TODAY IN HISTORY
A dark stain is formed in the history of Kurdistan on 13 July 1989… Abdul Rahman Ghasimlo is the target of treacherous bullets at a negotiation table in Vienna. Some 30 years later, various aspects of the murder still remain ambiguous, but one thing is explicit: the murderers, Iranian intelligence element Sahraroodi, left Austria waving his hands and was greeted in Hewler with a red carpet
Abdul Rahman Ghasimlo was a 16-year-old student preparing for university in Tehran when the flag of Kurdistan was raised on the Tsarchira square in Mahabad on January 22, 1946.
When Ghasimlo was a member of the Communist Tudey party’s youth branches, he was 14 years old; he was worried about the collapse of Mahabad, the hanging of Qazi Muhammad in Tsarchira, and the news of his father’s detention in Tehran for two years. This series of events was the most important milestones in Ghasimlo’s life.
In 1948, Tudeyli, his socialist party, which took over in Czechoslovakia, invited young people to his country. Among the Iranian students admitted, there was only one Kurd, Abdulrahman Qasimlo. Thus began the days of Prague, which will become one of the most important points in his life.
In 1957, Ghasimlo became a lecturer at the University of Prague where he entered as a student. After 20 years of silence with Mahabad, the ‘first bullet’ of Eastern Kurdistan exploded in 1967, while his path in life was headed to Europe’s science. Equipped with the spirit of Newroz, a group of young people started a resistance against the Shah Pahlavi administration, with little resources.
DEMOCRACY FOR IRAN, AUTONOMY FOR KURDISTAN
While resistance continues in Eastern Kurdistan, Ghasimlo takes up the position of secretary general at the third congress of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDP-I) in 1973. The slogan at the Congress is a promise that he will not give up until the end of his life, he says “democracy to Iran, autonomy to Kurdistan.” These would be his last words minutes before he is massacred at the negotiating table in Vienna.
When Ghasimlo returned to Prague in 1976, he would be declared “wanted,” so he decides to settle in Paris. Besides the leadership of KDP-İ, he takes the title of doctor at the famous Sorbonne University of Paris and gives countless lectures here. When the Shah Pahlavi regime is one with the earth, Ghasimlo would return to Kurdistan in November 1978.
On February 1, 1979, the plane carrying Khomeini would take off from Paris and land in Tehran. In fact, Ghasimlo had visited Khomeini several times in his home in the Neauphle-le-Château district of Paris in the summer of 1978, a harbinger of change in Iran. When Khomeini declared his revolution 10 days after landing in Tehran, he said to the Kurds “we will see you too”.
However, Khomeini, who met with the Kurdish delegation on March 28, is in no way willing to negotiate. “There are no Kurds, Azeri, Persian, nation, or minorities in Islam. We are all from Allah’s nation.” In return to this, Ghasimlo speaks in the squares, he says: “You know what we call Kurdish traitors? ‘Cehsh’ (ignorant). From now on, anyone who believes Khomeini is a Cehsh. How quickly can you forget the 1975 betrayal?”
On August 17, 1979, Khomeini declared Ghasimlo the enemy of God. Kurdistan was facing one of the greatest massacres in the second half of the 20th century. At least more than 10,000 Kurdish civilians were massacred during these times.
THE ‘HOLY WAR’
The Iran-Iraq war that erupted in 1980 would change the fate of the Eastern Kurdistan movement. The balance of war until 1984 was heavy; 10 thousand pêsmerges lost their lives. Ghasimlo had set his bases in the headquarters of the Kandil mountain, East-South Kurdistan right near the border. In the second half of the 1980s, with the initiatives of the YNK leader Celal Talabani, he established his first contact with Tehran years later.
The parties, which met for the first time on December 30, 1988, in the 9th district of Vienna, would sit at a table in the house of Yebat Xebat Maruf. Followed by two days of hard bargains, Ghasimlo did not give up his demand for education in the Kurdish mother tongue, for Kurdish as the second official language. Ghasimlo would remain persistent on his demands, and the negotiation would go unconcluded. Later, when Khomeini dies, Rafsanjani would replace him. At this point, Ghasimlo pushes the button for a new negotiation.
This time, Fadil Resul, who lives in Vienna, entered the circuit. Resul, who has been living in Vienna since 1975 and was studying his doctorate in the Department of International Relations, was a good Kurdish lobbyist. He arranged the meetings of Kurdish leaders who came to Vienna. However, dr. Qasimlo insisted on meeting in Paris. The Iranians would say “Vienna or Berlin. Paris is impossible,” and with this, the plane carrying Ghasimlo landed from Paris to Vienna airport on 11 July.
MINISTRY OF INTERIOR CANCELED AN APPOINTMENT ON THE DAY
Dr Ghasimlo had made an appointment with the Austrian Ministry of Interior at 4 pm on the evening of 13 July, before his meeting with the Iranians. The meeting was supposed to be held with the minister’s chief adviser, Manfred Matzka. But Matzka’s secretary said the appointment had been cancelled. Why the interview was cancelled and what Qasimlo intends to say to the Austrian government is the most critical detail that remains unresolved in this murder.
At 16.30, from the Ministries office left empty-handed Dr Ghasimlo. An hour later, he had another appointment with the Iranian delegation. The meeting was to take place at 17.30 on the Linken Bahngasse street in the third district of Vienna.
THE ASSASSINATION TEAM
Meanwhile, three Iranians; Cafer Sahraroodi, Mustafa Ajvadi and Amir Mansour Bozorgian had left the hotel and reached the meeting place. They had diplomat passports in their pockets and arrived in Vienna on 10 July. An eyewitness, D, would then say that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who became president in 2005, was with the delegation and was investigating the area.
The parties gathered around the table in the hall and negotiations had started. The interview was recorded on an audio tape. Later, the Austrian police announced that the band would hear Ghasimlo’s words: “I will return empty-handed and I cannot say that Iran is working for the autonomy promised”. The sound which breaks the silence after is the sound of bullets.
Ghasimlo was shot in the forehead, temples and neck, Rasul’s head and neck were shot with two bullets, and Abdullah Kadir
Azeri was shot with one bullet. There was a forgotten detail that day. 13 July 1989; It was the 40th birthday of Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian Islamic revolution, who died on June 3, 1989.
Jafar Sahraroodi lay in the blood on the stairs when the first police teams reached the house whıch had been turned ınto to the bloodbath. His friend Mansour Bozorgian was shouting to the police he met outside, “they shot him, shot my friend, save him.”
In the “accurate assassination“ Sahraroodi’s shooting had ruined the whole plan. Sahraroodi was taken to hospital under police surveillance, and Bozorgian was taken to the Schottenring police station.
Bozorgian would be delivered to the Iranian Embassy where he would be kept for several days under their instructions.
On July 22, in Vienna, Sahraroodi would surrender in the face of pressure from Tehran and be flown to his country.
THE MURDERER WOULD BE GREETED IN HEWLER WITH A RED CARPET
The team that killed Dr Ghasimlo and his friends were welcomed as heroes in their country. After returning to Iran, Mansour Bozorgian was promoted to the rank of general. He was appointed head of the Pasdaran headquarters in Urmia, his hometown.
Jafar Sahraroodi became the commander of the Jerusalem troops who carried out the operations abroad of Iran, after his duty in Vienna. In August 1996, he personally led the operation of the PDK-I headquarters in the villages in the south of Kurdistan.
Both killers continued to travel across Europe, waving their hands. It turns out that Cafer Sahraroodi went to Switzerland and Croatia in October 2013. However, despite an international arrest warrant, both countries did not surrender Sahruroodi to Austria.
Furthermore, Sahraroodi was greeted in 2014 with a red carpet in Hewlêr’. Sahraroodi was also present during the visit of the President of the Iranian Parliament Ali Larijani to Southern Kurdistan upon the invitation of the KDP. At that time, Sahraroodi who was office manager in Ali Laricani’s seat, posed with KDP executives.
Austria, who sent murderers to Tehran by escort, did its best to cover up the murder. The Vienna government would say “we weren’t pressured by Tehran.”
However, in a press poll published by the Presse newspaper in 1997, it was revealed that 55% of Austrians said, ‘The government allowed the killers to escape.’
In the 1990s, Austria’s 60% growth in trade with Iran did not go unnoticed.
USA: IRANIAN INVOLVEMENT
A document from the United States Ministry of Justice by the head of the department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows that the US was aware of the assassination of Ghasemlo. The document further reveals that the US had called on the Austrian Authorities to bring the assassins to justice.
In the document, written on 22 August 1989 by the head of the US department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Austrian Government, the US called on the Austrian government to “pursue prompt, official and concrete action to identify and arrest and prosecute” those responsible for the murder.
In the document, the US also states that there is credible evidence that shows that the “Iranian Government and the local Iranian Embassy were involved” in this “act of terrorism.” The suspects accordingly “held Iranian diplomatic passport,” and they took “refuge and protection of the local Iranian embassy.”
