Biography

Hachik Chame was born in 1928 in the village of Chame, located in the Shirwan Mazin sub-district of Mergasor district in Erbil province. In Year 1955, he married Valentina Aleksandr Sandrov in the Soviet Union, and they had two daughters named Tania and Hori. In 1957, he obtained a bachelor's degree from Moscow University in the Department of Agricultural Mechanical Engineering. In 1959, he was appointed as an employee in the Erbil Agriculture Department. He knew three languages: Kurdish, Russian, and Persian. He passed away on May 3, 1999, in Pirmam and was buried in the village of Chame in Erbil province.

Struggle Record

 Like many families in the Barzan region and Kurdistan in general, Hachik came from a patriotic Kurdish family. Hachik's grandfather was martyred by the Ottomans at the beginning of the Barzan revolutions in 1908 on Mount Halbet near the village of Chame, and his father also participated in the Second Barzan Revolution. After the collapse of the first Barzan revolution, when Sheikh Ahmed Barzani decided to leave South Kurdistan and head to North Kurdistan, Hachik's family also became refugees in the Republic of Turkey on June 21, 1932, when Hachik was two years old. After the Turkish government handed Sheikh Ahmed Barzani over to the Iraq government in 1933, they, like every other Barzani family that had become refugees in the north, returned to South Kurdistan.

In 1943, he joined the ranks of the Second Barzan Revolution. In 1945, he participated in the Mergasor battle, and for this reason, on August 19, 1945, by order of the military tribunal, all his movable and immovable property was seized.

On October 11, 1945, after the collapse of the Second Barzan Revolution, along with Mustafa Barzani and his companions, they crossed into East Kurdistan. After the establishment of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad, on March 31, 1946, he defended the Republic within the framework of the Barzan force.

After the fall of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad and Barzani's return from East Kurdistan to South Kurdistan, he participated in the battle of Naghadeh and the battle of Oshnavieh in East Kurdistan. He was among the Peshmerga who returned to the Shirwan and Mizuri region through the territory of North Kurdistan on April 19, 1947, via (Khwakurk and the Barazgir plain).

After their return, General Mustafa Barzani held a meeting with his companions on May 6, 1947, in the village of Argush and gave them the choice to stay or head toward the Soviet Union. There, all the companions decided to continue and head toward the Soviet Union. On May 23, 1947, he accompanied General Mustafa Barzani toward the Soviet Union and participated in the battle of the Qotur people and the battle of the Maku bridge. After much hardship and fatigue, on June 18, 1947, he crossed into the Soviet Union at the Aras River, which is located on the border between Iran and 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 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, Republic of Azerbaijan, and on the 23rd of the same month, they were given military uniforms and, under the supervision of officers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, were given eight hours of military training daily. At the same time, they were taught Kurdish language lessons daily for four hours by some of their companions who were literate.

After Jafar Bagirov's poor treatment of the companions, 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 in 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. He immediately decided to form a committee to investigate the Situation of the Barzani companions, and finally, the committee's decision was that they should all be gathered in the city of Vrevitsky. Therefore, he went to the city of Vrevitsky 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, and according to both the third and seventh articles and paragraph (A) of the tenth article and the implementation of article (11) based on the amended Law No. 19 of 1959, he and his companions were granted a general amnesty.

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

In Year 1961, he was imprisoned in Mosul prison for being Kurdish, and he escaped while being transferred to Baghdad prison. The same year, he participated in the Aylul Revolution and was a battalion commander. In Year 1962, he participated in the Mriba battle, the Pers epic, the Nahli gorge battle, and the Sidakan battle, and he was wounded in the Nahli battle.

In the continuation of the Aylul Revolution and in 1963, he participated in the Mount Pers battle and the Akre battle. In Year 1964, he was made commander of the guards of Mustafa Barzani. In 1966, he participated in the Penjwen battle. After the March 11 Agreement, in 1970, by order of Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, regarding the issue of the killing of Ahmed Agha Zebari in the city of Mosul, he was granted an amnesty. In 1975, after the collapse of the Aylul Revolution, he went to the country of Iran as a refugee. After regrouping and overcoming the collapse by the Kurdish political leadership, in 1976 he participated in the Gulan Revolution and in the same year he was a collaborator in the advisory committee with  Idris Barzani  and Masoud Barzani .

In 1995, he returned to the Kurdistan Region. On August 16, 1996, within the framework of the Golden Jubilee celebrations, for his struggle and resistance in the second Barzan revolution, the Republic of Kurdistan, accompanying Barzani to the Soviet Union, Aylul Revolution and Gulan Revolution, he was awarded the Barzani the Immortal medal by President Masoud Barzani.

Sources:
  1. Hamid Gawhari, Barzani Medal the Highest Honor Award, Volume One, (Erbil - Haji Hashim Printing House - 2015).
  2. Hamid Gawhari, Barzani Medal the Highest Honor Award, Volume Two, (Erbil - Haji Hashim Printing House - 2015).
  3. Haydar Farooq al-Samarrai, Dia Jafar and his Political and Economic Role in Iraq, (London – Dar al-Hikma - 2016).
  4. Revolutionary Command Council Decisions No. 611, Iraqi Documents Magazine, Ministry of Culture and Information, Issue 1888 A, Baghdad, Wednesday, June 10, 1970.
  5. Karwan Muhammad Majid, The Barzanis from Mahabad to the Soviet Union, First Edition, (Sulaymaniyah - Paywand Printing House - 2011).
  6. From the memoir of the martyr commander Hasso Mirxan Zhazhoki, 62 Days with Barzani - The Barzanis' journey to the Soviet Union, First Edition (Erbil - Enlightenment Printing House - 1997).
  7. Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement 1931-1958, (Duhok - Khabat Printing House - 1998).
  8. Encyclopedia Board Archive, transcript of an interview with Ismail Hachik Muhammad, May 8, 2018 - Pirmam.
  9. Text of the General Amnesty Committee decision to restore the reputation of the martyrs of the Barzan revolution, Rizgari Magazine, Issues 2, 3, Al-Rabita Press, Baghdad, April 1, 1959.