Biography

Sheikh Omar Mam Agha Muhammad was born in 1927 in the village of Boli in the Sulaymaniyah Governorate. After going to the Soviet Union, he married Maria, and they had a son and a daughter. Sheikh Omar knew both Kurdish and Russian. He passed away in 2004 and was buried in the village of Boli.

Struggle Record

On October 11, 1945, following the collapse of the second Barzan revolution, he headed to Eastern Kurdistan. On March 31, 1946, he became a Peshmerga in the Barzani force affiliated with the army of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad and participated in the battles of the Saqqez front in the Republic of Kurdistan.

 He was among the Peshmerga who returned to the Sherwan and Mazuri region through the Khwakurk route and the Barazgar plain through the territory of Northern Kurdistan on April 19, 1947.

After their return, General Mustafa Barzani held a meeting with his companions on May 15, 1947, in the village of Argosh and gave them the choice to stay or go to the Soviet Union. There, all his companions decided to continue and go to the Soviet Union. 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 the Maku Bridge. 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, into 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, 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, 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, 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 poor treatment by Jafar Baghirov towards the Barzani companions, it was decided to move the military camp on August 29, 1948, from the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Charchuk complex 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 on the collective farms (the 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, and he immediately ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the situation of the Barzani companions. Eventually, the committee's decision was that they should all be gathered in the city of Vrevsky, so he went to the city of Vrevsky 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 Abd al-Karim Qasim. On April 16, 1959, he returned to Kurdistan with his companions on the ship Gruzia via the port of Basra in the south of the Republic of Iraq.  

 In 1961, he participated in the Aylul Revolution and was part of the Kawa force. In 1975, after the collapse of the Aylul Revolution , he settled in his hometown. In 1979, he went to the Islamic Republic of Iran as a refugee. In 1981, he returned to Kurdistan and settled in Ranya.

Sources:

  1. Archive of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Encyclopedia Board.

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

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

  4. Abdulrahman Mullah Habib Abu Bakr, The Barzan Tribe Between 1931 - 1991, First Edition, (Erbil - Ministry of Culture Printing House - 2001).

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

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

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

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

  9. Najaf Qoli Pesyan, From Bloody Mahabad to the Banks of the Aras, Trans. Shawkat Sheikh Yazdin, First Edition, (Pirman - Golden Jubilee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party - 1996).