Biography

Miro Chicho Chawshin was born in 1922 in the village of Bedaron, Shirwan Mazn sub-district, Mergasor district, Erbil province. After the outbreak of the first Barzan Revolution in Southern Kurdistan in (1931-1932), at the age of ten, he became a refugee in the country of Turkey with his family. In 1975, after the collapse of the Aylul Revolution he became a refugee in the country of Iran. He passed away in 2019.

Struggle Record

In 1943, after Mullah Mustafa Barzani returned 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 became a refugee in Eastern Kurdistan (Iran) alongside the Barzani fighters and 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, alongside the revolutionary army of Barzan under the command of General Mustafa Barzani, after several battles and struggles against the Imperial Army of Iran, 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 Muzuri 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 alongside the Barzani revolutionary army with more than five hundred fighters under the leadership of General Mustafa Barzani and became one of Barzani's companions to the Soviet Union. During 28 days of continuous marching through the ruggedness and nature of the road and military confrontation with the armies of the three countries of Iraq, Turkey, and Iran, and after their success in the famous Battle of Dashti Shutt 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, they were 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 of 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 put under intense military training by Azerbaijani officers, and there they were also taught lessons in writing and reading 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 compound in the Republic of Uzbekistan, where he was put under military training for a second time temporarily.

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 among the villages and collective farms (Kolkhozes) of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and to earn their living, they were put to forced labor and hard daily work like 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, a letter from Barzani finally reached Stalin, the President of the Soviet Union. After the arrival of Barzani's letter, Stalin ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the situation of the Barzanis, and finally, for the second time, in 1951, all the Barzanis were gathered together and settled in the city of Vriviski on the Black Sea in the south of today's Russia.

After 11 years of staying in the Soviet Union, in 1958, the monarchy regime in Iraq was overthrown and the country's administrative system was established as a republic under the presidency of Abdul Karim Qasim, and they 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 Gruzia via the port of Basra.

In 1961, after the deterioration of the relationship between Barzani and Abdul Karim Qasim and the government's failure to fulfill the promises it had made to the Kurds, the Kurdish national revolution broke out and Miro Chicho Chawshin joined the ranks of the Peshmerga forces and participated in the battles. After the collapse of the Aylul Revolution he became a refugee in the country of Iran and returned to Kurdistan in 1998.

Sources:

1- Dengi Peshmerga Magazine, Issue 43, July 31, 2001, interview by Miqdad Shaswari with the veteran Peshmerga  Miro Chicho Chawshin, pp. 23-24.

2- Shawkat Sheikh Yazdin, Golden Jubilee of the Peshmerga, (Pirman - Khabat Printing House - 1996), pp. 16, 35.

3- Archive of the Encyclopedia Committee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.