Shafaq We will try to shed light on the lives of some activists to recall the days of struggle…

Behind the victories and prosperity of our people, in Kurdistan Region in all areas are the men who lit the torch of the Kurdish revolution to illuminate the path in front of the generations for ever.
Our first meeting was with Mr. Rustum Yassin Salih who was born in Khanaqin, his recollections goes back to the days of joining the Kurdistan Democratic Party (1951) when he was at that time a worker in the Wind Refinery. He remembers the late Aziz Beshtiwan as one of the struggling comrades and Mr. Mohamed Al Jaff (Mohammad-mail) and others who have left this mortal life. Because of his political struggle he had been stopped from his work for a year, so he joined the army of unemployment and poverty, although he was the breadwinner of a large family. In 1974 he was nominated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party to head the oil workers union, and after the failure of the application of the Convention (11) March with the government, he joined the ranks of the revolution and was

forced to move his family from Khanaqin then to areas of the liberated Kurdistan, .His home with all its contents was confiscated and looted and yet he does not know anything about its fate . After the Algiers Convention he returned to Khanaqin and he was transferred administratively to the city of Basra and this continued from 1975 to 1989 when he was made retired. As

for his memories in the city of Basra, he says: In fact, I was a deportee not an employee because I had to go to the Security Service, morning and night for the purpose of my presence confirmation and signing in their records.

Now he became under the effect of his old age .He is suffering from brain clot and he is complaining from difficulty in walking   He only blames the officials who did not trouble themselves to ask about him or his colleagues who were once the immune armor, who stood up against the tyrants. His age as well as his weak health forced him to lean on a stick, after he had leaned on a gun.