Muhammad Chicho Amin was born in 1928 in the village of Pendro, which is part of the Mergasor district in the Erbil governorate. After the outbreak of the first Barzan revolution in Southern Kurdistan in the years (1931-1932), he became a refugee in Turkey at the age of three. In 1943, after Mullah Mustafa Barzani returned from Sulaymaniyah to the Barzan region and the outbreak of the Second Barzan Revolution, he rejoined the ranks of the revolutionary army and participated in the battles to capture the police stations in the Barzan region. In 1947, along with General Mustafa Barzani he went to the Soviet Union and received a diploma in history from Tashkent University, and upon his return, he was appointed as a teacher.
Struggle RecordIn 1945, after the collapse of the Second Barzan Revolution (1943-1945), he became a refugee in Eastern Kurdistan (Iran) alongside the fighters and the Barzani families. 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, he, along with the revolutionary Barzan army led by General Mustafa Barzani, after several battles and struggles against the Imperial Iranian Army, returned to Southern Kurdistan through the Nazdardagh area at the triangle of the borders of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, and settled in the ranks of the army in the Mizuri tribe area.
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 alongside the revolutionary Barzan army with more than five hundred fighters under the leadership of 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 Shut battle 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 alongside the Barzani fighters.
After crossing the border, he was transferred by the Soviets along with all the Barzani fighters to the city of Nakhchivan in the Republic of Azerbaijan and was kept as a prisoner of war in an open, fenced military camp. 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, and 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 community in the Republic of Uzbekistan, and there, for the second time, he was 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 by train in groups to the villages and collective farms (kolkhozes) of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and to earn their living, they were subjected to forced labor and hard daily work like German prisoners.
After a great 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 leader of the Soviet Union. After the arrival of Barzani's letter, a decision was made by Stalin to form a committee to investigate the situation of the Barzanis, and finally, for another time 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 monarchical system of government in Iraq collapsed and the republican system led by Abdul Karim Qasim 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 by the ship Gruziya via the port of Basra.
In 1961, after the deterioration of the relationship between Barzani and Abdul Karim Qasim and the government's reneging on the promises it had made to the Kurds, the Kurdish national revolution broke out and Muhammad Chicho Amin rejoined the ranks of the revolution. He participated in most of the battles such as the battles of Mount Matin, Pers, Mangishk, and the Dohli Nehli valley. In the revolution, he was also a teacher, meaning he was both a Peshmerga and a teacher. In 1975, he became a refugee in Iran and returned to Kurdistan after a few months. In 1978, he was displaced to the Bahirka community. After the restart of the revolution in Gulan 1976, he rejoined the ranks of the revolution once again. He participated in the 1991 uprising, and in 2010, he was awarded the Barzani Medal at the 13th Congress. He passed away on February 16, 2011.
Sources:1- Dengi Peshmerga Magazine, Issue 24, December 31, 1999, Muhammad Chicho Pendroyi, Interview organized by Miqdad Shaswari, pp. 19-20.
2- Payami Aylul Magazine, Issue 25, October 2012, Muhammad Chicho Amin, an educator teacher and a revolutionary and struggling Peshmerga, pp. 72 and 73.
3- Shawkat Sheikh Yazdin, The Golden Jubilee of the Peshmerga, (Pirmam - Khabat Press - 1996), pp. 16, 33.
4- Archive of the Encyclopedia Board of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.