Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – April 1, 1989

After the prayer, I listened to BBC Farsi radio and Voice of America. They have kept the issue of Mr. Montazeri alive and are promoting violence and regressiveness for the incident. They consider my trip to the Soviet Union important in the future. Carrying out this trip was discussed in the meeting of [Mr. Ali Akbar Velayati] the Minister of Foreign Affairs with [Mikhail] Gorbachev [the Chairman of the Presidium of the Soviet Union]. In the base square, the joint morning ceremony of the forces was held. I spoke for them.

We flew to Suleiman Mosque with helicopters. On the way, we observed fields and canals below Dez and Karun, and Mr. Mohsen Rezaei and Dehghani gave explanations. We landed at Havaniroz Masjid Suleiman.

It was an official welcome. Mr. Mohsen Rezaei's father, who is a retired worker, chanted Hizbullah slogans at the ceremony. The commander of the base gave the necessary explanations about the situation of the base and the needs and problems: many half-built houses and unfinished parts and the area occupied by the IRGC...

We visited the base by car; It is wide and interesting. Then, we visited Shahid Mahalati barracks of IRGC, which is part of the base, by car and from there we went to the tank repair factories. It is vast and huge. The halls were visited many times for half an hour. The area of ​​the workshop is 35,000 meters covered and they have high repair and reconstruction power. We also visited the army technical training school.

We visited a part of the city by car. People were kind and treated with emotion. We went to the city stadium and attended the public meeting. Imam Juma and [Mr. Danesh] representative of the people and Mr. Mohsen Rezaei spoke briefly and said good morning. Then I gave a speech.

We had prayer, lunch and rest, and then we had a meeting with the administrative council of Masjid Sulaiman, who told about the problems and needs of the city, the problem of people's unemployment, lack of water in the city and other needs. In the past, the oil company provided services to the city, and currently the city has grown and the oil reservoirs in the region are running out, and the responsibilities of the oil company should be assigned to government agencies. This stage of transition brings with it many deficiencies and the city is really deprived. I gave a favorable promise to help build the road from Suleiman Mosque to Chaharmahal Bakhtiari. I told the Minister of Energy to help with the problem of electricity and water.

We went to Dez Dam [= Shahid Abbaspur]. We visited different parts of the dam and heard the managers' explanations; It is interesting and important. It gives one thousand megawatts of electricity. It has a capacity of about three billion meters of water and it also has defects, because the dam work was nearing completion on the eve of the revolution and the contractors have taken advantage of the conditions of the revolution.

I saw bombed and reconstructed places and admired the personnel. I visited the important spring under the dam, which has about ten meters of water boiling from it, and heard explanations about the plans to establish several more dams on the Karun. Nomads gathered around the dam and expressed warm feelings. The houses of the workshop have occupied the dam, they must go. They applied for new housing.

We flew to Dezful. On the way, Mr. [Bijan Namdar] Zanganeh [Minister of Energy] gave the necessary explanations about Aghili and the talent of the region. We reached the base in the evening. I wrote the memories of two days.