Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – January 13, 1995

As usual on the days of the trip, I woke up with the call to morning prayer. The call to prayer here is half an hour earlier than in Tehran. Until seven in the morning, the time passed with prayer and study and listening to the news and having breakfast.

As usual, Agha Jalal, who on trips is assigned to protect my private residence and to provide hospitality and has more patience than the other guards to endure staying in one spot and to keep watch, and provides hospitality—as usual the servant who serves in Tehran acts to bring breakfast. Usually the breakfasts on trips are heavier than the usual breakfast at home; milk and clotted cream and honey and eggs and local breads and so on, and they usually bring the best, which causes me to eat more breakfast, and it is also suitable for the work of the trip, because on these trips we are in movement and collective effort all the time and do not eat anything between meals.

We went to the city airport. The streets of Iranshahr were empty. We flew by helicopters to the Bampur region. It is a green plain between the Bampur River and has a very ancient history of development. The axis of the people's life is agriculture and animal husbandry. Citrus and palm and mango and banana and wheat and alfalfa. We visited an irrigation project that is being carried out with the credits of the Office of Deprived Areas of the Presidency by the local agriculture department.

Downstream of the Bampur River, by creating a thick cement curtain from the riverbed with a depth of five meters and a height of half a meter, they prevent the escape of surface water and drainage water, and by pumping water for the villages on both sides, it provides more than one cubic meter of assured water for four large ancient villages; the project is innovative in its kind. The people of the region had gathered and warmly thanked and welcomed. From the back of a pickup truck, with a handheld loudspeaker, I spoke to them and advised the use of sprinkler and scientific irrigation to save water consumption.

We flew toward the center of the deprived Dalgan district, the village of Golmurti. It is a vast and flat plain, with a rich underground water table and good lands that previously had forest and now have many single trees, but it is poor and backward. Recently, with the efforts of the Office of Deprived Areas of the Presidency, a good movement to dig wells and create farms has begun. They are mainly Shia, like the Bazman district. One of the famous bandits, named Eiduk Bamari, is from that same region and had made it insecure, which prevented investment, and recently the security situation has improved.

At the welcome ceremony, one of the heads of the Abdullahi tribe gifted me a camel. I got on the camel and moved a bit. We were seen off with the people's slogans. It also became a good subject for the journalists. Right there I broke ground for the 63 [kilovolt] power post; it is an important project. With a distance of one hundred and thirty kilometers, they are bringing electricity to the region and giving cheap and assured electricity to the agricultural wells.

Parallel to this measure, the asphalt road construction project is also near completion, and as a result, it will give a good momentum to agriculture and development of this deprived region. This is one of the ten rural development regions of the deprived areas whose implementation has been approved in the Council of Ministers. The people, by sacrificing dozens of cows and camels and sheep and with enthusiastic slogans, thanked and welcomed. The Friday prayer leader of Iranshahr and the governor and Mr. Jalil Besharati, the head of the Office of Deprived Areas Affairs [of the Presidential Institution], gave good remarks, and all of them presented statistics on the services after the revolution and the First Plan and compared it with the past. I gave the people an encouraging speech and emphasized the use of resources and more work and strengthening cultural matters, and I told the Leader's representatives to send good clerics there to educate the people. They had interesting anthems and local dances.

We flew toward Nikshahr. It was planned that we would have an aerial visit of the Jazmurian area, but due to the time of the programs we gave up. On the way, Mr. Mahmoud Hojjati, the former governor, gave good explanations and extensive information. He knows every place in the province. We passed over the Chah Hashem plain, which has the same potentials as the Dalgan plain, and adjacent to it is another plain called Chah Shur Bahman. Recently the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee, by taking four thousand hectares, is implementing a good agro-industry project that can be a suitable model for the region.

We passed over the high and dry mountains of Ahuran; there are very many. In the ravines, sometimes a tree catches the eye. Mr. Hojjati said that with the activation of development in the province, many isolated and scattered individuals and hut-dwellers and nomadic gypsies are being absorbed into economic centers.

The helicopters went the wrong way for a while. We arrived in Nikshahr with a delay. The military Cobra helicopter in front of my helicopter is watching over the security of the route. In the gathering of the people of Nikshahr, which was very enthusiastic, the Friday prayer leader and the governor and the representative expressed gratitude for my abundant services in the government. In 1990, by my order, it became a county and has developed well, and the people are very grateful. In this regard, they had an anthem and slogans. At the same time, the groundbreaking for the Kheyrabad Dam, which is the demand of the province's people, was struck by Mr. Zangeneh, and the city's cold storage was inaugurated by the Minister of Interior, and I too gave them an encouraging speech.

Our prayer and lunch and rest were at the city's newly built governorate. At two-thirty we flew toward Chabahar. It was planned that we would go to Bahukalat, below the Pishin Dam, to visit the project for creating the irrigation network of the Bahu Plain and to see the water transfer pipeline project from Pishin to Chabahar, but the helicopters had little fuel; we gave up.

At the Chabahar Air Base, we waited for half an hour to refuel the helicopters. The base commander gave a report on the base's situation and said his family, due to the attraction that the free zone has created in this region, have agreed to reside here.

We flew over the coasts for an hour. We visited the Tirm and Iran Bandar piers and the Shahid Beheshti and Shahid Kalantari and Tis and Ramin and Beris piers. They are active and fishing vessels come and go in them.

We landed in Chabahar. The people gave a warm welcome and they are very enthusiastic and cheerful. Because of the prosperity of life and work in the region, they are very satisfied. The Friday prayer leader and the governor praised the progress and sang anthems in my praise. I gave a short speech. A group of mowlavis, during the speech, held the congregational prayer beside the gathering; because they are committed to praying on time, and the head of the Sunni scholars gave a warm welcome.

From there we went to the Faculty of Marine Sciences. Along the entire route inside the faculty, they had lined up the students. We saw the new simulator that has reduced the need for training abroad. I spoke with the students; they were satisfied.

We went to the Fisheries Research Center. They gave explanations about shrimp and algae farming and the shrimp farming project in Baluchestan. By car we took a tour of the city and the free trade zone and the Shahid Kalantari pier and heard explanations. We went toward the club. On the way, Messrs. Morteza Alviri, the Secretary of the Supreme Council of Free Zones, and Siavash Samiei, the CEO of the Chabahar Free Zone, gave explanations. At the personnel club, their families gave an enthusiastic welcome. Without a program, we flew toward Tehran. At night I reached home. Effat and Yaser were still awake. Effat told a little about the Umrah trip and we slept.