Biography

Bahjat Abdulkhaliq Abdulqadir, was born in 1917 in the Akre district of Dohuk Governorate. He studied in the Soviet Union, and in Year 1953 he participated in a mechanics course. In 1954, he was transferred to the city of Tashkent to participate in a carpentry and electrical appliances course. In 1954, he was employed at Carpentry Factory No. 682, Department 9, and in the same year he became a 3rd-grade carpenter, and in Year 1955 he became a 4th-grade carpenter. In 1956, he was transferred to the Tahsiba school and the oil course in Bashkiria. In 1957, he was transferred to the carpentry factory, Department 55, in Tashkent. On March 5, 1958, he received a degree in industrial and agricultural engineering in Vriviski, Uzbekistan. In Year 1979, he was employed as a translator at the Tractor and Export Agency. He knew both the Kurdish and Russian languages. In 1980, he was retired and passed away in the same year.

Struggle Record

On May 23, 1947, he accompanied General Mustafa Barzani towards the Soviet Union and participated in the Battle of Qatur and the Battle of Maku Bridge, and 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, towards the Soviet Union.

After arriving in the Soviet Union, on June 19, 1947, along with all his companions, he was placed in the city of Nakhchivan in the Republic of Azerbaijan for forty days in an open-air compound surrounded by barbed wire, guarded by a group of Military personnel, and 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 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 officers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, were given eight hours of military training daily. At the same time, they were taught the Kurdish language daily for four hours by some of their companions who were literate.

After the mistreatment of his companions by Jafar Bagirov,  Barzani decided to move the military camp on August 29, 1948, from the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Charchuk community 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 teams by train among the collective villages of the Soviet Union and worked on the kolkhoz farms (the lands that people rented from the government and later gave back the government's share).

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 decided to form a committee to investigate the Situation of Barzani's companions, and finally the committee's decision was that they should all be gathered in the city of Vriviski, so he went to the city of Vriviski in the Soviet Union in November 1951. There, he was transferred to Sovkhoz No. 9, Department 2, in the Tashkent Brigade.

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 covered by the 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, along with his companions, on the ship Georgia via the port of Basra in the south of the Republic of Iraq.

Sources:

    1. Archive of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Encyclopedia Committee

    2. Hamid Gardi, Summary of History, First Edition, (Erbil - Aras Publishing and Distribution House - Ministry of Education Press - 2004).
    3. Aras Hasso Mirkhani, 62 Days with Barzani, The Journey of the Barzanis to the Soviet Union in the Memoirs of the Martyr Commander Hasso Mirkhani Zhazhoki, First Edition (Erbil - Culture Press - 1997).
    4. Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement 1931-1958, (Dohuk - Khabat Press - 1998).
    5. Archive of the Encyclopedia Committee, photos and documents of Bahjat Abdulkhaliq Akreyi.
    6. Text of the General Amnesty Committee decision to restore the reputation of the martyrs of the Barzan revolution, Rizgari Magazine, Issue 3, 2, Al-Rabita Press, Baghdad, April 1, 1959.