Crapistan
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
They always go empty Adventrue
Three years ago, when I had that first time so closely rubbed up to Iraq, and
was musing with the thought of hitching a lift down, there were still stories
of truck drivers having their throat cut on their way across the Southern
border. In “exchange” for this risk a truck driver received 3000 dollar for
each trip to Iraq. Nowadays they only make half a thousand, but drive in full
security. In the border area in Northern Kurdistan every family except the
poorest -who are nomad and guard sheep as an occupation- has made the
investment of buying a truck.
So it is just logical that sitting in Sami Abdulrahman Park in Hewlêr I meet a
couple of truck drivers from the North. Everyone who comes to Iraqi Kurdistan
over the Turkish landborder sees the long queue of lorries on either side of
the frontier and the two very friendly drivers mention that they have to wait
for 10 days on their way in and about a week on the way out pretty much just
to fill the void in our conversation.
They tell me they have been driving down for ten years now. Soap, potatoes,
washing powder, anything goes down. But back up, they always go empty.
The only thing that is making money in Kurdistan is oil. The
Kurdish government still receives 17% of oil revenues from the central Iraqi
government (although no one seems to know what the exact number in dollars
that would be).
Sunday, June 3, 2007
The women's prison
Adventrue
The woman’s prison in Hewlêr is a sunny place. Kids play between the laundry
waving colourfully in the courtyard and the women are sitting in the shade on
the steps. One elderly lady walks up to us and kisses each on the forehead.
“She has been here for 18 years” says my guide from the Ministry of State
Women Affairs.
We just arrive for lunch time however and everyone is moving inside. So are
we.
The large rooms with ten to twenty beds are a little more austere, but better
equipped than the student residences here, in as much as they have the
generators needed to provide round the clock electricity for the TVs and fans.
Out of politeness the women all stand up when we come, like pupils in a
primary school, but I smile and ask them to make themselves comfortable.
In the room with the long-term convicts (ten of them), there is a girl in
heavy make-up of whom I intuitively understand that she was a prostitute. I
like her best at once. She is the most talkative, too. When, pretty much as a
matter of course, I enquire how the food is and how they are being treated she
uses the few words Sorani that I understand to answer both questions: “zor baş,
zor zor baş”- “very good, very very good”. Afterwards back in the office my
intuition about her gets confirmed “this one liked her job, but there is a
different girl who has a horrifying story. After she slept with her
“boyfriend” who promised to marry her, she was passed on to a souteneur. At
that point, she was not a virgin anymore and had no choice but to do it.”
One woman is in there for plotting with her new boyfriend to kill her husband.
In order that they could be together, his death was the only way in this
culture.
I remember the grey-haired woman with facial tattoos on chin and around the
mouth who sat on the ground. She said she did not want to answer any questions
because “We are too worried about the people who were in the explosion today.
They are our brothers and sisters, too, you know”
Talk about hypocrisy -now I am told that precisely this woman has to sit 23
years together with her husband and son for a series of contract killings.
There are no activities or any kind of rehabilitation programs going on, but
it is something they are working at at the Women's Ministry.
Adventrue
Avrupalılaştırabildiklerinizdenim
Kurdistan
