SAVAK Versus Guerrillas (1971–77)

The mood changed drastically in 1971. In February of that year, a small band of armed Marxists assaulted the gendarmerie post in the Caspian village of Siahkal. This Siahkal incident became a historical landmark. It sparked an intense guerrilla struggle and inspired an increasing number of young Muslims as well as Marxists to take up arms against the regime. It also marked the entry onto the national scene of a young generation of the intelligentsia equipped with new energy, new aspirations, new tactics, a new ethos, and even new political terminology.

The older generation had given priority to political struggles—political parties, trade unions, and parliamentary as well as extraparliamentary strategies. The new generation felt these strategies had reached a dead end and the only way forward was through armed struggle—guerrilla warfare, heroic martyrdom, and inspiration to self-sacrifice. In their words, "the question was no longer whether but when and how one should take up arms."^[67]

For older radicals, the exemplars were Marx and Engels; the

preferred symbols, the red rose, the north star, and the hammer and sickle. For the younger ones, they were Che Guevara, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, the rifle, and the machine gun. In fact, the term "armed struggle" became a litmus test for dividing the two. The old were acceptable to the new only if they had been "martyred"—such as Vartan and Rouzbeh—or if they incorporated into their discourse the language of "armed struggle." Others were dismissed as "liberals," "reformists," "revisionists," "petty bourgeois," and even "effeminate." For their part, the old felt the new to be contaminated with "anarchism," "adventurism," "infantile ultra-leftism," and chapzadeh (awestruck by the left). In fact, "chapzadeh" was coined at the same time as the better-known term "gharbzadeh" (awestruck by the West).

In the six years following Siahkal, 368 guerrillas lost their lives.^[68] Of these, 197 died in gun battles; 93 were executed by firing squads after being condemned by military tribunals; and the remaining 78 were summarily executed, died under torture, or committed suicide just before capture (see table 4). According to their organizations, 45 died under torture, but this probably includes some who blew themselves up with hand grenades or took cyanide pills to prevent capture. They carried cyanide pills for such contingencies. These guerrillas posed a major threat to the regime not so much for their military actions as for the wide appeal they enjoyed among their contemporaries. Every year on December 7—the unofficial student day—the campuses throughout the country closed down as radicals staged demonstrations denouncing the regime and praising the guerrillas. The guerrillas had become the new generation's folk heroes.

In terms of political affiliation, the vast majority of the martyred guerrillas came from three main organizations: the Marxist Fedayi (Self-Sacrificers) that had launched the Siahkal assault; the Muslim Mojahedin (Holy Warriors), a new group inspired by both Islam and Marxism; and the Marxist offshoot of the Mojahedin, which after the revolution took on the name Peykar (Struggle). A few came from smaller Muslim or Marxist

groups such as Tofan (Storm) and the Sazman-e Enqelab-e Hezb-e Tudeh (the Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party)—both Maoist offshoots of the Tudeh. The Fedayi founders had mostly begun their political careers in the Tudeh and the National Front. Some were children of Tudeh organizers. The Mojahedin founders had all been active in the Liberation Front—an organization created by Mehdi Bazargan and other religious-minded liberal supporters of Mossadeq.

In terms of social background, almost all were from the young generation of the intelligentsia. Only ten were older than thirty-five. As a whole, they differed in two subtle ways from previous radicals—both of the Tudeh and of the Communist parties. First, the Armenian element had shrunk to one. Much of the Armenian population that had produced radicals in the past had migrated in the 1950s to the Soviet Union. Second, women made their first significant appearance. Constituting 11 percent of the dead, they scored a number of firsts in Iranian history—the first woman to face a firing squad, die under

torture, take cyanide to evade capture, lose her life in a street shootout, and write her prison memoirs.^[69] (See table 5 for the occupations of these guerrillas.)

The regime took measures to counter the guerrilla challenge. It expanded SAVAK to over five thousand full-time employees and an unknown number of part-time informants. It trained SAVAK personnel in the United States and Israel. It coordinated SAVAK, military intelligence, the gendarmerie, and the urban police by setting up the Komiteh (Committee) against Terrorism. This Komiteh was located on the site of the old Central Jail in Tehran, and soon attained a macabre reputation as initial interrogations were invariably carried out there. The

term "Komiteh" became synonymous with prison brutality. The guerrillas suspected that this committee—like many other innovations—was an import from Latin America via the United States.

The regime also modernized the prisons. In addition to the Komiteh, it added two new blocks to Qasr—one for women, another for political prisoners. It built maximum security prisons in Shiraz, Tabriz, Isfahan, Mashed, and Khorramabad. In the Tehran region, it converted the Qezel Qal'eh into a public park but built three maximum security penitentiaries: at Qezel Hesar (Red Fort) on the road to Karaj (this housed more than 2,000); at Gohar Dasht (Jeweled Field) also on the road to Karaj (its foundations were laid in 1978); and, most important of all, at Evin, a private scenic garden at the foot of the Alburz mountains on the northwestern outskirts of Tehran. These maximum security prisons were modeled on those of United States.

Evin soon supplanted Qasr as the country's Bastille. This time the reputation was well deserved. It was designed in 1971 to house 320—20 in solitary cells and 300 in two large communal blocks. By 1977, it had expanded a number of times to house more than 1,500—with 100 solitary cells in block 209 reserved for the most important political prisoners. A three-floor building, block 209 contained six interrogation chambers in its basement. Evin also contained an execution yard, a courtroom, and separate blocks for women and common criminals. No prisoner ever succeeded in breaking out of Evin. Most cells had only one tiny window out of eye reach. Ironically, Evin was built by business associates of Bazargan and his liberal Liberation Movement. Leftist prisoners found this to be more than ironic.

What is more, SAVAK was given a loose leash to torture suspected guerrillas—few of whom enjoyed any family ties to the ruling elite. Social connections that had protected previous dissidents had evaporated. Not surprisingly, torture increased dramatically—in scope, intensity, variety, and sophistication. One SAVAK interrogator links this directly to Siahkal and argues that the day after the attack the regime permitted his organi-

zation to use as much physical pressure as necessary to uncover accomplices and arms caches.^[70] He adds that this pressure worked wonders.

A senior SAVAK officer later wrote that after Siahkal interrogators were sent abroad for "scientific" training to prevent unwanted deaths from "brute force."^[71] Brute force was supplemented with the bastinado; sleep deprivation; extensive solitary confinement; glaring searchlights; standing in one place for hours on end; nail extractions; snakes (favored for use with women); electrical shocks with cattle prods, often into the rectum; cigarette burns; sitting on hot grills; acid dripped into nostrils; near-drownings; mock executions; and an electric chair with a large metal mask to muffle screams while amplifying them for the victim. This latter contraption was dubbed the Apollo—an allusion to the American space capsules. Prisoners were also humiliated by being raped, urinated on, and forced to stand naked. Some embellished these tortures with horror stories of prisoners being thrown to bears, starved to death, and having their limbs amputated. Some claimed religious leaders were forced to sit naked before stripteasing prostitutes.

Despite the new "scientific" methods, the torture of choice remained the traditional bastinado. It was excruciatingly painful but rarely led to death. It was quick, whereas most modern methods needed time; for SAVAK, time was of the essence as its primary goal was to locate arms caches, safe houses, and accomplices. Guerrilla handbooks warned that the bastinado was by far the most painful of the tortures—especially when the victim was tied to a metal bed and lashed with a thick knotted electrical cable known as the kable .^[72] Victims agree this was by far the most painful of SAVAK tortures.^[73] The pain bolts like lightning from the highly sensitive nerve endings at the soles of the feet into the rest of the body through the whole nervous system, including the brain. Victims would have difficulty placing any weight on their feet for days on end. Some needed compresses and antibiotics to avoid infections. SAVAK compounded the agony by forcing victims to walk around the

cell between the rounds of lashings. For SAVAK, the bastinado had one drawback: its overuse could permanently damage the kidneys and the central nervous system. Such damage could be embarrassing.

The guerrillas issued handbooks on how to manage torture. They advised forgoing food so as to lose consciousness in the first twenty lashes. They set the strict rule that no vital information should be given in the first twenty-four hours so that colleagues could have the opportunity to relocate themselves. They had learned from hard experience that prolonged whipping could break even the most committed. They recommended focusing their minds on martyred comrades and heroic poems while the interrogators were demanding the adres (address) of safe houses and future meetings. They also recommended wasting time by giving false addresses and useless information—especially about the dead. They warned that the police would try devious tricks. They would move the hands of the clocks in the torture chambers forward. They would claim the bastinado was merely a prelude to worse torments to come. They would threaten to strip them naked, and rape their wives, sisters, and even mothers.

These handbooks introduced readers to SAVAK euphemisms. Interrogators addressed each other as "doctors" or "engineers." They referred to the bastinado as the tamshiyat —a double entendre meaning both "raising awareness" and "making one walk farther" (on swollen feet). Torture chambers became known as Tamshiyat Rooms. The handbooks also stressed that torture should be considered an integral part of the ongoing war against the regime—as important as the actual armed struggle. Death under torture was itself a major victory. It proved the caliber of true revolutionaries and their ideological superiority over the regime as well as over ideological competitors. Even more important, it would inspire others to similar deeds of heroism, self-sacrifice, and revolutionary martyrdom.

SAVAK killed in cold blood on one notorious occasion. A SAVAK interrogator later admitted that in 1975 he and his

colleagues had lined up against a wall and machine-gunned seven Fedayis and two Mojaheds, all serving life sentences—one of them was Bezhan Jazani, a founding leader of the Fedayi.^[74] These killings were carried out to revenge a series of assassinations, including those of a police informer and a prominent military judge. "The guerrillas," the interrogator declared, "had killed our people so we killed theirs." The next day, the government announced that the nine had been shot trying to escape from Evin. The same interrogator later pleaded that the orders for the killings had come down from the highest level—from the Shah himself.^[75]

By the mid-1970s, the total number of political prisoners reached a new peak, 7,500. Most were in Evin; others were in Qasr, Qezel Hesar, Mashed, Shiraz, and Tabriz. Conditions in Evin were much harsher compared both to the other prisons and to the previous decades. In fact, Qasr was now considered a place of rest compared to Evin. Evin was under SAVAK supervision. Its guards—all military personnel—were changed every month to prevent fraternization. Inmates were confined to their immediate wards. They could spend no more than two hours per day in the courtyard. They could not receive home-cooked food. They had to wear blindfolds outside their cells—even when going to the interrogation rooms. Visits were restricted to immediate family members—and then only as a special privilege. Visiting rooms had glass barriers, mesh wire, and telephones to prevent all direct contact.

Evin—unlike Qasr—had no reading room. Its cells were frequently searched for books and other contraband. Newspapers—already government controlled—were further censored. Radios were banned as they could tune in to foreign stations. Television was screened to prevent the viewing of inappropriate programs—documentaries on communism as well as Hollywood shows such as "Mission Impossible" were forbidden in case they conveyed "dangerous messages." Inmates felt—whether true of false—that they were being constantly monitored by hidden cameras. The Evin wardens tried to ban communal gym and communal eating but backed down when

confronted by a hunger strike. What is more, Evin inmates often remained incarcerated even after completing their sentences. These prisoners were known as the mellikesh —a sardonic reference to the national lottery, implying they were being kept gratis at national expense. Financed by SAVAK, Evin had three advantages over most other prisons. It could afford better food, unlimited hot showers, and more floor space for sleeping. Modernity had some advantages. Amoui, who knew the prisons inside out, comments that the modern maximum security ones like Evin were infinitely worse because they deprived inmates of privacy as well as of all aspects of nature—trees, gardens, flowers, and sky views. "Here there was nothing but iron and steel."^[76]

Prisoners outside Evin followed a daily routine similar to those of previous generations. They woke up at 6:00 a.m.; exercised in the courtyard; ate breakfast at 8:00; read in silence for two hours until snack time; had group discussions until lunch; after lunch walked for half an hour in the courtyard and then had a siesta until 3:00 p.m.; held classes from 3:00 until dinner at 6:00; and spent the period from dinner until bedtime walking, watching television, reading, or even writing—although writing implements were strictly forbidden. Jazani managed to write his Thirty-Year History of Iran in the prison bathroom after lengthy discussions with veterans from the Tudeh and Fedayan-e Islam. Although lights remained on all night for security reasons, prisoners went to sleep at 11:00 p.m. At all times, there was a strict taboo against sex, so much so that during television hours two prisoners—usually one from the Mojahedin and one from the Fedayi—sat on each side of the television set with a large drape to block the view if any scantily clothed women unexpectedly appeared on the screen.

As special punishment, political prisoners were transferred to criminal wards. Thus they were cut off from colleagues. They had to tolerate chaotic conditions: there was no komun to clean the place, arrange a daily routine, or mediate personal disputes. Other inmates—especially the psychiatric cases—could be a source of irritation and even danger. What is more, young-

sters were exposed to sexual threats. Despite these dangers, some did not mind this punishment because it gave them the opportunity to proselytize among the "common people" and obtain political news from the outside world.

Prison life differed from that in the Reza Shah period in one significant way: class privileges had become less apparent as modern egalitarianism had crept in. Prisoners, irrespective of income and social background, were put in the same cells and had access to the same privileges—or at least, lack of them. In addition, Mohammad Reza Shah—unlike his father—rarely placed disgraced members of the elite in prison. He preferred to banish them either to embassies abroad or to the private business sector. Prisons, thus, ceased to contain "aristocratic wards."

The prisoners, however, continued to organize themselves into komuns. During the early 1970s, each major block had one large komun and many small and flexible eating sofrehs (literally, "tablecloths")—for Fedayis, Mojaheds, older advocates of the "political struggle," prisoners with long sentences, and those from particular regions such as Kurdestan, Lurestan, Azerbaijan, Khorasan, and the Caspian. The number of religious sofrehs increased in 1974 when groups of ayatollahs, including Khomeini, issued fatwas against the formation of the Resurgence party, arguing that the Shah was trying to turn Iran into a one-party totalitarian state. For the first time, Evin and Qasr contained numerous clerics and their followers.

Komuns elected their leader (shahrdar; literally, "mayor") and administrators (masoul-ha ), who, in turn, rotated daily chores among the members. Komuns also had a communal bank that collected money from relatives outside, purchased goods, especially fruits and vegetables from the prison store, and then shared them equally between its members. Gifts sent from outside were also shared equally. The main ethos of the komuns was equality—in terms of both participation and distribution. The komuns used Morse code to communicate with other komuns in the same prison. In fact, most solitary cells had the code inscribed on their walls for the benefit of new-

comers. Living in close-knit komuns, the prisoners developed their own jargon. In addition to mellikesh , they coined such terms as boycot (boycott), placing someone in silence; borideh (broken), meaning one who had given up the struggle; mozugar , someone "taking issue" with the authorities; and falange , a fanatical Muslim. Ironically, the last term came from the Phalange, the Christian Maronites in Lebanon.

Communal solidarity was shattered in 1975 when the falange raised for the very first time the archaic issue of najes (religious impurity). According to the strict interpretation of Shi'ism, holy prayer is invalidated if the one who is praying touches such impurities as blood, urine, semen, feces, pigs, dogs, and kafers (infidels). Convention had defined infidels as Christians, Jews, Hindus, and, in some circumstances, Sunnis. But in the midst of the Marxist-Muslim split within the Mojahedin, an ultra-conservative cleric circulated an unpublished fatwa extending the definition to Muslims who espoused Marxism—especially atheism and historical materialism. Leftists were deemed to be infidels. Infidels were deemed to be unclean. And the unclean, by definition, were deemed to be pollutants, invalidating prayers. For the sake of God, the religious prisoners demanded separate living quarters, separate clothes lines, separate showers, and separate eating utensils. Hygiene specialists were brought in to advise on how to go to the toilet without inadvertently touching facilities used by unbelievers. One important religious prisoner admits that the najes issue had not bothered his predecessors and that the founder of the Fedayan-e Islam had willingly shared food and a cell with the Tudeh.^[77]

This najes issue drew a sharp line between leftists and Muslims—as it was intended to do. The Mojahedin, led by Masoud Rajavi, rejected the fatwa on the grounds that it would widen the differences between the opposition while narrowing the gap between religious prisoners and guards who happened to be practicing Muslims. This position received some sympathy from Ayatollah Mahmud Taleqani, the well-known liberal cleric who was in and out of prison. But others, including

Ayatollah Montazeri and Bazargan, went along with the fatwa. One leftist remembers Bazargan quietly passing him fruit sent to him from outside but swearing him to secrecy so he would not get into trouble with his fellow believers.^[78] Another remembers Montazeri refusing to shake hands with leftist inmates so as to safeguard his religious purity.

While rejecting the fatwa, the Mojahedin insisted that leftists should categorically denounce the Marxists who had recently taken over their organization as "pseudoleftists," "ultra-left opportunists," and "coup d'étatists." When, after much discussion, the majority of leftists rejected this ultimatum, the Mojahedin withdrew and formed their own separate komun. Thus after 1975 there were three separate komuns in Evin and Qasr—Chapi (Leftist), Mojahedin, and Mazhabi (Religious). The third differed from the others in two significant respects: its hierarchy was based not on elections but on religious rank; and its menial chores were not rotated but given to low-ranking members—often shop assistants from the bazaar. The Mazhabi deemed the Mojahedin touchable despite being elteqati (eclectic) and enherafi (deviant). But they deemed the Marxists untouchable, unclean, and, thereby, beyond social contact.

This najes fatwa did more than divide the komuns. It revealed the dark and often hidden side of the religious mentality. It also contained the seeds of dangers to come—namely, the bloody clashes between, on the one hand, the clergy and the Mojadedin, and, on the other, the clergy and the secular leftists. Just as people who burn books are likely to burn their authors, so people who consider others "filthy pollutants" are likely to take drastic measures to eradicate them—all for the sake of social and spiritual hygiene. Social cleansing can originate in religious as well as ethnic prejudices.