Biography

Suleiman Mirxan Arab was born in 1928 in the village of Kanieder, affiliated with the Goratu sub-district in the Mergasor district of Erbil province. He studied in the Soviet Union and was admitted to Tashkent University on February 15, 1954, and was able to obtain a diploma on March 29, 1959. After returning from the Soviet Union, in 1959 he was an agricultural supervisor in the departments of Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk. He was proficient in both Kurdish and Russian languages. He passed away on April 18, 2007, and was buried in the village of Kanieder.

Struggle Record

On June 21, 1932, he became a refugee in the Republic of Turkey with his family. After the collapse of the second Barzan revolution on October 11, 1945, he headed to Eastern Kurdistan. On March 31, 1946, he became a Peshmerga in the Barzani force affiliated with the army of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad and participated in the battles of the Saqqez front in the Republic of Kurdistan.

He was among the Peshmerga who returned to the Shirwani and Mizuri region through the Khwakurk and Bazargir plain via the territory of Northern Kurdistan on April 19, 1947.

After their return, General Mustafa Barzani held a meeting with his companions on May 15, 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 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, 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 compound surrounded by barbed wire. 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, 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 were given 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 Kurdish language lessons by some of their companions who were literate.

After the mistreatment of the Barzani companions by Jafar Baghirov, 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, along with his companions, they were distributed in groups and squads by train among the collective villages of the Soviet Union and worked on the collective farms (Kolkhozes) (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, 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 the Barzani companions. Eventually, the committee's decision was that they should all be gathered in the city of Vrevsky, so he went to the city of Vrevsky in the Soviet Union in November 1951.

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

In 1961, he participated in the Aylul Revolution and participated in several battles. In 1975, after the collapse of the Aylul Revolution , he headed to the Kingdom of Iran as a refugee. In 1984, he participated in the Gulan Revolution and participated in the battles. In 2003, he returned to Kurdistan. 

Sources:

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