Biography

Rahman Mahmuda Sur was born in 1923 in the village of Dargala, affiliated with the Warti sub-district in the Rawanduz district of Erbil Governorate. When he went to the Soviet Union, he married twice. His first wife was named Sa'adat and his second wife was named Raya. Raya was detained by the Iraqi government in Erbil along with her four children from June 12, 1963, to December 20, 1963, on the charge that her husband was a companion of Mustafa Barzani and a Peshmerga. She was imprisoned and later settled in the Saydawa neighborhood and was under surveillance. Rahman Mahmuda Sur returned to Russia and passed away in Tashkent in 1997.

Struggle Record

On May 23, 1947, he accompanied General Mustafa Barzani to the Soviet Union and participated in the Battle of 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 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, 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, under the supervision of the officers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, they were given eight hours of military training daily. At the same time, for four hours a day, some of their companions who were literate taught them lessons in learning the Kurdish language.

After the poor treatment of his companions by Jafar Baghirov, it was decided to move the military camp on August 29, 1948, from the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Charchuk complex 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 to the collective farms of the Soviet Union and worked on the Kolkhoz fields (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 ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the situation of Barzani's companions. Finally, 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 leadership of Abd al-Karim Qasim. On April 16, 1959, he returned to Kurdistan with his companions on the ship Gruzia via the port of Basra in the south of the Republic of Iraq. At the time of the outbreak of the  Aylul Revolution in 1961, he participated in the revolution.

Sources:

  1. Archive of the Encyclopedia Board of the Kurdistan Democratic Party

  2. Rikari Mizuri, Women, Displacement, Anfal, and Genocide, First Edition, (Erbil – Minara Printing House - 2010).
  3. Zrar Sulaiman Beg Dargalayi, My Memoirs in the Years 1943-1977, (Sulaymaniyah - Rahand Printing House - 2002).
  4. Sha'ban Ali Sha'ban, Some Political and Historical Information, Third Edition, (Erbil - Rojhalat Printing House - 2013).
  5. Karwan Muhammad Majid, The Barzanis from Mahabad to the Soviet Union, First Edition, (Sulaymaniyah - Paywand Printing House - 2011).
  6. Hataw Magazine, Issue 154, Sixth Year, Erbil, Kurdistan Printing House, Friday, April 15, 1959.
  7. From the notes of the martyr commander Hasso Mirxan Zhazhoki, 62 Days with Barzani, The Barzanis' Journey to the Soviet Union, First Edition (Erbil - Roshinbiri Printing House - 1997).
  8. Laith Abd al-Muhsin Jawad al-Zubaidi, The 14 July 1958 Revolution in Iraq, (Baghdad - Dar al-Rashid for Publishing - 1979).
  9. Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement 1931-1958, (Duhok - Khabat Printing House - 1998).
  10. Najaf Quli Pesyan, From Bloody Mahabad to the Shores of the Aras, trans. Shawkat Sheikh Yazdin, First Edition, (Pirman - Golden Jubilee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party - 1996).