Since
the last century there have been many geologists - German, French and English –
who have visited Kurdistan. They have found that the land has one of the
biggest oil reserves in the world.
When
early in the 20th century Great Britain chose oil to power the Royal
Navy, the oil of Kurdistan became a subject of world strategy. Many works have been
published on the subject of oil politics. Few of these books have understood
the Kurdish claims, their sufferings or their point of view.
During
April 1995, I attended a conference entitled: (NEW OIL: THE WORLD’S OIL MAP IN
THE YEAR 2005) and the oil experts discussed the oil in Kurdistan and under the
Zagros mountain which show that there are over three hundred billion barrels
contained there. This is an immense reserve. It is the legitimate property of
the Kurdish people ! .
The
oil reserves of Kurdistan, the destruction of thousands of villages and towns
in Kurdistan and the use of chemical weapons by the Iraqi regime, the uprising
of the Kurdish people when they took over Kirkuk the main oil field with some
support from the Allies: all these things obliged me in 1991 to go and set up
an oil project under a humanitarian umbrella for re-building Kurdistan under the
name of Project BACKDOOR. This was given support by the United Nations and
permitted me the power to make a feasibility study on oil production in
Kurdistan.
The
Kurdish nation greatly welcomed the project, but it was upsetting news for the
political parties who were backed by the oppressors of Kurdistan. The power of
the people proved to be greater. I went ahead with the project. Mr. Anton
Keller, a Swiss citizen, who wrote a letter to Barzani and Talabani and asked
them to co-operate with us and to promote the political cause of the Kurdish
people, assisted me but they refused to do so. This proved to be disastrous for
our project.
In
March 1992, I co-operated with both foreign and local engineers and succeeded
to open wells in the Shewashok area inside the 36th parallel, the
area that is protected by the Allies. And after that with the oil I wrote the
words.
The
words KURD OIL in the hill nearby and set it on fire. A small sacrifice to strengthen
the will of all Kurds to struggle for freedom! This greatly angered the
political parties and the oppressors of Kurdistan, especially the regime in
Baghdad. Since that day those forces have viewed my project as a tool to
forward the cause of Kurdish Independence, and so they have opposed our cause
consistently
Accordingly,
those forces advanced their repression under the guise of calling an election
and an apparent revival of parliamentary activity, and an independent Kurdish
government. This, in the beginning made me happy and I decided to put forward
my name as head and leader of that government.
When
I found out that this was a selfish political gambit, I decided to withdraw my
name. I left the battle to them to see whether or not what they were saying
would become true or be merely so much hot air.
After
the voting took place, Barzani and Talabani ignored the voters and decided to
share power on a 50/50 basis. Even though this upset me greatly, I said that I
would recognize this government and that I was ready to co-operate in order to
extract Kurdish oil.
They
did not agree with me because their intentions were not honourable. They
decided to ignore me and open three lines of communication: one with Baghdad
thereby smuggling Iraqi oil and sharing the proceeds with Saddam Hussein; the
other, to contact the foreign oil companies especially the ones with whom I had
dealings with in order to impede my project; and the third line was to join the
Iraqi opposition movement (INC), in order to confuse them on these important
issues.
Der
Spiegel magazine in 1998 reported that the proceeds of
the smuggling of Iraqi oil into Turkey was shared between the Kurdish factions
and Saddam Hussein and the Turkish mafia as follows:
84,400,000
US dollars for the Kurdish factions per year.
164,450,000
US dollars for the Turkish mafia.
300,000,000
US dollars for Saddam Hussein.
An
inspector employed by the United Nations, Mr. Tim Trevan in his book Saddam’s
Secrets (HarperCollins, 1999) on page 279 details the oil smuggling engaged
in by the above-mentioned three factions.
This
mistaken, short-sighted policy gave renewed strength to Saddam. He now had
leverage within his regime, beyond his territory and especially within the
groups who comprise the Kurdish nation. The foreign companies lost interest to
invest in Kurdistan and they left the region.
They
repeated the mistakes of earlier Kurdish leaders who opposed the Gulbenkian
project to extract oil in Kurdistan. This left me no option but to fight them
or withdraw for the time being.
As
I had knowledge of the political situation of the area I knew that the
oppressors would make trouble for the Allies and try to eject them from the
area. Thus I decided to withdraw and leave the political parties to fight
amongst themselves. This they did with the result that 20,000 Kurds were
killed, 50,000 were injured and half a million Kurds found themselves homeless
and so they went to Europe seeking political asylum.
We
as a new generation cannot accept the continuance of the above mistakes. The
Kurdish people must stop losing ground and instead finally and clearly and once
and for all state to the world that theirs is a legitimate position. At the
dawn of the new millennium we stand in the shadow of our mountains and welcome
the world to our Kurdistan.
