Sawt al-Thawra was the organ of the PFLOAG which by the time of the periodical’s publication in 1972 was the main organisation of the revolutionary political movement in Dhufar. The PFLOAG emerged out of the DLF at the Hamrin Conference in September 1968, adopting among other resolutions a commitment to armed struggle, a strategy of connecting the struggle in Dhufar to the wider revolutionary struggle of the Gulf region, and an ideological position of scientific socialism. Regarding the latter, the adoption of a Marxist-Leninist ideology not only brought about elements of Soviet and Chinese support but also positioned the struggle in Dhufar and the Gulf in the tricontinental network of the revolutionary struggles of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Reporting on and publishing the telegrams, messages and visits between the PFLOAG and socialist states, political organisations, student associations, trade unions, and other connected movements, Sawt al-Thawra documented and revealed a geographically vast web of the PFLOAG’s political and foreign relations anchored in the often overlapping socialist world and the revolutionary Third World. As the official archives of the Dhufar Revolution based in Aden were lost during the 1994 Yemeni civil war, Sawt al-Thawra offers an abundant source of information, detail and documentary evidence on the PFLOAG’s international activities and connections.

In this issue of the PFLP Bulletin, the authors reported on a visit by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam to Dhufar between 16-26 September 1972. A joint communique was issued pledging the support of both parties to one another, including the Vietnamese delegation’s denouncement of “the regional plans of imperialism in the Gulf, and the attempt to suppress the people’s struggle and maintaining the area under the control of the oil cartels and their local Sultan agents”. The delegations both declared their unequivocal support for the Palestinian people.
PFLP Bulletin, no. 4, 1972. Source: Institute for Palestine Studies.

“We are with you, o revolutionaries of Oman”: A special section on the Dhufar Revolution in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)’s periodical Filastin al-Thawra on the tenth anniversary of the revolution.
Filastin al-Thawra, no. 146, 8 June 1975. Source: Institute for Palestine Studies.

The coverage given to Palestine in Sawt al-Thawra displayed the extent to which the Palestinian Revolution was important for the PFLOAG both materially and symbolically. The PFLOAG had close relations with organisations such as the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and Fatah. Regular communications and exchanges with Palestinian organisations were published in Sawt al-Thawra in addition to poetry, interviews and articles about the Palestinian cause.  ^{1 See for example: Sawt al-Thawra, no. 133, 7 December 1974 on the Palestinian issue; Sawt al-Thawra, no. 166, 10 August 1975 on a statement from George Habash, Secretary General of the PFLP, about the Omani and Palestinian revolutions; Sawt al-Thawra, [unnumbered,] 3 February 1976 for a poem by Sakher Habash, a leading figure in Fatah.}

A few Palestinian volunteers took part in the Dhufar Revolution, such as Nazmi Khorshid (Doctor Marwan) who joined via the PDFLP, alongside other cadres and medical volunteers, such as the Iranian sisters Mahbubeh Afraz (Docturah Zahra) and Rafat Afraz from the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (Marxist-Leninist), and a Cuban medical delegation that established the Martyr Fatima Ghanana (al-Shaheeda Fatima Ghanana) Hospital in Al-Ghaydah.  ^{2 Halliday, Sultans, 385; Takriti, Monsoon Revolution, 302; Naghmeh Sohrabi, “Where the Small Things Are: Thoughts on Writing Revolutions and their Histories,” Jadaliyya, 21 May 21 2020, https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41154; Fernando Camacho Padilla, “Las Relaciones Entre Latinoamérica E Irán Durante La última década De La dinastía Pahleví,” Anuario De Historia De América Latina 56 (December 2019): 66-96.}

In addition to the student-based solidarity activities of Iranian students studying in metropolitan centres mostly in Europe and North America, a number of clandestine Iranian Left organisations including the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (Marxist-Leninist), the Organisation of Iranian People’s Fadai Guerrillas and the Star Group operating under the Organisations of the National Front of Iran Abroad (Middle East Branch) established relations with the PFLO.  ^{3 See the excerpt below.} Through these connections, small numbers of Iranians volunteered in the revolution as abovementioned as medical volunteers; as fighters in the People’s Liberation Army; as teachers; and some worked in the revolution’s media and foreign relations department. The extensive coverage in Sawt al-Thawra following the shah’s activities included regular translations from Iranian newspapers, which was made possible by the physical presence of an Iranian cadre in the PFLOAG’s media committee.