Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris

INFORMATION AND UAiSON BUUEI'IN 8
bottom of some remote valley on the Iran-Iraq border,
where he was constantly on the move, taking his library
with him.
He liked good books and good wine - but could do
without the latter more easily than the former. and was
as much at ease at a Parisian table as In the spartan
loneliness of the harsh mountain winter. At nearly sixty,
he would have been 59 next December, he combined
the serenity of an eastern sage w~h the dynamism of a
youth, the curiosity of an encyclopaedlst w~h the appetite
of a bon vivant. As firm In his convictions as he was
pragmatic In action, Ghassemlou seemed to reconcile
without strain the toughness required for a polltlcalmilitary
struggle and the elegant scepticism derived
from his long academic career.
He had a doctorate in economics, loved history and
literature and was an expert on Kurdish, Persian and
Arabic poetry; he also readily quoted Victor Hugo,
Baudelaire, Walt Whitman or T.S. Eliot. Warm, open,
approachable, using irony and humour as easily as the
six orseven languages he spoke and wrote fluently, he
inspired the same reaction in everyone who met him.
Sympathizers with his movement, intellectuals, doctors,
ministers, ambassadors, politicians of left or right.
All, even if recalling only one long-ago conversation,
admit that they fell for his charm. Few people In thiS
century could boast such unanimity.
Ghassemlou began his political life as a communist In
the Iranian Tudeh party, in which he rose to a position
of leadership. After 15 years in Prague teaching economics,
he broke with the Communist Party In August
1968 over the Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia.
Though he abandoned the certainties of MarXist dogma
he did not renounce his background. Rather, he
examined its mistakes as he analysed the political
situation to understand where and when Justice had
slipped into injustice and truth into error, oreven horror,
and to draw the moral conclusion. He was particularly
well placed to know the difficulties of political struggle
in a society that was "backward", as he used to say,
because, from being cut offfromthe world and deprived
of its rights of decision and expression, even of access
to its own culture. But he was not prepared to use
underdevelopment as an ideological justification for all
kinds of excesses, such as the cult of Violence for its
own sake, the cult of the leader In an organisation, or
the dictatorship of an organisation over the people.
Norcould he adopt the idea that it is qUite all nghtto use
one language for public relations and the media, and
then forget about it in the field. His great pride, as he
was never tired of saying, was that as far as was
humanly possible the ideals of the movement were
reflected in its everyday conduct. The PDKI has never
mistreated prisoners, never used force against ciVIlians,
never taken hostages, never hijacked aircraft or
planted bombs In the buses or markets of ..enemy"
towns, let alone outside the war zone. Though by no
means a pacifist, Ghassemlou opposed terrorism on
principle, knowing that he paid a price for that and
sometimes remarking, with Justa hint of bitterness, that
It explained why the media showed so little Interest In
the Kurdish question. «Any little group can become
famous by taking hostages or planting bombs,,, he
once wrote, «whereas liberation movements which
abstain from terrorism are generally Ignored.»
In November 1979 Ghassemlou condemned, on the
very first day, the seizure of the diplomats and staff In
the US Embassy In Tehran. For him the liberation of
Iran from American control, or of the Third World from
great-power imperialism as the PDKI programme put it,
was the objective of a long-term political struggle which
entailed freedom and democracy for all.
Yet, contrary to the accusations of the Tehran regime,
Washington was not won over to the Kurdish cause.
Though American diplomacy had indeed been active
during the Kurdish war in Iraq (1961-1975), for geostrategic
reasons which Dr. Kissinger explains at
length, and quite cynically In his memoirs, it never lifted
a finger for the Kurds of Iran. Ghassemlou himself was
banned from entenng the US until the month of his
death, when he was forthe first time granted a visa. Just
before leaVing for Vienna he was preparing very carful-
Iy for thiS tnp to the US, where he hoped to do a great
deal to publiclse the Kurdish problem, though he had no
great IllUSions about the likely political result.
He knew all too well that however great the sympathy
felt by a certain educated world opinion for the Kurdish
cause, (not only that of the 5 million Iranian Kurds but
of the 25 million scattered through five countnes) the
cause would never mobilise the diplomacy of the great
powers, nor even of the European democracies, since
they were concerned pnmanly with their own regional
interests. He had learned this dunng hiS frequent travels
abroad, especially In Europe. For although generally
respected, he was rarely welcome in official circles.
At best, by playing on old friendships and exploiting
his membership of the Socialist International, he
would now and then secure a little humanitanan aid for
his people. Or, by whispenng In a generous ear, would
manage to resolve a problem of speCial importance to
him. Jean-Fran~OIs Deniau, a minister In the Giscard
government, descnbed with some emotion how Ghassemlou
had at one time laid siege to his office to get the
French government to back a new edition of the only
French-Kurdish dictionary, which had long been out of
pnnt
He was a realist. I remember him telling me once that
at the end of a century notable for the assertion and
precanous stabllisatlon of different nationalisms it was
no good expecting to ..explode the map to allow the
Kurds to bUild themselves an Independent state on the