Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [‎531r] (1064/1237)

50,000 tons of wheat and barley from Azerbaijan ©nd still hare
enough to feed the people and for the next year f s sowings* These
figures dismay the OoTernor-General; he knows quite well that if
we try to approach them, he end his administration will have to
bestir themselves uncomfortably and abandon many attractive local
*arrangS'neftts H .
Local Government . llie Oovemor-Oeneral’s prost^ete trouble
atinues and he will have to face an operation sooner or later*
or the moment he is somewhat better*
Bilourl, head of the • itoioipality, is still absent* Ahmadi,
the Governor, is said to be angling for his Job, one of the most
lucrative, but for the moment the post remains in acting hands*
The Ohief of Police, Ssrhang Abdullah Itaetagar, has left and
Sarhang Fetullah Behpur has been nominated to succeed him* !y
vlet colleague and 1 had tried (sea^^5 ) to stimulate Hastagar
to stop ^xls propaganda, and encountered obatruction* The new
min can hardly be leas co-operative than he was.
A new Director of Commerce end Industry, one Sharif!, has
arrived from Tehran*
iirouzan, the Director of Finance, is always "ill" these days;
some say it is drugs, some think drink. In cither case he is not
the man to secure the maximum amount of surplus wheat from this
province.
K? rim nastagar, Prosecutor-General in the v igh Court, Just
ooulddidt bear living in Tabriz any longer# He had allied for
leave.lii vain, so one day he set out for Tehran, damning the
consequences. Tusuf Azima, from Bezaieh, has been appointed to
his place, and doubtless he regards the move favourably aa being
one stag© nearer lehran*
The Chief of Customs has now reopened a Customs post at
ahabad and placed a local man in charge. It isnH doing very
well. A visitdr told me that the new official was sitting idle
while the Kurdish Customs post not far away was buzzing with
activity and taking big money.
*4. ubllc -rder * There was a small bread riot at f ianeh on August
*®th which the Pcviet troops helped to control. Otherwise, Eastern
Azerbaijan has been quiet - no trouble from the shaheevans and no
more of the ominous knifing frays between Moslems and Christians in
Tabriz which occurred so frequently during the exictement of the
Kurdish raids in Western Azerbaijan. The Improvement in Tabriz
is attributable to close hissian military control of the streets
and to a conviction, common to osieras and Christians alike, that
th* ernns will soon be here. Tmt prospect quells any efferv
escence among the Christians; for the Moslems it is rather a
matter of holding their fire.
one Moslem, however, watching a Russian film in a Tabriz
cinema in the second week of September, was unable to hold his fire
?iny longer; he shot with his revolver at Stalin on the screen and
got away Ip the ensuing confusion.
In ©stern itzerbaijaa there is general insecurity. The Kurds
control some districts completely, and even in those districts where
j the gendarmes dare show themselves, e.g. Hezoieh, Ehoi and Hhahpur,
the Inhabitants are kept in a state of alarm by reports of theft
i and robbery, often exaggerated, and for which the Kurds are invar-
f iably blamed. It must be admitted that they are often blened
unjustly, that both landlords and peasants plead an exaggerated fear
of the Kurds whenever they need a pretext for evading the law of
the Ifmd, but even so the Kurds are mainly responsible for a state
of unsettlement which must nsake Heza ihah writhe in hia exile, if
it continues for long his faults will be forgotten and his memory
become blessed.
There is still no Persian Governor in Mehabad and the adherents
of the departed Kurdish Governor, Amir assad, continue to quarrel
'with those of his rivals. It is not safe for the ordinary civilian
to go to Mahabad; the least that may befall him is that a number of ‘
Turds will pile in on hia oar and demand to be taken to their viliac®
where he will find others with a wander-lust who will not take f, No” *
/for an answer;