Rosa Lichtenstein
8th November 2009, 15:46
NY Times, November 8, 2009
Marooned on Sea of Iraqi Oil, but Unable to Tap Its Wealth
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
BASRA, Iraq — The orange glow of the giant natural gas flares in the oil
fields around Basra represents this bustling city’s wealth of natural
resources. But for the impoverished people who live near them, the
flames only serve as a reminder of their inability to share in the
riches that lie beneath their feet.
The area around Basra, Iraq’s second largest city and main port,
accounts for as much as 80 percent of the country’s oil production. It
has emerged as Iraq’s best hope for stability and prosperity as it
prepares to sell off its top undeveloped oil fields to foreign companies
at an auction next month. Of the five largest fields that will be bid
on, four are in or around Basra.
Despite the riches trapped below its oil fields, though, this city of
three million is among Iraq’s poorest places.
People in neighborhoods within a few miles of fields with so much oil
that it floats atop the surface in huge black pools live amid mud and
feces. Carts pulled by overworked donkeys compete with cars for space on
streets. Childhood cancer rates are the highest in the country. The
city’s salty tap water makes people ill. And there is more garbage on
the streets than municipal collectors can make a dent in.
The hundreds of thousands who live in the villages around the fields all
dream of finding oil work, but that is unlikely. Those who apply are
almost always told they lack the education or experience for oil work.
But they believe that their only real deficiency is a lack of
connections and money for bribes.
“People sit here in the evenings and they watch the flames and wonder
how rich they would be if they had only one hour of those oil exports,”
said Naeem al-Moussuawi, who lives in one of the poorer villages in the
Basra area.
Last month, after Iraq’s Oil Ministry announced that it planned to hire
workers for its Basra-based South Oil Company, thousands of people
waited in line for applications — some for days. Among them were men in
tattered clothing with bare, muddy feet. When the line got unruly, the
police were called. Some applicants were beaten. More than 27,000
applications were filled out for 1,600 jobs — most of which require a
college education or experience, and most Basrans have neither.
In the village of Asdika, oil pipelines run along the perimeter, and
several thousand people live in ramshackle houses of gray cinder blocks
and plastic sheeting for roofs.
There is no garbage collection, and household trash is thrown outside to
rot in the sun. There is no sewer system, so wastewater from houses is
dumped outside, attracting thousands of flies to the lakes of raw sewage
that have formed outside most homes. Almost everyone is unemployed.
The village is on government property — an oil field — and its existence
is illegal. Residents say the police show up occasionally and threaten
to bulldoze the houses.
Hussein Flaeh, 29, an unemployed father of two, has lived in Asdika
since 2003. Fifteen members of his family live in a concrete-block house
with three small rooms. One recent morning, Mr. Flaeh’s youngest child,
Essam, born two weeks ago, was placed outside to get some fresh air. The
baby’s face was almost immediately covered by hungry flies.
Asked whether he had ever applied for a job at the oil refinery, Mr.
Flaeh appeared perplexed and did not answer. Pressed, his gentle face
turned hard.
“You can’t even reach it,” he said. “Don’t even talk about it.”
Government officials in Basra have called for a fee of $1 on each barrel
of oil produced in the province, which would then be used for local
projects instead of going to the central government. But even if Basra
suddenly became awash in oil money, the construction of new housing,
offices and even farmland would be prohibited because almost everything
is situated atop untapped reserves of crude oil.
“Ninety percent of Basra is an oil field,” said Ahmed al-Sulati, a
member of the local provincial council. “We can’t build anything here.
We need to have more housing in some neighborhoods, but we can’t because
we are surrounded by oil.”
In the meantime, Mr. Sulati said, “We are getting sick from breathing
gas, and the streets are getting destroyed by the oil trucks.”
During a recent speech, Ali Ghalib Baban, Iraq’s minister of planning,
said Basra was on the cusp of being “one of the world’s most important
economic centers.”
But in the village of Shuiba, so close to the city’s refinery and major
fields that the air is heavy with the smell of petroleum, farmers have
stopped growing tomatoes and now rent their fields to truck drivers who
park their tankers there for about 80 cents a night.
It is the village’s single school, however, that is the source of most
of Shuiba’s concerns. Some classes have more than 55 students packed
inside, and boys and girls must be taught together, which has led some
parents to keep their daughters at home. There are no bathrooms, and
some classrooms have no electricity. The school grounds are littered
with piles of garbage.
Oil workers live on the opposite side of the village.
In the poorer half of Shuiba, the workers are regarded with envy and
loathing. Not a single resident from the poor side has been hired for an
oil job.
“Everyone would like to work for the oil company,” Mr. Moussuawi said.
“We know we are poor and many of us are not well educated. The problem
is they see the trucks full of oil and they wonder where the money is
going.”
But even in Shuiba’s better-off half, adjacent to Basra’s sprawling
refinery, residents say they have unmet needs. The housing is neat,
there is no trash and the streets are paved, but there is crowding and
rising unemployment even among the college-educated sons and daughters
of oil company managers, they say.
“You need to know somebody or pay a bribe to work there,” said Najim
Khadim, 26, the son of Shuiba’s unofficial mayor, Mohammed Khadim, who
has worked for 38 years at the refinery, where he is a supervisor.
The son, who has a college degree in chemistry, said not even his father
had been able to help with a job. The going rate for bribes for a job,
he said, is $2,000 to $5,000, which he said he refused to pay.
A visitor is brought a glass of tap water. It tastes as salty as the
water in the rest of town.
Duraid Adnan and Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed
reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/world/middleeast/08basra.html
Marooned on Sea of Iraqi Oil, but Unable to Tap Its Wealth
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
BASRA, Iraq — The orange glow of the giant natural gas flares in the oil
fields around Basra represents this bustling city’s wealth of natural
resources. But for the impoverished people who live near them, the
flames only serve as a reminder of their inability to share in the
riches that lie beneath their feet.
The area around Basra, Iraq’s second largest city and main port,
accounts for as much as 80 percent of the country’s oil production. It
has emerged as Iraq’s best hope for stability and prosperity as it
prepares to sell off its top undeveloped oil fields to foreign companies
at an auction next month. Of the five largest fields that will be bid
on, four are in or around Basra.
Despite the riches trapped below its oil fields, though, this city of
three million is among Iraq’s poorest places.
People in neighborhoods within a few miles of fields with so much oil
that it floats atop the surface in huge black pools live amid mud and
feces. Carts pulled by overworked donkeys compete with cars for space on
streets. Childhood cancer rates are the highest in the country. The
city’s salty tap water makes people ill. And there is more garbage on
the streets than municipal collectors can make a dent in.
The hundreds of thousands who live in the villages around the fields all
dream of finding oil work, but that is unlikely. Those who apply are
almost always told they lack the education or experience for oil work.
But they believe that their only real deficiency is a lack of
connections and money for bribes.
“People sit here in the evenings and they watch the flames and wonder
how rich they would be if they had only one hour of those oil exports,”
said Naeem al-Moussuawi, who lives in one of the poorer villages in the
Basra area.
Last month, after Iraq’s Oil Ministry announced that it planned to hire
workers for its Basra-based South Oil Company, thousands of people
waited in line for applications — some for days. Among them were men in
tattered clothing with bare, muddy feet. When the line got unruly, the
police were called. Some applicants were beaten. More than 27,000
applications were filled out for 1,600 jobs — most of which require a
college education or experience, and most Basrans have neither.
In the village of Asdika, oil pipelines run along the perimeter, and
several thousand people live in ramshackle houses of gray cinder blocks
and plastic sheeting for roofs.
There is no garbage collection, and household trash is thrown outside to
rot in the sun. There is no sewer system, so wastewater from houses is
dumped outside, attracting thousands of flies to the lakes of raw sewage
that have formed outside most homes. Almost everyone is unemployed.
The village is on government property — an oil field — and its existence
is illegal. Residents say the police show up occasionally and threaten
to bulldoze the houses.
Hussein Flaeh, 29, an unemployed father of two, has lived in Asdika
since 2003. Fifteen members of his family live in a concrete-block house
with three small rooms. One recent morning, Mr. Flaeh’s youngest child,
Essam, born two weeks ago, was placed outside to get some fresh air. The
baby’s face was almost immediately covered by hungry flies.
Asked whether he had ever applied for a job at the oil refinery, Mr.
Flaeh appeared perplexed and did not answer. Pressed, his gentle face
turned hard.
“You can’t even reach it,” he said. “Don’t even talk about it.”
Government officials in Basra have called for a fee of $1 on each barrel
of oil produced in the province, which would then be used for local
projects instead of going to the central government. But even if Basra
suddenly became awash in oil money, the construction of new housing,
offices and even farmland would be prohibited because almost everything
is situated atop untapped reserves of crude oil.
“Ninety percent of Basra is an oil field,” said Ahmed al-Sulati, a
member of the local provincial council. “We can’t build anything here.
We need to have more housing in some neighborhoods, but we can’t because
we are surrounded by oil.”
In the meantime, Mr. Sulati said, “We are getting sick from breathing
gas, and the streets are getting destroyed by the oil trucks.”
During a recent speech, Ali Ghalib Baban, Iraq’s minister of planning,
said Basra was on the cusp of being “one of the world’s most important
economic centers.”
But in the village of Shuiba, so close to the city’s refinery and major
fields that the air is heavy with the smell of petroleum, farmers have
stopped growing tomatoes and now rent their fields to truck drivers who
park their tankers there for about 80 cents a night.
It is the village’s single school, however, that is the source of most
of Shuiba’s concerns. Some classes have more than 55 students packed
inside, and boys and girls must be taught together, which has led some
parents to keep their daughters at home. There are no bathrooms, and
some classrooms have no electricity. The school grounds are littered
with piles of garbage.
Oil workers live on the opposite side of the village.
In the poorer half of Shuiba, the workers are regarded with envy and
loathing. Not a single resident from the poor side has been hired for an
oil job.
“Everyone would like to work for the oil company,” Mr. Moussuawi said.
“We know we are poor and many of us are not well educated. The problem
is they see the trucks full of oil and they wonder where the money is
going.”
But even in Shuiba’s better-off half, adjacent to Basra’s sprawling
refinery, residents say they have unmet needs. The housing is neat,
there is no trash and the streets are paved, but there is crowding and
rising unemployment even among the college-educated sons and daughters
of oil company managers, they say.
“You need to know somebody or pay a bribe to work there,” said Najim
Khadim, 26, the son of Shuiba’s unofficial mayor, Mohammed Khadim, who
has worked for 38 years at the refinery, where he is a supervisor.
The son, who has a college degree in chemistry, said not even his father
had been able to help with a job. The going rate for bribes for a job,
he said, is $2,000 to $5,000, which he said he refused to pay.
A visitor is brought a glass of tap water. It tastes as salty as the
water in the rest of town.
Duraid Adnan and Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed
reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/world/middleeast/08basra.html