Iranian Army discipline cracks during protest

Press, 20 December 1978, Page 9

Iranian Army discipline cracks during protest

International

NZPA-Reuter

Teheran

Iran s military Government yesterday faced the task of getting the country back to work after a day of economic disruption by the OppoSltl ° n during which Army discipline cracked in the north-western citv of Tabriz.

Official sources said that about a dozen soldiers policing a big anti-Shah demonstration laid down their arms and joined the protesters. They denied Opposition accounts of a big mutiny in which many soldiers and an officer joined the demonstrators.

The protest was part of a nation-wide day of mourning for about 100 people killed in riots last week that was called by Opposition religious and political leaders.

The sources said the soldiers laid down their arms after commanders withdrew all troops patrolling the demonstration to avoid a confrontation — a tactic successfully used in Teheran a week ago to avoid feared bloodshed during the mil-lion-strong anti-Shah marches.

As soldiers were getting into their trucks to return to their barracks, demonstrators cheered and jeered them. About a dozen soldiers had refused to climb into the trucks, put down their weapons, and joined the protesters, the sources said.

Other reports from usually reliable sources said demonstrators had seized some Army vehicles and some tank crews joined the demonstration in their tanks, reported to be covered in pic-

tures of Opposition religious leaders.

Neutral sources in Tabriz said that only armoured personnel carriers had been on the streets, and no tanks. Shooting flared in Tabriz during the demonstration, but two wounded were the only confirmed casualties. Tabriz and the city of Qom — where anti-Shah rioting started a year ago were the only places from which incidents were reported during the day of mourning, which was. in effect, a strike.

Most bazaars and shops in big cities were closed, putting back once again Government efforts to get Iran’s economy, crippled by months of political disruption, on the rails. In Teheran, thousands of Iranian demonstrators chanting “Death to the Shah” gathered in the city cemetery to mourn the deaths of protesters last week. Some of the estimated 10,000 demonstrators ran screaming through the cemetery with two shrouded bodies on makeshift biers above their heads.

They said the two were “political prisoners” who had been killed in jail and whose bodies they snatched from a group of plainclothes police preparing to bury them in a rubbish dump.

They pushed foreign journalists through the throng to take pictures as the earth was thrown over the shrouded figures. One demonstrator yelled: “From tomorrow, we’ll start killing foreigners.” But others shouted him down. In another comer of the cemetery, a small crowd gathered round what they said was the grave of one of four young soVt-rs who shot and killed a number of officers at the Lavizan barracks in north Teheran last week.

Opposition and diplomatic sources say they have evidence that at least nine officers were killed there in shooting in a barracks mess hall.

Attempts to get strikers in the oil industry and other Government-run services, under threat of dismissal if they stay out, back to their jobs looked like dominating Iran’s political scene in the next few days.

A Minister said that Iran would boost its oil revenue by S2OOOM a year as a result of the oil-producers’ price rise, provided it could get production — still below half normal level — back to full capacity.

In normal times Iran is the world’s second-largest oil exporter.

The Shah's exiled chief opponent, Ayatollah (spiritu a 1 leader) Ruhollah Khomeiny, has urged troops to desert, and the chief religious leader inside Iran, Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari, has publicly told soldiers that shooting on demonstrators violates their religious duty.

But despite isolated incidents, Iranian officials and Western diplomats regard the Army as solidly loyal to the Shah, and his main support as he faces his worst crisis in 37 years on the throne. The crisis in Iran has forced British Petroleum to cut supplies to customers by about 25 per cent, informed industry sources have said in London.