Biography

Sheikh Wasman Muhammad Amin was born in 1920 in Mergasor District. He was married. In 1978, he was forcibly relocated by the Iraqi government to the Qushtapa forced settlement. During the Anfal operation against the Barzanis by the Iraqi government, he was disappeared in the Qushtapa settlement. He knew the Kurdish and Russian languages.  

Struggle Record

On May 23, 1947, he accompanied General Mustafa Barzani towards the Soviet Union and participated in the Battle of Gali Qotur and the Battle of Maku Bridge. After much hardship and fatigue, on June 18, 1947, he crossed the Aras River, which lies on the border between Iran and the Soviet Union, into the Soviet Union.

After arriving in the Soviet Union, on June 19, 1947, he and all his companions 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, Ayolakh, and Kalbajar in the Republic of Azerbaijan. On December 10, 1947, they were transferred 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, were given eight hours of military training daily. At the same time, for four hours a day, they were taught Kurdish language lessons by some of their companions who were literate.

After the mistreatment of Barzani's companions by Jafar Bagirov, it was decided to move the military camp on August 29, 1948, from the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Charchuk settlement 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 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 returned a share to the government). 

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 ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the situation of Barzani's companions, and the committee's final decision was that they should all be gathered in the city of Vriviski. Therefore, he 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, and according to both the third and seventh articles and paragraph (A) of the tenth article, and by applying the eleventh article 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. On April 16, 1959, he and his companions returned to Kurdistan via the port of Basra in the south of the Republic of Iraq on the ship Grozia.  

 In 1964, he participated in the Aylul Revolution and was a Sergeant and participated in the battles. On July 31, 1983, during the Anfal operation against the Barzanis, he was disappeared by the Iraqi government in the Qushtapa settlement (Erbil).

Sources:

  1. Rikar Mizuri, The Tragedy of the Barzanis, First Edition, (Erbil - Haji Hashim Printing House - 2013).

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

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

  4. From the memoirs of the martyr commander Haso Mirxan Zhazhoki, 62 Days with Barzani, The Barzanis' Journey to the Soviet Union, First Edition (Erbil - Enlightenment Printing House - 1997).

  5. Laith Abdul-Muhsin Jawad Al-Zubaidi, The 14 July 1958 Revolution in Iraq, (Baghdad - Dar Al-Rashid for Publishing - 1979).

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

  7. Najaf Quli Pesyan, From Bloody Mahabad to the Shores of the Aras, Trans. Shawkat Sheikh Yazdin, First Edition, (Pirmam - Golden Jubilee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party - 1996).

  8. Kurdistan Democratic Party Encyclopedia Archive