Biography

Malko Abbas Muhammad-Amin was born in 1928 in the village of Bersiav, Mergasor District. After the outbreak of the first Barzan revolution in Southern Kurdistan in the years (1931-1932), he and his family were displaced to the country of Turkey during his childhood. He received a bachelor's degree in industry from the Soviet Union. Before going to the Soviet Union, he was married, and for the second time, he married a woman from the Soviet Union named Alia. In 1975, after the collapse of the Aylul Revolution (1961-1975), he was displaced to the country of Iran. He had knowledge of the Kurdish, Russian, Persian, and Arabic languages. He passed away in 2015.

Struggle Record

In 1943, after the return of Mullah Mustafa Barzani from Sulaymaniyah to the Barzan region and the outbreak of the second Barzan revolution (1943-1945), he joined the ranks of the revolutionary army and participated in the battles to capture the police stations in the Barzan region. In 1945, after the collapse of the revolution, he was displaced along with the fighters and Barzani families to Eastern Kurdistan (Iran). After the establishment of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad at the beginning of 1946, he became a Peshmerga of the Republic in the Barzan force. After the fall of the Republic of Kurdistan in December 1946, along with the Barzan revolutionary army led by General Mustafa Barzani, after several battles and struggles against the Imperial Iranian Army, he returned to Southern Kurdistan through the Nazdardagh region at the triangle of the Iran-Iraq-Turkey border and settled in the ranks of the army in the Mizuri tribal region.

On May 6, 1947, after the historic decision of General Mustafa Barzani at the Argosh meeting not to surrender to the Iraqi government and to head towards the Soviet Union, he decided to leave along with the Barzan revolutionary army of more than five hundred fighters led by General Mustafa Barzani and became one of the companions of Barzani to the Soviet Union. During 28 days of continuous marching through the ruggedness and nature of the road and military confrontations with the armies of the three countries of Iraq, Turkey, and Iran, and after their success in the famous battle of the Shute plain and their crossing of the Qizildagh bridge in Maku, they finally crossed the Aras River and the border of the Soviet Union on June 18 along with the Barzani fighters.

After crossing the border, he was transferred by the Soviets along with all the Barzani fighters as prisoners of war to the city of Nakhchivan in the Republic of Azerbaijan. After Moscow decided to accept the Barzanis as refugees and after the agreement between General Mustafa Barzani and Jafar Baghirov, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, he was transferred along with all the Barzani fighters to a military camp on the Caspian Sea near Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and was subjected to intensive military training by Azerbaijani officers. There, they were also taught to read and write the Kurdish language by Kurdish officers.

After the deterioration of the relationship between General Mustafa Barzani and Jafar Baghirov and the appearance of Baghirov's bad intentions and suspicion towards the Barzanis, he was transferred along with all the Barzani fighters on August 29, 1948, from the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Charchuk complex in the Republic of Uzbekistan, where he was again temporarily subjected to military training.

In March 1949, after the conspiracies of Baghirov and Beria, Stalin's assistant, the Barzani fighters were separated from each other and distributed in groups by train to the villages and collective farms of the Republic of Uzbekistan. To earn a living, they were subjected to forced labor and hard daily work, similar to the German prisoners.

After much effort and the sending of several letters by General Mustafa Barzani to the Kremlin Palace and the authorities of the Soviet Union, finally, a letter from Barzani reached Stalin, the President of the Soviet Union. After the arrival of Barzani's letter, Stalin decided to form a committee to investigate the situation of the Barzanis, and finally, in 1951, all the Barzanis were gathered together and settled in the city of Vrevsky on the Black Sea in today's southern Russia.

After 11 years of staying in the Soviet Union, in 1958, the monarchy in Iraq was overthrown, and the country's management system was established as a republic headed by Abd al-Karim Qasim, who took power in Iraq. With the coming to power of the republicans, the way for the return of the Barzanis from the Soviet Union was opened, and on April 16, 1959, he returned to Southern Kurdistan along with all the Barzani fighters on the ship Gruziya via the port of Basra.

In 1961, after the deterioration of the relationship between Barzani and Abd al-Karim Qasim and the government's failure to fulfill the promises it had made to the Kurds, the Kurdish national revolution broke out, and Malko Abbas joined the ranks of the Peshmerga Forces and participated in the battles. After the resumption of the revolution in Gulan 1976, he once again joined the ranks of the revolution.

Sources:

1- Archive of the Encyclopedia Board of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

2- Dengi Peshmerga Magazine, Issue 44, August 31, 2001, interview by Miqdad Shaswari with the veteran Peshmerga  Malko Abbas Muhammad-Amin.

3- Shawkat Sheikh Yazdin, The Golden Jubilee of the Peshmerga, (Pirmam - Khabat Press - 1996).