Why is Barham Salih going rogue?

Rizgar Khoshnaw | Exclusive to iKurd.net

As we all have heard/read by now that the Kurdistan Regional Government KRG has awarded six oil blocks to Exxon-Mobil without the approval of the central government. From what I am reading, Baghdad is furious at this move by Barham Salih and KRG for taking such action even though they are well aware that Baghdad is adamantly against it.

This action will surly create serious conflict with Baghdad and for some reason, the KRG seems fairly confident at this move and completely ignoring Baghdad. Whether we like it or not, Kurdistan is part of Iraq and both sides need to work together and not create unnecessary friction.

I am sure that the KRG thinks by signing this contract, the US will “protect” them from God knows what! The KRG thinks that because Exxon is in Kurdistan, no one dares to attack or create problems for Kurdistan. I am sure at the first sign of trouble, Exxon will pack up and get out of there faster than they entered the region!!

What most Kurds do not realize is that whenever KRG makes any deals in the name of Kurds and Iraq, not many of us truly believe that to be their motive. We all know, or at least most of us that has lived/worked in Kurdistan, that the income generated from the oil does NOT funnel down to the poor citizens. On the contrary, this huge amount of money is used to fill “certain” pockets in Kurdistan, such as Ashti Hawrami, among others, purchasing $8,000,000 homes in England!!

One only has to visit the so called “Hospitals” in Kurdistan and see what I mean. I have first hand experience with hospitals in Erbil and I will only speak from experience. Of course, the rich in Kurdistan have the privilege to take their children to Europe or America whenever they are in need of medical attention and they could care less what will become of the under privileged Kurds living amongst them.

I will only use my real life experience to prove that the KRG does NOT care for its “people” and actually turning a “blind eye” to all of the corruption that is going on in Kurdistan. I will provide a great deal more details and proof of this corruption in a later articles.

It was October 24, 2006 when one of my sons (six years of age) became ill and when I asked where to take him, I was told to take him to the ONLY children’s hospital in Erbil. This so called hospital, no more than few rooms, is called Rapareen Children’s Hospital that is located in the middle of the city. I had moved my family to Erbil for work and after this incident, and only a couple of days later, I took my family back to the US and never took them back and will never again set foot in that region.

I spent twenty two hours in that miserable hospital and while I was there, I saw it all. My son was placed in a room with five other sick children. There was no sheets on the bed, not blankets, no mattress (only a rubber cot) and most of all, there was only one resident doctor on duty. I had to go home and bring these items for my son!

To make a long story short, during the time that I spent there, of course I was standing out side of the room, two children died!! When I asked the young Christian doctor what happened, he took me to the nurse’s station and showed me a $1,000 machine that was broken. He told me that because this machine is broken and our Kurdish “government” does not care about us, the children often die here.

Of course he shared this information with me after telling him that I was an American citizen and I will give him anything he wants if he only cared for my son. He looked at me and said, ” All that I want is for you to get me the hell out of Kurdistan.” When I asked him why he wants to leave, he told me that his government salary is only $200 a month and he sees no future here.

I will only give on more example of the pitiful health industry in Kurdistan. It was March 19th, 2011 ( During my trip to Erbil once more) I decided to visit Rapareen Children’s hospital to see if there has been any changes in the past five years since I was there.

It was unbelievable that once I entered the hospital, I noticed a young lady crying while a young man was holding a fully covered infant. When I asked what happened, they told that this child just died. In all of my life I have only witness three deaths (innocent children) in my life and ALL of them have been in the same place which is in Erbil hospital!

When I spoke with the doctor on duty, she told me that they lack the technology and man power to do anything and that children often die and they do not know why! If KRG does not believe my stories, all they have to do is investigate these dates and time that I have provided and they will see that I am 100% stating the facts.

For the past eight years, I have been trying to convince the KRG to allow my US company to build them a desperately needed hospital, but they never allowed us. In one case, which I will talk about in another article, I had met with Qubad Talabani seven years ago to build a 400 bed hospital. This particular hospital was awarded to a Korean company that in the end stole $25,561,197 and left!! After seven long years, this project never made it above ground!!

There has been hundreds of millions of dollars that has been allocated and “spent” by many different foreign agencies in Kurdistan but nothing to show for it. In one incident, there is a Japanese agency that has allocated ( a loan that will be repaid by way oil revenues) $600,000,000 for Kurdistan alone for medical facilities. Once more, in a later article, I will talk about this agency and will give plenty of details/proof of their corruption with the help of the local Kurds!!

I wonder if Barham Salih has ever seen a hospital in Erbil? Of course I do not expect him to have his children treated in these pitiful so called hospitals when he has the luxury, and our Kurdish oil money, like most KRG personnel, take their children to Europe or the US for the simplest medical examinations! It is always the poor that pays the price and that is the truth of it in a nut shell. The lives of the poor means absolutely nothing to the KRG and that is the sad fact.

Rizgar Xoshnaw, a senior Kurdish writer based in Washington, a longtime contributing writer and columnist for iKurd.net.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.