Azad Cudi was 19 years old (today he is close to 40) when he deserted from the Iranian Army because they forced him to fight against his people in Iranian Kurdistan. He fled to the UK, where he was granted asylum and learned the language. A decade later, he was leaving his job at a Kurdish television station in Stockholm behind to return to the Middle East as a social worker in Rojava. It had been two years since the war in Syria and the Kurds were laying the foundations of this new autonomous region in the northeast of the country, based on democratic confederalism and gender equality, among other principles. Shortly after his arrival, the Islamic State attacked them and he had to pick up a rifle again, but this time he was fighting alongside his own.
"It was to fight or die massacred, there was no other option," he recalls. Twenty-one days of training as a sniper, marksmanship acquired as a child, innate mettle, a well-furnished head and the conviction of "being on the right side of history" made him one of the 17 shooters who defended the city of Kobane between September 2014 and January 2015. From a place in Europe that he cannot mention for security reasons, the author of Long Range (published today by Captain Swing) responds by phone to La Vanguardia:
Kobane is a symbol of the resistance against IS. You say that 2,000 Kurdish fighters defeated 12,000 men. How did you do it?
The will and the desire to fight, to live freely, are greater than numbers. The will to defend our land and our people was strong, undeniable and unquestionable. They, on the other hand, were in a different position. They came from different places, they didn't look like us, they didn't belong to that land. They simply came to conquer in the name of Islam. That position gave us more strength to resist because we were on the right side of history. In this situation, one can face thousands of invaders.
In Kobane bullets grazed you, projectiles exploded, you were wounded, you lost 'comrades'… What was the hardest part of the battle?
The hardest part was watching all these angels fall, truly amazing human beings, very intelligent men and women, dying and being wounded for dignity and integrity and freedom. They died physically, but they live in our memories forever. Only by having them in my head can I move on and continue with my life.
In the book he reveals that he killed about 50 IS fighters in eight months...
I'm sure, very accurately and clearly, of many of the shots I hit, but as a sniper, you can never give an exact number because you're shooting from a long distance and there are times when the bullet goes through a wall and you don't know what's behind it. that wall, you may have hit him, but the person ends up surviving.
How do you live with the weight of dozens of human lives?
Personally, it can be hard to bear, but when I think about it in terms of the story, it's not difficult. We would have been massacred, beheaded; our women, raped and our land, stolen... I didn't go to kill anyone, actually, I was defending myself. I was only in my place, among my people. They were the ones who came to kill us.
The sniper kills in cold blood. Is it harder than doing it in the heat of battle?
No. It's probably easier because you don't have to fight the person in front of you, seeing their blood and suffering. Because we were fighting in the city, we were sometimes twenty or eight feet from the enemy, and I could hear them ache in pain or even see the look in their eyes. But generally, snipers, since we shoot from a distance and from cover, we don't have this experience. Only when you stop to think about it very deeply do you realize that it is not that easy. But for other soldiers who come face to face with the enemy, it is very different. For example, when they ran out of bullets, or the weapon was lost or frozen, and they had to start fighting with their hands, strangle each other or finish off with stones… This affects you much more.
What does Rojava mean to you?
It is like my second home. It means so much more than just the land where I come from, because there I saw the color of death and I went through so much. Rojava has a special place in my heart.
What has become of the Rojava project?
With the assassination of the leader of the IS, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, by the United States, the situation changed drastically. The US quickly withdrew and allowed Turkey to invade some parts of Rojava in the name of security. And that Al Bagdadi was followed and located by our intelligence: we obtained his underwear for the DNA test, so imagine how close we were. But once the Americans finished the job, they stopped supporting us. And not only that, but they let Turkey attack what we are fighting for.
Do you feel that the US has betrayed you?
In a certain way yes, although we also knew that every country seeks its own interest. The revolution has brought many changes to the region where the Kurdish population lives and it is doing much better than other parts of Syria. But there is no international recognition of Kurdish-led municipalities. And Turkey, which has the second most powerful army in NATO, fires missiles and uses drones to kill politicians and teachers. And the international community, including the US and European media, look the other way. Those free fighters who fought the Islamic State and survived are being killed by Turkey.
Turkey has blamed the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia for the November 13 Istanbul bombing. Specifically, it says that the order came from Kobane…
They will do anything to have an excuse to attack Kobane, they are desperate to attack the city. From Turkey they blame us for everything. They kill many of our leaders in Rojava and yet they continue to blame us for what is happening in their country.
He has asked that we not reveal his identity (Azad Cudi is his nom de guerre) or the place where he lives. Do you fear for your life?
No, but you already saw what happened to the professor who had his throat cut in France or the writer who was stabbed in New York. These Islamists can become fanatics behind their computers and want to kill someone in order to be glorified. Living anonymously gives me the ability to live freely without having to look over my shoulder all the time. But I'm not afraid, I'm just cautious.
Mahsa Amini, the woman whose death has sparked protests in Iran, came from Iranian Kurdistan, just like you. Does she think that her death has gained more sympathy for the Kurdish cause among the Iranian population?
When it comes to the Iranian population, whether they are monarchists, leftists, democrats or Islamists, they all have the same policy: they want full control of the border and Kurdistan to be inside it. They will never say 'yes' to the independence or confederalism of the Kurdish people even inside Iran. Empathy is temporary. They feel empathy for a woman who has been murdered, but that will not lead to allowing the Kurds their freedom. I am not very optimistic about change. Do you remember the videos of Spanish policemen dragging women from the stairs in Catalonia (on October 1, 2017)? Everyone in Europe stood in solidarity with the peaceful demonstration of the Catalans, but Catalonia got nothing from international empathy: Catalan politicians are still in exile in Brussels.
