Halid Beg Cibran

**Halid Beg Cibran** was a Kurdish soldier who now leads an anti-Armenian resistance movement in Van for the goal of uniting the Van provinces with the already existing Kurdish state. He is the subject of a manhunt by Armenian authorities who want him dead and is the leading figure of Kurdish resistance in Armenia.

## Early Life

He was born in Varto in 1882. His father Mahmut Bey was the leader of the Sunni Cibran tribe. The Cibran was an influential Kurdish tribe and used to work closely with the Ottoman government. In exchange the Cibrans were allowed to set up regiments for the Hamidiye.

However, with the successful Ottoman Revolution, the empire was dismantled and reduced to Central Anatolia. During and even after the Ottoman Revolutions the Cibran remained pro-Ottoman which resulted in the family being shunned by many people and communities alike and they soon became a black sheep in Armenian society and even within Kurdish society. Despite this, the Cibrans tried to reassert their legacy by self-asserting that they’re pro-Russian and denouncing the late Ottoman Empire.

Despite his and his family’s attempts at redeeming themselves it did not work and were social outcasts in Russia. This left Halid bitter and his family fled Armenia for Kurdistan, facing various forms of racism and discrimination where the family and himself lived for the next 20+ years until Halid returned to Armenia. In Kurdistan he joined military school and the Kurdish army, with many of his peers remarking at his impressive skills. He joined a small group of Kurds fighting in the Great War. With the Russian Republic’s collapse and the Armenian Declaration of Independence resulted in a wave of unrest in eastern Anatolia by Turkish and Kurdish rebels. Hearing this news, Halid returned to Armenia for the hope of rallying the Kurds of Van to declare independence and unite with Kurdistan. It is also around this time where many Kurds in Armenia looked up to Halid as their “savior” of Kurdish unrest in Armenia.

## A symbol of Kurdish resistance and nationalism

Once he arrived unrest was slowing down but had not stopped. He joined various Kurdish rebel groups and the commanders of the guerrillas were impressed by his techniques and skills as a soldier and was promoted to lead a small battalion of Kurds in the Battle of Datvan. There the Armenians suffered their worst loss and this was a heavily celebrated event. Datvan was to be a temporary capital of the Kurds, but this victory would be short and temporary.

As more skilled Armenian generals entered into the combat, as more Armenian men entered the army and were given more experience the Kurds and Turks suffered loss after loss. After another 5 months of fighting Datvan was retaken but the city suffered heavy damage with a 15% population loss as the Kurdish army headed by Cibran was unwilling to give up. With his skills Datvan was the last major outpost for Kurdish resistance, but once it finally fell it marked the end of the Kurdish portion of the Anatolian Revolts, with the Turks following shortly after.

Halid avoided being captured by Armenian authorities, and he knew that if he was found he would be executed, and instead opted to stay in Armenia, underground for the hopes of organizing a new successful Kurdish rebellion. For the time being however he had to play it safe. For the next 5 years he remained underground secretly establishing a new organization known as the Kurdish Society for Liberation. It slowly spread especially with Garegin Nzdeh’s coup and repressive policies on non-Christian Armenian minorities. After 8 years the KSL had grown sizablely in numbers with many people including Halid himself establishing a secret supply of weapons and giving volunteers military training for combat. In 1934, the KSL was made public by a successful attack on the *Surp Khachʿ egeghetsʿi,* or the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Akhtamar Island. This even killed 5 and heavily damaged the holy site, resulting in widespread outrage by the international armenian community.

A secret investigation eventually linked the attacker to the KSL and Nzdeh immediately outlawed it, citing it as a terrorist organization. As a result, Nzdeh ordered for the Armenian police in Van to “end the existence of the KSL”, but all efforts would be in vain. They were excellent at hiding from authority and much of the Kurdish population was distraught, seeing the Kurdish Society of Liberation as possibly their own outlet for more autonomy within the country. Once the crackdown began so did the KSL’s activity in southeast Anatolia. And so began a long grueling tug-of-war for power in various cities and provinces. The KSL was accepted by the Kurdish population and in many ways aided the soldiers, fighting in rural areas and Kurdish towns as their base of operations. With Halid nowhere to be found, it seems like Armenian authorities are in for a long war, but many people, especially pacifist Armenians, Kurds and Turks alike fear the possibility of full out war if Armenia is not careful with its decisions.