Remember – Episode Nine: Life for Bread; Conversation with Kurdish Porters and Baluch Fuel Carriers

Where is this place? Where in the world? Where in Iran? What conditions do these people, these Iranians, live in? The people of the zero-border regions from Kurdistan to Sistan and Baluchestan. The porters and fuel carriers. This is where we are. Baluch fuel carrier: "This is a border town; a border village-town. Is there a doctor? No! There is no proper doctor. One person has set up a clinic and knows nothing. Anyone who goes there gets one type of medicine! They have a contract with one pharmacy and they are in cahoots. We have a school, but no teachers. Even if we have teachers, they know nothing! Students are sent home to their parents to solve their problems and take exams, and then they come to school for just an hour or two. No one here can read or write. The teacher is only in fifth grade and knows nothing. When the electricity goes out, everything goes out. There is no antenna, no water, no bread, nothing! When the electricity goes out, everything goes out. They cut the electricity two or three times a week and do this." A teenage daughter of a Kurdish porter: "We are not even one percent hopeful and we will not be because... (tears flow). I really don’t know... we have no feeling at all. Neither for life nor for the future. We really have no feeling. We have no hope for the future..." The Kurdish and Baluch people; they have the sea but no water. They have air but it is full of dust. Hamoun and the lake and Bisotun, mines and natural resources. Everything exists but life does not. Drought. Unemployment, discrimination, repression, executions, shootings, and poverty and poverty and poverty. In the most deprived villages of Iran, on the border with Pakistan, villages whose names we have not even heard, if the men are well-off, they rent cars and motorcycles; if not, they carry fuel containers on their backs or walk on foot to bring fuel from one side of the border to the other for a morsel of bread. Locals call those who carry fuel on their backs: "Boduki." In Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and Ilam, regions with high unemployment rates, people are forced to carry televisions, air conditioners, and heaters on their backs or transport cigarettes, tires, and textiles for a morsel of bread. Baneh, Marivan, Sarava, Saqqez, Kamyaran, and other border towns... Over the years, hundreds of Kurdish porters and Baluch fuel carriers have lost their lives just to put a morsel of bread on their family's table. They have burned alive, frozen in the cold of the mountains, been shot, and caught by the Revolutionary Guards. Baluch fuel carrier: "Let me tell you that they have no mercy. You can figure out what they are. They are worse than animals. Even if someone is a friend, when they wear the Revolutionary Guards' uniform, it’s as if they have been given the world. They catch people and beat them. They shoot too. At the border, they have killed several people. Because of two fuel containers or because they brought rice or a carton of mangoes from the other side for their livelihood. They have shot for these things. My cousin was shot too. God curse them. I mean, the bullet hit the rim of his motorcycle." These people with their tired, distorted voices, the people of boundless dreams in narrow lives, when they return home, what is their joy in life this time? A smile? A moment of peace? A recreation? Baluch fuel carrier: "Here we don’t have time to have fun. We have no recreation here. When we were kids, we played football, but now it’s not possible. There is no recreation for us. Go to work. When your eyes open, go to work, and when you come home at night, you are exhausted and collapse. We have no recreation. If we don’t go to work one day, the next day we are worried that we will die of hunger. Here we only work. We don’t live. We just breathe and are alive." This week in Remember, we invite you to hear the voices of the most deprived, marginalized, and disadvantaged people of Iran. This week we will talk about the depths of deprivation, the peak of double oppression. A conversation with porters and fuel carriers who are constantly on the move, often at the border, have no internet, their mobile phones do not help, they must always be ready to escape, they must always be worried about staying alive and returning home alive, a conversation with porters and fuel carriers who live in fear, evasion, and deprivation is a difficult task, especially if our way is so far. It took several months, but finally, these people will hear the voice of their suffering in this program and they ask you to hear their voices and remember their suffering. The suffering of the people at the zero border. Teenage fuel carrier: "Fuel carrying has many dangers, such as the vehicle catching fire, overturning, or having an accident. Many of these problems arise, but still, out of necessity, sometimes people do things they have to do. When, for example, there are expenses for a wife and children. Expenses for a sick person at home. Because of these things, people do anything. There is no future in this job that we can say that eventually something will remain for us that we can save for tomorrow or use this money to buy a house or start another job! No! You work one day, you eat that day. If you don’t work and don’t go for a trip, that day you have nothing to eat. The income is such that if you want to make a round trip to the border, you should not have your hand out in front of anyone. It cannot be more than this. Either it’s vehicle wear and tear or household expenses. Up to the tower, sometimes we have worked and again because of the money for water, electricity, rent, and living expenses, we are left wondering what to do. It is not enough to say that we can save from this savings. No, it cannot be done. Unfortunately, there is no other job in our province that has a factory or a company. Yes, there are companies that want daily wage workers. We have worked with them on a contract. I myself went for eight months without pay. After eight months, they paid one or two months, which was nothing. I have borrowed from everywhere and from shopkeepers. The electricity bill is overdue and... we don’t know which to pay. To pay for the children’s school – for siblings. We don’t know what to do." This is the voice of a teenage fuel carrier. Many Baluch and Kurdish men who have been fuel carriers for years started this work from childhood and adolescence. They learned to grapple with death very early, witnessing the deaths of their companions, friends, and loved ones in the rugged mountains or on dirt border roads has been their daily routine. It is never clear if they will return this time. Teenage fuel carrier: "Every time I have loaded and left, my mother stays awake all night. From the moment I leave home until I return; maybe during the round trip, my mother calls ten or twenty times... Where have you reached? When are you coming? She is always worried. She stays awake all night." I ask him if he has ever been shot at by the guards. Teenage fuel carrier: "Yes. They have shot at us and we have been ambushed. We fled and they shot. The first bullet they fired hit the side mirror of the car. One bullet hit the back door of the car. Then we went over the thorny area. The tire of the car got punctured. Then they shot the fuel tank and the car could not go any further. We stopped and they caught our car. I got caught too. My car with four barrels of diesel got caught, and they fined me 85 million tomans. They sent me to the enforcement agency, and in summary, they gave me a discount and the fine became 65 million tomans. I didn’t have 65 million tomans to pay, and my car was confiscated and sold at auction, and they deducted the fine from the price of the car. My car was worth 180 million tomans and they sold it for 65 million tomans and deducted the fine. In the end, I got nothing! But the agents who chase and arrest these porters and fuel carriers, those who have weapons in hand and pull the trigger, the Revolutionary Guards who control the borders, the law that confiscates all the possessions and existence of this teenage fuel carrier and his family, namely his car which is a means of fuel carrying and sells it, where does this system stand at the border? A few years ago, the National Security Commission of the Parliament announced that 10 million liters of fuel are smuggled out of Iran's eastern borders daily. Such enormous profits that it is hard to ignore. But can a fuel carrier who needs bread for dinner transport 10 million liters of fuel? The Washington Post, in its January 4, 2022 issue, published a detailed report revealing the extensive network of the Revolutionary Guards for smuggling fuel at Iran's eastern borders. This newspaper identified the IRGC as the hub of the large fuel smuggling chain in Iran. A chain that sends Iranian diesel to China, Somalia, and Yemen. Millions of barrels and billions of dollars in profit. The IRGC, the same entity known as an octopus that has completely monopolized Iran's economy, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran, referred to its leaders as "our smuggler brothers" years ago and said: "The figures are not even a penny. Two thousand billion tomans is just the cigarette consumption in Iran. It tempts all the world's top smugglers. Let alone what the other side calls our smuggler brothers!" Monitoring the transfer of fuel from Iran to Pakistan; a claim made by the IRGC. Since 2015, a plan called Razagh has been initiated. Fuel cards were issued, but this card has never been useful for fuel carriers and has changed nothing in their lives. The condition for receiving a fuel card for fuel carriers was membership in the Basij. All of this is not to eliminate fuel and goods smuggling but to control and manage the enormous profits from large-scale smuggling; openly, in broad daylight, with vehicles bearing IRGC plates. Meanwhile, in Sistan and Baluchestan, many Baluch families, without any backing, capital, or even a job that provides them with bread and water, have been trying for a long time to provide a motorcycle for the father or brother of the family so that they can earn a living by transporting fuel from this side to that side of the border. Because this is the only way for these people to make a living. Sometimes women in the family sew for months to save money for a second-hand motorcycle. That too may catch fire or be stolen. Baluch fuel carrier: "There are military thieves. There are also personal thieves. The IRGC goes into the mountains and takes people's motorcycles and things. Personal thieves aside. They completely block the way and take the motorcycle and beat the person. It’s a total mess. I know someone whose two sisters sewed and bought a motorcycle, and he went to the border. They caught him on the second or third trip and took his motorcycle and beat him up. The IRGC soldiers at the border take money, take fuel containers, or take the motorcycle. They harass and beat people." The Baluch activists' campaign says that one fuel carrier is killed daily. An event that has become so repetitive that it is now like a passing news item, even though it is about the lives and existence of people, the most deprived people. On the other side, porters are killed in border areas. Either they step on a mine, or they are shot, or they fall from steep mountains, or they perish in the harshness of winter and the avalanche debris. Sardasht, Paveh, and Marivan are full of porters who have survived but not unscathed. They have lost their eyesight, have severe injuries, or their mobility is severely limited, and yet they still have to bring bread to their empty table. Many porters have disappeared in the heights of Kurdistan. They have gone and never returned. Azad Khosravi was 17 years old and his brother, Farhad, was 14 years old. When they were found, both had frozen in the blizzard and cold of the snowy mountains. These children were portering for a morsel of bread. Local mourners at their funeral each held a piece of bread in their hands. ************* His father was a porter. They earned their bread through portering. Rozhan, whom I refer to by a pseudonym, has spoken to me from the border town of Baneh. She is full of sobs, sadness, anger, and emotion: "My father has been portering for about four or five years since 2013-2014. At that time we were kids and really didn’t understand anything about the world. He would go portering and several times we heard news that there had been shooting and it was unclear where my father was. Just this summer, they shot two of our young men, and out of fear for their lives, they threw themselves into the Hengeshal dam of Baneh, and unfortunately, their bodies were found after about two or three weeks. The government did not allow them to search too much for them or to go deep because many political prisoners are tied up and thrown into the dams. They tie a heavy stone to them and they go to the bottom of the dam to die... Then my father would always take a bottle of water with him. Sometimes they would stay there for one or two days and nights in that cold and snow. They would take three or four pieces of bread and cheese and simple things. They were porters and could not buy anything substantial. Sometimes when they went, they would say it would take a few hours and they would not bring anything and come back, but they would end up staying there for two days without water and food and nothing, and they would stay until the way opened or they could escape from the bullets and return. What did you and your mother feel when your father went portering? Kurdish girl: Well, we were small. My brother was 7 years old when my father died. I mean, at that time when my father went portering, he was about four or five years old. He didn’t understand anything. He would definitely say my father goes to work and comes back.