Biography

Asad Rasho Mela Hamza was born in 1932 in the Mergasor district of Erbil Governorate. After going to the Soviet Union, he was admitted to the Tashkent Agricultural University in 1954. He passed away on June 25, 2020, in the village of Khoshkan and was buried in the cemetery of the Mergasor district.

Struggle Record

 On October 11, 1945, following the collapse of the second Barzan revolution, he headed to Eastern Kurdistan. On March 31, 1946, he served as a Peshmerga in the Barzan Force affiliated with the army of the Republic of Kurdistan, and together with his brother, Mirza Agha, he participated in the battles of the Saqqez front in the Republic of Kurdistan. After the collapse of the Republic of Kurdistan, on March 19, 1947, he participated in the Battle of Naghadeh and Oshnavieh in Eastern Kurdistan. He was among the Peshmerga who returned to the Shirwan and Mazuri region through the Khwakurk and Barazgir plain route on April 19, 1947, through the territory of Northern Kurdistan.

After their return, General Mustafa Barzani held a meeting with his companions on May 6, 1947, in the village of Argosh and gave them the choice to stay or go to the Soviet Union. There, all his companions decided to continue and go to the Soviet Union. On May 23, 1947, he accompanied General Mustafa Barzani towards the Soviet Union and participated in the Battle of Gali Qotur and the Battle of the Maku Bridge. After much hardship and fatigue, on June 18, 1947, he crossed the Aras River, which lies on the border between Iran and the Soviet Union, into the Soviet Union.

After arriving in the Soviet Union, on June 19, 1947, along with all his companions, they were placed in the city of Nakhchivan in the Republic of Azerbaijan for forty days in an open-air complex surrounded by barbed wire. They were guarded by a group of soldiers and were treated as prisoners of war in terms of food, clothing, and movement. Later, by the decision of the Soviet government, they were distributed among the regions of Aghdam, Lachin, Ayulakh, and Kalbajar in the Republic of Azerbaijan. On December 10, 1947, they were moved to a military camp on the Caspian Sea in Baku, the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and on the 23rd of the same month, they were given military uniforms and underwent eight hours of military training daily under the supervision of officers of the Republic of Azerbaijan. At the same time, for four hours a day, they were taught lessons in the Kurdish language by some of their companions who were literate.

After Jafar Baghirov's poor treatment of his companions, it was decided to move the military camp on August 29, 1948, from the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Charchuk complex near Tashkent, the capital of the Republic of Uzbekistan, where they continued their military training.

In March 1949, along with his companions, they were distributed in groups and squads by train among the collective villages of the Soviet Union and worked on collective farms (Kolkhozes) (lands that people rented from the government and later gave the government's share back).

After much effort and sending several letters by General Barzani to Stalin, a letter finally reached Stalin in which Barzani described the hardships of his companions, and he immediately decided to form a committee to investigate the situation of Barzani's companions. Eventually, the committee's decision was that they should all be gathered in the city of Vrevsky; therefore, he went to the city of Vrevsky in the Soviet Union in November 1951.

After the July 14, 1958 revolution in Iraq and the return of General Mustafa Barzani on February 25, 1959, and according to both the third and seventh articles and paragraph (A) of the tenth article, and by applying the eleventh article based on the amended Law No. 19 of 1959, he and his companions were granted a general amnesty.

In 1958, the Republic of Iraq was established under the presidency of Abd al-Karim Qasim. He returned to Kurdistan with his companions on April 16, 1959, by the ship Grozia via the port of Basra in the south of the Republic of Iraq. 

Due to illness, he did not participate in the Aylul Revolution. In 1975, he settled in Rawanduz, and in the Year 1987, he was moved to the Sardaw complex. In 1991, during the Uprising, he returned to the village of Khoshkan. In 2010, at the Thirteenth Congress of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, because of his struggle and resistance in the Republic of Mahabad and his journey towards the Soviet Union, he was awarded the Barzani Immortal Medal by President Masoud Barzani. He passed away on June 25, 2020, in the village of Khoshkan and was buried in the cemetery of the Mergasor district.

Sources:

  1. Archive of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Encyclopedia Board

  2. Hamid Gawhari, The Barzani Medal is the Highest Honor Award, Volume One, (Erbil - Haji Hashim Printing House - 2015).
  3. Mergasori passed away, Khabat Newspaper, organ of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, No. 5962, Erbil, June 28, 2020.
  4. Shaban Ali Shaban, Some Political and Historical Information, Third Edition, (Erbil - Rojhalat Printing House - 2013).
  5. Shawkat Sheikh Yazdin, The Golden Jubilee of the Peshmerga, (Pirmam - Khabat Printing House - 1996).
  6. Omar Farouqi, Sardar Dana: The Life and Struggles of the Late Mullah Mustafa Barzani, Second Edition, (Erbil - Ministry of Education Printing House - 2002).
  7. Karwan Muhammad Majid, The Barzanis from Mahabad to the Soviet, First Edition, (Sulaymaniyah - Paywand Printing House - 2011).
  8. Hataw Magazine, No. 154, Sixth Year, Erbil, Kurdistan Printing House, Friday, April 15, 1959.
  9. From the memoir of the martyr commander Haso Mirxan Zhazhoki, 62 Days with Barzani: The Departure of the Barzanis to the Soviet Union, First Edition (Erbil - Roshinbiri Printing House - 1997).
  10. Laith Abdul-Muhsin Jawad Al-Zubaidi, The July 14, 1958 Revolution in Iraq, (Baghdad - Dar Al-Rashid for Publishing - 1979).
  11. Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement 1931-1958, (Duhok - Khabat Printing House - 1998).
  12. Najaf Qoli Pessian, From Bloody Mahabad to the Banks of the Aras, trans. Shawkat Sheikh Yazdin, First Edition, (Pirmam - Golden Jubilee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party - 1996).