'Kurdistan and the Kurds' [‎43r] (85/122)

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the permission of the Government, to foster the views of this party.
There, as well as in Mardin, many of the agitators were impelled by a
sinister motive to join in the present disturbances; many of them were
concerned in the Armenian massacres in 1915, and they feared that they
would receive condign punishment at the hands of the British, w'hereas
they could console themselves with a reasonable hope of impunity if the
country were declared independent or subject to Turkish rule.
Soon after this, Basrawi, the Sheikh of the Ketkan Kurds, w T ith
whom the Sheikhan Kurds are allied, appealed to the British military
authorities for protection ; he affirmed that the majority of the tribes in
his district were in agreement with him, hut that a number of persons,
among whom he enumerated Mustafa ibn Shahin Bey, Bozan ibn Nahu,
Hajji Ahmed Bey and Ghalib Bey with his sons, Mustafa, Muslim and
Dimo, were carrying out a reign of terror in collusion with the Turkish
authorities. In the course of a few weeks the movement spread, and other
Kurds, under the guidance of ‘Ali Batti, began to voice a similar claim to
that of their neighbours. Simultaneously, the Kurds at Sairt, which lies
about 75 miles south-west of Lake Van, rose against the Turkish garrison
and seized two machine-guns; ‘Ali Ihsan Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , finding that he could not
reduce them by force, tried to bribe their chiefs with offers of arms and
ammunition ; the weapons were gladly accepted and then turned against
those who gave them. Here the movement seemed to he coloured more by
dislike of the Turks than by any overwhelming desire for freedom.
\At Si I wan, Sadiq Bey, the aghu of the Hazro Kurds, was regarded
with suspicion by the Turks, as being the leader of a local movement to
liberate Kurdistan from the Turkish yoke. It was also announced that
the tribes of Bash Kala, which is situated about 70 miles north-west of
the town of Urmiyah, had proclaimed their independence and that they
had been joined by some Persian Kurds, who were being secretly en
couraged by agents from Tabriz. The main point in their programme
was that the movement was coloured with Pan-Islam ism and that in
consequence they hoped to prevent the repatriation of the Christians to
the regions to the west of Lake Urmiyah, whence they had been driven out
in the summer of 1918. 1 The leading figure among these Kurds was Ismail
Agha Simko, chief of the Shikak Kurds, who treacherously murdered Mar
Shim‘un, bishop of the Old Chaldaean community, in March, 1918. His
followers inhabit the territory lying between the towns of Salmas and
Kotnr, at the north-west extremity of Lake Urmiyah. j
l On the 21st of February, ‘Ali Ihsan Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. was removed by the
Turkish Government, owing to the continuance of disturbances wbich he
seemed unable or unwilling to suppress, if he was not indeed actually
instigating them.* His work was carried on by his friends, Shevki Bey,
Sidqi Bey, Hajji Bey, Memduh Bey, Bulbul Bey, and others ; at Mardin
it was said that Najib Effendi, the Director of the Agricultural Bank, was
inspiring the tribesmen to rise. \ Meanwhile, inter-tribal conflicts proved
that the Kurdish world was by no means unanimous in politics, nor was