Life gets tough for embargo
busters on Iraqi border
Iraq: special report
Chris Morris in Silopi, Guardian Unlimited
Monday July 17, 2000
Omer Simsek is one of the thousands of
drivers in the impoverished south-east of
Turkey who try to make a living by
breaking the UN sanctions against Iraq.
They cross the border to buy diesel fuel,
which they resell in their homeland.
As sunset approaches he and his fellow
drivers have spent the day crouching in
the shade of their lorries, drawn up by the
side of the road from the Iraqi border in
temperatures approaching 50C.
They have passed the time smoking
cigarettes and buying the occasional
bottle of water from traders who cycle up
and down the queue. They are waiting to
sell their cargoes at a new state depot set
up late last year by the government.
To a man, they are utterly fed up.
"We can hardly break even any more,"
said Omer. "There are new expenses,
new taxes, and there is nothing else for
us to do here."
Everyone knows that the trade takes
place, and Turkey's western allies, led by
the United States and Britain, have been
prepared to turn a blind eye.
Since the end of the Gulf war, Turkey has
lost an estimated £25bn in trade because
of the UN embargo on Iraq. The heaviest
burden has fallen on the border region,
which can least afford it.
So, until recently, the unofficial diesel
trade has been tolerated because it
served as a desperately needed economic
lifeline.
But now the government has regulated it,
and imposed a strict quota. The amount of
diesel fuel the drivers are allowed to bring
across the border has been halved, and
they have to sell it directly to the state
rather than on the open market.
"It's ridiculous - profits have been slashed.
What do they expect people to do?" said
Kamil Ilhan, of the local chamber of
commerce. "If we're not careful, our lorry
parks will be turned into graveyards."
Businessmen in the region estimate that
nearly 50,000 lorries are involved in the
border trade. At one dusty roadside cafe
the drivers said some of the lorries parked
nearby had not been used for three
months.
No one is quite sure why the restrictions
have been introduced. Some people say
the big oil companies were fed up with
having their prices undercut, many
suspect that nationalists in the
government in Ankara did not want too
much unregulated money flowing through
this mainly Kurdish region.
The south-east is beginning to emerge
cautiously from 15 years of war between
the Turkish armed forces and the Kurdish
PKK rebel movement. But the conflict has
devastated the local economy, and
popular frustration is still extremely high.
Raising sheep and cattle used to be the
main source of income. But thousands of
villages were forcibly evacuated by the
army in their fight against the PKK, and
farming has been largely destroyed. The
diesel trade had become by far the
biggest money earner in the region.
"We have to produce alternatives if we're
going to restrict the only source of income
the people have," said Salih Yildirim, a
local MP. "Otherwise even more people
will leave this region. They have no other
choice."
Mr Yildirim, whose party is in the coalition
government, has been working to lift some
of the new restrictions, and he hopes to
have good news for his constituents soon.
If the restrictions are revised rather than
abandoned, however, local people will
continue to earn less than before.
Reports in the Turkish media suggest that
even the military authorities in the
south-east are frustrated by the sudden
reduction in the border trade. Most of the
region is still under quasi-martial law, and
security is extremely tight. But the
military authorities have been urging the
government to launch rapid economic
programmes to help restore normal life.
There are plenty of other emotional issues
swirling around in south-east Turkey: the
fate of the imprisoned Kurdish rebel leader
Abdullah Ocalan, for instance, and the
debate on whether the state may relax
any of its bans on the expression of
Kurdish identity through education or
broadcasting.
The border trade, though, is a much more
basic necessity. It has been the means
by which hundreds of thousands of people
have survived from day to day, and they
are frightened of losing it.
In an ideal world, the Turkish authorities
would like to see the sanctions against
Iraq lifted as soon as possible. They have
made some moves towards improving
their relations with Saddam Hussein's
government in Baghdad, but they still
allow the US and Britain to fly air patrols
over Iraq from Turkish territory.
Caught in the middle of this complicated
situation are the ordinary residents of the
south-east, who are demanding simple
answers.
"The government has to see sense," a
driver said. "If they don't want another
rebellion to start around here, they have to
give us back our livelihood."