September 24, 2004Top * As for SAVAK Dear Roya Hakakian, [author of Journey from the Land of No. See "To rest at last"], I just listened to your interview on Radio Times on your recent memoires. I wanted to congradulate you for your outspokenness and enlightment in recalling the events of your childhood in revolutionary struck Iran. Unlike you and your parents, me and my siblings were not on the rooftops crying Marg Bar Shah. We weren't revolutionaries from the very begining probably because we felt religion and an Islamic Republic was not the solution to the problems of the society. We were like we used to say a part of the "silent majority". We wanted Democracy for Iran and if we were to choose between Bakhtiar's shortlived government and the revolutionary government that followed we would have chosed Bakhtiars secular approach. Being of the same age though I was born in 1965, I should say I find many similarities on the way you experienced the events of '79. I am eager to read your book and learn about your experiences. As you mentioned the Iranian Jews are one of the most oldest communities in Iran and it is truly sad to see that the current regime in our country which was the cradle of human rights treats its people being Bahais or Jews with hatred. The revolution of 79 had its justifications although I believe Iran needed reform more than a bloody revolution whose goal became one of destroying not only a regime but a civilisation. I recall perfectly the day Khomeiny arrived in Iran for the first time and was interviewed by the press with Gobtzadeh as a translator. When asked about how he felt to see at took place it his country after so many years in exile the Grand Ayatollah responded " I feel nothing" to the embarrasment of Gobtzadeh . I think many Iranians started to doubt about their revolutionary zeal at that moment. As for the SAVAK, I agree totally that it was a repressive police although I think that it was an apparatus that went out of control in that if there were indeed tortures or misconducts that took place it was due to the lack of transparency of the regime on its secret services. What took place in Irak for example with the corporal punishments on Irakians bey the GI is an example of the kind of lack of trasparency that leads to an abuse in human rights, yet no one can claim that the US administration clearly ordered to torture the Irakian prisoners. The SAVAK methods were certainly condemnable however the extent of the cases presented by Amnesty International were certainly exagerated. This does not diminish the responsability of the Shah. As head of the country he is accountable for what was going on in his name. However 25 years later I still get irritated when people reduce the Shahs regime to the SAVAK presented as the most awful secret services in the world. As you may know the SAVAKIS were trained by the CIA and the Israeli Mossad, so the methods they used were not so different. If so why was the SAVAK the only ones to blame. The West had a very distorted image of Iran which is partly the Shahs own fault. He was a megalomaniac true, but for the good of his country for he wanted it to become a strong and prosperous one and catch up the Gap with the West seen in those days as a symbol of what was the best in terms of economy and well being. In the process he made mistakes one of the essential ones was to create the Rastakhiz party which banished the pluralism in Iranian politica. He also should have been more politically tolerant. Yet in comparison with its neigbours Iran was that "Island of Stability" to which Carter refered to. Had it not been for Khomeiny maybe a better alternative would have come out of the events of '79, but let us not forget that had Khomeiny and his henchman not prepared the aftermath of the revolution the country would have never taken the road it took. As you justly said you felt that the road taken by the revolution was wrong the moment you witnessed the first executions of the Generals on TV. I recall those bitter trials when hardly any of the so called culprits were hardly allowed to defend themselves. General Rahimi was one of the rare courageous men to stand against his accusers and kept his oath to King and country. He was executed for his allegience like his collegues Nadji, Rabii. As for the SAVAK the trial a fair one I mean lets say like the Nuremburg trial never took place Nassiri head of the SAVAK was arrested if you recall after having been beaten on his head and was hardly allowed to speak. Not to mention the ministers and the most prominent one a Prime Minister of 13 years Amir Abbas Hoveyda. He too was executed shortly afterwards. No one ever got to know what was the extent of the so called crimes commited by SAVAK. In the neighborhood close to my fathers office ( he was a surgeon) was a SAVAK office. When the revolution broke, people cried out that they had found human bones in the garden claiming it was the SAVAK who had done it. My father went to take a look at what they had found and it turned out that it was the bones of a dead cat. Similarily I recall seing on National television that the authorities had gone to a psychiatrist hospital and had exposed the poor souls as victims of the SAVAK. I think with hindsight one has to admit that the SAVAK did indeed torture
and in some cases killed innocent people or people who were not necessarily
terrorists, however when news reached the ears of the authorities, they
allowed the International Red Cross to visit the prisons. Yet I
think that in the West their was a general paranoia against the Shah
who was seen as an ambitious man who wanted to dominate the region very
much like in the book Crash of '79. The turn of the events proved
otherwise. |
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