The 315th Night of Memory-2

The Islamic Revolution Gained Victory in Eight-Year War

Elnaz Darvishi
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2020-8-12


Note: The 315th Night of Memory program was held online on the Aparat website on July 23, 2020. In this program, "Seyyed Ahmad Gheshmi" and "Dr. Hamidreza Ghanbari", two captives of war, recounted their memories of captivity. In this program, Davood Salehi was the executor of program.

 

The second narrator of the three hundred and fifteenth program the Night of Memory was born in November 1962 in the city of Ahvaz. He was captured at the age of 20 in the Valfajr Preliminary Operations Area on February 12, 1982. He has spent 91 months of his golden age, his youth, in the Al-Anbar and Mosul 2 camps. After returning to his homeland, he continued his education and received General Ph.D. at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, and later specialized in emergency medicine. The second narrator tries to fight against Coronavirus tonight on the front lines.

 

The second narrator began his memoirs as follows:

A twenty-one-year-old person from Falavarjan suffered a cardiac arrest two or three weeks before the release of the captives in the Mosul 2 camp and was martyred. Two months after my release from captivity, I decided to go to Falavarjan to meet with the family of this dear martyr. I went to Isfahan, prepared the preparations, and went with my mother and sister to Falavarjan, a village in the remote mountainous region of Isfahan. We got the address of the martyr's house from one of the comrades who was one of the captives in war and arrived at his house. I asked the father of martyr Mohammad Saberi how he became aware that Muhammad was martyred. The martyr's father described the incident as follows:

 

"When the news of the release of the captives was spread by the media, on August 17, 1990, I illuminated the village. Mohammad was the only captive in the village. We decorated and cleaned the village every day for Muhammad to come. From the 26th of Mordad, when the exchange of captive between Iran and Iraq began, we listened to the radio and looked at the television every day to get news from Mohammad about which exchange group he belonged to. We knew that Mohammad was a captive of war in Mosul; there were four thousand captives in Mosul one and two, and the name of Muhammad had to be announced in the first five days. When there was no news of Muhammad, we became more worried and went to the Red Crescent, the IRGC, and the presidency. They were also unaware. Muhammad's friends, who were captives in Mosul 2, did not inform us until a bus came to our village around noon. When the bus stopped, we saw that about forty thin young people who were about 20 and 30 years old got off the bus. I approached the bus thinking that one of these young men was Muhammad. I hugged them one by one and when I reached the middle of them, I noticed that they were crying. I said to me:" oh my God, why are these people offering me condolences?" After the released captives left there. "I came back and said my family to turn off all the lights of the village and cover the village in black because my Muhammad won't return."

 

When Mohammad's father was telling this event, my mother, who was sitting next to me, cried softly. He asked Muhammad's father, "Where is Muhammad's mother?" Why does not she come?" Muhammad's father replied:" Haj Khanum, Mohammad's mother, was saddened and died for his martyrdom and Muhammad's captivity two years ago, I mean one year after the martyrdom of our other son." Mohammad's brother had been martyred in 1987. My mother was crying on the way back to Isfahan.

 

Dr. Ghanbari told the memory about the day of martyrdom and the ceremony held for Mohammad Saberi in Camp 2 in Mosul as follows:

 

"It was late July. I was sitting together with several captives in Mosul 2 sanatorium and had a meeting. One of the comrades was sitting in the window and guarding us to make us aware of the Ba'athists came. Suddenly the guard jumped out of the window and said:" On the football field, one of the children had a cardiac arrest and was taken to the clinic, as if he were Mohammad Saberi." We, therefore, ran to the clinic. The Mosul 2 clinic was inside the camp and had four or five rooms, in which one of the regular sanatoriums was halved, part of which was used as a clinic, and captives were kept in the other part of the sanatorium as well.

 

When we got to the clinic, we noticed that no one was allowed inside. Forty-five minutes later, to our surprise, we were told that Mohammad Saberi had died. The Ba'athists wanted to remove the body of this martyr from the camp sooner, but we resisted. The camp chief told the Ba'athists to give us two hours to say goodbye to Muhammad. The Ba'athists accepted. The prisoners lined up around the camp and went in one by one to say goodbye. We put white a bed sheet on Mohammad, but we did not cover his face. The comrades took turns saying goodbye to Muhammad one by one in a special order. They created beautiful scenes of love for the martyr and martyrdom during the farewell to Muhammad, which lasted more than two hours. Mohammad Saberi was born in 1969. In the winter of 1983, at the age of 14, he went to the front of a village in Falavarjan and was wounded in the Khyber operation. I was taken from Al-Anbar camp to Mosul 2 in 1987. It was in this camp that I went to the whole sanatorium with Mohammad Saberi. Muhammad had studied in third grade. I encouraged him to attend the Literacy Movement Classes held in the camp that I was responsible for it. Muhammad attended in the first to fourth grades of high school. The books of these courses were brought to us. He finished this course with very good scores.

 

The chief of the camp said that when we returned from Muhammad's extraordinary funeral, the Ba'athist major who was the commander of the Mosul camp told me that we wanted to attend the funeral of your martyr.

 

We could not believe that the Ba'athists wanted to participate in the funeral of our martyr. Never before that time, all this was forbidden and the Ba'athists had rigid discipline for funerals. and we held the ceremonies very secretly. Because the reason for a lot of pressure and torture was holding these mourning ceremonies in sanatoriums. What happened now that the Ba'athist commander wanted to participate in our martyr's funeral?

 

The camp chief and I planned the funeral. The Qur'an reciter, eulogist, and lecturer were in both Arabic and Persian because we also had Arabic speaking guests. We prepared the chairs and rugs... and we did our best to hold a funeral.

 

The ceremony was attended by a full Ba'athist team, including soldiers, non-commissioned officers, officers, commanders of all four camps in Mosul, the senior commander of the Mosul camps, and more. We prepared the best place for the sanatorium with a mat and back for the commanders and non-commissioned officers. All Baathists remained until the end of the ceremony. We served the Baathists with tea and dates. Our Qur'an reciter also recited the surah Al-Nisa: "Whosoever leaves his house an immigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him, his wage shall have fallen upon Allah. Allah is the Forgiver, the Most Merciful."

The Ba'athists recited the Qur'an for our martyr that day, listened to a speech in Arabic and Persian, and when the eulogist praised Al-Akbar in the funeral, they cried for our Muhammad Saberi, who had been held captive for years. At the end of the ceremony, the high-ranking Ba'athist officer, who was the senior commander of the Iranian prisoners’ camps in Mosul, stood in honor of the Iranian martyr, stood in front of a photograph of Martyr Mohammad Saberi decorated by the comrades; He raised his right hand and paid his respects. There was a lump in his throat, he could not stop crying, and I saw him cleaning his tears as he left the sanatorium. The Ba'athist team followed him and paid their respects to our martyr. The martyrdom of Mohammad Saberi ended the work, the light of our revolution shone on Iraq, and The martyrdom of Mohammad has coincided with the last days of our captivity. In those days, I saw the first rays of it and sought our victory in war and sacred defense in the deep influence of the martyrdom of Mohammad Saberi. Anyone who wants to know the reason for the continuation of the war after the liberation of Khorramshahr should read the story of the martyrdom of Mohammad Saberi because today they create doubts as to why we continued the war. After the repulsion of aggression against the revolution, we had to convey the message of the Islamic Revolution to the Islamic world, which we did. It was after our eight-year war that an Islamic Awakening took place in the region and the Islamic world, and the Islamic Revolution was introduced to the world as a progressive model of the struggle against arrogance. Today, other nations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Bahrain are awake, and they are independent, awake, and vigilant nations like Iran. The Islamic Revolution gained victory in the battle of eight years. According to the enemies and the international community, the aggressor of the imposed war was the Ba'athist regime of Iraq and the victor was Iran. For eight years, arrogance stood with all its might against the Islamic Revolutionary Front. Frequent meetings, budgeting, equipping the Ba'athist army with the most advanced weapons, forming coalitions, and unwavering international support for the Ba'athist regime were all aimed at destroying Iran's newly-formed revolution, which had not won for two years. They also wanted to prevent the spread of this revolution. They were not afraid of the Islamic Republic, but of the spread of the Islamic Revolution, and they invaded Iran to prevent its spread. By the time we repelled the aggression, it was time to spread it. If we did not think of spreading the revolution, our revolution would be useless. They wanted to prevent the influence of the revolutionary thought of the Islamic Republic in the region and the world, but they were unaware of one point, and that was the martyrdom and influence of martyrs. Right now, which is the year 2020, they are holding meetings, allocating budgets, and they have complex plans to turn the Islamic Republic into another system. Internal and external mercenaries who have been foolishly planning, but all are doomed to failure. But the martyrdom of a martyr, like Haj Qasem Soleimani, defeats all their plans. The evidence of my words is the martyrdom of Mohammad Saberi, a 21-year-old captives who came to the front against the Ba'athist regime, and when he died in the camp, all Ba'athist commanders attended in his funeral and paid their respects. This means that we have accepted this martyr and we accept his thoughts and beliefs. I repeat once again that our martyrs are very oppressed and the document of their oppression is that a sinful person, like me, must remember them. May God join us to the martyrs of the Islamic Revolution. Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you all.



 
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