Dan Snow's History Hit - 30 Years since the Kurdish Uprising

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

In the aftermath of the First Gulf War, groups rose up against Saddam Hussein's regime in a bid to win independence from Baghdad with devastating results for those involved and in particular for the Kurds of Northern Iraq. The Iraqi army responded with deadly force leading to the displacement of millions and the creation of an enormous refugee crisis in Northern Iraq. By April of 1991 and led by the British government a coalition had been put together and launched Operation Haven. This involved coalition forces entering Northern Iraq and creating a safe zone that would allow Kurdish refugees to return home. In this episode, Dan is joined by General Andy Salmona who was one of the Royal Marines who spearheaded Operation Haven and protected the refugees from Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist forces. He is also joined by Nawroz is a Kurdish folk singer and former Peshmerga fighter whose singing voice is so powerful that it was considered a weapon of war and made him a wanted man. Nawroz and Andy now work together on projects promoting peace and international fraternity and this podcast was a chance for them to relay their experiences in Iraq 30 years ago and explain why their work together is so important.

Hi everyone, welcome to Antinous History. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, groups within Saddam Hussein's Iraq, this is back in 1991, rose up to try and achieve independence or certainly self-determination from the Baghdad regime. Chief among those, the two most famous groups, were the Shia, the so-called Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq, and at the other end of the country, the Kurds in northern Iraq. Saddam Hussein's forces responded with lethal force and there was soon a catastrophic refugee crisis in the mountains in northern Iraq. Samir Saeed's forces responded with lethal force and there was soon a catastrophic refugee crisis in the mountains of northern Iraq. By April 1991 the rest of the world wanted something done and the Americans, their allies, the European allies, responded.

Operation Provide Comfort was the American name for the operation. Operation Haven was the UK initiative. Soldiers like Andy Salmon, who you'll hear from on this podcast, were sent into northern Iraq to allow the refugees to return home and protect them from Saddam Hussein's Baathist counterattacks. On this podcast, we talk to Andy Salmon about that experience. We'll talk to Nawroz Oromari, who was a Kurdish folk singer and former Peshmerga, former resistance fighter against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces.

He was so good at singing. He was so emotional. His voice was considered a weapon of war. And he ended up a wanted man in about three countries. Nowroz and Andy now work together on projects, and I had a chance to talk to both of them about those events 30 years ago and why they feel that working together to promote peace and international fraternity is an important thing to do. This podcast is broadcast for the first time today on the 6th of April 2021 because it

was on the 6th of April 1991 that Iraq bowed to a UN Security Council resolution and announced that it would have a ceasefire in northern Iraq. It was a totally fascinating conversation with these two very different men who've been on very different life journeys, yet who are now bound with a similar passion. If you wish to listen to other podcasts, we've done many on the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait and the Iraq war back in 1991, you're best bet to go and do it on historyhit.tv. It's the place to listen to all these things. Historyhit.tv, no ads on there because you pay a very small subscription

and you also get access to hundreds and hundreds of hours of documentaries on there as well. So please head over to historyhit.tv, join the revolution over there. It's the Netflix for history. But in the meantime, here's Andyy salmon and nauros oramari gentlemen thank you very much for coming on the podcast thank you thanks dan good to see you very good to see you guys now if i could start with you where where were you this time 30 years ago now? Where were you?

I think I was in Damascus. I was planning to get out of Damascus illegally to Europe. And my destination was to get to Sweden because I had many friends in Sweden. But I got trapped in London. That was during the time a fatwa was released against Salman Rushdie. And the Heathrow airport was very tight, securely. But a friend of mine helped me with my passport. And what about when the Allies began the liberation of Kuwait and the battle against Saddam Hussein 30 years ago? Did you think that might be an opportunity to return

to your homeland? Did you think it might lead to an independent Kurdistan at that time? Well, for us as Kurds, that was a golden opportunity because we've never seen Saddam Hussein so stupid to go to Kuwait. And we were praying to God not to get back because the allies were saying to Saddam Hussein, get back. And he would say, no, no, no. He thought maybe they are not serious. No, they are not going to attack him. I wanted to go back to Kurdistan, but at that time I didn't have the passport, the British passport. I didn't have the document, legal document to get back. So I had applied for asylum and waited and I got my humanitarian ride and somehow I didn't apply for full stay as a refugee for asylum because I thought, anyway, I've been given this four years,

it's enough for me. My life is safe and secure. Andy, you, on the other hand, were in Iraq 30 years ago. You were a Royal Marine. I'm not belittling the Royal Marines contribution, but you know, Rupert Smith and his First Armoured Division kind of basically won most of the headlines, dashing across the desert like that 30 years ago. Were you excited by this opportunity to get involved perhaps in a different way in the north of Iraq? Well, 30 years ago, on the night that the British Army, Rupert Smith and co, went over into Iraqi territory, we were still in Northern Ireland, finishing off a six-month tour in South Ammar. And my company was involved in a

huge gunfight with 18 terrorists outside a little village called Silverbridge. We had to have an ammunition resupply in the field. So the big story was, well, on the night that the British Army invaded Iraq, there were more rounds fired in a little place called Silverbridge in an incident called Gulf 7-0. So we were watching this from afar, of course, not realising that a few weeks later, when we got mobilised, we started pouring into Zako in northern Iraq, because of this Kurdish rebellion that had been put down very harshly by Saddam, with a million and a half Kurds fleeing into the mountains of Iran and Turkey on the Iraqi borders. So John Major managed to build up a coalition, because the Americans actually weren't that interested at that time in going into the north. In fact, he persuaded a coalition

of about 10 different nations, involving about 20,000 troops, to effectively invade a portion of northern Iraq, secure a safe haven and provide humanitarian support. And that's exactly what happened when we went in. So we had no idea this was going to happen. I was sitting in a bar in Mallorca, sipping a beer, watching this biblical scene unfurl on the television in the bar of people, women and children, men stuck in the mountains in horrendous conditions, didn't really think much of it. I went back that night from the bar into the villa, and lo and behold, the Spanish police had called and said,

you need to ring your CO. And then I flew back straight away, and then we ended up in Zaco. So that's how we got involved. Andy, knowing you bootnecks, it was always going to end up with the Spanish police one way or another. That's right. Naras, can I ask what was going on, although you weren't in northern Iraq at the time, what happened when Saddam Hussein had his forces kicked out of Kuwait? There was a rebellion. There was a Kurdish uprising.

Can you tell me about that and whether your friends, loved ones, colleagues were involved in that? Yeah, the Iraqi Kurds rebelled against Saddam Hussein. And of course, the Arabs as well, the Shia did the same thing in the south. And Saddam crushed the Shia in the south. In north of Iraq, which we call it South Kurdistan, the Kurdish political parties and people together they managed to get rid of Saddam Hussein's regime in the whole of Kurdistan apart from the city Kirkuk

and after that Saddam Hussein attacked the Kurds and we were told that he used a limit of chemical weapons not like before but in different places again he used it. And there were some casualties and some people were brought to London as well and to America. And because the allies came to help us, and one of them was our brother Andy, I'm very proud of him. I mean, of course, in those days, cars were dying in thousands because it was winter and children, women, particularly pregnant women and elderly people were dying on the snow, mud, with diseases. Diseases were spread, no food.

They were getting food, you know, from helicopters, all that stuff. And John Major, as Andy said, he tried to persuade the West that we've got to do something with these millions. Because officially it was said 2 million Iraqi Kurds got stuck between Turkish border and Iranian border. But we think it's the devil of that amount, possibly 4, 5 million people fled. Because people were thinking that they're going to be attacked again by chemical weapons, which Saddam Hussein did again, but in a limited way. And so when the allies came again, the Kurds got a bit confident. And one of them, my family was there. And eventually when I talked to my mother, when she got back to Kurdistan from the Turkish

border, they were about to die and her father was about to die. My father was rescued by a Christian family. They thought because he was an old man and he got stuck into a mud and he couldn't move. And because the clothes that he was wearing, it looked like the Christians because we've got the same traditions. So they said, oh, this is an elderly Christian man. So they went and rescued him so uh when they got back and the british forces were there the americans were there

actually the british forces were exactly where my my parents were and once i said to my mother how do you like the british forces there do you like them she said yeah yeah we absolutely love them because they give chocolates to children and they sometimes they give us medicine and i said what don't you like about the british forces there she said only one thing they go on top of the roof you know they take off their clothes and they have sunshine which is not in our tradition so andy were, were you doing some sunbathing there, were you? Well, I wasn't doing any sunbathing. So I don't know how many Marines were on top of the building sunbathing.

Well, we were Australian to Zaco. We started moving in there on the 20th of April. The American Mew, 24 Mew, were first, and we were part of 4-5 Commandos, second in. 3th Commander Brigade were following on with 1 Amphibious Combat Group, Dutch Royal Marine Battalion, Netherlands Marine Battalion, and then 40th Commando. And US Special Forces had already gone to the refugee camps,

which were pretty horrendous. And there was a huge airlift which lasted about 31 days, which was bigger than the Berlin airlift, to give you an idea of the scale of what was going on to save people's lives in the mountains. So there was this humanitarian effort. And then really, we were part of the southern thrust to clear this secure route and form the southern part of the safe haven between the Turkish border and the Iranian border. So we just started to move east. And I was a company commander, but I was given this task of moving first to negotiate with Iraqis, find the Kurds, and then start to think how we were going to bring the United Nations in afterwards who were just coming in as well. So that was the start of our campaign, you know, in April. Were you fighting? Were there Iraqi forces to fight? Or were you, what was it a

sort of peacekeeping and humanitarian mission by the time you got there? Well, we had a security job to do, but there was a joint Iraqi and coalition agency formed. And so a lot of what we were doing was negotiated. So the first challenge was actually clearing and trying to negotiate Iraqi police and Ba'ath Party muharabat as well from Zaka, which is where we started. There were about 500 Iraqis still there, a bit reluctant to go. That was negotiated cleanly. And then gradually, as we moved eastward, really from Zako to this wonderful cliff-top place called Al-Amadiyah, that was really negotiated. So there was no fighting. There was one small skirmish outside one of Saddam Hussein's

republican palaces between a small observation post and some Iraqis who came and started shooting at it but that was about it and the rest was very very careful by negotiation a little bit of deterrence with the assets that we had, for example, helicopter gunships, attack helicopters from the US Marine Corps, who made sure that when tanks started swiveling their turrets and guns in our direction, we were able to persuade them, actually, that's not a good idea. We don't want to get into a firefight. So it was very careful, very negotiated. And that was one of the big successes, actually, to have no fighting after what had happened in the war.

You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. We're talking about the military operation in Kurdistan 30 years ago this week. More after this. Land a Viking longship on island shores scramble over the dunes of ancient egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in renaissance florence each week on echoes of history we uncover the epic stories that inspire assassin's creed we're stepping into feudal j in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Nauru, if it's not too painful, Andy mentioned there some of the elements of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

You've experienced this directly. Your family have suffered. You've suffered. Are you prepared to share any of the stories about what life was like in Iraqi Kurdistan in your time while you were there? Yes, as a teenager, one of our singers, his name is Tahsin Tah, he was like help especially for us. So one day at school, I was in Mosul city. He came to our school and he went to all the schools. He was trying to find children's voices, nice voices for his new two songs for TV. So he came to our class and he said, who can sing? And then everyone said, oh, no one can sing. And he said, ask me to sing.

And I sang one of his songs and he loved it. And he took me to the headmaster and he said, I want to take this kid to the local radio the radio was a portable radio was was based on a big lorry and it was like FM radio only for for the for the city of Mosul and my teacher one of our teacher played violin and Tahsin Tasin Ta himself played oud for me. And I sang on that portable radio. And it was only for the city. And suddenly, I became popular.

People were talking about, who is this kid? And he sang Tahsin Ta's song, and Tahsin Ta himself introduced him to the people. And I was so proud. Wow. Imagine, like, Elvis Presley is going to present to you, you know, and you are just a kid. And I was popular for at least four or five days in that situation. And then the producers, not producers,

because in those days we didn't have legal producers. People were recording illegally, you know, the cassettes, the ordinary cassettes and spread them among people. So they came to me and said, can you sing for us? And I said, yes. And I sang for them and they paid me a bit of money. And then within those records, I became more popular. Then when I became popular by the encouragement of the people, because I was a Kurd, I wanted to sing for my nation, for Kurdistan. And I started singing politically for our nation. And then I was arrested.

I was only a teenager. I was arrested and it was my first time because it was my first time and I wasn't an adult to be executed. So I had to sign a pledge saying from now on I'm not allowed to sing even among my friends and my father as well had to sign the same pledge and if I had broken that pledge I should accept the execution of myself and this is only they would allow me to go free because it was my first time life after that that, for me, it was unbearable. I couldn't sing for my friends and people constantly were asking me to sing, but I was not allowed. And my parents were very worried because they had lost eight sons and one daughter

and I was left the only son for them. But still I had two sisters. Now, Rust, tell me, how did you come to be a Kurdish resistance fighter? I joined the Kurdish revolution when I was about 17 and a half. And I sang for the revolution and my duty was to do, you know, to recruit people through emotion, to go to the villages and to sing on the radio.

And the radios were based on the caves because we, you know, to protect themselves from the war jets, Saddam Hussein's war jets in those days. In those days, Saddam Hussein had one of the most powerful army in the area. And he had money, petrol, weapons. The West and the East were helping him. So we were active mainly at night, in the evenings. During daytime, we would hide in the

caves. And when I was in Kurdistan, I was singing and sometimes we would get in a clash with some Iraqis and we had to just defend ourselves. Iraqi government had a very immoral method. If you were a rebellion, then they would arrest your family. And if your sister was not married, she could be raped and your brother could be executed. Your father could be executed. So I was trying to avoid that,

to get out of the eyes of the spies. How did you escape Iraq? My parents originally are from Southeast Turkey, and we hate to call it Southeast because it's north of Kurdistan. But anyway, officially it's Southeast. So my parents escaped the genocide from Turkey. So I went to Turkey, and in Turkey it was in 1981. It was a military dictatorship.

The military was very powerful and arrested most of the opposition and crushed the Kurdish opposition and particularly the PKK party. But economically, Turkey was weak and the system was corrupted. So I was arrested because I was singing in Kurdish. It wasn't a prison. It was a cell. For three months and 17 days and for 24 days, I was tortured. And for 33 days, I didn't see the sun. My tribe paid money, brought some of the officials in Turkey,

and they managed to take me out of the prison. One of the guys who was in prison with me, we became friends, and he was in the coffee shop, and his name was Obeyedullah. And I said to him, Obeyedullah, can I talk to you privately? And he said, what's wrong with you? Of course. And I said to him, this isidullah, can I talk to you privately? And he said, what's wrong with you? Of course. And I said to him, this is what's happened. Last night, people got killed.

So could you find a way for me? He said, yes, I can take you to my village. And from my village, there are some smugglers. They are going to go to Iran. And if you are lucky, you just go and catch them and you go with them. Most people in that town, because it was small, and we were only three, four people from Iraq side, most people they knew about me. They knew this singer got arrested by

the Turks and he is the nephew of the famous Nebruz Agha, the head of the tribe. So they waited for me and they said, okay, are you the nephew of Nebruz Agha? I said, yes. And he said, what do you want to do? I said, I want to go to Iran by any chance. I can't get back to Turkey. I'll be extradited. He said, okay, come with us. And there was another Kurd from the north of Kurdistan. His name was Jahid. He was like a socialist member from a political party, socialist party.

The rest of the people were smugglers. And the smugglers don't have mercy. They know nothing about humanity. They just know about money and to survive. And they are like wolves on the snow. They know every corner of the area. We went on the snow, on the pasture, and it was heavily snowing. And it was at midnight, absolutely cold.

And some of them went to nearby villages. And the rest of the smugglers wrapped themselves, each of them with two, three blankets and with a bit of plastic, and they start sleeping on the snow. And we were left just me and Jahid. Jahid started, you know, shouting at them and becoming angry with them and swearing at them, saying, hey, you are not human, you are not Kurds, we are fighting for you, and you left us under the snow and we're going to die. And because it was snowing horizontally, you couldn't see your friend in one meter. So what happened?

One of them came and said, okay, I'll show you the secret here. These are the pastures. And in the pasture during summertime, people from the villages, they go to these pastures to feed their animals. When they get back, they keep their old plastic shoes in certain places in the snow in order to burn them as energy, you know. So he came and he had like a plastic shovel and he digged somewhere and then suddenly he brought some plastic shoes and he gave us one blanket, lit the plastic shoes, you know, and we had a bit of fire. But the problem is, because they were plastic shoes, even three days after that, when I was coughing, I was coughing plastic, you know, black plastic. Then I went to Iran, and from Iran, I went to Damascus. I sang, it was Nowruz time, I sang for Nawruz, and I was arrested in Damascus because they said, you are an Iraqi, and you are a Kurd, and you are a guest here, and you are a refugee.

Why would you say four parts of Kurdistan? Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. Nawruz, thank you very much for sharing that story. By my reckoning, I think you escaped from four of the world's most brutal regimes in the 1980s. That's truly extraordinary. Coming to you, Andy, I guess listening to that, but more generally, it must be one of the operations of which you're proudest, I guess, going into northern Iraq to try and bring some peace and stability in the 1990s following the war. in the 1990s following the war? Absolutely. I mean, it was a campaign. I mean, it was a huge adventure that happened with no real prior warning. So when we got there, we were just staggered about what we saw in terms of the signs of genocide and ethnic cleansing,

villages blown up, vineyards, tracks, re-entrance, mine to prevent the Kurds from going back to their villages. So real total destruction, like Dante's Inferno. And then the people who were suffering so much in the mountains, I mean, horrendous conditions. I've never actually seen anything like that in the whole of my life. Images of those refugee camps and the smell, you could smell the detritus from the helicopters as you flew in. So when you look at a mission like that, the purpose, it just doesn't come much better. You're saving people's lives and our endeavour as a whole, whatever we were doing whatever part of

the force you were in um you know we managed to save one and a half million people by getting them down into eventually a very secure and safe area so it was a massive humanitarian logistic and security job that was when i look back one of the most fulfilling things i've ever done in my life what is the nature of this collaboration what what's that what do what do you hope to gain job that was when I look back one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done in my life. What is the nature of this collaboration? What do you hope to gain from working with Narrows like this? We've been working since 2016 on a project called Journey Through Conflict which is all about fusing stories, music, art and culture, and creating immersive experiences or performances that inspire journeys to a better life. And Navroz sings on one of our productions, which is about Iraq. So that's spanning three of my own campaigns in Iraq, Kurdistan, Baghdad and then Basra when I was the commander down there, closing down the campaign.

So we put on this show and Navarose sings in it. We use art as a backdrop. We have an Islamic cleric who does a call to prayer and a dance at the beginning. And then we suffuse the whole of the performance with live piano improvisation from a film composer and jazz classic concert pianist called Tom Donald, who introduced me to Navros. So that's how we started working with each other. And we just keep the journey through Converse stuff just keeps going. We do other things as well, which Navros isn't always involved in. But for the Iraq stuff, he definitely is. And we look forward to doing another production and a workshop as part of the coventry city of culture uh at the beginning of next year so we're still engaged in it despite

covid what do you want people how do you want them to respond to this music that hopefully we'll be hearing at the end of this podcast what do you want them to feel and do what we want them to do whoever's involved in either working with us to put on productions or performances or in any of our projects or people who are the audience or the people that we're trying to affect with what we're doing. We're trying to build an inspiring journey to a better life. So whatever the scenario, we want to create some impact, which then leads to something else happening. That's basically it. We're catalysts for inspiring journeys with whatever we're doing and whoever we're doing it with in whatever scenario. Well, thank you so much, both of you, for coming on the podcast. Very much appreciated. Thank you

for everything you're doing. Thanks, Dan. Thank you, Dan. Thank you so much, both of you, for coming on the podcast. Very much appreciated. Thank you for everything you're doing. Thanks, Dan. Thank you, Dan. Thank you so much. Now let's hear some of Navarro's music. That voice that got him in such trouble, but brings so many people so much happiness. Oh, young I Young I Oh, Monday Oh, Monday

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey

Hey Hey Hey Hey hope you enjoyed the podcast just before you go bit of a favor to ask i totally understand if you don't want to become a subscriber or pay me any cash money makes sense but if you could just do me a favorites for free go to itunes or wherever you get your podcast if you give it a five-star rating and give it an absolutely glowing review purge yourself, give it a glowing review I'd really appreciate that, it's a tough world out there

law of the jungle out there and I need all the fire support I can get so that will boost it up the charts it's so tiresome, but if you could do it I'd be very very grateful, thank you you