Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – March 19, 1983

Today was a public holiday, but because I had canceled meetings that had been scheduled the previous week in order to work on the budget, I went to Parliament. I promulgated the budget bill. I took care of the backlog of administrative work. Mr. Saeed al-Zakereen, the head of Parliament's public relations, came and explained the program for commemorating the anniversary of the opening of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. Mr. Gharavi from Social Security came and complained about Dr. Mehdi Gharazi's strictness.

The Danish ambassador came for a meeting. He had nothing important to say. Major Torabi and Ali Shahbazi from the Imam's Advisory Office in the Army came and criticized the condition of the Ground Forces and gave reports. Ms. Mojtahedi, who had been in charge of the legal department at the Prime Minister's Office and had recently been dismissed after resigning, came and complained. The North Korean ambassador came and wanted us to oppose holding the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting in Seoul. The deputy ministers of Housing and Urban Development came and gave a report on the implementation of the Urban Land Law and the problems that the Administrative Justice Court was creating for them.

In the afternoon, the UN representative in Iran—who is Indian—came and said he had a $27 million development budget for Iran, but the country's officials were not optimistic and were not cooperating. Mr. Saeed Rajaei Khorasani, our representative to the United Nations, came and consulted about foreign policy and how to deal with the Americans and others.

The IRGC intelligence officials came and reported on the blows they had recently dealt to the Mojahedin's forest unit in Mazandaran—which had resulted in the killing and arrest of more than twenty people—and gave a report on the interrogations of the Tudeh Party leaders, the confessions of several of them to espionage, and the unsuccessful suicide attempts by several of them.

At night, we held two meetings at the President's office. One, attended by the foreign and oil ministers, was about how to respond to the conspiracy to drive down oil prices, and it was decided that measures would be taken on both the political and non-political fronts. The other was with security, intelligence, and political officials about how to deal with the Tudeh Party, and it was decided to arrange a public trial for a group of them. I returned home at twelve o'clock.

Today, an ammunition depot at an IRGC center in Kazerun exploded, and twelve Revolutionary Guards were martyred. So far, we have had several major explosions in IRGC ammunition depots, caused by inexperience and sometimes sabotage. Mr. Tiz Mo'ez, the Revolutionary Prosecutor of Khuzestan, who had recently survived a plot against his life, came and spoke about the uncertain future of Revolutionary prosecutors like himself, who under the law cannot continue in their current positions, are in danger, and have fallen behind in their studies, and he was upset.