Why Does the Theocratic Regime in Iran Kill Kurdish Kolbar?

Why Does the Theocratic Regime in Iran Kill Those Who Are Trying to Make Ends Meet the Kurdish Kolbar — Iranian Kurdish cross-border porters known as kolbars 2019. Photo: Rudaw

Omar Sindi | Exclusive to iKurd.net

A kolbar is a worker who is rented to carry loads of goods on his back across fake political frontiers such as the Iran and Iraq borders in order to make necessary money to survive and provide for their families, on a daily or weekly basis.

Because the economic condition is so neglected in the Kurdish area by the theocratic regime in Iran, people have become desperate and are risking their lives, and their futures, smuggling goods under harsh dangerous environments, harsh weather conditions, and dangerous border areas riddled with land mines.

Many also get killed by Iran’s border guards, many become permanently injured, and many people die due to weather related circumstances. Depending on their personal strength, the Kolbars carry goods weighing between 55 lbs to 264 +/- lbs on their backs, such as home appliances, electronic products, clothes, tea, cigarettes, etc… through dangerous borders and rough conditions because most of these products are prohibited by the state or highly taxed… The Kolbar, despite facing death, make a few dollars per trip; over the years so many people have been killed, permanently injured, jailed, etc..

For example, in the United State when a child goes to McDonald’s to buy a sandwich, a soda, and French fries, they will most likely spend between $8 to 10 dollars; a Kolbari will carry a load of goods on his back, face the threat of death in 10 to 12 mile long crossing, and make between 10 to 12 dollars in order to survive on a daily basis. Kolabri cases need to be raised to the international level; there should be international arrest warrants issued to those who shoot the Kolbaris, through the INTERPOL’s police.

Iraqi Shia political parties should not become as “useful idiots” or beholden to advice from or adhere to Tehran’s foreign policy guidelines because Iraq is being used by Iran as the center stage for Iran’s foreign policy interests and the Iranian people are oppressed at the hand of the theocratic regime…

Both Iran and Turkey are choking off water flow to Iraq, and that is due to the weakness of all of Iraq‘s political parties; this pristine water has been flowing since recorded history began. This subject matter of water flow should not be a political subject amongst Iraqi political parties; they should stand up against this bullying; it’s having a traumatic effect on the environment of the Iraqi state, especially the marshes in Southern Iraq.

The Iranian regime is willing to spend billions of dollars annually to support their proxies in the Middle East and beyond for their maligned policy and behaviors in the region… For instance, it was reported by international media outlets that Lebanon’s Hezbollah receives $700 million annually from the Mullah’s regime, so that Tehran can have them do their dirty work outside of Iran’s border, such as acts like on Sept.18, 1992; “Gunmen burst into a Berlin restaurant shortly before midnight and killed the leader of an Iranian-Kurdish autonomy group and three other Kurds in a spray of machine-gun fire police said today” – AP it was reported that those assassins were Lebanon’s Hezbollah members… but the regime is not willing to improve the quality of life of the Iranian people, economically or socially, particularly in the Kurdish area. Free politics is a crime against God in the Mullah’s eye.

At the same time, the regime is not willing to assist the unemployed people or provide any economic relief or job opportunities so that people can work to provide food for their families, therefore the Kurdish area is also neglected economically and people are desperate enough to take extreme measures, to the point of putting their lives in the line in order to feed themselves and their children, in other words, the regime is telling these people, we are not going to help you out economically, but if you cross the border for work we will lambaste you, shoot you, or kill you too!

Both Iran and Turkey are warmonger states, they pay no punitive measures for ignoring all international norms and standards, they don’t believe in democracy, they don’t believe in conflict resolution-dialogue solutions, they think every issue should be dealt with through military force: It looks like their old desire of hegemony in the Middle East and beyond through military forces…

Iran is supporting Houthis in the Yemen civil war, in Syria civil war crises backing Bashar Assad’s regime, supporting Lebanon’s Hezbollah, supporting Hashed al-Shaabi in Iraq; supporting Fatemiyoun Brigade, who is known as the “Afghan Shia militia” and many other places…

If the US Biden administration think that by lifting sanctions and allowing Iran to sell their oil, that the theocratic regime in Iran will retreat from its malign behaviors in the region and stop pursuing nuclear ambitions, then they should reconsider that policy.

In my view, Iran will not retreat from its malign behavior or from pursuing its nuclear ambitions, because in 2015 when sanctions were lifted, Iran received over 100 billion dollars from their frozen assets in the Western banks, due to sanctions release. It was reported most of that money went to support their proxies in the region and beyond…

Historically Iranian regime(s) has had a trust deficit whether that would be faithful to international agreement or negotiating with their rival or their counterpart, for example, in 2015 that Iran supposedly reached a Nuclear agreement in good faith with not pursuing a Nuclear research weapons program, with the US and the other international actors. Then why would Iran be granted a 24 days grace period if the site is suspected to have illegal nuclear activities to be investigated by the United Nations (UN) nuclear watchdog group?

In 24 days the regime could remove or relocate any suspicious object or materials from the scene, for enriching and stockpiling uranium at the stage higher than is permitted in the 2015 nuclear deal agreement. 24 days advance notice of a highly questionable scenario?

Also, in the 1970’s Mohamed Reza Shah of Iran- Schemed against Iraqi Kurds through the US President Nixon/Gerald Ford administrations with then Henry Kissinger as a liaison officer a top National security adviser/Secretary of state later on, who was the Shah’s friend! Cajoling General Mustafa Barzani of rejecting the Baathist regime in Iraq offer of a limited autonomy for the Kurdish rights in Iraq because Gen. Barzani had previously stated he doesn’t trust Shah, the US is the Shah’s grantor, otherwise Barzani most likely would have extended the negotiation term or accepted the limited autonomy…had there not been some kind of understanding or verbal agreement from the US to Barzani.

In 1989, the theocratic government in Iran lowered The Iranian Kurdish leader Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou to the negotiation table in Vienna-Austria on the Kurdish issue in Iran, while at the same time scheming an assassination plot against Dr. Ghassemlou and his associates, which they succeeded in…

Turkey: “The ISIS extremists were sent to back other militants and mercenaries dispatched by Ankara to fight on the side of the Libyan Government of National Accord” (GNA)-AFP.

In 2018, Turkey armed with Jihadist terrorists invaded the Syrian Kurdish canton of Afrin “the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated that 300,000 people have been expelled in total”- AFP, with a gross human rights violation, including kidnapping, raping, confiscating their homes, their properties, their orchards…

In 2019, another major Turkish invasion with Jihadist allies into Rojava Kurdistan (north eastern Syria) was another occurring of gross human rights violations in which many people lost their lives, lost their properties, and hundreds of thousands of people became refugees.

Turkey threatening Greek government over gas and oil explorations in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, Turkish forces, with their jihadist terrorists in Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts backing the Azerbaijani government against the Armenian state; Turkish troops are invading the Kurdish Autonomous region in Iraq under cover of a war against the PKK and committing atrocities against innocent people in this part of Kurdistan, while at the same time, the Turkish contractors/abettors are committing environmental crimes, which is deforesting large parts of the previously pristine lands, and as a result are destroying the home of many different species of birds and other animal habitats. There is an expression saying “my hero is your terrorist, your terrorist is my hero”. So to the eyes of Turkish state, even the trees in Kurdistan are terrorists…

It’s important that the superpower states, mainly the US, British, French, Russian and the International community assist the Kurds, enable them to be able to free themselves from the perpetual subjugations in the Middle East and end this “zero sum game”. At the same time, the supposition of the political ideology of the Kurdish parties over the national interest is also one of the main causes of hindrance to the Kurdish people’s achievement of national rights, and to the removal of the “Barbarian at the Gate”… The Kurdish struggle movements find themselves at a crossroad and have a long way to go and have a lot of things to do, if they get it right …

“It isn’t rooted in ancient ethnic hatreds, but in modern ideas of nationalism as they emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And this history matters. Solving the uncertain fate of the Kurds and finding a resolution to today’s regional violence depends on us getting the past right” – Janet Klein.

Because in the early 20th century the Kurds did try to unyoke themselves from those newly formed embryonic states, namely Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria; these new states received substantial military aid and economic assistance from those superpower states to subdue the Kurdish resistance movements.

The Kolabri’s life is the cheapest commodity for Iranian border guards facile simplistic shooting of innocent, unarmed Kurdish men or women. They think they do God’s order on the behalf of the so-called Islamic Republic of Iran’s policy.

I don’t know what kind of religion would condone or permit such killings of someone who is trying to feed his family? Alas, if any religion condones that kind of shooting, that discounts me from that faith!!!

Omar Sindi, a senior writer, analyst and columnist for iKurd.net, Washington, United States.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.