Biography

Tawfiq Khawaja Pir, was born in 1919 in the village of Miroz, belonging to the Shirwan sub-district in the Mergasor district of Erbil Governorate. He was married to Khazim Muhammad Karim before going to the Soviet Union. They had a son (Rauf Tawfiq, 1945) and a daughter (Halima Tawfiq, 1946). When the coup against the monarchy took place and the amnesty decision for Barzani's comrades was issued, General Mustafa Barzani gave his comrades the choice between returning to Iraq or staying in the Soviet Union. He did not return with his comrades to Kurdistan in 1959. He returned to Kurdistan in 1990 and settled in Bahirka, where he died on July 24, 1999. 

Struggle Pages

General Mustafa Barzani held a meeting with his comrades in the village of Arkush on 15/5/1947 and gave them the choice to stay or go to the Soviet Union. There, all his comrades decided to continue and head to the Soviet Union. On May 23, 1947, he accompanied General Mustafa Barzani to the Soviet Union. He participated in the battles of Qotur and the Maku Bridge. After great hardship and severe exhaustion, he crossed the Aras River on June 18, 1947, which is located on the border between Iran and the Soviet Union.

After their arrival in the Soviet Union, on June 19, 1947, he and all his comrades were detained in Nakhchivan in the Republic of Azerbaijan for forty days in an open compound surrounded by barbed wire, guarded by soldiers. They were treated as prisoners of war in terms of food, clothing, and transportation. By a decision of the Soviet government, they were later distributed to the regions of Aghdam, Lachin, Yevlakh, and Kalbajar in the Republic of Azerbaijan. On December 10, 1947, they were moved to a camp on the Caspian Sea in the capital of the Azerbaijani Republic, Baku. On the 23rd of the same month, they received military uniforms and were receiving military training for eight hours daily under the supervision of officers from the Republic of Azerbaijan. At the same time, they were receiving lessons in the Kurdish language for four hours daily from some of their educated comrades.

After Jafar Baghirov's mistreatment of his comrades, Barzani decided to move his military group from the Republic of Azerbaijan on August 29, 1948, to the Jarjuq compound near the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, where they continued their military training.

In March 1949, he and his comrades were distributed in groups by train to collective villages in the Soviet Union and worked on kolkhoz farms (land that people would rent from the government and then pay a share to the government from it).

After great efforts and sending several letters from General Barzani to Stalin, Stalin finally received a letter in which Barzani spoke about the suffering of his comrades, and he immediately decided to form a committee to investigate the situation of Barzani's comrades. The committee's final decision was that they should be gathered in the city of Vrevsky, so he headed in November 1951 to the Soviet city of Vrevsky.

Sources:

- Sha'ban Ali Sha'ban, Some Political and Historical Information, Third Edition, (Erbil - Rojhalat Printing House - 2013).

- Omar Farouqi, Sardar Dana: The Life and Struggles of the Late Mullah Mustafa Barzani, Second Edition, (Erbil - Ministry of Education Printing House - 2002).

- Karwan Muhammad Majid, The Barzanis from Mahabad to the Soviet, First Edition, (Sulaymaniyah - Paywand Printing House - 2011).

- From the Memoirs of the Martyr Commander Hasso Mirxan Zhazhoki, 62 Days with Barzani: The Going of the Barzanis to the Soviet Union, First Edition (Erbil - Roshinbiri Printing House - 1997).

- Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement 1931-1958, (Duhok - Khabat Printing House - 1998).

- Archive of the Encyclopedia Authority of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.