Word: marivan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Kurdistan. The country's 4 million Kurds (out of a total population of 36 million) have long been agitating for more autonomy; since the revolution their demands have accelerated, causing friction with the Tehran government and occasional bloody clashes with its forces, most recently in the town of Marivan. TIME's Tehran bureau chief, Bruce van Voorst, visited Kurdistan and filed this report...
...late afternoon sun still seared the dusty streets of Marivan, a scramble of mud and stucco houses on a mountain slope near the Iraq border, as "solidarity" marchers arrived from Sanandaj, the Kurds' provincial capital (pop. 150,000). The more than 2,000 men, women and children had walked the 90 miles of gravel roadway from Sanandaj in four torturous days just so they could, as one of them bluntly put it, "tell the Tehran government to go to hell...
...troubles in Marivan had begun two weeks before, when a force of Islamic revolutionary militiamen called Pasdaran moved in to reimpose the government's authority on the town, which had insisted on running its own affairs. After clashes that took the lives of 13 militiamen and twelve Kurds, Marivan's 10,000 residents left for fear of government reprisals, and many set up camp in the nearby forest. When the army then dispatched a convoy including a dozen American-made M-47 tanks to reinforce the militiamen, men and women from the neighboring town of Kamyaran lay down...
...week's end the government and Kurdish representatives had worked out an agreement in principle. In a formula that is likely to be followed in other Kurdish towns, the local provisional council in Marivan would be permitted to decide local matters. The hated Pasdaran were to be withdrawn, and the regular army would assume control until a local police force could be established...
...could have blasted our way through at any stage," said Defense Minister Raqi Riahi, "but we didn't. We support the Kurds' demands for running their own affairs and for being consulted when troops are assigned to the area." A Marivan resident concurred: "We respect the army's need to maintain security. We just want to be involved...