Coll 28/120 ‘Persia. Ahwaz – Consular diaries.’ [‎114r] (228/669)

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7 ,1
, f I » i (IIH
Minister on the f, I»emaval ,, of the Governor-General and requesting ratheCr
plaintively the removal of “other officials like him’h The opposite
faction replied, on receipt of the relevant copy of ' f Mehr*~i~Iran y in Ahwao,
with a telegram to the Prime Minister which was duly published in --
I tola* at explaining that the notability of the “four notables *if IChuzistan H
lay in the infamousnsss of their hoarding and the astronomical proportions
of their profiteering*
(31) __ since the deportation of Abrishomkar and his associates,
the si Her merchants have been coining forward with a variety of in
formation of varying degrees of accuracy about the previous activities of
>the faction® This has included full details of the conspiracy to foment
|disorder f-*r the disruption of the controlled bread markst * (Compare para
10 *f the Ahwaz diary for the first fortnight of July) Other stories which
should be capable of confirmation with comparatively little investigation
tell of illegal evasions «f Government price regulations in the Tobacco
and Dried Fruit Monopolies and in the sale of the products of the
spinning Factory® More tendentious “informants* 1 point cut that the hours
during which t^e Electric supply Ccy* supplies current - 10 a 0 mo - 7 p 0 m«>
do n-dt allow the reception on mains receiving sets of the major allied
broadcasts in Persian*
(38) With reference t*> para 17 of the last diary,desertions
from the gendarmerie continue and during the period under review two
Teibi gendarmes deserted from Bilawand along with rifles* Arab opinion,
,now exacerbated by the depredations of sheikh Jabber of Zargan, holds
: that since the Arabs themselves are now supplying all the information they
jean, give about the robber,officials of higher rank than the dismissed
‘ officer commanding the Ahwaz Guruhan must be interested in his de~
pradatiens continuing®
V,
TRIBAL - BAKHTIARI
(25) News of tribal import has again been small* The Bakhtiari
landlords of north-eastern Khuzistan,however,are reported to he jubilant
at the prospect of regaining their political importance under Murteza/ICian
/Quli
and to be contributing towards Amir-i-Jang* s “election expenses'* in Dizful«
in® TRIBAL - KUHGILU e.
» During the fortnight Abdul .lah Khan Zarghampur's facti#n
has been occupied in attempts to liquidate remaining opponents and bring
into Z&rghampur’e bloc the smaller tribes wh» were still maintaining an
(35)
The Bavis clearly held an important position in any bloc
directed against Zarghampur® The chief of the Basht Bavis,Malek Mansur,
is a weak and inept boy, v compare para 23 of the last diary) who has been •
on thoroughly bad terms with the people on whose support his existence
mainly depended® Truces therefore had to be negotiated between him and
Karim Kafai (who is s4id to be quite the best of the Basht Bavis),' the Do
Gumbedan Bavis, and the Boir Ahmed Gar ms iris? under
Kuzaffar Khan Ariani® Triere had already been some raiding of Basht Bavi
encampments at the end of July and on 6th‘August a force of some two
hundred Boir Ahmed sarhad&is,led by Qalb All, the brother of Abdullah Khan
; .arghampur,attacked the Do Gumbedan Bavi area. They raided the AIGG pump
ing station which supplies G&oh Raran with water,chased away the operators#
^nd looted their quarters® The raiders then attacked the AIOO.Bavi guards 5
Tillage,wounded one and -tilled two villagers, and drove off about a
thousand ^ahoep 9 Gach Gar an itself has same weeks' supply <*f w%ter and
the aerodrome at De Gumbedan has since been used without interruiDtion®
ihe incident,which not unnaturally added to the discredit ef the anti-
larghampur bloc, would probably never have occurred if the Do Gumbedan
/garrison