Entering a Troubled New Year

Violence in Kurdistan mars a joyous holiday

Iranians paused in the midst of their revolution last week to celebrate the ancient Persian new year, Now Ruz. Traditionally it is a time for family gatherings, exchanges of sweets and a long holiday from work, but this year's holiday for many people was not an altogether happy one. Revolutionary fervor was giving way to cynicism. There were unresolved quarrels among disparate forces claiming to represent Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. The government of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, struggling to cope with economic chaos, faced a new threat: an outbreak of violence among rebellious Kurds in the western city of Sanandaj. As thousands clogged the highways to the Caspian Sea and other vacation spots out of Tehran, one Iranian journalist observed: "We are a tired people."

Possibly the most tired of all was Bazargan, but the 71-year-old Prime Minister showed little sign of exhaustion as he hosted a huge bar-e-aam (public reception) at Tehran's modern concrete-and-steel sports arena to mark the new year. In a simple, direct talk, Bazargan touched on some of the issues facing his government. He assured the crowd of 10,000 that the rights of all the people of Iran, including women and religious minorities, will be preserved in the new constitution for an Islamic republic. But he also said that neither he nor Khomeini would back down on the nature of the nationwide referendum that is scheduled for March 30.

The wording of the ballot--yes or no to an Islamic republic--has drawn considerable criticism. Last week the National Democratic Front, a new opposition faction, threatened to boycott the referendum if the ballot was not changed. Iran's two armed militias, the Marxist fedayan and the Islamic mojahedeen, hinted that they might support the boycott.

In reviewing the good fortunes of the year, the Prime Minister said that he was saddened by one thing: "The situation in Kurdistan." In an effort to achieve a ceasefire, Bazargan dispatched a government team to Sanandaj, including Chief of Staff Vali-Ullah Qarani and Minister of the Interior Ahmed Sadr Haj-Sayed-Javadi. Khomeini also sent Ayatullah Mahmoud Taleghani, the respected leader of Tehran's Shi'ite Muslims, to the area.

Late last week there were reports from Sanandaj that the Interior Minister had worked out a tentative agreement with the Kurds that would grant them some degree of local autonomy. How long the accord would last was uncertain. A proud mountain people whose kinsmen fan out across the border into Iraq, Turkey, Syria and the Soviet Union, the Kurds have been in rebellion against their overlords in Tehran for generations. During the early 1970s, the Shah aided the Kurds, who were fighting a guerrilla war to gain autonomy for their sector of northern Iraq. The U.S. tacitly backed the rebellion, encouraging the Shah to supply the Kurds with arms and materiel.

In 1975, the Shah patched up relations with the Baghdad regime to gain a favorable settlement of a boundary dispute. As part of the deal, he cut off supplies to the Kurds and closed his border to the retreating rebels. Kurdish Leader Moustafa Barzani, who died in Washington early this month at age 86, pleaded in vain for continued American help.

During the February revolt against the hapless government of Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar, the Kurds took advantage of the chaotic situation to rearm. They stormed army garrisons in northern Iran, seizing huge quantities of weapons. The latest outbreak apparently began over the appropriation by the army garrison in Sanandaj of a large portion of the city's flour supply, as well as the bulk of the town's bread. Feelings among the city's population, which is mostly Sunni Muslim, were already running high because the local revolutionary courts were dominated by Shi'ites loyal to Khomeini. Kurdish guerrillas took positions in alleyways and on rooftops and stormed the army barracks. In response, the government forces strafed sections of the city from Cobra gunships.

Reported TIME Correspondent Paul Witteman from Sanandaj: "At Ghanzeh Hospital a man sat holding the severed head of his three-year-old daughter, who along with her four brothers and sisters was killed when a mortar round dropped into the yard where they were playing. As doctors worked in a makeshift operating room on the floor of the hospital corridor, flights of helicopters fluttered overhead, ferrying army reinforcements to the garrison from Kermanshah, an hour to the south. The fighting took a vicious turn the next day when the army moved tanks to the city center. Kurdish guerrillas dashed from alley to alley. Bullets ricocheted off the brick walls and became embedded in the mud walls of houses. It appeared to be a freelance war, since the rebels themselves are split into four political groups."

At week's end the number of dead was estimated to be between 100 and 200, many of them civilians. Few officials held out much prospect that the government delegation would be able to achieve anything except a fragile ceasefire. Moreover, any hint of compromise on autonomy for the Kurds could raise the hopes of other dissident nationalist minorities--Azerbaijanis, Turkomans, the Arabs of the vital oilfields in Khuzestan, and even the Baluchis in the far southeast.

Bazargan would have a hard time trying to put down the separatists by force: Iran's army is hopelessly demoralized and all but leaderless. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has enough on his hands trying to bolster the economy, which Khomeini last week described as "bankrupt." Workers' councils have taken over a number of businesses, banks, and government offices; councils in the bureaucracies are demanding exorbitant wage increases and resisting Bazargan's plans to reduce overstaffing. Food shortages have created a thriving black market that is feeding an unofficial inflation rate of 200%. Many of these problems would be relieved by fresh oil revenues, and as of last week production was up to 2.5 million bbl. per day, or about half the normal level. The question was whether these revenues, welcome as they were, would be sufficient to get Iran moving again. -

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