Political Repression in Syria
the forgotten Hero

Vergessene Helden; von Kurdisch Leader Osman Sabri nach Kurdisch Leader Deham Miro

Moraru, Spataru and Miro

Efrin.net 08.0.06

(Oh ! world release the life of Kurdish Leader Miro from Isolation (Since 1973 he is isolated by Baath) and because of his bad health he has to travel into Europe for medicine-purpose and the syrian Government has to allow him to travel without any condition )

"Deham Miro, Leader of the Syrian Kurds, was detained along with 5 others in January 1979.He is believed to be held at the Hasakeh civilian (But he was imprisoned and brought into HAMA Prison),
- He is just one of many members of the Kurdish Democratic Party arrested since 1973.
-They have not been brought to bublic trial.
-Their place of detention is continually changed.
-It is unknown how many are still changed.
-It is unknown how many are still in detention.
By sending this card you will participate in Amnesty International´s campaign against political repression in Syria" (see Amnesty report ;book in 1980-1982).

Life in prison Kurdish Leader Deham Miro coined his popular name, Haji Deham Miro,born in Deshta Hesena 1923 (=Deshta Hesena means the historical and geographical region of western Kurdistan b.c800,see the Kurds over the History ,2004 Berlin by Prof.Dr.Ass.Heval.S.Miro) ,Village Muzalan=Alhama-Direk -western Kurdistan,when his first leadership as Kurdish Leader (Er wurde von Kurdish National General Mustafa Albarzani und noch von der commision der Revolution ausgewalt) was known 1970.
Three years later his knowledge, Ideas and Visions and his political and national activities appreaded and spraeded in all western Kurdistan.

Kurdish Leader Miro became the most famous popular and respectful and blievable leader in Syrian Kurdistan.
His name appreaded on the Kurdish News and Kurdish politicians and revlutioners adopted him as their Patron and he was introduced to Kurdish Leader Adries Albarzani and President Masud Albarzani.

Kurdish National General Mustafa Muhammad Albarzani called him foremost represantative of popular art and sought his remarks,Ideas,Visions for Kurdish publication in western Kurdistan /Syria more than any other leader, Miro and sebri bridege the group between pre-and post revolutionary Kurdistan/in western Kurdistan).

He was the first in western Kurdistan,who was supported and admited by Kurdish national Leader General Mustafa Muhammad Albarzani.
This is one of the reason his personality and leadership created on immediate sensation.

Three years later, Miro was imprisoned in 1973, because of his political and national activities .
He was jailed in Hama Castle for" political activities" acussed of sedition, he was confinded for 3 monthes(in spite of his ill health: he suffered from headage and...ect..).
In Hama prison he imprisoned for seven years, and in reality,this was for " the prison for high treason".
His Life in prison reflects alot of experiences. The story lights up again the paradoxical way in which Miro can indicate his opposition to passivity and non-resistence to evil with a grim setting and plot.
The nameless protagonist is continuing rebellious not to the end and, phoenix-like ,emerges in his own grim triumph (the smoke escaping through the window;the spots on the wall trembling.

With remarkable psychological insight Miro makes his character intensely individual at the same as uses him as representative of awhole kurdish people in western Kurdistan.

The evning check -up had just ended.Standing in the middle of his cell the prisoner listened to last sounds from the prison yard dying out.

The bolt creaked noisly; the air shook as thought from the sharp report of agun; this was followed by a heavy sound of iron bars,a firm and even step, and then nothing more.
you would have thought that the prison had suddenly been plunged into a substance that was impervious and sealed not only to sound,but even to the air.

For another two minutes,without moving from the spot, the prisoner listens:nothing more comes to shatter the overwhelming silence.Then he lightly sights with relief ,contracts his eyebrows,casting a mistrusting glanc at the dark corners of the cell, and slowly approaches the window with silent steps.

He is a man still young,with an unhealthy-looking face,and with large eyes.
They are opened wide,and an expression of fearful expectation never leaves them.
An imprint of terro and amazement hangs about his whole person;this impression is accentuated still further by his tapering shoulders,which are raised as if to conceal his head.
It is two 3 monthes now he has been arrested,but he has not been questioned yet,and he does not know for what reason they have locked him up in this frightful room with its yellow doors and ironquilty of; at first he had been indignant,and had protested; he pictured the frantic alarm of his parent, and on the other hand he remembered Kurdistan this idea plunged him now into fits of tears ,and now into outbursts of pent-up rage.

But days after days had passed, and the silent walls had gradually worn away the fiery strength of his body,replacing it with a prepetual state of fear, and his being was filled with an eternal wait for something terrible to happen.

Standing near the window,he presses against the iron bars, without winking an eye,and desperatly looks out into the night.
And the night is so laden with darkness,that it seems that if you could pass your arm outside,it would be developed by ablack and moist sustance,like soot.
Somewhere,far away, atiny light glitters wretchedly and,compeletly surrounded by the darkness,it also seems to b imprisoned.
From behind his iron bars the man has become accustomed to look towards this unknown little light each night, and he realises that it is just as weak as he, and therefore resembles him.
And each nihgt,after the check-up,surrounded by silence and darkness, the man feels fear ascending and growing in him.

He would like to turn around and examine his cell,but he does not dare. He knows that the cell gets its light from alamp hanging from the casting above the door, and that shadows lie hidden in the corners; he knows that contains absolutely nothing else, for it is impossible for anything else to be there.He is convinced of it, he knows it; but still he does not quite believe it, and even though he has a very clear notion of his isolation, he feels to picture them to himself in order to calm had covered the wall with huge columns of fingures,having probably applied himself to long,studies caculations in order to beguile the emptiness of the days and to fight his loneliness.
On the wall opposite (from kurdish Prisoners) were sprawled wide green spots of dampness,and in one of them a hand had scratched in large type and it was developed by Kurdish leader Deham Miro:

Over mountain Jeyaye bexer and hill
of Barzan peshmerga marched,yo ho!

Tow highwaymen of Kurdistan
Without any ambition and just rages on our back,
Then Peshmerga spent the night and day with General Albarzani,
Where they had plenty to be free and plenty of snack.

yah,yo,ho........

He had thought about this "Ax" for along time,asking himself what meaning it could have had to the state of mind the tow highwaymen.........A shout of joy? Of cruetly?And he had decided that this interjection probably expressed the appetite, the pleasure of eating and drinking like gluttons,yes,precisely chewing away.........he picured that very easily.

Those two high waymen must have been well-known jolly blades ,cut -throats,ragged and happy, and certainly incapable of feeling the slightest fear.But,on the other hand,he had no sucess in imagining how the man must have felt who in a corner beside the door had scribbled, "Here tarried P for mundering his wife and F on acount of their filthy carring-on.

It was in in 1973,that , that I cut out their insides ." Lower down was represented a foul oath ,and a cottage with three windows and above the roof something like a jumble of hair ,probably standing for trees or smoke coming out of the chimeny.

In the opposite corner, near the window, a piece of torn away plaster makes one think of an animal whose skin one was trying to tear off.The door is constructed of heavy timber and rimmed with iron.
Asquare opening cut into the thickness of the wood is concealed on the outside by the addition of alittle mental cross which does not stuff it up completely, and makes this gap,through which the light from the corridor steals in,seem like a misshapen eye,always watching.

The prisoner knows his cell even in its most minute details, and yet the more he knows it, the more he can feel the presence there of something which he does see,but which he can almost touch.
This something returns each night to fill his heart with terror, and each night it becomes bolder and bolder.
It always stands behind him,and even when he presses his back against the wall it still remains behind him, invincible,silent , and triumphant ,and blowing cold chills down to his marrowbones. You could call it a monster, incessantly brooding over him with lust, which suddenly, in the nakedness of all its horror,will sink its slimy paws into his heart , and will begin to sequeeze ....It is gignatic ,heavy ,greenish as the mud in marsh,and coated over with a stinking secretion .
The prisoner feels it,clearly,and his whole body trembles; he continues to look through the irons of windows,for he does not dare to turn around.His eyes pain him,as if the darkness of the night had come touched them,and was weighing down upon them; his legs shake with fatigue ,but he can not tear himself away from the spot where he is standing ,for fear that in turning round he may discover this "thing"that terrorises him.

And all this while, on the outside, the silence and the darkness merge into one single mass, and it seems that every thing is dead,and that nothing is left in the world but just one man,locked up in this cell,and condemned to eternal waiting-the most frightful of punishments.

He will be waiting for the rest of eternity :years,cnturies -and this night is going to be indefinitely prolonged ;there will no longer be any day,and teh sun will never rise again!And this thing will always be there behind him, and will continue to watch him,in silence........................
"Halt!"commandes a hollow and sugglish voice;there is the sound of the butt-ends of guns hitting the ground. The sentry counts rapidly and in alow voice" twelve windows....Tow watch -towers".......
"Now ,you Finn,if you should see a head moving near one of the windows,that´s no reason for shooting.Get it?"
"I get it."
"Explain that to him ,A."
In the silence each word rings out sharp and clear,like the brightness of a flash of fire in the dark.
"And if you see anyone looking out through the window,you do not have to shoot.Do you understand?"
"Perfectly,A."
The voice of the one answering thus timid and sad and you can feel that the words he pronounces are strange to him,while the other one´s voice is low,rough,and authoritative.
"But to flee either this way or that way-well,you see,do not you?"
"Perfectly,A."
"Then immediately you are to cry out,"Who goes there?"Once,twice and the third time you are to shoot inthe air ,to give the alarm .....but you also are to fire at the one escaping ,or else you are to strike him from above with your butt-end or bayonet..........if that´s any better ,understand?"
"Perfectely,A."

"And so,look,you pace to and fro,from here......to here ,and you watch the windows.And you must take great care not even to close your eye for a second."
"No,no,A."
"All right ,now repeated .Under what conditions are you to fire?"
"If he comes towards me...."
"And if he should hear someone breathing with difficulty, and you could also hear a rumbling and impatient moving about.

"Well ,damn you....?"
"And if you hit...."
"And if you should see ahead by the window"
Again,silence.The sound of the butt-ends.Someone spits.
"Well,blockhead! Shake the cobwebs out of your brains,damn you!"
"Then,nothing."
"Why no,imbecil! Then you must say,"Pull in your head!"Do you understand all that?All right,that is good.
Now,beat it!March!"

The prisoner has again leaned over by the window to try to make out who this sentry is with this sorry voice.But, the narrow alley between the prison wall and the high outside slope is veiled in darkness. A dim outline moves around slowly there ,and almost noiselessly, and only the bayonet gleams sometimes in the dark,like a fish reflected in the water.
"Pull in your head....!"resounds the timid voice of the soldier.
The prisoner draws a step back,turns round abruptly towards the door,and takes a look all around his cell.Then he goes towards his bed,sits down,and leaning forward ,supporting himself on his hands,he steadily looks at the wall facing him.
Alittle mouse jumps out from behind the plinth and softly rolls along the floor ,just as a ball of wool would roll.Clever and graceful,it runs to and fro,lifting up its little nose and smelling the air.Its little ears wriggle. While following it with his eyes,the prioner never stops listening to the restless and rapid beatingof his heart.
"If it is already ten oclock,then there are still six or seven hours left to wait before dawn comes....."

And at this thought anguish overwhelms him.Its sensation are so bitter that it seems that every bone in his body is being pounded,that his muscles are tearing,and that his skin is shining just as if it is wsting away.

He lets his head droop even more, he clenches his teeth, and thus he remains motionless for along time, a long time.

"Ax---ax-------ax-----O -OO-OO!"

He healps leaps up with a shock.For a second he thought that it was from his heart that this long and sorrowful wailing had escaped, without his having been conscious of it. But,no, that comes from the window; it is on the outside that someone is groaning, and the sound,hardly audible, empties itself like along thin string into the cell through the iron bars.

"Ax-----ax---------ax!" weeps and groans the voice in the night.
It is the sentry singing. He listens,and his lips tremble a little.
The melody is not very familiar to his ear, and it sounds like a distant song,far away from this country ,sung in days of old,elsewhere,very far away from this prison and this night.It is not a captivating tune and the voice singing it also lacks charm,but you would call it the slow destruction of abroken atree.

At is the side of a precipice, below the muddy waves of a powerful current of water,a whining tree,its bare exposed roots are struck by the snowstroms has brocken its branches one by one, and the poor tree, hanging over the abyss,swings back and forth,and sadly groans......and
soon it will be hurled with just one strock into the river.
"What can really be the words of that song?"the prisoner asks himself.And the dream goes away,while the song continues,sweet and humble.

The singer does not dare sing any louder; he must be afraid of something. And the prisoner penetrates still more and more into the song and it seems to him now that it is in him,in his heart,that the weeping is his distress maoning out loud,his grief,his fear of loneliness,his uneasiness about the future.

Enthralled by the song, he falls powerless upon his bed,his face buried in the blanket.It is only when one remembers one´s mother that one can sing like that,when one thinks about the sufferings of a mother´s heart from whom her son has been taken,and when one thinks about sorrowof ason who has lost his Fatherland and his own Mother(Kurdistan).
Tearlessly and quietly and quietly a sobbing in spasms shakes his whole body,and,stretched out on his bed, he gives voice to his suffering in the strang melody which another is singing.

"my Mother and real mother Kurdistan............I have done my duty ........I am innocent! These Crizy Baathis-have taken and imprisoned me here......
Mother ;Mother Kurdistan My bigger Father General Mustafa Muhammad Albarzani will save you........I ma not afraid ..........Mother Kurdistan my mother............my mother.........."

And now he calls upon them ,both of them.She,his mother,and Father General Mustafa Albarzani full of love for him;her face and his face are not
wet with tears, and he see anguish only in eyes.
He,his Father Mustafa Albarzani ,is not wasted and neither ill, powerfull to console his mother,for his father is growing stronger ,tron by unrest and the fear of the fate that awaits his child.

In the darkness the father´s and mother´s gazes are fiery ,they search,they look,their fire becomes stronger and then gradually more creativity........And this song is like the echo of the moaning of these old people over their son.

He jumps down from the bed ,rushes towards the door,and with his closed fists he begins banging on it,crying and begging:

"open up you crizy Colonial Baath-! .......do not be worry to release me!................I can stand it longer!........
Have alogic you crizy colonial!::::::Open up! General Mustafa Muhammad Albarzani is staying with me!............You are down and poor!

At the iron bars appears a face with a heavy moustache, which moves as a harsh voice begins scolding:

"Well? You are beginning to make a rumpus again ,are you?Tut,tut ...that´s not nice.Moreover you are not acceptable and you should understand it is to forbidden to make any noise......"
"Listen to me, I beg of you......my mother Kurdistan ,you must understand! I have my lost Kurdistan.........tell that to them over there......let me go!....I ´ll not be away from mother........"

"Heaven, it is forbidden to make any noise at night! Why do not you understand that? People are sleeping-everything´s asleep.
.......And you begin to knock and disturb the quiet.It is not "But listen! I beg you....."
" And after that they will put you in the dungeon."
"But please,tell them......"
"That would not be of any use ;this is not the first time.You know"That they have already answered several times:"Do not listen to him."
I am therefor asking you here and now not to make any more noise.
It is forbidden to make any noise here."

And the moustache disappears.

"Listen !"the prisoner whisper again, beseechingly pressing his cheek against the bars in order to see in the direction of the steps that are moving away.

All that he gets for an answer is the even sound of boots on the flagstons.
"Listen"Come back" whispers the prisoner."Come back, I beg you...stay near the door so that I ´ll be able to see you....."

Everything is quiet. You can no longer hear the mournful song through the window.

A knee on the floor, the prisoner presses his head against the door,his fingers clinging to the thick knob.His forehead is glued to the iron framework,and the metallic cold spreading through his whole body gives him shivers.
Now,after this outbrust, he feels that in his heart has burst a huge abscess and that into his blood vessels is being poured a thick,sticky poison which is robbing him of the last of his strength.
Silence, Only his hearts is beating rapidly enough to burst.
But now a new noise is suddenly born. It is re-echoes from behind the wall on the left.In the next cell someone is walking back and forth feverishly,like a beast in a cage whose laws are creeping over the floor.
And even the sound of these steps is like the panting of an angery deer. The prisoner raises himself ,and with his face white with pallor,his eyes alight with great suffering,staggering,he approaches the table near the bed.On the table is a jug of water and avial containing some drops of ether prescribed yesteday by the doctor. There are still many of them. The young man seizes the vial with his trembling fingers......then,putting it down again,he sinks down on his bed. He feels empty now, and the frenzy of alittle while ago already seems to him so remote,altough only, afew
minutes have elapsed from the time he was making his fists black and blue against the door.

And again anguish envelop his body and soul, and it seems to him that his is melting away in him.
The lamp above the door lights up to bed, the table,and all the space separating the door from the window.But opposite the bed, near the wall, and in the corners darkness reigns, and this darkness makes the spots of dampness spread out on the wall appear to be living.They seem to be moving. In the daytime they only resemble a geography map, but in the night, when you look steadily at them, they recall human faces,perhaps the faces of all those who have been imprisoned in this cell.

That could be possible. A man remains imprisoned within four walls for many long days, and the walls soak-in his smell;so why would not they also soak-in his thoughts?And why could not they reflect his soul.

The soul of man is something which is volatile.With a free man the soul spreads out around on the whole of life.......while in prison the walls absorb the soul of the imprisoned man........certainly !and why could not these dark spots in the plaster be the reflection of the souls of the two highwaymen of Kurdistan and of all the other humans who were imprisoned here?

These spots have nothing terrible about them,although they may become animated with a silent life. There they are moving,changing form.
If they could speak, they could whisper,not very distinctly,human words......But how frightful is the darkness beside them!
That also is living, and imperceptible and deceitful at the same time!In it is hidden the power that dominates over the human soul,acruel power.One breathes it with the air.It creeps into the soul like rust, and slowly,implacably,it rends it asunder.It absorbs the thoughts of man,and one´s entire being is dilduted in it; and although is has not any visible and finite form,at any moment it can suddenly blossen forth into something horrible ,which has never been seen and which it is impossible to foresee.

Without removing his eyes from the spots on the wall, the prisoner stretched out his hand towards the table,finds th ejug of water after groping,and with an abrupt gesture emties it on the wall.And, in being poured out, the water gives the noise of feeling,as if some one, frightened ,were running away, with an angry hissing.
The prisoner draws back,and stretched out his arms before him,as if he is protecting himself against an attack.The water flows down it softly trickles down to the floor.

"Good ," ......I think ..........I believe I am becoming........"
He does not dare pronounce that awful word. His exhausted arms have been battered down; powerless,they rest on his knee.In the grips of terror his head bubbles,violently, with all kinds of shapeless ideas.He is seated on his bed,and he swings his body more and more, to and fro,from right to left; but his eyes seem to be riveted to the darkness in which they are plunged.And he feels that his whole body is sinking,that he is slowly falling,and that there is nothing to which he can hang on.

"God"- and his lps move incessantly .
But suddenly conscience,with a start,gets the upper hand again.
Avivid and piercing feeling of shame,ashame!Death is not more horrible ,not more terrible than the agony of fear............"

He gets up again, looks towards the table ,seizes the vial of ether with a trembling hand;but it slips through his fingers,and breaks in the basin with a noise as sharp and as harsh a cutting laugh.The smell of ether permeates the cell.

The man bends over the basin and frantically picks up thebroken pieces of glass.He looks at them lying in the palm of his hand.
His breathing is choking,his head is whirling,and an unknown force wants to close his eyes.This sensation increases his fear,and it seems to him that invisible and powerful arms are gradually encompassing him.His whole body quivers,and he walks backwards from the table to the door.
Something icy pursuing him,and is breathing right into his face.

"No.........NO...........!" repeats,with a mad look.
And suddenly,bringing his hand to his mouth,he abruptly snaps up the pieces enclosed in his palm,and begins grinding them with his teeth.
They rip and cut a way his gums,his lips,his tongue.Very soon his face contracted with pain,and his mouth fills with warm bloodand with a salty tast.
He leans his head forward ,and spits everything put togather .......blood,and pieces of glass .He can fell it oozing out from where his lips meet,and he watches the horrible designs being formed on the floor by the tears which are burning his eyes ,tears of bitterness,for he realises that he is absolutly helpless.

"I can not................I can not..........There is a humming in his head."
I shall not die ..........General is with me and helps me!"

And this taste of warm,salty blood in his mouth is mixing with the taste of acute sorrow,which is gnawing at his heart.
but suddenly,his conscience remembers something.

That Girl Lila Qasim Hasan, that heroine who had purified herselfe by sacrifice (for Kurdistan).
........This time Mr.Deham Miro rocks with joy,and challenges th edarknesswith a bitter ecstasy .He suddenly feels as if he has been regenerated, and his whole body and gestures have regained a strange assurance .
Asunny smile spreaded over his whole face, and without hurrying he approaches the table, even though he is continually spitting out glass and blood;he takes the basin in which the ether has spilled , places the footstool right against the door, and then climbs up on it, all the while pouring the contents of the basin drop by drop over his head.Then h ecarefully takes down the cell lamp ,takes off with a sharp little blow the glass case, which quietly falls on the bed ,jumps down happily from the stool,and standing up in the middle of the room,facing the spots on the wall,facing the darkness,he says in a very low voice:
" Forgive me......Kurdistan...........Forgive me Peshmerga.................Forgive me my sir (Ezbeni) General Mustafa Muhammad Albarzani.........", lifting the lamp right over his head, and with a voice that i stonger and more assured,he says" They will forgive me!"

The fire falls on his head as from heaven ,and instantaneously envelop him completely. For a second the man hesitates in midst of flames,but then,beating the air with his two arms, he lets loos a shout of triumph.The blue strips of fire carees him on all sides,flashing through him like serpents,and the cell is as bright as if it were daylight-while the spots on the wall tremble joyously.

On the outside the iron bars on the door give wa..............

But when th people penetrated into the cell, there was no longer anything on the ground but a mass of something black and burned,which hardly resembled a human body-----------though it still moved, and groaned softly,softly.

Thin bits of smoke ascended sprially up to ceiling,where there was a tick and suffocating mist gathered togather in heavy volutes; then the smoke escaped through the window from the prison, as if did not want to conceal from the light of dawn either prison ,as if it did not want to conceal from the light of dawn either the crime or the victim.

What will be the final estimate of Kurdish Leader Deham Miro, we do not know,but far from being what has been described as " Peshmerga who once kissed a Kurdistan and his dead Child by enemy and told"he left his mark on a generations that will long remember him and he remaines agreatest and believable and loveable by his kurdish nation and over the history of heros wit deep and tender affection.
_____________________________
Institute of Euro-Asian (Strategic studies) in Middle East
Kurdish Question and Berzanis.
Prof.Dr.Moraru
Prof.Dr.Spataru
Prof.Dr.Ass.Heval S.Miro