Biography

  Suleiman Beg Dargalai was born in 1898 in the village of Dargala, affiliated with the Warti sub-district in the Rawanduz district of Erbil province. Before going to the Soviet Union, he married twice. His first wife, Aisha Fatah Hussein, had one son and three daughters named Mat Suleiman, born in 1932; Saadat Suleiman, born in 1936; Izzat Suleiman, born in 1937; and Nazli Suleiman, born in 1940. His second wife was Halim Wasu Aziz, and they had three sons named Shawqi Suleiman, born in 1936; Salahaddin Suleiman, born in 1939; and Shirzad Suleiman, born in 1945. In the Soviet Union, he married Nina. He knew Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish, and Russian. He passed away in 1974 in the village of Dargala and was buried there.

Struggle Record

Suleiman Beg Dargalai was an officer in the Iraq army and deserted from military service. In 1944, he joined the ranks of the Second Barzan Revolution and participated in the battles. For this reason, on August 19, 1945, by order of the military tribunal, all his movable and immovable property was seized. On October 11, 1945, after the collapse of the Second Barzan Revolution, he went with his family to Eastern Kurdistan. On March 31, 1946, he was a Peshmerga in the Barzan force affiliated with the army of the Republic of Kurdistan. On April 29, 1946, he participated in the Battle of Qarawa under the supervision of Khidir Suleiman Beg in the Saqqez region of Eastern Kurdistan. After the collapse of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad and the return of Mustafa Barzani from Eastern Kurdistan to Southern Kurdistan, he participated in the Battle of Naqada and the Battle of Oshnavieh in Eastern Kurdistan. He was also among the Peshmerga who returned to the Shirwan and Mazuri region through the Khwakurk and Barazgar plain route on April 19, 1947, through the territory of Northern Kurdistan.

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

After arriving in the Soviet Union, on June 19, 1947, he and all his comrades were placed in an open-air compound surrounded by barbed wire in the city of Nakhchivan in the Republic of Azerbaijan for forty days. They were guarded by a group of soldiers and were treated like 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, Ayolakh, 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 were trained for eight hours of military exercises daily under the supervision of the officers of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

 On May 28, 1947, at the request of Mirhaj Ahmed, he participated in the meeting of the village of Jirmi. On January 19, 1948, at the Baku General Conference, where representatives of the Kurds of Iraq and Iran were present, he became a member of the political leadership in Iraqi Kurdistan.

After the bad treatment by Jafar Baghirov toward his comrades, it was decided to move the military camp on August 29, 1948, from the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Charchuk compound near Tashkent, the capital of the Republic of Uzbekistan, where they continued their military training.

In March 1949, he and his comrades were distributed in groups and squads by train to the collective villages of the Soviet Union, and they worked in the collective farms (the 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, finally, a letter reached Stalin in which Barzani described the hardships of his comrades, and he immediately ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the situation of Barzani's comrades. Finally, the committee's decision was that they should all be gathered in the city of Vriviski, so he went to the city of Vriviski 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 the implementation of Article (11) based on the amended Law No. 19 of 1959, he and his comrades were granted a general amnesty.

In 1958, the Republic of Iraq was established under the presidency of Abdul Karim Qasim. Sheikh Hussein returned to Kurdistan on April 16, 1959, with his comrades by the ship Grozia via the port of Basra in the south of the Republic of Iraq. He participated in the Aylul Revolution.

Sources:
  1. Hamid Gardi, Summary of History, First Edition, (Erbil - Aras Printing and Publishing House - Ministry of Education Press - 2004)
  2. Haidar Farooq Al-Samarrai, Dia Jafar and his Political and Economic Role in Iraq, (London – Dar Al-Hikma – 2016).
  3. From the memoir of the commander Martyr Haso Mirhan Zhazhoki, 62 Days with Barzani, The Barzanis' Journey to the Soviet Union, First Edition (Erbil - Roshinbiri Press – 1997)
  4. Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement 1931-1958, (Duhok - Khabat Press - 1998)
  5. Archive of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Encyclopedia Committee.