I shall continue to press the matter for full satisfaction with all
energy, perseverance, and urgency, but if other representations or
demonstration are to be made, I shall await further instructions.
[Inclosure.]
Mr. Tyler to
the Mushir-ed-Dowlah.
American Legation,
Teheran, July 28,
1904.
Your Excellency: At our interview on the
20th of June you asked me to telegraph to the Government of the
United States that the Kurds, accomplices of Mir Ghaffar, the
murderer of Mr. Labaree, had been demanded of His Imperial Highness
the Valialed (crown prince) and that you were confident that they
would be arrested and produced.
As I had heard nothing from your excellency on the subject, I wrote
on the 13th instant, reminding you of what had passed, and at the
same time forwarding for your information a translation of a letter
which I had received frm the Department of State, in which I was
urged to press the case upon your attention.
On the 20th instant Mirza Hussein Guli Khan Navale called to talk
over the matter and ask for the names of the accused. I begged of
him to tell your excellency that the situation was grave indeed, and
that the Government of the United States would not give up their
demands until justice was meted out to these criminals.
On the 23d instant I sent to your excellency a list of the fourteen
men charged with this crime and their places of abode, so that it
should not be said that the governor of Urumia lacks the necessary
information to enable him to act effectively.
It is usual in crimes of this kind, and of much less barbarity, for a
government to employ all the resources of its criminal
administration to discover the perpetrators, and not, as in this
case, throw the whole weight of the investigation upon the
sufferers.
The first and chiefest duty of a government is to protect the lives
and property not only of its own citizens, but of all others who in
the pursuit of peaceable objects settle within its dominions, and
the punishment of evil doers, to whatever class, nationality, or
position they may belong.
When the governor of Urumia is asked what steps he has taken to
satisfy himself of the culpability of these men, he replies “None;”
and without instituting any independent inquiry or accepting the
testimony of others, for the sake of a bribe, he pronounces the
Kurds not guilty. A man who, as governor, demands and receives large
sums of money to protect the guilty parties in such a barbarous case
is utterly unfit for his position and ought to be removed and
replaced by some one sensible of the responsibilities devolving upon
such an office.
It is with much regret that I have to complain of the intervention to
protect these men of Mirza Hussein Aga, the chief ecclesiastical
authority of Urumia, whose religious position should incline him to
purge the city and district of crime and transgressions of the law,
but who is openly accused of shielding and protecting criminals
instead of punishing them.
It is in the midst of such conditions and circumstances that I have
to inform your excellency that so long as this governor and
mudjtabad (judge) retain their places these men will never be
arrested; and this grave situation will become more serious
still.
I therefore beg to ask, in order to bring this unhappy case to a
conclusion, that these men may be removed from their positions, that
new men be appointed, and stronger measures be enforced for the
arrest of the culprits.
I take, etc.,
