Letters to My Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran (16 page)

It’s a cold winter morning in exile, Brother Hamid. The coldness of exile is not only in the air. It freezes your whole body.

My wife wakes up in the middle of the night. She searches my face with worried eyes and says: “Don’t write. You are killing yourself.”

The symptoms of my heart condition have returned one by one. Once again I have problems with my breathing. Once again. But I must write.

The muezzin’s voice told me that it was sunset when you picked up the pile of writing and took it away. I put down the biro when I heard the shuffling sound of slippers. I put on my blindfold and waited. You were laughing loudly. You hit me on my shoulder: “How are you? Written anything?”

I handed over the sheets on Afghanistan.

You said: “Stay right there ’til I come back.”

In the summer of 1979, we went on our first post-revolution trip abroad. My wife’s mother and sister came with us. We went to Greece. A cruise ship took us to fairytale islands in the beautiful
Mediterranean Sea. We made the acquaintance of an American businessman on the boat and the conversation inevitably turned to Iran. The young man was fiercely anti the revolution and predicted an ominous future for Iran. His jaw dropped in astonishment when he heard my wife and I defend it. When he realized that my wife had studied at Oxford he exclaimed: “But why would you support it, madam? Do you want to wear a headscarf?”

My wife responded: “I would be prepared to wear a sack over my head if it ensured my country was free and independent!”

That winter, the Soviet Army entered Afghanistan, an event that shook the world. The Party took the immediate decision to send a
Mardom
reporter together with some trusted reporters from the other major Iranian newspapers to Afghanistan. Mansour Taraji, the editor-in-chief of
Ettelaat
, the second largest pre-revolution newspaper in Iran, was the only one to accept the Party’s invitation. He had been a member of the Tudeh Party as a young man, but became a serious critic of the Party.

We set out for Kabul a few days later. First we went to Delhi to get visas from the Afghan Embassy. There was a long queue outside the embassy, almost entirely made up of foreign reporters. No reporters had entered Afghanistan since the Soviets’ arrival, even after the dismissal and assassination of Hafizullah Amin
⁵⁰
and the coming to power of the Parcham Party government led by Babrak Karmal.
⁵¹
None of the journalists ahead of us in the queue was granted a visa.

Eventually, our turn arrived. Self-assured, we introduced ourselves to the ambassador who was an intelligent-looking man. Contrary to our expectations, he didn’t make a fuss, he simply glanced at his papers and said: “No.”

Throughout the meeting, a tall young man had been listening to our conversation. After we left the room he came after us, and called us back. He immediately embraced me and gave me a warm kiss on my cheek. From the beginning, I’d introduced myself as a Party representative and
Mardom
reporter, while Mansour had stressed that he
had nothing whatsoever to do with the Party and had come for purely journalistic reasons on behalf of
Ettelaat
. It turned out that the young man, whose name I have forgotten, was a representative of the Parcham Party and was monitoring the Khalqi ambassador who had not yet been replaced. He told us to wait, entered the ambassador’s office and returned a few moments later to call us back in. It was clear that he had been having an argument with the ambassador. The young man took our passports and put them on the ambassador’s desk. The ambassador stamped in the visas with a complete lack of enthusiasm. We said our goodbyes.

We had just stepped into the road when the young Afghan came running after us, and insisted on inviting us for dinner. He picked us up that night and we went to his home in a poor part of Delhi. It was a place where lanterns were used to light shops and homes, but was only half an hour away from the luxurious Ashoka Hotel, which was on a par with the best international hotels. The young Afghan’s wife was, like her husband, in the Parcham Party leadership. She came in once or twice to bring us food and tea. Throughout the evening, we gathered information about the new situation in Afghanistan, information that was repeated to us time and time again from then on, like a Party announcement: “The Khalqis were agents of the West. The Soviet comrades entered the country at the request of the Party and the people of Afghanistan.”

We also talked about the situation in Iran. The young Afghan seemed to be carefully repeating the Parcham Party’s views, and whenever the conversation turned to Kianuri or Tabari, he spoke about them with great respect. Like all Parcham members, from ordinary rank and file through to their leadership, he was in love with the Party and worshipped Kianuri and Tabari like idols.

The next day we flew from Delhi to Kabul. Except for us and two other foreign journalists, all the passengers on the plane were Afghan. The foreign journalists, whom we knew from Tehran, happily told us that they had bribed the Afghan consul in Bombay for their visas.
They were delighted to be the first international journalists to enter Kabul.

The plane flew over snow-capped mountains and I felt as though I was flying over Iran. I remembered that until a mere hundred years ago all of this territory
had
belonged to Iran.

Large scarlet banners and Russian tanks were the most eye-catching sights on our arrival in Kabul. We were met at the airport by Assadullah Keshtmand, editor-in-chief of
The Truth of the Sawr Revolution
newspaper, who was also the prime minister’s brother, the deputy culture minister, and some other Party leaders.

Again, I introduced myself as a representative of the Party and a reporter for
Mardom
, and Mansour said that he had nothing to do with the Party and that he was a reporter for
Etalaat
. This led them to hug me tightly and to kiss my cheeks and to shake hands with Mansour. We told Keshtmand about the foreign journalists. Inside the old airport hall, porters were picking up our suitcases when the loudspeaker called out the two foreign reporters’ names. A few minutes later I saw them being escorted back to the plane, bags in hand, looking puzzled. They were being deported. Even now when I think about that scene, I feel ashamed. I now better understand just how deeply ideology can penetrate a person’s existence.

That wintry day, Mansour Taraji and I became the first international journalists to drive along the road to Kabul since the Red Army’s arrival a few days earlier. Russian tanks still lined the road on either side. We were escorted to the old Hotel Kabul, which was in the centre of the city and were told that the hotel was totally safe.

That night, Keshtmand Junior came to the hotel to have dinner with us. He had a Kalashnikov hanging over his shoulder. It became clear that the fighting took place at night. A bit later, the sound of shooting could be heard. Keshtmand had not yet finished his meal when he said that he needed to leave. I asked him to take me to the hotel’s telephone desk to contact Tehran before he left. On the way,
he told me that no matter what job they performed in the daytime, the Party’s leadership took up weapons at night and fought against counter-revolutionaries on the streets. That same instant, the sound of shooting became louder and the lights suddenly went out. Keshtmand grabbed me and threw me onto the floor and we lay in that position until the lights came back on. We went to the telephone desk together. Keshtmand introduced me to the young man in charge. Like his fellow Afghan Party members, he gave me a tight embrace and kissed me on my cheeks. I said: “I want to contact Iran.”

He fiddled with the telephone and told me: “It’s not working. You must wait for an hour.”

I gave him the number and said: “Alright, I’ll come back in an hour.”

Keshtmand was leaving to do his nightly patrol duties but refused to let me accompany him. He said: “It’s dangerous, the counterrevolutionaries come out of their holes at night.”

We were going in the direction of my hotel room when I heard someone call me: “Comrade! Comrade!”

I turned back. It was the young man from the telephone desk. He beckoned me to come to him and it became clear that he had been looking for an excuse to make me wait until Keshtmand had left. He phoned Iran immediately and I talked to my wife.

When I finished talking, the young Afghan served me tea and started pouring his heart out. He insisted that I convey his words to the Party leadership, in particular to comrades Kianuri and Tabari. He had been part of the Khalq Party faction that had been sidelined, a Maoist as we used to call them then. He said that Hafizullah Amin had not been an agent of the US. He had been a true communist. The Parchamis were representatives of the petite bourgeoisie and because they did not enjoy widespread support, they had called on the support of the Soviet army, which led to the destruction of the Khalq faction.

He was also critical of the Iranian government for being reactionary and religious rather than revolutionary. My views at the time ran counter to his, but I didn’t express them.

The following morning we went sightseeing. Two Afghan security officials came along with us. They were young men, dressed in black suits and sporting large sunglasses just like in the movies. We insisted that they should not walk with us because they would make us stand out like a sore thumb. We arranged for them to keep an eye on us from a distance.

All the government offices, telephone kiosks, road signs and pylons had been painted deep red, a colour that was said to have been loved by Hafizullah Amin, who saw in it the victory of the communist revolution.

We walked past a dried-up stream, which they called a river. We passed the King of the Two-Edged Sword mosque, the king being Hazrat Ali, and entered the city’s filthy, old bazaar. Bazaars like this could be found only in the remotest, smallest towns in Iran. We would enter shops and say we were Iranians and all doors would be opened to us. Through chit-chat we intended to find out the people’s views about the presence of Soviet troops, but we encountered silence. No one would say a word. Almost all the shops had pictures of Googoosh, a famous Iranian pop singer.

A couple of hours later we had our first official meeting. The culture minister, Dr Majid Sarboland, was a tall Afghan with Western airs who put his feet on his desk to show off his finely crafted Italian shoes while we talked.

During our interview, he repeated the official line that had been dictated to him. He talked a bit about Afghan history and literature. We asked him to arrange an interview for us with Babrak Karmal and Mohammad Najibullah
⁵²
and allocate a day for us to visit Pul-e Charkhi prison. He gave us promises for the first and second requests but with regard to the third, he said: “That’s up to Comrade Karmal.”

There was only one cinema in Kabul, which looked like an old shop, and it was showing an Iranian film. Most of the women on the streets were covered in hijab but there were a few women with bare heads in the area around the half-open Kabul University and near the government offices. Mansour tried to start a conversation in a bank with a girl behind the cashier’s desk, but instead of responding, she just laughed.

Keshtmand, Mansour and I had dinner together again that night. During our conversation I noticed that the middle-aged waiter was listening to us and paying close attention to me. I stayed at the table after dinner. The Afghan waiter came over and while clearing the table, he said hello. I returned his greeting. He asked me: “Are you Iranian?”

I said: “Yes.”

“Going back to Iran?”

“Yes.”

He looked around him and while fiddling with my plate, he placed something underneath it and left. I lifted the plate. I found a small photograph of Ayatollah Khomeini and an announcement from the Afghan Mujahedin that they would fight until the infidels left the Islamic land of Afghanistan. There was a fire simmering underneath the ashes.

The next day, we went to see Mohammad Najibullah. He was an imposing man, very polite. Unlike the culture minister, he walked out to the car to receive us. He answered all our questions and even said things that he shouldn’t have, bearing in mind my views at the time. For example, he revealed that a quarter of a million Afghans had been killed in Afghanistan’s civil wars and when we returned to Iran, this became the headline for Mansour’s article for
Ettelaat
. I felt compelled to interfere and told him that he was revealing Party secrets. He said: “I am talking to comrades.”

He made a phone call in our presence, securing permission for the
interview with Babrak Karmal and a visit to the Pul-e Charkhi prison. That tall Pashtun, who was so in love with Iran and with the revolution, was later brutally tortured and shot at the hands of the Taliban when Kabul fell. Though he may well have earned his nickname, the “Butcher of Kabul”, the thought of his disfigured corpse hanging on public display in Kabul always makes my heart ache. But he too would stand when Kianuri and Tabari’s names were mentioned, and like the other Afghan officials we met, he repeated the official line about Hafizullah Amin inviting in the Soviet troops.

The next day a jeep was sent for us by Najibullah, along with an official to accompany us to the prison, and we sped out of the city. We drove past high, snow-covered mountains and followed an ancient, narrow road through the middle of a frozen desert until, after an hour or so, we saw the outlines of the infamous prison in the distance. We finally lurched onto a dusty main road, passed through a medieval-looking gate and came to a stop in front of the prison gates. The young prison director was waiting for us. He gave me a tight embrace, shook Mansour’s hand and led us into his office, which was more like a bunker than an office. He hesitated a moment when he noticed the official accompanying us, and when we told him we intended to interview Hafizullah Amin’s ministers, he immediately called Najibullah for verification. Until he had received his instructions from Najibullah himself, he refused to believe that anybody could have given permission for such politically sensitive interviews.