Biography

Abdulrahman Yehya was born in 1930 in the village of Biye in the sub-district of Sherwana Mazin in the Mergasor district of Erbil province. He studied in the Soviet Union and received a Bachelor's degree in agriculture from the university in Vriviski. He married Huri Lizki Firi Abdulrahman in the Soviet Union, and they had two sons and two daughters. After returning from the Soviet Union, he worked at the Shaqlawa Agriculture Office in 1959 and passed away in 2016.

Work History

On October 11, 1945, after the failure of the Second Barzan Revolution, Abdulrahman Yehya crossed into East Kurdistan. On March 31, 1946, he served as a Peshmerga within the Barzani force of the Army of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad and participated in the battles of the Saqiz Front of the Republic of Kurdistan.

After the fall of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad and the return of Barzani from East Kurdistan to South Kurdistan, he participated in the battles of Nelos, Naqada, and Shino in East Kurdistan. He was also one of the Peshmerga who, on April 19, 1947, returned through Xwakurk and the Berazgir Plain into the territory of North Kurdistan, to the region of Sherwan and Mizuri.

After their return, General Mustafa Barzani held a meeting with his companions on May 15, 1947, in the village of Ergos and gave them the choice to either 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 went with General Mustafa Barzani toward the Soviet Union, participated in the battle of the Qitur Valley and the battle of the Mako bridge, and after many hardships and difficulties, on June 18, 1947, he crossed the Aras River on the border between Iran and the Soviet Union into the Soviet Union.

After their arrival in the Soviet Union, on June 19, 1947, he and all his companions were settled in the city of Nakhchivan in the Republic of Azerbaijan for forty days in a closed camp surrounded by barbed wire. They were guarded by a group of soldiers and were treated like prisoners of war regarding food, clothing, and transportation. Later, by the decision of the Soviet state, they were distributed in Azerbaijan in the regions of Aghdam, Lachin, Ayulakh, and Kalbajar. On December 10, 1947, they were transferred to a military base 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 8 hours of military training daily under the supervision of officers of the Republic of Azerbaijan. At the same time, they received four hours of Kurdish language lessons daily from some of their educated companions.

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

In March 1949, he and his companions were distributed in groups by train to villages in the Soviet Union and worked on collective farms (lands that people had received from the state and later gave a share to the government).

After much effort and the sending of several letters by General Barzani to Stalin, a letter finally reached Stalin in which Barzani described the pain and suffering of his companions. He immediately ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the situation of Barzani's companions, and in the end, the committee's decision was to gather them all in the city of Vriviski. For this reason, the aforementioned 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, according to articles 3 and 7, paragraph (a) of article 10, and article 11 of the 1959 amendment law, a general amnesty was granted to him and his companions.

In 1958, the Republic of Iraq was established under the leadership of Abdul Karim Qasim. The aforementioned returned to Kurdistan on April 16, 1959, with his companions on the ship Gruzia via the port of Basra in the south of the Republic of Iraq.

In 1961, he participated in the September Revolution and after the collapse of the September Revolution in 1975, he went to Iran as a refugee and settled in the city of Naqada, and later was moved to the city of Gorgan in Mazandaran province. After benefiting from the general amnesty, he returned to Qasr-e Shirin to return to Iraq. After his return, he was moved by the Iraqi government to southern Iraq and settled in Ramadi, and in 1977 he returned to Erbil.

Abdulrahman Yehya retired in 1981. In 1983, during the Anfal of the Barzanis, he hid so as not to fall into the hands of the Iraqi government. After the uprising of the people of Kurdistan in 1991 and the mass exodus of March 31 of that year, he headed to the Islamic Republic of Iran as a refugee and later returned to South Kurdistan. On 16.12.2010, at the 13th Congress of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), for his struggle and resistance in the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad, the march toward the Soviet Union, and the September Revolution he was awarded by President Masoud Barzani with the Medal of the Immortal Barzani. He passed away on February 5, 2016, due to illness in the city of Erbil.

Source:
  1. Shaban Ali Shaban, Some Political and Historical Information, Third Edition, (Erbil - Rojhelat Printing House - 2013).
  2. Omar Faruqi, The Wise Leader of Life and Struggle, the Immortal Mullah Mustafa Barzani, 2nd edition, (Erbil - Ministry of Education Printing House - 2002).
  3. Abdulrahman Mullah Habib Abubakr, The Barzan Tribe between 1931 - 1991, 1st Edition, (Erbil - Ministry of Culture Printing House - 2001).
  4. Karwan Mohammed Majid, Barzani from Mahabad to the Soviet Union, 1st edition, (Sulaymaniyah - Peywend Printing House - 2011).
  5. Hetaw Magazine, Issue 154, Year 6, Erbil, Kurdistan Printing House, Friday, 15.04.1959.
  6. Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement 1931-1958, (Duhok - Xebat Printing House - 1998).
  7. Najaf Quli Pisyan, from bloody Mahabad to the shores of the Aras, trans. Shawkat Sheikh Yazdin, 1st ed., (Pirmam - Golden Jubilee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party - 1996).
  8. Archive of the Encyclopedia Board of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.