SULAIMANI, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— A prominent Kurdish leader and the head of Change (Gorran) Movement Nawshirwan Mustafa died on Friday morning at the age of 73 in Sulaimani city in Iraqi Kurdistan after taking medical care for nearly nine months in the UK.
According to Gorran Movement media, Mustafa died in Sulaimani only a week after he returned from the UK.
“With deep sorrow, the great fighter and leader of our nation Nawshirwan Mustafa passed away at 8:00 a.m. today on May 19, 2017 after a long struggle with illness,” official Gorran media said in a statement.
Mustafa went to Germany for medical treatment in September 2015. After his stay in Germany, he went to the UK.
Due to his condition, Mustafa could not even attend the burial ceremony of his wife in Sulaimani on March 17 this year. Mustafa, returned back to Iraq’s Kurdistan Region on May 13, 2017.
Mustafa, a former deputy in the Kurdish government, He left Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party (PUK) in December 2006, he formed the Change Movement in 2009 as a rival to the ruling Patriotic Union of Kurdistan PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP.
Gorran enjoys wide support in Kurdistan region and the Movement now has 24 seats in Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament, and comes second to the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
Biography
Mustafa was born in 1944 on Ber Khaneke road in the city of Sulaimani in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Following his graduation from high school, Mustafa attended Baghdad University where he attained a degree in political sciences.
Following graduation he returned to Sulaimani and was editor of the Kurdish weekly newspaper “Rizgary” (Kurdish for Salvation) a weekly journal set up in the brief lull in hostilities between the central Iraqi government and its Kurdish population. During this period he and several other Kurdish intellectuals formed a secret nationalist party named Komala. He was exiled soon after for involvement in Kurdish politics. Whilst in exile he pursued academic studies in Austria.
In 1975 whilst only 2 weeks from completing his doctoral thesis at the University of Vienna, Mustafa was informed that a new uprising was about to begin in Iraqi Kurdistan and he left immediately. Following his return, Mustafa quickly became a leading light of the Komalai Ranjdaran grouping (a forerunner of the modern day PUK) and became general secretary of this organisation, before taking part in the negotiations which led to the merging of the Komala with the Shoresh Garan grouping of current Iraqi president Jalal Talabani which led to the formation of the PUK.
Military career
A military commander as well as a political figure, Mustafa headed the Kurdish revolution from 1976, and was the most senior member of the PUK in Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1991 uprising which followed Iraq’s defeat in the first Gulf war. As such, he took charge of the war of liberation fought by the Kurdish people which involved the liberation of the Kurdish population centres of northern Iraq including (Kirkuk (being recognised as the architect of the Raparin). Following the 1991 uprising Mustafa was allowed to return to his initial career and began to organise Kurdish academia and wrote several books, while maintaining his political profile.
Books
*”The fingers which break each other.”
Published in:
Discusses the often treacherous nature of contemporary Kurdish politics.
*”Going around in circles.”
Published in: 1998
An account of the diplomacy of the Kurdish liberation movement in the 1980’s. A period in which Saddam Hussein launched the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds.
*”The emirate of baban between the grinding stones of the Persians and Turks”
Published:
A historical account of the early Kurdish principality of Baban (1500-1850), A frontier principality between the Ottoman and Safavid empires, which was a microcosm of the power struggles of the great middle eastern empires.
(With files from NRT)
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