Thirsty Sands (Part 27)

2020-2-12

Thirsty Sands (Part 27)

Jafar Rabiei

Design: Ali Vaziri

First published in 1991

Publishing House, Islamic Propagation Organization

Often they would secretly enter the sleeping hall in the middle of the night and start beating the POWs with all the force at their command. We did not of course have any hope that our officials in our country knew about these treatments, let alone the international bodies. It appeared that the international imperialism wanted to display its hostit1ty to the Islamic Republic in another manner. Nevertheless we could not help thinking and asking ourselves why the world community had to investigate the condition of POWs, why the U.N should only be informed of the situation of Iraqi POWs in Iran, while the right of the Muslim Iranian POWs in Iraq had to be overlooked!

A few more days went by and this time we heard the happy news that Iran had agreed with the U.N delegation’s visit to Iraqi POWs camp conditional on the visit of this same delegation to Iranian POWs in Iraq and through persistence forced the acceptance of this proposal. With the new conditions the guards suddenly changed their behavior a hundred percent and adopted a new policy in treating the POWs. The guards to whom the following verse fit: had now become friendly and sympathetic towards the POWs.

The predetermined date of the visit of U.N delegation to Iranian POW in Iraq finally arrived. The Iraqi kept threatening several days before the event that if anyone poke of bad conditions in the camp he would be playing with his own life and even spread the rumor that anyone who so much as talked to this delegation would be transferred to that what was known as the Defense Ministry. The name of the Defense Ministry was enough to cause to tremor of fear, because this place was reputedly the slaughter-house of Iraqi combatants and opponents of this police regime. One of our friends, a POW, in his memoirs tells us what happened in the war week in hall no.21 in his own words: “we were 20 people, and after we were taken prisoners we were moved to the Defence Ministry. There, an Iraqi colonel ordered us to array ourselves and said, “We know you are members of the IRGC, but you must confess this yourselves.” All of us denied this and told them, “We are civilians driven from our homes by you, we are not army men, let alone being members of the IRGC. He quickly ordered us to stand against the wall. Then with a count to number 3 the sound of a shooting was heard. When we turned round we saw in sheer disbelief that the colonel aimed his pistol directly at the brain of one of our friends and martyred him.”

Finally, the U.N delegation comprising five men arrived in the camp. The Iraqi had a few days before planned a deceitful scene. They forced the POWs to collect garbage which for years had been left all around the sleeping quarters of the buildings. They forced all to clean the wall of the halls and their interior in order to show that the Iranian Pow enjoyed medical facilities. They dressed some of their soldiers as nurses. Among the soldiers was one who was in charge of drawing barbed wire round the camp’s compound. Seeing him with his bulging stomach which not only prevented him from fastening the buttons of his clothes, but also stripped him from walking easily. The soldiers being in the garb of a nurse was good topic for the POWs   to laugh. The Iraqi strictly watched us so that none of the POWs should approach the U.N delegation. One guard acted as guide to the members of the delegation accompanied by him. On the other hand the Iraqis had called on their fifth column to tell lies and to portray a false situation of the camp to the delegation. Among the other stratagems of the Iraqis was to prevent the members of   the delegation from visiting Oate two, which had become known as the Basing Qate.

Since presentation of a true and authentic report from the Iranian POWs by the U. N. delegation would reveal the lies of the world imperialism with all its massive propaganda launched against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the POWs decided to boldly explain the problems to the members of the delegation. As such they sent a representative to the members of the delegation and demanded that he Iraqi guard no longer accompany them, so that the POWs could speak freely. The guard persisted at staying along with the delegation, but because of the insistence of the boys, he was forced to leave. As he left, all that was really taking place was told to the members of the delegation. One of the members who was surprised at hearing about the torture methods of the POWs said, “I need documentary proof to accept your words.” While the guard stood watching from a distance and surveying those who contacted the delegation, the boys cleverly devised a way of taking the members of delegation to Hall No. 24 and showed them one of the POWs who had been tortured by the Iraqis the week before.

To be continued…