12   Escaped From The Iraqi Kurdistan On 28Th May In 1988 And Went Towards The Iranian Kurdistan, We Stayed In Iran Until July 988.

13   Life In Turkey From July1988 To 25\10\1989

14   Life In Australia From 26/10/1989-Current

Summary

Bibliography

About The Author

DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate this book to my grandparents and my parents, who worked very hard so that they could raise me with such minimal income. To our people of Kurdistan, for the Kurdish martyrs, and for those people that sacrificed their lives and worked hard in order to achieve victory. I would like to dedicate this book to my great partner and friend Tara without her I would not be able to make it. She worked hard with me through the dark days and nights in Kurdistan and other Regions of Kurdistan. Hand in hand; supported me through our difficult life in every aspect without stopping day and night. Especially when we were crossing the high mountains between the Iraqi Kurdistan (South of Kurdistan), Iranian Kurdistan (Eastern Kurdistan) and Kurdistan of Turkey (North of Kurdistan). To my lovely and angelic daughters Vanna and Shivan.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to acknowledge the following for their support and encouragement whilst writing this book. They were always there to help me through it all: My partner and friend Tara and my lovely daughters Vanna and Shivan.

INTRODUCTION

A BITTER LIFE IN KURDISTAN AND THE OTHER REGIONS OF KURDISTAN

Life in Kurdistan was very bad. It was miserable, especially in South Kurdistan (Kurdistan of Iraq) after the collapse of our revolution or resistant in March 1975, against the former Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein. The Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani was forced by the King of Iran Reza Shah Pahlevy to accept a ceasefire. The secret conspiracy plot was made in Algeria; these countries participated in that plot, the former Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein and Iran. It was supported by Algeria’s President and the United States of America and headed by Henry Kiesinger.

In 1975 Thousands of Kurdish Freedom Fighters and their families were exiled to South of Iraq at the result of this plot. The men’s of the Iraqi regime carried out the campaign. The Kurdish people were misplaced to south of Iraq in different cities, towns and villages in unfamiliar hot climates. For instance Basra, Baghdad, Al-Nasiriya, Tikrit, Diwaniyah, Amarah, Ramadi and many other places. These people were forced under the security guards to live in South of the country and they remained there for so many years without hope. Some of these people never even came back to their homeland (Kurdistan) some were imprisoned and some were executed just for the simple fact that they were Kurd. The situation in Iraqi Autonomous Kurdistan got worse and the Iraqi regime began to capture thousands. Later on in 1987-1988 they started to relocate the Kurdish villagers and then after that the regime genocided about 200,000 people and their locations are still unknown. The former regime also used chemical weapons in 1988 in the town of Halabja at the result of that bombardment more than 5000 civilians got killed and thousands were injured and taken to Iran for treatment. In addition to this the government kidnapped more than 8000 Kurdish Barzani people from Qushtepe near the city of Erbil, this tragedy was discovered after the collapse of the Iraqi government in 2003. From those Barzanis who were killed 500 bodies were brought back, these all killed by the former Iraqi government. I have also included some chapters in this book but I will briefly outline the main chapters in here. Chapter 1 left the city in 1963 and the life in the village and the country town. Chapter 2, life in the city of Sulaimaniyah. Chapter 3, the country town of Berzinje.

Chapter 4, Intermediate school and High School in the province of Sulaimaniyah. Chapter 5, life in Baghdad 1978-79. Chapter 6, life in Sulaimaniyah while I was at university—year 1980. Chapter 7, 1980 and Europe. Chapter 8, life in army in Nejaf and Basra-September 1980-June 1981. Chapter nine, the University of Sulaimaniyah had moved in 1981 by the former Iraqi government to the province of Erbil. Chapter 10, in June 1981-1983 left the province of Sulaimaniyah and went to the village of Maiyawa in Sharbajer close to the town of Berzinje (Srochik). Chapter 11, in 1983 life in Erbil while I was working at university of Salahaddin and harassment by the Arab Baath Socialist Party. Chapter 12, escaped from the Iraqi Kurdistan on 28th May in 1988 and went towards the Iranian Kurdistan. Chapter 13, life in Iran from June 1988 to July. Chapter fourteen, life in Turkey from 7/1988 to 25/10/1989, and the last chapter life in Australia from 26/10/1989-current in Australia.

CHAPTER 1

WE LEFT THE CITY OF SULAIMANIYAH IN 1963 AND WENT AND LIVED IN THE VILLAGE OF WENDERENE AND THE TOWN OF BERZINJE.

I was a little boy, but I do remember everything that happened those days in my city (Sulaimaniyah). Life was very harsh because the Kurdish people started their own revolution against the Iraqi government. This included the Kurdish leadership asking the government to recognize the Kurdish rights as a nation. The Kurdistan Democratic Party took armed struggle against the Iraqi government because the government did not bother to negotiate with the Kurdish leadership team about the needs or rights of the Kurdish people nor to grant them freedom or autonomy for Kurdistan and Democracy for the whole of Iraq. The Iraqi government instead should have used a language of peace, but unfortunately they attacked all the Kurdish cities in Kurdistan such as Sulaimaniyah, Kirkuk, Dhok, Erbil, Mosul and even the Kurds in Baghdad whom were living there for so many years before the arrival of the Arabs in the Middle East. In July 1963 the Iraqi brutal army organized itself, and was ready to attack the innocent Kurdish civilians. My father at that time was a police officer at the local police station in Sulaimaniyah, and he told me that the Iraqi army would attack the city of Sulaimaniyah. So my dad came home and told my mum about the news and told us to be ready to leave the city and head off to Berzinje to one of the villages in the area. My dad prepared everything and hired a car to take my mum, my three sisters and myself to the town of Berzinje. A few days later, after we got the news we left the city of Sulaimaniyah, and we arrived in Berzinje. We went to my grandparents’ house; they were delighted to see us. We stayed in Berzinje for some time, and enjoyed the company of my grandparents. Afterwards my father arrived too and he told us that the Iraqi army had imprisoned, killed, and shot so many innocent people in the city, including young boys. Back in Sulaimaniyah we had two big photos of our Kurdish leaders of the time and they were hung on our wall at home. My dad said when he heard that the Iraqi troops arrived at our suburb one of the Arab soldiers knocked on our door so my dad tried to break the photos, and hide them in the house before the troops entered our house. My dad broke the frames of the photos and he hid them in the bathroom. Whilst doing that he cut his fingers. They were bleeding so he put some disinfectant on the cut and then opened the door, luckily for my dad the soldiers did not say anything because he was in the police uniform.

We used to live in another house, which was located in the mountains. My dad told me that the previous land lord had only one son but when the Iraqi troops arrived in the city of Sulaimaniyah, he was caught by the troops and he was shot dead in front of his parents. His parents loved him so much, so he was buried in the backyard of their own house. In addition to that, nobody in the city was able to go out and bury his or her family members, because the army was so savage. People were randomly shot in the streets, and in their houses without any legitimate reason.

After some time the army made it illegal and prohibited anyone to go out shopping so all the shops were shut down and no one was allowed to visit their relatives or bury their beloved ones. Thousands of innocent people were imprisoned by troops, under covered police and soldiers. All the prisons were in the Kurdish cities and the rest of Iraq. They were full of civilians, including young ladies, children, men, women and sick people. Hundreds of young boys and innocent people were shot simply because they were Kurdish, nothing else. One of my parents’ cousins was among the prisoners in the city. He was selling livestock.

I escaped from the Iraqi army in June 1981, and went to the village of Maiyawa in order to protect myself from being killed or getting captured by the Iranian army when I was a soldier in Basra in South of Iraq. I also had to protect myself from being shot in Sulaimaniyah by the Iraqi government because I left the Iraqi army. My cousin told me his story about the Iraqi prison and the life of the prisoners at the time in Sulaimaniyah. He said everyone was getting bashed up in the prison and they would recieve electric shots through their bodies. Food and water were not provided at all, people were dying from hunger and thirst. He said he was put in a prison that originally the place was pused for livestock to live in, not for human beings. He could not find food to eat for weeks; the prisoners ate seeds and hay from wasted animals. The government at that time was not buying Kurdish products and financially nobody was supporting the Iraqi Kurdish citizens, and unemployment rate was so high. Nobody had a choice but to work hard in order to survive. Economically, the Kurdish cities were blockaded; local shops were not allowed to sell their products to another supplier. All the products were prohibited to be sold to other cities in North or South of the country. This was all just tonmake the life harder for the Kurdish citizens. He told me another sad story about selling and taking livestock from Sulaimaniyah to the Kurdish city of Kirkuk. He had almost about 100 livestock that he had smuggled at night to the city of Kirkuk in order to sell them, but unfortunately, when he arrived the border of the city he lost his way. There were so many fields of hot boiled and raw asphalts; all his livestock got trapped in the asphalts and he could not save them, as the asphalts were very hot and strong almost like a volcano. He almost lost everything that night except a few heads of goats. That was just an example how the Kurdish people struggled in order to survive at that time and the suffering of people that were in the hands of the brutal Iraqi regime.

We stayed in Berzinje for a couple of weeks then until my cousin Diyako Kurdi had arrived from the city of Baghdad. He was just 15 years old and we found out that he escaped from the city of Baghdad because he was followed by the Iraqi Arab Muslim soldiers National Guards. They raided his father’s house and they wanted to imprison him because he was Kurdish. He said he did not open the door of the house to be captured by the terrorist (National Guards) so he ran away through the roof of their house and jumped onto his neighbor’s roof and saved himself. His mother then opened the house door and told them that he was not home and that when he comes back she will tell him to go to the centre and find out what the authorities want from him. But in the same day my cousin left the city of Baghdad and came to the city of Sulaimaniyah. Some of our relatives told him that his auntie had left the city and had gone to live in the town of Berzinje until the situation gets better.

In the same day my cousin came straight away to Berzinje. He did not know that his father was imprisoned. My uncle was in the Iraqi army and he was responsible for almost 100 Iraqi Solders in the Iraqi army Base of Rashid near his house. My wife’s uncle did not know that my uncle was captured in his place of work. He disappeared for a week and she went to find out what had happened to him. She was told that he was on duty somewhere else. After a month one of our cousins was an army driver in Baghdad. He also came to visit her and he had mentioned that her husband was captured. My cousin was in year 9 in High School and he could not finish his studies.

My cousin was 10 years older than me but he became my friend and he looked after me so we became good mates. One of my parents’ cousins was a Freedom Fighter his name was Amanj Berzinjy. He was living in the area of Hawraman around the village of Dujeile near the town of Halabja. My aunty was his wife and they had 3 kids. He had a beautiful horse. The horse was very powerful more then a donkey was. When he became a Freedom Fighter he could not look after the horse and he came to Berzinje one day and gave it to my father to look after. While he was a Freedom Fighter, his house was burnt down to the ground a few times during the war between the Kurdish people and the former Iraqi government.

Unfortunately our relative Amanj Berzinjy had a heart attack and passed away on 4th of December, 2012. Amanj’s sister used to live in the city of Sulaimaniyah. She was always supporting her brother and used to give financial support to his daughter too. Because she was very young and the Iraqi soldiers did not expect that a little girl like her would be able to deliver money and give it to her father. At that time the Kurdish Freedom Fighters were fighting against the former Iraqi government voluntarily, and the villagers used to support and feed the Kurdish Freedom Fighters.

We started to move, and leave Berzinje and go to live in a village of Wenderene close to the high Mountains of Koorekarzjaw. The village is about 1 and a half hours far from Berzinje. We found a friend of my aunt’s in the village his name was Kak Fars. My aunt’s husband in Berzinje had a shop and he used to supply the villagers with some food on the monthly bases. The villagers in general were very kind to us, and my other cousin Herdy Khoorshe was older than me by a year. He used to help his dad in the shop by giving the villagers their shares of the food, when it was due. Because of the shop my aunty’s family made a strong relationship with all the villagers. They used to come to Berzinje to get their shares of the food; my aunty did not let them leave Berzinje without giving them lunch. My aunty had 4 daughters and 1 son.

My grandpa had a donkey, it was very necessary for him because he had a vineyard in Berzinje, and it was almost 2 hours far from where we lived. So he used to go to his vineyard in summer every day, so the only transport he had at that time was his donkey. He had to ride it, and load it with some grapes and figs for the family. I remember on our way to get home, he used to give grapes to the people we met. He was very kind to everybody including me.

My dad told us, that my two cousins and I needed to go to the village of Wenderene to take some basic stuff that we needed to live in Wenderene in order to hide our selves from the Iraqi (National Guards), they were sent from Baghdad the capital of Iraq. We were all young and did not have much experience with the special life in the village, but we had to do it, and we had no choice. It was summer when we went to the village. We took some stuff and loaded the donkey, but it almost took us all day just for one trip, and when we got back to Berzinje, my grandpa was angry with us for being late, because he wanted to go to his vineyard, and to get some grapes and other things for us.

Next week we almost went everyday to take more things so that incase we decided to go live there we would have enough supplies. We eventually shifted everything we needed to the new place. The first day that we arrived in the village our friend Kak Fars came with us in order to organize a pergola in the mountains. They started to cut some big trees and dug up the ground and put the pole trees in, they rectangular shape. After that they put some long and thin trees on the top of the poles across the pergola. They then laid some tree leaves and branches on top of the trees.

We were half way to finishing our job and we found a big brown snake underneath our feet. Luckily it did not bite us. Later on they killed the snake, because it was the most dangerous one and we feared it could harm us. Kak Fars was almost about 16 years old, and he became a good friend to my cousin Diyako Kurdi. So we stayed for almost 3 months in the mountains during the summer. If we wanted to buy something from the shops of the village, we had to walk about 40 minutes to get there. When winter started we went back to Berzinje, because the Iraqi government during winter could not attack the Kurdish towns, or the villages of Kurdistan. The Arab soldiers were not used to the cold weather like we were in Kurdistan. The winter at that time was very harsh; snow was falling on a daily bases with storms.

We used to buy Iranian products, because the Iraqi government had banned food to reach our liberated areas. The Iraqi Arab soldiers were never able to rich our lands in Kurdistan (North of Iraq). At that time my dad was always listening to the Israeli and British radios, because they were the only true sources we could listen so that we could get real news regarding in the Middle East.

My cousin; the one that came from Baghdad, became a Freedom Fighter and he joined the Freedom Fighters to fight the Iraqi government. He could not go back to Baghdad, because his father was arrested and he was under arrest by the government too. He had to leave everything behind including his mother and two sisters. He was a very educated young Freedom Fighter and later on became a clerk and stayed in KDPs Freedom Fighters base in order to look after the office. At the same time (Kak Fars) became a Freedom Fighter too.

My father’s brother was a policeman in Sulaimaniyah too. He escaped one year after in 1964 and joined us in Berzinje. We all lived in one double story house. It was a bit far from the centre of the town. The house was very big and had two bedrooms. Each family lived in one bedroom on the 1st floor. Our relatives owned the house, they were a married couple and the husband was Christian. He worked as a school principle in the city of Sulaimaniyah, he was the most educated person in the town and later on he became a principle in Berzinje Primary Public School. He always made friendships with poor and low class people, that’s why the Iraqi former government was always suspicious about him. They thought he was a member in the Communist Party but he was not. It was just an accusation because he always supported innocent people, as they were not able to survive without help. The governments in the past never helped desperate people. He was then later on accused and the government arrested him and put him into prison for over a year. I remember when he was released from prison, my parents and I went to visit him in Berzinje and he gave us a wallet, which was hand made. He made it in prison from pearls and was it was knitted perfectly. After some time he was reinstated as a principle for a Public Primary School. Our life was very difficult because none of the family had a regular income. My dad had saved some money to keep us going for sometime and my grandpa also helped us during that time. My dad tried to plant oats and during the summer we harvested the products, and I remember, I helped my dad during the harvest, to me it was like a dream. There were no jobs available in that town for the residents of Berzinje. Everybody was unemployed in the town, except for the people that had farms or those whom were busy with agriculture, as they had to sell their products for instances grapes in summer to the suppliers in the city of Sulaimaniyah.

I remember that my grandpa sold the grapes in summer just for 20 Iraqi Dinars and he had to be careful how to spend that money. That income was for 1 year and he had to distribute it very wisely in order to keep us going for that period of time, because we could not get any support from the Iraqi government by any means. Some times my grandpa could not look after the vineyard and he used to hire some employees for a week in order to help him collect the branches of the grape trees. He also paid money to the owners of the bulls so that they could dig up the ground in order for the land to get stronger and to give us better products like grapes and figs. In the vineyard we had different types of grapes such as white, red, black, autumn grapes, wine colored grapes and different types of figs such as white, black, and purple figs.

We stayed in Berzinje for 2 years. After the Iraqi government granted amnesty to the Kurdish people that had left the city for political reasons, we went back to the city in 1965. My uncle was released from imprisonment, by the Iraqi government, after 1 year. When my uncle got out of prison he came to Berzinje after 3 years, and took his son back to Baghdad so he could finish of his studies. After a few months my father was reinstated as a police officer in the city of Sulaimaniyah, and my parents and I went to Baghdad and visited my uncle, my mother’s brother. I remember my uncle bought a white and black TV for the first time we watched TV in his house in Baghdad.

CHAPTER 2

LIFE IN THE CITY OF SULAIMANIYAH 1966-1967 & 1969

Life in general was very hard for the Kurdish people in the city of Sulaimaniyah. We were like prisoners, because the Kurdish people were not free from the discrimination, which was committed by the Iraqi government. The Kurdish people were not free and the country was not a democratic country. The primary school was in the Kurdish language but the High School was not in our mother tongue, it was in the Arabic language, so, for that reason many Kurdish students dropped out of school. When the Iraqi government decided to grant the Kurdish people amnesty in order to get back to their previous positions, but it was almost like a joke, because the authorities did not take the matter seriously in order to reinstate the Kurdish people to their positions. Even the decision by the Iraqi government to return the Kurds to their posts was not just a decision given by the Iraqi government, but it was also the Iraqi government that asked the Kurdish leader to give his opinion on this matter. The Kurdish leader Barzani did not mind for the Kurds and especially for the policemen to go back and join the Iraqi army forces, in order to get more support within the government through the Kurdish people, to make the Kurdish revolution stronger among its supporters and the authorities. It was clever thinking by the Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani.

When we went back to the city of Sulaimaniyah in 1965, my father found out that it was very difficult to be reinstated again, because every time he went to Baghdad to get the decision from the Internal Ministry, there was always an excuse from the authorities in Baghdad. Many times the decision was postponed over and over, but my father did not give up and he did talk to all his colleagues in the police force. He collected their signatures as a proof, and was accompanied by a letter from the government that the reinstatement was refused. He went to Betwate to see the Kurdish leader Barzani to inform him about their problems. My father went to see the Kurdish leader twice, and he had lunch with him as well. Once he saw the Kurdish leader Barzani was in the mountain of Betwate, and he was sitting on a piece of rug, which was made of wool, and was hand made. He laid back on a big rock and he put some grass on the rock whilst puting his elbow on it. He was a simple and helpful leader. I believe that Barzani told him, that he had to go and see certain people about the same matter. So that’s what he did. Later on each policeman received some financial aid from the Kurdish leader, the support was not from the Iraqi government. The aid at that time was a great support for those people, because they were out of work and did not have any money to live on it.

A visit to Baghdad the capital city of Iraq

In the beginning of 1966, we went to visit my uncle in Baghdad, because we had not seen him for a long time. We went