ISIS not the only enemy for Iraqi Kurds

11 February 2015

Australian chemical engineer Geoff McKee says that he has never heard of such things as people having to be bussed away from a drilling rig emitting poisonous gases.

But this is a reality for Iraqi villagers living adjacent to an Exxon Mobil oil rig.

In Northern Iraq, foreign owned oil companies have been moving in. They are signing new 'partner sharing' agreements with the Kurdish Regional Government where they are paid a percentage for each barrel of oil extracted.

As some are turfed from their land to make way for oil production, Iraqi people must fight for their most basic rights.

In late 2014 I travelled to the region as part of a Christian Peacemaker Team.

There, in Shaqwala district on the outskirts of Erbil, I met Mushin, the community leader of Sartka village. Mushin’s family lost 70 dunums of land when Exxon Mobil moved in. His father was so distraught by the loss of their prized land he had a heart attack and died not long after.

Mushin led a defiant last stand, blocking the road to Exxon Mobil when they came.

'I didn’t take any gun with me,’ he says.

It’s better if you have no gun, just sitting on the road by myself and closing the road in [a] peace way, not fighting and using [the] gun,' he says.

But his actions were in vain, guards moved in and he was dragged away as a bulldozer cleared the land to make way for the rig. The driver crying as he destroyed crops and fields.

But Muhsin has a new job now. He is the 'emergency' bus driver. As poisonous gases are released from the rig, an alarm sounds and villagers are instructed to board the emergency bus, which takes them to the safety of the next village. Now landless, Mushin has no other job options.

At a community consultation meeting, the community was promised new roads, schools and a hospital in exchange for giving up their land. None of of these benefits has eventuated. Instead they received 60 new school bags for the kids worth around $50 each.

Eventually it was agreed that villagers would receive compensation in the form of rent for use of their lands. The varied amounts determined by the Ministry of Agriculture have been a source of tension among villagers. A deliberate tactic is to divide communities and quash resistance.

'We just want our rights,’ he says, 'They are nearly 4500 metres down. How can we

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ISIS not the only enemy for Iraqi Kurds

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