Prominent Kurdish journalist recounts KDP's murder of his cellmate in 1996

What did the guy with the black shirt on want to say?

By Azeez Raauf 30-08-2019

The “brother-killing” [PUK vs. KDP] war was in full swing in the aftermath of the August 31 events when I was detained at the Qaladize checkpoint. The area was covered in yellow [KDP] flags. In the back of a Toyota pick-up truck they took me to the KDP headquarters in Qaladize. They had my bag, which was full of books. As far as I can remember, the first issue of Rahand magazine was in it as well.

Just as they took me in the headquarters, the man in charge –who was a hefty, overweight man– slapped me once as hard as he could. At that moment the radio was playing a KDP anthem. They locked me up in the bathroom of the headquarters. The building had apparently been a residential home before it was turned into headquarters.

Suddenly, while kicking and beating him, they brought in a young man. A handsome young man; he had beige trousers and a black shirt on; his eyes were full of life. After greeting me, he said “they will kill me, because this is the second time they detain me. This time I won’t get away.”

He had a very alluring way of talking, and he didn’t give me a chance to ask him who he was and where he was from. It seemed as if he wanted to talk as much as possible before he was going to be killed. At noon a kid came in with two bowls of red rice, each with half an union and a bread. The kid said “go ahead, eat! I overheard my father saying ‘when it gets dark, take them and kill them’”

We started eating and my cellmate kept talking. Long before finishing our food, they came and dragged him out. He shouted not to take him. He struggled and his shirt’s bottoms fell to the ground, and his body became visible and I noticed that he was just starting to grow body hair on his chest.
Half naked, he turned to me while trying to say something, but they kicked him out before he could. I never found out what he tried to say. Could he had a message for his elderly mother? For his sweetheart? For His family? I don’t know. Since then, I can’t stop thinking about what he was trying to tell me; a secret that is forever buried.

Five minutes after that, from behind the wall of the bathroom –of which the window was too high for me to look outside from– came the sound of a several shots, and [I knew] that they shot dead.

I was petrified; one could smell the stench of death on me. I glanced at the bowl of rice; half of it was still over. The bowl of my friend with the black shirt still had his last half-eaten morsel on top, which they didn’t let him finish eating.

Since then, whenever I see red rice, I remember him and it brings me to the verge of tears, and haven’t been able to eat red rice again. And whenever my wife asks me what I would like to eat, I reply: my dearest, except for red rice, whatever you cook I will eat it, even rocks.

{translated by Mekut}