Rich Man in Kurdistan

Rich Man in Kurdistan

by Bertwin Lord

Some say there are no rich men in Kurdistan. Maybe it is because there are not many men. Or maybe it is just the definition of rich that should change.

The mountains on the horizon are on fire. Children gathering on the hillside barely pay it any heed on this Thursday morning. A long line of children trod on by with baskets on their heads and a burden’s curve in their back. Brisk morning breezes from the mountains above bring crisp whiteness to their breath.

Back in the United States these children would be on their way to school, but here in the mountains outside of Hawler the closest school is over 45 miles away.

There are few people, but many reasons to work in Kurdistan. Since the Kurdish peoples first note in 3,000 BC in writings from the Sumerians to the present day, these people have seen the backlash of many civilizations.

In Iraq today there are 4 – 6 million Kurds and in the Middle East there is an estimated 25 to 35 million Kurds, none of which have a country to call their own. In Iraq Kurds have been persecuted by the Ba`athist regime coming to power in 1968. Even though this heralds a time of great sadness for the Kurdish people, the wholesale slaughter of an entire generation only began after the 1980’s Iran – Iraq war.

In the city of Halabja on 15 March-19 March in 1988 the Halabja poison gas attack was one of the greatest direct attacks on the Kurdish people. Of course no one knows if it was the Iranian or Iraqi forces that were to blame for the gassing or if it was an unintentional byproduct of war.

No confusion exists on who is to blame for the Iraq regimes Al-Anfal campaign between 1986 and 1989. The Al-Anfal campaign takes its name from Surat Al-Anfal1 in the Qur'an. This holy name was then used as a code for the Iraqi Ba`athist regime to place a holy calling on a series of military campaigns aimed at extermination of the peshmerga rebels2 and the mostly Kurdish civilian population of southern Kurdistan.

The campaign was headed by Ali Hasan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin who used ground offensives, aerial bombing, systematic destruction of settlements, mass deportation, concentration camps, firing squads, and most disasasterously - chemical warfare thereby earning al-Majid the nickname of "Chemical Ali" to exterminate the Kurdish people from the land.

The results of the Al-Anfal campaign led to the elimination of 3,827 villages (approximately 75%), 1754 schools being destroyed, 2450 mosques demolished, 48 churches leveled, and 270 hospitals wiped out and according to The Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International 182,000 civilians were systematically eliminated.

Loosing ones schools, places of worship, homes, as well as brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, and children would seem to be the worst that could happen to a people. Yet the Kurdish have always seemed to known that this was their lot in the world. There is a saying amongst the Kurdish people, “No friends but the mountain.” In all of their history the Kurdish people have had to flee to the mountains to escape one group after another who had either ethnocentric ideal or religious ideology that called for the blood of unbelievers. As the largest ethnicity in the world without their own country the Kurdish people are at the mercy of governments in over 9 different countries.

If physical destruction and murder was not enough, Kurdish Iraq also had to deal with the “arabization” of Kurdistan. Arabization was an idea used by Hussein's regime to drive Kurdish families from their homes in cities like Kirkuk by moving in poor Arabs from Iraq’s southern regions to flood the northern territories with Arabs and thusly limit the Kurdish majority.

After the first Gulf War, in 1991, the United States forced a “No-Fly-Zone” over northern Iraq establishing relative peace in the Kurdish region of Iraq for the first time in generations. The resultant action was the creation of a democratic government by the Kurdish people that was the first in the Middle East to embrace the tenants of freedom and understanding. Of course, no new society is perfect, and many setbacks occurred. But the Iraqi-Kurds are building a society when everyone else seems to just want to destroy. Universities have sprung up all over Kurdish Iraq, as well as open forums inviting in foreign investors. The Kurdish people do not tolerate terrorists or criminals in their land no matter their ethnicity. Arabs, Christians, Jews, and Kurds all live together in relative peace. The young kids in Kurdish Iraq are now starting to have dreams of becoming builders in their society, even young girls are encouraged to go to school and become engineers. This however is the story in the cities that have received aid from foreign countries and donations from private groups.

Out in the countryside, where the devastation from Saddam’s attacks was the worst, there is a different story. Children whose parents have either been killed or fled to the cities to find work are raising each other. Those who are too old or feeble to walk depend on the children to sustain their lives.

Walking through the villages you see an entire generation is missing, no fathers to teach their sons how to be a man, and no mothers to teach compassion. These children are forced to grow up at an early age. Some are missing limbs or are horribly disfigured from mines left by the Iraqi military in wheat fields and orchards.

Fleeing to the fields that give death as easily as they yield life the children learn by trial of elimination to disarm the same mines that took so many of their lives. They sell them to UN troops for money and small rations of food thereby gleaning life from something that for so long has been an instrument of death.

Even with the rugged cut of the Iraqi-Kurdish youth like all kids they yearn for the gentle touch of compassion's sweet caress or just anyone to show they care even in the smallest regard. Soldiers become children’s heroes just by giving them chocolate when they pass by or waving a friendly hello. Soldiers who stay with these delightful children long enough to open the breach of communication find the language barrier to not enter the scope of issues as the universal language of love is evident in the simple actions shared between an 18 year old soldier far away from home and the 8 year old life hardened child who just yearns to be loved.

Halfway around the world in a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean live three people who are not Kurdish. All three come from middle class families who have not had many hardships in their life. All three men are in completely different corners of society yet a common thread binds them together. Dr. Paul Kingery is the Associate Dean of Research at the University of Hawaii’s College of Education, James Filibeck is a Business Student at the University of Hawaii, and my name is Bertwin Lord I am a nuclear mechanical engineering operator on submarines for the United States Navy. The three of us are as different in personality as we are in careers yet we are working together to try and improve life in Kurdistan the best we know how.

You may wonder what three white men on the island of Hawaii have to do with Kurdistan or why with all of the world’s problems we choose one so far away and unrelated to our local concerns. I have asked myself this same question time and time again. Even I am not sure what the answer is; it could be the touching scenes left in my heart from the stories of Gulf War soldiers talking about the brave citizens that helped them in the first Gulf War only to have to turn their back on them when they needed the US the most, or maybe it is a ingrained desire to help the little man, even more possible I see the untapped potential of spreading peace through the only tangible finger hold in the middle east at this time. I do not know what the answer is I just know that my heart has been moved.

Currently Dr. Kingery (Paul), Mr. Filibeck (James), and I (Bert) are working with the US State Department and several agencies along with the University of Hawaii and several universities in Iraqi-Kurdistan to better the available education and increase the houses of education. As easy as it may seem to travel halfway around the world and help people that barely have running water let alone email or cell phones there are more then a few bumps on this gravel road. The first is a lack of concern in many people’s eyes towards the plight of the Kurdish people, or any of the forgotten people in the Middle East. Second would be a lack of funding which we try to supplement with government grants and University stipends. We make do with what we can yet often I find that my own money is being used to make sure the shipment of books makes it over to Mosul or the container of computers arrives safely in Irbil.

On May 10th 2006 Dr. Kingery and James Filibeck will set out on their journey to Kurdistan to meet with many of the professors that we have been in contact with and who have received our books and computers. They will be bringing more computers as well as software to the people in Mosul. This will be our first contact with many of the people we are trying to help. I will not be able to travel with them as my status as an American Military Member precludes me from traveling to Iraq without military escort of military reasons. Where my military background has helped so many times before, it now is a liability. At least I was able to help Dr. Kingery and James get there.

When Dr. Kingery and James return at the beginning of June we will know a lot more about what we need to get done to assist the people in Iraq more then ever before. At a young age I learned what it means to be rich. My father said that if every day you can say that you made the life of even one person better – then you are rich. My father was the richest man I ever knew. When he died over 1,700 people came to see him at the showing and his funeral was held in a high school gymnasium to accommodate all of the people who wanted to say good by to a man that had touched their soul. I am not looking for the same funeral, but I know that if I touch just one life that may have never been touched in any other way – then I to will be a rich man in Kurdistan.

Notes

1 - Surat al-Anfal (Arabic: سورة الأنفال ) ("the Spoils of War")[1] is the 8th sura of the Qur'an, with 75 ayat. It is a Madinan sura, recorded after the Battle of Badr. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Anfal)

2 - Peshmerga, pesh merga, peshmarga or peshmerge (Kurdish: pêşmerge) is the term used by Kurds to refer to armed Kurdish fighters. Literally meaning "those who face death" (pêş front + merg death e is)

References

Randal, Jonathen C., 1993 ,After Such Knowledge, What Forgivness? My encounters with Kurdistan, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, ISBN 0-8133-3580-9 (pb)