August 1. 1990:
I was going on vacation to Malaysia. Turning into a human shield hostage wasn’t part of the strategy.
Age 24. I boarded British Airways flight BA149 from London en route to Kuala Lumpur. having a regimen refueling quit in Kuwait. At about 4am on August 2 we re-boarded the plane in preparation to leave Kuwait. Then the pilot announced a delay. This was bad news. Kuwait is dry and I’d need to wait till we were airborne prior to I could sample even more Club class booze. The steward made me a coffee and I stared out the window from the ageing BA 747 as dawn broke across the desert. Passing reduced over the runway. a few hundred meters away. objects were falling from a small aeroplane. Time slowed down as mushroom shaped clouds of dust erupted along the runway and taxiways of the airport. The 747 rocked gently within the shockwaves. This wasn’t part of the BA expertise I’d expected. I grabbed my companion and ‘de-planed’ in to the terminal to shelter from the bombing. faster than a rat from a pipe.
I and my fellow passengers had no concept that we were traveling onboard a Trojan horse. Iraq was invading Kuwait and the British government utilized British Airways flight149 to land an undercover reconnaissance group inside a war zone. We landed a minimum of two (and probably 4) hours following the Iraqi invasion. The Iraqi army rapidly occupied Kuwait and their secret police started rounding up Westerners. I grew to become a ‘Human Shield Hostage’ in Iraq and was eventually interned at Dokan Dam in North East Iraq. investing 131 days away from home.
I returned towards the UK on December 11. 1990. BA rapidly settled compensation claims from court with the American passengers ‘for an undisclosed sum’. Like a British citizen I obtained 200 pounds from BA. although I rapidly squandered this when my doctor in Neuilly. Paris charged me 280 pounds for the follow up healthcare.
February. 2011:
Twenty one years later: I am at home in Thailand on a second brandy following dinner when I begin considering. Could I go back? I’d recently sold my London estate agency company so being from touch using the office was no longer an issue. I called American Express Travel. I wish to visit Iraq. I tell them. The nation is below sanctions. We don’t go there’. a travel consultant told me.
Perfect. So I wouldn’t be meeting any investment bankers on a Banyan Tree ‘spa journey’. Better nonetheless. I wouldn’t be traveling on BA.
March 1. 2011:
The flight from Bahrain flew over Baghdad at 10 pm. an oasis of light amid an otherwise unusually dark landscape below. just before the pilot of the Gulf Air flight began his descent. I thought I’d landed at the shiny new airport in Bournemouth. not Erbil International airport in the ‘Kurdish Autonomous Region’ of Iraq. The immigration queue was shorter in Erbil. Friendlier too. Have you visited before? the cheerful immigration lady enquired. Well. er yes. but not recently. She smiled and gave me a ten day stamp in my passport. I was back in Iraq following 21 many years.
The plan was to cycle to Dokan Dam from Erbil. the industrial and administrative centre of the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq. 40kms because the crow flies and about 90 km by road. I could then play it by ear. using a mixture of nearby transport but mainly my bicycle. My business companion back within the UK had been concerned. Why cycle? he’d asked more than a third martini at Mata Hari’s – my preferred restaurant back home in Thailand. Because I can and Saddam can’t because the c***’s dead. I’d slurred back. I was on a mission.
The Rotana Hotel is on the outskirts of Erbil in North East Iraq. Rooms begin at $250 US a night. Its costly bar will be the hub of investment within the area. Groups of unimaginatively dressed businessmen in the Lebanon. Gulf states. Europe. America – the entire globe it seems – converge here. Big Oil meets NGOs with other people’s cash. but I was here on a spending budget and operating on the 1990 exchange rate. 10 thousand dinars for a Heineken in the hotel bar worked out at $32.000 US plus tip. A useful group in the next table reassured me around the currency and I relaxed – but only just – with my $10 US beer.
August /September 1990:
Hopes from the British government ‘doing something’ had evaporated. It had been a relief in some methods. but I wish I’d learnt the lesson earlier. We may have escaped – as a number of detainees in Kuwait had carried out throughout the early days – driving across the desert in 4x4s to Saudi. Now the Iraqis had been dictating occasions. In late August we had been taken under arrest from Kuwait in an open bus in sweltering 45C heat with the desert towards the Melia hotel in Baghdad. Inside a couple of days I was ordered into a vehicle along with an elderly husband and wife. Patrick and Jean O’Brien from England. Patrick lightened the mood. recounting stories of his time as an oil guy in Nigeria as we drove through desert into the more mountainous and green landscape of Kurdistan. Sadly he suffered a heart attack later that day. Both he and his wife had been transferred to a hospital in Suleymaniya. I never found out whether he produced it home.
Back in England my mum got a telephone call from someone in the Foreign Office informing her I had been detained as a human shield hostage in Iraq.
March 2. 2011
Dawn on my first day in Iraq was met with the sort of buffet breakfast ($15US) you’d anticipate at a 5 star concrete and glass hotel anyplace on the planet. The Pinoy chef undercooked my omelet. but this I could deal with. No-one was pointing guns at me nor telling me they’d shoot me ‘when my American buddies come Iraq’. Reception provided me a complimentary. yet wholly incomprehensible map of Erbil. I assembled my bike. assisted by a bemused and remarkably solicitous Sri Lankan porter and set off towards the town centre and ancient Citadel. I was quickly lost and cycled as much as a police checkpoint to ask directions.
There was some excited shouting behind me from a soldier. so I put my hands up and turned around with a smile and shouted ‘English’. End of issue. I think my backpack had produced them a little edgy. They did not comprehend ‘City Centre’ so I continued on blindly. The only method to get directions in Iraq is to politely inquire the driver or passengers of an SUV at visitors lights.They alone – with the curious exception of shoeshine boys -are prone to talk some English and without exception had been pleased to help.
After a relaxed pat down and cursory search of my backpack by soldiers (who requested I leave my bike with them). I had a quick explore of the Citadel’s textile museum (I was the only visitor). housing a mainly late 20th century collection of rugs. kilims and the like just within the Citadel walls. Cultured up. I was relieved to locate my bike still secure using the soldiers and free-wheeled down to the square below. to join the locals for a cup of over sweetened tea (no payment accepted). The shoe shine boys had been out early – 1.000 dinars or 50 pence appeared to become the going price. I asked 1 if he’d thoughts maintaining an eye on my bike ‘this not England’ he stated. ‘Your bike secure here no have to ask’. His brother had worked within the UK providing him a distinctive personal insight into British culture.
Money changers had been all over the place – their makeshift stalls double as cell phone SIM card and top up retailers. For 10.000 dinars I had my own Iraqi mobile number. Back in the square. shoeshine boy refused a dollar tip for searching out for my bike. I asked directions and 3 people helpfully offered 3 separate sets of directions for finding the road to Dokan. I was soon hopelessly lost – once more – but a useful SUV driver with his buddies drove out of their method to manual me to the road out of town. I frequently heard about ‘Middle East hospitality’ in the ‘Baghdad Observer’ newspaper and Iraqi Tv ‘Guest News’ whilst a hostage in Dokan in 1990. Perhaps there truly was some thing to it past Saddam’s personal interpretation from the concept?
Eight kms from town on a dusty and congested dual carriageway I was getting doubts concerning the cycling concept. This was like cycling around the North Circular. I stopped for a coke and baklava sugar repair and issues quickly improved as visitors thinned and also the road narrowed. the weather in March a pleasant 18C with clear skies. The roadside was strewn with litter. a function across the KAR. Individuals in Iraq picnic and leave their detritus behind. Drivers routinely discard plastic bags and empty cans from the vehicle window. Even Dokan Lake has 1000′s of plastic bottles floating on it and littering the shoreline. It is challenging to create ‘it was not like this in 1990′. Freedom means taking individual responsibility. but that is not an easy factor to discuss with people who drive previous sign posts to Halabja on their way to function in the morning.
It was a miserable bike ride. conserve the hospitality of the couple running a makeshift petrol station who insisted on me joining them for tea and lunch in their modest living space. I was impatient to obtain to Dokan. Trucks and SUVs thundered previous a meter away at over 90 mph. The wind was dry and dusty and also the whole road appeared to possess been constructed at a 1 in 10 gradient. I passed almost no-one save an occasional police or army checkpoint (like a French peage but with tons of guns!) exactly where they examined my passport entry stamp. I gave up following 70Kms and took a taxi. It broke down following much less than 10Km and we limped into an army checkpoint. They soon fixed me up with a ride from a passing SUV driven by a Peshmerga army Colonel en route to Suleymanya. He happily agreed to take me to Dokan. Colonel Abdarasa kindly dropped me at the Ashul Hotel. overlooking Dokan Lake. The Ashul will be the only genuine hotel in the expansive Dokan Lake area. it’s a reassuringly regular 4 star resort inside a Thomson 4T sort of way. with views across Dokan Lake. I’d been right here before.
September 1990:
The early days of our incarceration in 1990 had been fairly liberal. I’d been interned along with 5 Japanese. an American. a German and 3 fellow Englishman at a ‘guest lodge’ overlooking the lake. Even though I was sharing a space with 5 other individuals. we had a little garden and yard to move about in and magnificent views. On a few occasions we’d been taken to the Ashul Hotel for an hour or so to swim. The guards even bought us a coke and informed us we had been ‘guests’. Saddam went further still: We were ‘guests of the Iraqi children’ and ‘peace heroes’. Later we’d been relocated inside the dam itself to a floor just above the turbine space. It was much less pleasant – claustrophobic and noisy with the drone of the five generators in the turbine hall below. to not mention the constant fear of an American bomb or two dropping through the ceiling. The Japanese coined a phrase for the event that intruded on our thoughts day and night – ‘the Big Flush’.
November 1990
The final month or so we’d been moved into huts around the top of the dam. Presumably to become visible towards the satellites. 1 evening whilst we sat consuming. a drunken guard came in. took out his Berretta pistol and held it against my head. ‘America come Iraq I kill you initial Mr. Barry’. he then repeated the procedure amongst 3 or four others before obtaining bored. just so we’d know the ‘order of service’. I’d as soon as known as him a ‘sandwog c***’ – a lot for ‘playing the grey man’. Exactly the same guard had appeared with a bottle of Johnnie Walker on the 9th of December to tell us ‘Mr. Saddam say you go house for your households I so happy’. We’d then. surreally. been taken below guard towards the Ashul Hotel to get a farewell dinner. No-one had an appetite. but we drank the place dry.
March 2. 2011
I was the only guest in the hotel. Hardly surprising at $120 US a evening (cash only. no charge cards accepted) plus you have to speak your way through a minimum of 4 army checkpoints to get there. Barzani. the President. has a villa nearby overlooking the lake. In spite of it is 100+ rooms theres no web site either. I settled in my upgraded space and sought out the bar. They’d put in some new comfy sofas because my 1990 go to. and I found two locals ensconced. merrily polishing off a bottle of Pernod. The Sri Lankan waiter brought me a beer more than – it had been a long day. 1 of my new companions was a senior engineer on the dam. Mr. Aker. Do you know Mr. Rouel?’ I asked. He certainly did.
Sat within the hotel more than a beer. sharing their meals. Mr. Aker gave me Mr. Rouel’s mobile quantity.
August – December 1990
Mr. Shammon Roel was the resident Engineer of Dokan Dam when Saddam’s army invaded Kuwait. A Christian Assyrian and Anglophile he was living in a little villa overlooking the lake with his youthful family members when orders come from on higher in Baghdad. He was likely to be getting some ‘guests’ and could be accountable for that practical arrangements. below the watchful gaze of the Secret Police contingent of three Saddam moustached psychopaths and assorted conscript soldiers. The diktat was for us to become confined 24/7.
Fortunately for us. Mr. Rouel’s comprehending from the word ‘guests’ is very various to that of the ‘villager from Tikrit’. He persuaded our guards to permit us out for a walk as frequently as twice a week. in the early days at least. All through September we felt more like ‘guestages’ than ‘human shield hostages’. on one occasion becoming escorted by the guards to his home for tea on the lawn. His youngest daughter. aged 6. passed around with a tray of sweets dressed in her best clothes. It had been a very human gesture and not with out personal risk to Mr. Rouel himself.
He’d also assisted in one very important way – he received hold of a battered. but nonetheless serviceable shortwave radio for us. The signature tune from the BBC World Service Radio was addictive (why on earth did the BBC drop this intro music – how out of touch are they?). We listened in towards the news most days and heard P.M. (although not for much longer) Margaret Thatcher tell parliament that ‘the human shield hostages in Iraq are expendable’. Thanks Maggie.
In November 1990 he’d informed us the nearby college children needed to come towards the dam and sing for us. We thought this was just cynical propaganda from a local Saddam sycophant and extremely ungraciously declined the offer.
March 6. 2011
And so I was able meet Mr. Rouel once more. several days after my opportunity encounter using the engineer in the Ashul Hotel. He met me in front of St. Nicholas Church in Einkawa. where two plain clothing guards were on duty with automated weapons.
‘You are my guest again’ he joked. ‘We will maintain you guest at your home in Kurdistan but this time is different’. and so we mentioned old occasions more than a beer at his home and later at a restaurant in the Christian enclave of Einkawa. Erbil (skewered chicken. salad. rice and pitta bread) and I got to hear something of his side of the story.
He explained. diplomatically so as not to offend. that the kids and teachers had certainly needed to come to the dam and sing to let us know they had been on our side. It was humbling to understand the nearby college kids cared – even if our own government did not. Being locked up within a dam waiting to be killed is dehumanizing. Mr. Rouel and also the local individuals had been quietly working in the background to reverse the process. A harmful undertaking with the Mukhabarat (Iraqi Baathist Secret Police) keeping a close eye on proceedings.
The Kurdish Iraqis hated Saddam much more than we did. Many years later on. I’d felt strangely uncomfortable viewing Saddam becoming ‘lynched’ on YouTube. my western liberal sensitivities pricked by the manner of his death in front of a mob. I asked Mr. Rouel how people in Iraq had reacted. We danced within the streets to get a week. he informed me. His son in law (and husband to the girl of 6 wed met in his garden in 1990) looked on smiling. fondly remembering the day he’d watched Saddam drop with the floor in the finish of the rope.
Another question was the chance of escape in 1990. The shortwave radio allowed us to help keep abreast of any acceleration in the military build up in Kuwait and also the endless UN Resolutions. Within the dam the time was coming when the risk of death or injury trying to escape may weigh less heavily than the risk of execution or being hit by ‘Friendly Fire’. Impossible. he informed me. The area around the dam all the method to the Iranian border was a curfew zone after 4pm and entirely managed by the military. We would have already been shot on sight.
March 2. 2011
But on my first day back in Dokan it was time for you to consume. I took a taxi into the village for dinner. (Note: Do not visit Iraq unless of course you like skewered chicken. salad. rice and pitta bread). The restaurant proprietor had been 18 in 1990 and remembered me dodging our guards and furtively attempting to purchase some high calorie snacks from his dad’s roadside kiosk during an exercise break from the dam (I needed to create a food stash in case I ever had an opportunity to escape). He now runs a effective restaurant company employing twelve employees serving up a huge selection of meals each day. I was extremely happy to possess a photo taken with him. If you’re ever in Dokan look out for his restaurant. Probably the best skewered chicken. salad. rice and pitta bread in the world.
March 3. 2011
I couldn’t discover anyone to make breakfast in the hotel. so collected my bike and set off. Cycling down into Dokan vehicle drivers honked their horns. waved and smiled. Hey look! A tourist!?. Stopping to take photos. a farmer herding sheep diverted his flock so I could consider a better picture. The views across the lake and mountains past are incomparable. It seems likely the long term from the Dokan area will lie in tourism. They’ve definitely received the proper mindset. I wonder how this will change as they inevitably begin to receive thousands of visitors to the lakes and mountains within the area in the long term?
The primary thoroughfare in Dokan village is a non-descript parade of shanty style retailers. I discovered a minimum of two ‘off licenses’. several barber retailers as well as more tea retailers and kebab style restaurants. where local men gathered throughout the day and into the evening. An excellent place to possess a cup of sugary early morning tea and a shave. Safety is tight with perhaps six troops and as numerous police again patrolling only a couple of hundred meters of road. As a stranger in town I was quickly subjected to passport checks. Mainly this was carried out with great grace. although there is nonetheless a particular paranoia among the local security forces. My smile faded at the third passport inspection and second bag verify in much less than an hour and also the atmosphere became a bit tense. The soldiers speak nearly no English. but a passer by interceded and it was soon all smiles and ‘mafi mushkalas’. Word went around following that and the only interest from the nearby police and soldiers took the form of smiles. waves and salutes.
Mr. Aker (Pernod and dinner at the Ashul Hotel) had arranged safety clearance to get a tour from the dam. Inside. engineers labour on with its 1950s Soviet technology. now being gradually updated with Italian produced manage systems. although its manage space nonetheless resembles a scene from Dr Strangelove. The dam was hit by four laser guided bombs during the Desert Storm air campaign in 1991 but harm was superficial. The 5 turbines remain perfectly serviceable following forty plus many years. although there is not sufficient water in the lake to permit their operation this spring. Describing what it felt prefer to walk back into ‘the prison’ we’d occupied twenty one many years earlier defies my vocabulary. Let us just say it had been emotional and leave it at that. A distinguished Kurdish gentleman struggled with his composure – as I did on a few occasions that morning – as he recalled he had driven us to Baghdad. Other staff had their very own memories and a series of group photos was called for. Local students were visiting the dam and needed a group photograph also. They lined up superbly. as if choreographed by a hidden hand. additional confirming my optimism for the long term of Kurdistan.
I required a beer. Suleymanya. about 60kms away appeared like a good idea.
If Erbil is Washington. Suleymanya is New York. Suleymaniyans told me that outside the city the rest of Kurdistan includes dumb farmers or corrupt politicians. We drove the final couple of miles along the primary Baghdad / Suleymanya Highway. There’s construction everywhere – half finished retailers. offices and homes – creating among the ugliest urban landscapes I’ve ever noticed. The taxi refused to leave me within the city centre of Suleymanya. rather dropping me 2 miles out. so I assembled my bike and cycled in straight into the middle of a demonstration within the old city square. Large Ford trucks with water cannon mountings had been lined up along the park adjacent to the historic city centre. One appeared to be smeared with red paint. Within the walled old city I passed demonstrators wearing black wraps. I’d promised buddies I’d stay away from trouble hotspots and had walked (well. cycled) right into 1.
I was already attracting some stares. but legging it might be like letting the rabbit loose at Crayford Dog Stadium. Besides I was right here to exorcise demons and running isn’t good therapy. So I smiled and stated ‘good afternoon’. They were friendly and discovered myself chatting in broken English to several of them: Exactly where you from? – London. Why you come Kurdistan? – Vacation. You like Kurdistan? – Yes. extremely much. What you think about Barzani? – I’m only a guest in Kurdistan it is up to you.. They wanted to understand if the movement in Tunisia and Egypt would spread to Iraq – as if I’d know? I left using the impression they wanted alter but had no concept what they needed in its place. much much less whod lead them via it. They want much less corruption for certain. The present Barzani government is nearly universally recognized amongst the populace for its cronyism and corruption.
Talk to anybody under thirty in Suleymaniya and they will tell you exactly the same thing – ‘the government does nothing for us’. For sure too much land and wealth is within the hands of the government. The perception – and probably the reality – is that too much of this wealth is doled out to friends and family. However. concepts of self determination and ‘making it happen’ (themes which are common to any entrepreneur back home) are still new right here. The cage door might have already been opened in Kurdistan. but exactly where was the will to fly out? I spoke with two lads running an web cafe who felt stifled in their attempts to grow a company. Perhaps I was overstepping the mark by suggesting big boss ‘Uncle Saddam’ was not in charge anymore and if they did not consider charge of their lives themselves was not there a danger that some other bastard may? They agreed and we exchanged ideas on developing their company. 1 of them was a php web programmer I suggested he a minimum of spoke to a couple of hotels like the Ashul to create web sites for them. Later on that evening I learned that a minimum of 6 protestors had been killed by the police one hundred meters away. just 24 hours earlier.
That short second in Suleymanya aside. I by no means as soon as felt in danger. Quite the opposite. Wherever I went individuals had been keen to tell me they had a brother/father/friend working in England. Preferred professions had been pizza delivery. vehicle washing and my individual favorite – ‘I work with knife in Bernard Mathews Norfolk’. Once the west sets out to win hearts and minds within the Middle East. a smile and typical courtesy for immigrants in crap jobs in your own home might be more effective than an NGO having a Toyota Land Cruiser and index linked pension. Less expensive too.
I passed the evening taking part in pool in an upstairs pool hall. At first wary. I was quickly smoking hookah pipes with remarkably pleasant locals – three brothers and a buddy on the weekly ‘Thursday night out using the lads’. One common query was why was it so challenging for them to travel towards the UK once they learned I had a ten day visa on arrival within the KAR of Iraq. I explained why the UK had to be cautious because it could not afford to give everyone totally free healthcare. training. homes and cash. They all thought this a blindingly convincing argument – it shocked me that nobody had believed to explain it before. I wasn’t permitted to spend for that pool. my tea or the smoke.
The evening was concluded having a drunken session within the downstairs bar at my chosen city centre hotel. ‘The Palace’ ($100 a night and Okay in a seedy 3 star kind of way and no web site that I could find either). A youthful Kurd was going off to work in Holland to join his girlfriend and wanted some advice. ‘Had I visited Holland?’. I attempted to explain social tolerance. gay rights. drugs and free speech as very best I could. He informed me he could by no means have anything to do with ‘gay things’ as he sat. arm draped about his buddy while an additional friend. a slightly effete lad of 23 or so. shifted uncomfortably in his seat. We all cuddled up and took a photograph. They refused to allow me pay for their drinks – or my own.
March 4. 2011
Suleymanya has some fascinating old souks and markets and a much more cosmopolitan air than Erbil so I spent a morning exploring. The town’s street markets buzz with activity. Aside from the typical fresh create I was struck seeing males carrying cages with perhaps a brace of reside poultry and others. usually younger men. selling pigeons (to eat or to tame I’ve no concept). They looked as if they’d traveled into town in the surrounding countryside. just to promote a couple of birds that had been meticulously reared over the final few months. A great location to stop and view the planet go by with limitless cups of sweet black tea.
I pedaled 50 kms or so back towards Dokan from Suleymanya prior to accepting the offer of a lift from a soldier inside a Nissan pickup. his Kalashnikov propped up among us in the cab – arriving just in time for you to view a local a football match around the little towns dusty and uneven football pitch. Dokan lost 3-1 as locals turned out in force to cheer the nearby side. I started to feel in your own home. The group coach. Mr. Salam is definitely an engineer in the dam. but additionally doubles as group coach for that Iraqi Triathlon team. I stayed like a guest in their dorm overnight and the following day was joined by two Iraqi Nationwide Team Tri-athletes for a run as much as the dam and back into town.
March 5. 2011
In 1990. gazing across towards the mountains and Iran beyond. I’d frequently imagined being able to swim within the lake. Its extremely. extremely cold why you want swim now? asked my host. the quantity 1 Iraqi Triathlon group cyclist. Because I can and Mr. Saddam can’t was the best I could solution. So the three of us rode up the steep hill. across the dam and down to the lake. I was somewhat embarrassed that my own bike with it is carbon frame and Shimano XT brakes and gear set was more advanced than their very own bikes used in worldwide competition – even more so when I couldn’t keep up and they jokingly pushed my 95kg frame up the 1 in 10 incline with out breaking sweat. We dived into the freezing cold lake together. It felt extremely good. nearly religiously symbolic to splash in to the water. Now was a great time for you to leave Dokan. Mission Achieved.
March 6-9. 2011
I invested the following few days back in Erbil – partly meeting with Mr. Rouel whose hospitality was overpowering. partly wandering randomly around the city.
Erbil is not probably the most exciting city on earth. The Citadel is worth a go to. it is now becoming restored albeit at a snail’s pace. For now it is a collection of dilapidated homes amid a developing site. but nonetheless really worth a wander. The deserted village houses vary in scale but generally consist of a few rooms along with a small yard (frequently with a chicken coop). They are crying out for a developer to knock them about to create bars. restaurants. cafes. perhaps even a boutique hotel. I imagine in 10 years it’ll resemble Lindos. Mykonos or Ibiza old town. with bars taking part in ‘ambient music’. so was glad to see it prior to it will get Starbucked.
Other guests appeared to be mostly Shia Iraqis from the south. They crawled over statues and posed for photos with phone cameras. The north is a haven for Iraqis searching to escape the continuing disturbances (‘accidents’ as Mr. Roel describes them) in the south of Iraq. Some come to get a couple of days. others more permanently. Professional Iraqis. especially the Christian population. have migrated from the wealthier locations of Baghdad. like Mansour. to begin more than in Erbil. Mansour’s premier patisserie ‘Abu Afif’ (believe an Iraqi Fortnums) has just opened a flagship shop in Erbil. I purchased 6 kilos of mixed baklava to consider house as presents.
I shopped to pass time. but mainly invested the final couple of days wandering about. drinking tea with locals and playing chess within the afternoon with an elderly Kurdish gentleman inside a tea store at the foot of the Citadel. You will find a few ‘Kurdish Hammams’ which are basic to say the least. but a welcome quit in the afternoon to freshen up with out the bother of returning to the hotel on the outskirts of town. Just inquire a taxi driver – although make sure to make it clear you want a ‘Kurdish Hammam’. not the ‘Chinese experience’.
The 20th anniversary celebrations from the ‘birth’ of the Kurdish Autonomous Region were prominent on Television with lots of flag waving and patriotic songs. I recognized the word ‘Halabja’ in one of them. In the streets the celebrations had been quieter. The protests across the Middle East seem to be making the politicians a little wary of big gatherings.
I had some much more time with Mr. Rouel. although emotionally drained following a week reliving the events of 1990. I had politely excused myself from his family’s hospitality at his home back to the emotional sterility of the Rotana. He had told me following the expulsion of Baathist forces on March 6. 1991 that food and fuel had been in desperately short provide. He had reached a barter agreement with Baghdad on maintaining the dam – important for downriver irrigation. to not mention electrical energy generation. driving most weeks to Baghdad to choose up supplies for the dam workers and local villagers. His initiative and altruism had made him a well-liked nearby figure along with a rival to nearby energy brokers. preempting his departure to Erbil in 2003. Such is local politics in an emerging nation bristling with guns.
Twenty years of economic misery has wiped out the middle classes. Sadly that makes it an excellent location to shop for antique jewelry and rugs. I bought a number of antique silver necklaces at ridiculously low costs. however was left questioning whether these family heirlooms had been sold to put food onto the table within the 1990s and early 2000s – when cash was worthless and UN sanctions raped the nation.
The future appears far brighter for this emerging nation. but it is worth remembering the country continues to be not totally free of Saddam’s legacy. They’re nonetheless paying reparations towards the odious Al Sabah regime in Kuwait storing up resentment amongst even the most liberal and educated among the individuals I met. However I encountered overwhelmingly generous hospitality and a warm welcome wherever I traveled. I reckon they’ve earned the proper to a passport that says ‘Kurdistan’ – if that is what they want (a sizeable minority probably do not. but that’s another story) and whatever the Americans. Turks. Iranians and Syrian might favor. Go see for yourself.
On December 11. 1990 I left Iraq as a hostage an Iraqi Airways flight back to freedom in London vowing never to return. On March 9. 2011 I left Kurdistan as a welcome guest. I will be back.
