Coll 30/9 'Persian Gulf: Administration Reports 1926-1938' [‎494v] (993/1028)

taken place throughout the past twelve months in the areas men
tioned which include practically all the country east and south, and south
east of the Shiraz-Bushire road; and, though from December 25th 1926 a
force of some 250 soldiers has been stationary in Dashti, the latest news is
that the headmen of that extensive district are still hesitating to surrender
their arms, and have paid only a small portion—some 1,000 Tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. -—of
their arrears of revenue. A larger force of some 400—500 military, with a
few guns, augmented by Qashqai levies, and under the command of the
Chief of Staff in the South, has been since early in January making a pro
gress through the districts of Qir and Karzin, Gilahdar, Khunj, etc., (in
the hinterland of the port of Tahiri).
There have been many instances of tribal fighting during the year, and
many robber bands have victimised the countryside with more or less im
punity.
On February 13th 1926 a party of geologists of the Anglo-Persian Oil
Company was looted near Warawi, inland from the port of Asalu, after an
attack on their caravan in which promiscuous firing took place: £777 worth
of effects were lost, but the Company preferred not to make an official claim.
The scene of the robbery is in no jnan’s land, between the extreme southern
limit of Mirza Ibrahim Khan Qawam’s jurisdiction and Gilahdar : and
likelihood of any of the actual property being recovered is small.
A new and unpleasant feature of insecurity during the year was the
holding up of motor-cars (a) on the Fasa road at the end of April, when one
traveller was shot and killed, and cash carried off, (b) on the Fasa road in
May, driver killed and two bales stolen, (c) near Jahrum in July, when a
considerable sum of money was also taken and a man killed, (d) at the end
of August on the difficult Rudak pass (Bushire-Shiraz road) when there
was no bloodshed, but women stripped of ornaments, (e) about 30th Sep
tember near Mukhak pass on Jahrum road, (/) in February 1927 near Gach
Qara Quli, the site of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co.’s working in the Mailatun
hills by Boir Ahmadis, when three European employees were
stripped, and made to run a distance, (g) a few days later another car was
fired on in the area of the Company’s operations in Pars, (h) on February
15th, 1927 on the Jahrum road, near the scene of the other attacks, fire
was opened on the car of a notable Kalantar by four men at close quarters,
and a bullet passed through the cap of the Indian chauffeur : one assailant
was killed and another wounded by the Kalantar.
Through the Amnieh department of Fars the sum of Krans 1,694 was
paid in compensation for the robbery of one bale of cambrics belonging to
Messrs. Ziegler and Co., near Rahdar in the Kazarun plain on October 16,
1925. But British claims for Krans 4,050 and 2,000 on account of the rob
beries in September 1925 and July 1920 of piece-goods, remain unpaid,
despite numerous reminders.
On April 7th 1926 a sanguinary affair took place at the important town
ship of Jahrum, one hundred miles south-east of Shiraz, w]*ere there is a
district governor and small detachment as garrison. The Bahais, who are
numerous there, were attacked by a fanatical crowd in thoir houses and the
streets: eight were bludgeoned or stabbed to death, and a number wounded
and their houses looted. The primary cause was denunciations and inflam
matory speeches in the mosque.
Underlying the series of disturbances of the security and good order
of the province five factors may be noted (i) insufficient numbers of troops
in such a large province to deal smartly with any outbreak, (ii) a growing
hesitation on the part of the General Officer Commanding and his Staff to
use force, bring to heel, and punish any offending tribal unit, or miscreants,
a supineness appearing to the foreign observer almost callousness, (iii)
failure to proceed with disarmament of the larger tribes and districts at a
distance from Shiraz on the one hand, and on the other the disarmament
in 1925 of the settled villages for a distance round Shiraz and along the
main road from Bushire to Isfahan, has left the more peaceful section of