The Qendil Mountains of Kurdistan straddle the border dividing the free Iraqi portion of Kurdistan from the Iranian-occupied segment to the east. There is snow in at least some part of Qendil throughout the year, although, during the summer months, the temperature, even quite high up the mountains, can be nearly as inhospitable to human life as it is in downtown Baghdad. The sprawling Qendil Mountains are home to thousands of Kurdish villagers living in a number of small, somewhat isolated villages and, in years past, were a haven for Iraqi Kurdish peshmergas, the Kurdish soldiers, mountain warriors, who resisted successive attempts by Iraqi authorities to subjugate or eliminate the Kurdish people within Iraq’s borders. Over the past few years, Qendil has become a base for the fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), an Iranian Kurdish movement associated with the PKK that has recently emerged as perhaps the most formidable challenge to the theocratic Iranian dictatorship.
Welcome to Qendil I was approached by a friend in a Western capital and asked if I would like to visit Qendil. I jumped at the opportunity and was put in contact with another contact in the West, a woman who is a veteran Kurdish activist. After I arrived in Hewler (Erbil), Iraqi Kurdistan, one of her contacts, Mohammed, called me to confirm that I wanted to visit Qendil. A day later, one of Mohammed’s associates came to Hewler to meet me and we decided on a time, 7:00 AM, and date. Two days later an older man, a chain smoker originally from Silopi, showed at 7:00 in a beat up car with a Dohuk license plate and we headed to Qendil.

After a few hours on the road, we passed through Koy Sanjaq and then Rania. We approached yet another security checkpoint and the driver informed me that this was the last Iraqi Kurdish checkpoint before Qendil. We passed through this checkpoint and the driver pointed to another checkpoint in front of us, this one flying the flag of the Kurdistan confederation associated with the PKK, and said, “These are our peshmerga.” They were PKK fighters.

Today’s Iraqi Kurdish security personnel are not rebel fighters in the mountains, they are part of an organized security apparatus controlled by a legally-recognized regional authority. They wear neat, matching uniforms and carry standard issue weapons and are frequently responsible for the mundane but necessary security tasks such as checking identification documents at checkpoints. The fighters of the PKK, however, are much like the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters of the not so distant past. They wear the traditional Kurdish dress, not exactly matching one another but close to it. Most carry Kalishnikov rifles, the old, reasonably priced, durable and dependable standard weapon of choice in the Middle East, which is used today by most of the Iraqi security personnel, Kurdish and non-Kurdish alike. We passed the first PKK checkpoint. I noticed that the at least one of the two fighters at this checkpoint, the entrance of sorts to the PKK base, carried a few grenades in addition to his rifle. While rifles are almost as common as cups of tea in Iraqi Kurdistan, grenades are certainly not. After clearing this checkpoint, we drove to my destination at this entrance to the camp. The driver helped me unload my two small bags which contained little more than clothing, communications equipment, a camera, and a notebook, introduced me to the fighters at the checkpoint, and was gone minutes later.

The fighters who received me at the entrance to the base were relaxed and polite. They offered me a glass of water and then tea and brought me a chair. They chatted in Kurdish and Turkish, alternating between the two languages with no difficulty. It is commonly said, particularly by opponents of the PKK, that most of the members of the organization do not even know their mother tongue (i.e., Kurdish). I can attest to the fact that this is false. While the PKK’s official statements are indeed issued in Turkish, I did not meet a single member of the PKK who was not comfortable speaking in Kurdish, and indeed the overwhelming majority of my conversations with the fighters, as well as the majority of the conversations that the fighters had with one another in my presence, were in Kurdish and not Turkish.

A series of explosions welcomed me to Qendil. Apparently PJAK had recently killed one of the top Kurds working with the Iranian regime, and the Iranians were expressing their displeasure by indiscriminately bombing Qendil and firing heavy caliber machine guns over the border. A fighter pointed in front of us and said without a trace of irony or concern, “Take a few pictures.” Iranian bombs were falling in front of us with great frequency, with each loud explosion interrupting the background noise of gunfire. “How far away is this?” “About two kilometers,” he told me.

I was witnessing Iranian bombing of Iraqi territory. While ostensibly aimed at punishing my hosts, the PJAK fighters, it was doing nothing of the sort. What this particularly intense round of bombing did was drive many villagers, natives of the region, from their homes, and killed a large number of their farm animals. According to the accounts we heard during the day, no one was killed, although many villagers fled their homes. Later in the day we heard that one shepherd was killed, and soon thereafter I was informed that two civilian villagers were actually killed that day by the Iranians. No PJAK or PKK fighters were affected by the indiscriminate bombing. Strangely enough, this blatant violation of Iraqi sovereignty by a regime hostile to the West remains almost entirely unreported, and the Iraqi central government has taken no steps to address these incidents despite the deaths of Iraqi civilians as a result of these actions.

While watching the Iranian bombs fall in front of us, a small group of fighters arrived to meet me. Half of them were female, which is anything but unusual within the PKK. Indeed, the PKK, an organization with its roots in leftist thought, has always promoted gender equality, and it is not surprising within the group to see a female veteran fighter giving orders to a group of men. I left the camp’s entrance with a group of younger male and female fighters, climbing into an old truck that was decorated with a few small pictures of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The man driving was a 27 year old who joined the PKK a few years ago. He was born in northern Kurdistan but spent most of his life in Germany with his family. He was one of many Kurds who grew up in the Diaspora, in Germany, but then returned to his homeland to fight for the PKK. He switched tapes in the truck, from Ahmet Kaya to Serhad, and I pushed an Uzi, an unusual weapon to see here, to the side and sat in the passenger seat. As we drove along, one of the female fighters in the back seat sang along to Serhad.

September 14, 2006

Learning the Mountains

We approached an area where a number of fighters were passing time. It was almost like rudimentary cafeteria, a few covered tables, where they sat around, talked, drank sodas, and smoked cigarettes. I sat down and met more of the fighters, and was soon offered cigarettes and a Pepsi. They eagerly questioned me about world politics. “What does the world think of the PKK? Why doesn’t the US help the PKK? We fight Iran and we want freedom and democracy.” I was to hear this question many times from many different people in Qendil. While the PKK has its roots in leftist thought and, since its inception, has been fighting the Turkish state, a longtime strategic partner of the US armed with American weapons and given generous amounts of American taxpayer dollars, many of today’s PKK fighters seem to harbor none of the knee-jerk anti-American thoughts that are so common in the Middle East and among leftist movements worldwide. Even as American-made F-16 fighters belonging to the Turkish Air Force bomb the PKK fighters of Qendil, as they do intermittently and did in great numbers soon after I left the base, many young and old PKK fighters seemingly believe that America helped bring some freedom and justice to the Kurds of Iraq and wonder why the US and many world governments still consider the PKK to be a terrorist group.

Another question I soon encountered was whether or not I had read any books by the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, called Apo or Serok (the leader) Apo by his followers. Ocalan’s ideology, explained in his various publications, is the ideology of the movement, and he is the undisputed leader of the group. Many of the fighters encouraged me to read his books and offered unsolicited praise for their incarcerated leader, who is now facing a life sentence on the island prison of Imrali.

I later left the cafeteria area with the 27 year old fighter and we traveled outside of the base’s entrance. As we were driving along, the driver remarked to me that Iran and some Turks claim that the US, or someone else, is helping PJAK and/or the PKK. Of course, I have heard these accusations. With the Iranian shells and gunfire echoing in the background, he laughed off these claims and said, “There is not a single state that provides help to the PKK.” While the PKK previously did have alliances with certain regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere, this no longer seems to be the case. Iranian claims of US assistance of PJAK, repeated by liberal US Congressman Dennis Kucinich, are ludicrous, despite the fact that the PJAK fighters would certainly appreciate such assistance if it ever came their way.

We drove to another area in the mountains where we met another group of fighters, the oldest of whom, Mehmet, was perhaps in his mid-30’s. Mehmet was from northern Kurdistan and a 16 year veteran of the PKK. Along with Mehmet were two other fighters, one fellow northerner who was rail thin and fairly quiet, and another, Yasser, a 21 year old from Urmiye, a city in Iranian-occupied Kurdistan. While Mehmet and I spoke, sitting in cheap plastic chairs at a small wooden table, another fighter prepared tea. While food and normal creature comforts are often in short supply in the mountains, the fighters try to make sure that they are never without tea, a staple of Kurdish life. The tea is boiled in a pot over a fire. We did not have spoons, so we added sugar to our tea and stirred it with a small stick. Mehmet joked that it was a “guerrilla spoon”.

Mehmet had been fighting for the PKK all over the Middle East for 16 years, and was in the best of shape. He was a bit reserved, though, when he did speak, it was with confidence and authority. He told me that he would be with me during my time in the mountains and that if I needed anything or had any questions, he was happy to help me. Remembering that my driver referred to the fighters at the first PKK checkpoint as “our peshmergas”, I asked him questions about the fighters here at Qendil, referring to them as “peshmergas”. He corrected me and said that he prefers the term guerrillas (gerîla in Kurdish). Indeed, I knew that the PKK called their fighters guerrillas, although I thought perhaps that this was a thing of the past. To Mehmet, it was an important bit of terminology and he made it a point to explain this. Another important bit of terminology to the PKK fighters is the term “heval”, which means something like “friend” and “comrade”. They referred to each other as “heval”, and soon enough I was also a “heval”, and until the time I left Qendil I did not hear someone address me by my first name without preceding it with “heval”.

After having some tea and speaking for a bit, Mehmet said that we were going elsewhere in the mountain, where we would eventually meet up with some other friends. We could wait for a ride or we could climb up the mountain. I asked Mehmet how long the climb would take. He said, “For my friends and I, it is about a half hour.” The implication, of course, was that it would be much more difficult for me and take a bit longer. This proved to be correct. Two of the fighters grabbed two of my small bags and we set out for our hike. Mehmet carried the larger of the two bags, while another fighter carried the smaller of the two in addition to his Kalishnikov. I carried the smallest bag, which contained communications equipment, and behind me was Yasser, the 21 year old fighter, who wore a broad-rimmed hat and carried only his rifle.

As we climbed up the mountain, it became apparent that I was traveling with expert hikers. An aging city-dweller living in the West, I had not had any recent experiences with this type of terrain. I had only a small bag and no rifle. And I was breathing hard and occasionally losing my footing. The intense summer heat did not help things, and between my sore legs, aching back, and labored breathing, I did not even care about the Iranian attack occurring not so far from us. The three fighters moved along without any apparent effort. Mehmet stopped occasionally to light a cigarette. He offered me a cigarette and, trying to catch my breath, I swore off smoking altogether and regretted having a few cigarettes earlier that day.

Kurdish fighters, the peshmergas of decades ago and the PKK fighters of today, know the mountains. They know their turf, giving them a giant advantage over any would be attacker. The mountains are unforgiving. They are, of course, steep and uneven, and the weather is no help. However, the fighters know the mountains like one knows his own home. They know where they are at all times. Without any effort, they can find the small, well worn path that they and their comrades have been using for years to get from one well-hidden resting place in the mountains to another. As we walked along a narrow path, the fighters kept a brisk pace.

“There are sports, athletics… but this is a completely kind of sport,” said Mehmet. I could not help but agree. “You need to learn it, you need to learn the mountains,” he said. He frequently spoke of the life of a fighter as one of “learning.” “After you learn the mountains, this is easy. You can move fast through the mountains, at night, with little sleep. It is no problem.” “How long does it take to learn?” I asked. “Perhaps a year to learn well,” he said.

Mehmet and I talked about a few topics, although he did most of the talking. He asked me the one question that I hear countless times each day I spent in Kurdistan: “Are you married?” However, he was one of the few people who did not speak in a disappointed or disapproving manner when I said no. The PKK fighters do not marry, despite the fact that there are plenty of men and women in their ranks. Indeed, a few fighters told me that they felt that marriage was not always a good idea and that many marriages were forced. While marriage, frequently at a younger age than in the West, is basically a mandatory event in one’s life in Kurdish culture, here was a large group of Kurds who questioned the entire institution. And we kept hiking, keeping quite a pace.

9/21/2006 KurdishMedia.com -
By Azad Hussein

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